Exploring the effect of lexical inferencing and dictionary consultation on undergraduate EFL students’ vocabulary acquisition

This study compares how lexical inferencing and dictionary consultation affect L2 vocabulary acquisition. Sixty-one L1 Arabic undergraduates majoring in English language read target words in semi-authentic English reading materials and were either asked to guess their meaning or look it up in a dict...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2020-07, Vol.15 (7), p.e0236798-e0236798
Main Authors: Alahmadi, Alaa, Foltz, Anouschka
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Arabic language
Biology and Life Sciences
College students
Dictionaries
English as a second language
Hypotheses
Knowledge
Language
Learning
Learning strategies
Linguistics
People and Places
Reading comprehension
Reading materials
Researchers
Retention
Second language vocabulary learning
Social Sciences
Vocabulary size
Word meaning
Words (language)
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This study compares how lexical inferencing and dictionary consultation affect L2 vocabulary acquisition. Sixty-one L1 Arabic undergraduates majoring in English language read target words in semi-authentic English reading materials and were either asked to guess their meaning or look it up in a dictionary. A pre- and delayed post-test measured participants’ knowledge of target words and overall vocabulary size. The results show a significant and comparable learning effect for both vocabulary learning strategies (VLS), with a higher pre-test vocabulary size related to a larger learning effect for both VLS. In addition, the better participants were at guessing correctly, the better they learned words through inferencing. The results suggest that both VLS are equally effective for our learner group and that learners’ overall vocabulary size influences the amount of learning that occurs when using these VLS.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0236798