The effect of exposure frequency on intermediate language learners' incidental vocabulary acquisition and retention through reading

Abstract EN

It is generally accepted that knowing a large number of vocabulary in foreign language can help students from different levels especially learners who are going to learn the language for academic purposes.

Reading is one essential key to vocabulary acquisition.

However, research on vocabulary acquisition through reading large quantities of comprehensible texts has shown vocabulary growth, especially from the incidental learning of vocabulary.

In an attempt to investigate more word gain from reading extensively and to overcome the problem of gaining small amounts of words as in previous studies of incidental acquisition, a case study has been conducted on an adult learner of English and he was given a whole lengthy comic book story for reading treatment.

He also was tested on 146 target words from the selected story to know his ability to acquire second language vocabulary items gained through reading.

The learner was tested once a week over a six-week period and he used a binary known/unknown format of tests to assess his knowledge of the target words after each reading.

To test whether repetition may have contributed to increase word retention, the words were mixed between different frequencies of occurrence.

A series of tests were used to assess learner's word knowledge after each reading.

Outcomes detail the need for repetitions in order for an item to be retained.

It seems clear that the learner's receptive vocabulary uptake was higher than his productive vocabulary uptake.

Also, a long reading gave a good score of vocabulary acquisition and dictionary use affected reading comprehension.

The more repeated words in the text were more likely to be known by a lower intermediate learner.

The learner did not have a large vocabulary size but he could gain more words as he read the text.

A binary known unknown test indicated a good result in acquiring new items, so it is a valid test that gives scores.