Learning Three Aspects Of Word Knowledge
１２１Kwansei Gakuin UniversityHumanities ReviewVol. 16, 2011Nishinomiya, JapanLearning Three Aspects of Word KnowledgeBrian STRONG*AbstractA number of studies have demonstrated that vocabulary acquisition isachievable through reading, but the gains are relatively small, and this ismost likely due to the nature of the tests and the studies themselves.Further research is needed to measure and control constructs that appear tofundamentally influence incidental vocabulary learning through reading.This case study investigates the influence of a word’s frequency ofoccurrence and part of speech on its rate of incidental vocabulary learningthrough extensive reading (ER). Three advanced Japanese EFL learnersread four graded readers over a four-week period. Pre- and post-tests wereadministered to assess the rate of word pick-up from the ER activity. Theresults suggest that ER contributed not only to learning new words butalso enhanced knowledge of words that were partially known. Moreover,less frequent words showed a greater pick-up rate, and that nouns werelearned more than verbs.Key words: extensive reading, vocabulary, frequency of occurrence,To be proficient in English, non-native speakers need to build a sizeable mentallexicon. Direct instruction and explicit learning is customarily advocated as themethod to learn the first couple thousand most frequent words in English, but anumber of studies point out that explicit learning needs to be offset with incidentallearning to help consolidate several aspects of word knowledge associated withknowing a word (Nation, 2001).Incidental vocabulary learning occurs as a by-product of listening and reading(Coady & Huckin, 1997), and non-native learners need to exploit both channels. * Instructor of English as a Foreign Language, Kwansei Gakuin University
１２２Brian STRONGBeyond teacher talk, which is often controlled and methodical, there is a dearth oflexically controlled oral texts, and so this channel has remained fundamentallyunderexploited. On the other hand, graded readers offer a wide assortment oflexically control written texts, from starter to advanced readers, and reading them isconsidered to facilitate vocabulary learning (Day & Bamford, 2002). The caveat ofincidental vocabulary acquisition through reading is that it is a time-consuming andunpredictable process as Paribkht and Wesche (1997) indicate, ‘there is no way topredict which words will be learned, when nor to what degree (p. 174).’To improve the likelihood of incidental vocabulary learning of new words,researchers argue that a 98 99% (Laufer, 2010) lexical coverage rate of the text isneeded to provide enough co-text and context support to allow attempts to infer themeaning of the 1% or 2% of unknown words. Below this lexical threshold, inferringthe meaning of an unknown word may be unsuccessful, and even if it is successful,it is likely that it will not be retained beyond its immediate encounter (Rieder,2003).In addition to the lexical coverage rate of a text, researchers indicate a word’sfrequency of occurrence influences its acquisition. Researchers have howeverreported various estimates on the number of times it takes to facilitate vocabularyacquisition through reading. The disparity of estimates, from 6 to 30 exposures(Saragi, et al. 1978; Horst et al. 1998; Rott, 1999; Waring & Takaki, 2003), notonly reflects the different experiment conditions in which this construct wasmeasured, but it also illustrates the complex process of vocabulary acquisition. Tofurther contribute to our understanding of the nature of incidental vocabularyacquisition through reading, this study investigates the effects of a word’s frequencyof occurrence, and part of speech (nouns and verbs) on learning three differentaspects of vocabulary knowledge (spelling, meaning and grammatical collocation).Research QuestionsThis case study investigated whether extensive reading contributes to learning aword’s spelling, meaning and grammatical collocation. Since the participants wouldmeet words through printed text, it was assumed that it would affect their spellingknowledge. As some English grapheme-phoneme connections seem to beproblematic for Japanese EFL learners (Koda, 1998), a spelling test would reveal ifreading contributed to incidental learning of the correct grapheme-phonemeconnections to override routine production of spelling mistakes. The meaning test isviewed as the standard indicator of a language learner’s knowledge of a word, and itis often taken to indicate acquisition of a word; however, it is one aspect of wordknowledge out of several aspects of word knowledges that needs to be tested to
１２３Learning Three Aspects of Word Knowledgereveal a non-native speaker’s mastery of a word (Nation, 2001). The collocation testis not typically used as an indicator of vocabulary acquisition, although it is anaspect of knowing a word, it would reveal the test takers knowledge of how a wordis used in combination with other words.The case study asked the following research questions:1. How does extensive reading contribute to learning a word’s spelling,meaning and grammatical collocation?2. Are these three aspects of word knowledge learned at different incrementalrates?3. Does word frequency influence learning these three word knowledges?4. Does the word class of the target words affect improvements in the threeword knowledges?MethodsReading materialsSince extensive reading implies that readers read pleasurable and easy texts, anumber of steps were taken to ensure that the participants were able to understand atleast 95% of the running words, and that the texts were interesting to read.Although the participants received a score of 815 or higher on the TOEIC test, itwas decided that graded readers would offer better conditions that would allowopportunities for fluent reading than reading authentic texts. To ensure that theparticipants would read texts that they found interesting, they were asked to choosefour texts from a selection of 15 graded readers. The participants agreed on fourtexts: Brave New World, The Beach, The Women in White and The Runaway Jury.Since these texts are published by Penguin Readers, the participants took thePenguin Readers placement test to confirm that the texts were of the appropriatelexical level. The participants in this case study are advanced EFL learners, so theytook the Penguin Readers placement test level 6, which is composed of two parts, Aand B. Their scores are presented in Table 1.0, which indicates that they are able toTable 1.0Time of completionDifficulty level scale*Score: A/B%Participant A15 min.283/93Participant B22 min.2 386/90Participant C17 min.290/93*The diffficulty scale was based on a 5 point scale
１２４Brian STRONGread advanced graded readers with a high degree of lexical and grammaticalproficiency.To further ensure that the texts were suitable for the participants, they wereasked to read the first two pages of each text. When it was confirmed that theyknew at least 95% of the running words, it was decided that they could finishreading one text a week.ParticipantsThree advanced Japanese EFL learners volunteered to participate in this case study.They studied English in university and in English speaking countries. Participant Ais a 29 year-old Japanese male who spent a year studying English in a vocationalcollege in Canada and scored 815 on the TOEIC test. Participant B is a 30 year-oldJapanese female who also spent a year studying English in Canada and scored 830on the TOEIC test, while participant C, a 30 year-old Japanese female, spent timeworking in the USA and scored 910 on the TOEIC test. At the time of this study,all three participants were living and working in Japan, and they continued to studyEnglish by taking private English lessons.Target wordsA wordlist was created based on all the words occurring in the four texts, whichwas done using a software program called WordSmith. In order to get reasonablyreliable data, a relatively large number of words were selected as target words: 120nouns, 120 verbs and 120 adjectives. The 360 target words were chosen accordingto frequency bands of 1, 2 3, 4 5, 6 10, 11 and 20 . Each frequency bandcontains 10 nouns, 10 verbs and 10 adjectives.Vocabulary testsThe first test administered to the participants was the spelling test. The participantswere instructed to spell the words they heard pronounced aloud by the researcher.To avoid making hasty spelling mistakes, the participants were told that they couldask for the target words to be repeated as many times as they felt necessary, no timelimit was set, and the participants could take as many breaks as they wished.Two days following the spelling test, the meaning and collocation tests wereadministered to the participants. The meaning test was based on a self-reportchecklist format used by Horst (2005). The participants were presented with threeoptions: a Y (yes, I know this word) option; a N (no, I don’t know this word)option; and a NS (I have an idea about the meaning of this word, but I am not sure)option. Horst states that the function of the NS option is to allow the participants todemonstrate partial knowledge of a word’s meaning. To avoid making false
１２５Learning Three Aspects of Word Knowledgeassumptions, the participants were asked to honestly answer the questions, and theywere instructed that if they were unsure about a word, they should check the NSoption rather than the Y option.Following the meaning test, the participants were given the collocation test.This test consisted of 360 target words organized by their word class (nouns, verbsand adjectives). The participants were instructed to form grammatical collocationcombinations with those target words. This meant constructing noun prepositioncombinations (for example, apathy towards), verb preposition combinations (forexample, depend on) and adjective preposition combinations (for example, afraidof ). In most cases, more than one answer is possible.Test scoringFor the spelling test, the scoring was from 0 2 points. If the participants’ spellingappeared completely wrong, it was given 0 points, if it was correct, 2 points, and ifit was similar to the correct spelling, 1 point. For the collocation test, the scoringwas from 0 2 points; no partial points were awarded. This was done because thereare more than one correct collocation combinations that the participants could haveanswered correctly, and it would seem that an incorrect answer would indicate thepossibility of guessing rather than an actual demonstration of collocation knowledge.For the meaning test, if the participants answered Y (yes, I known this word), theywere awarded 2 points. If they answered NS (I have an idea about the meaning ofthis word, but I am not sure), they were awarded 1 point. If they answered N (No, Ido not know this word), they were awarded 0 points.ResultsPretestThe results of the spelling, meaning and collocation tests are presented in Figure1.1, 1.2, and 1.3. The pre-test spelling results are illustrated in Figure 1.1, themeaning pre-test in Figure 1.2 and the collocation pre-test in Figure 1.3.10080meaningspellingcollocation6040200freq. 1freq. 2-3freq. 4-5freq. 6-10Figure 1.1freq. 11 Spelling pre-testfreq. 20
１２６Brian STRONG10080nounsverbsadjectives6040200freq. 1freq. 2-3freq. 4-5freq. 6-10Figure 1.2freq. 11 freq. 20 Meaning pre-test10080nounsverbsadjectives6040200freq. 1freq. 2-3freq. 4-5freq. 6-10Figure 1.3freq. 11 freq. 20 Collocation pre-testAnother way to interpret the pre-test results is to view them according to three partsof speech (nouns, verbs and adjectives), and this is illustrated in Figure 1.4, 1.5 and1.6. The total possible score was 240 points on all three tests.250200150nouns100500spellingFigure 1.4meaningcollocationPre-test target words by nouns250200150verbs100500spellingFigure 1.5meaningcollocationPre-test target words by verbs
１２７Learning Three Aspects of Word Knowledge250200150adjectives100500spellingFigure 1.6meaningcollocationPre-test target words by adjectivesFinally, the pre-test results can be plotted according to frequency bands, parts ofspeech and test type. This is illustrated in Figures 1.7, 1.8 and 1.9. Figure 1.7reveals that knowledge of nouns was not normally distributed across the sixfrequency bands in all three tests. Figure 1.8 shows that the three word knowledgesin the low to mid frequency bands were not normally distributed for verbs, but theparticipants appear to have hit a ceiling effect with high frequency verbs. Foradjectives, Figure 1.9 illustrates knowledge of higher frequency words compared tolower frequency words.10080meaningspellingcollocation6040200freq. 1freq. 2-3freq. 4-5freq. 6-10Figure 1.7freq. 11 freq. 20 Pretest nouns10080meaningspellingcollocation6040200freq. 1freq. 2-3freq. 4-5freq. 6-10Figure 1.8freq. 11 Pretest verbsfreq. 20
１２８Brian STRONG10080meaningspellingcollocation6040200freq. 1freq. 2-3freq. 4-5freq. 6-10Figure 1.9freq. 11 freq. 20 Pretest adjectivesThese figures provide a good indication of the participants’ knowledge of the targetwords before the start of the extensive reading activity. Overall, the pretests showthat the participants have greater knowledge of higher frequency words than they doof lower frequency words, and that this is not equally distributed across the threeword knowledges and the three parts of speech.Posttest resultsThe post-test results indicate that the participants made vocabulary gains fromreading four graded readers; however, the gains were not uniform across the threeaspects of word knowledges and three parts of speech. Table 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3compare the pre- and post-tests scores. Since the pre- and post-tests scores were notequally distributed, Wilcoxon Signed Ranks tests were used to show that the gainswere statistically reliable.Table 1.1Scoring for nounsSpellingNumber ofOccurrences1a(20)2 3(20)4 5(20)6 10(20)10 (20)20 (20)All nouns(120)MeaningCollocationT1T2T1T2T1T21.18 b59.16 .331.9396.661.8698.331.87*96.24*a. number of target words in frequency categoryb. mean score (max 2)c. percentage of possible points scored*Wilcoxon Signed Ranks p .01
１２９Learning Three Aspects of Word KnowledgeTable 1.2Scoring for verbsSpellingNumber ofOccurrences1a(20)2 3(20)4 5(20)6 10(20)10 (20)20 (20)All verbs(120)MeaningCollocationT1T2T1T2T1T21.18 b59.16 9396.661.88*94.58*a. number of target words in frequency categoryb. mean score (max 2)c. percentage of possible points scoredd. *Wilcoxon Signed Ranks p .01Table 1.3Scoring for adjectivesSpellingNumber ofOccurrences1a(20)2 3(20)4 5(20)6 10(20)10 (20)20 (20)All adjectives(120)MeaningCollocationT1T2T1T2T1T21.21 b60.83 9398.331.87*93.88*a. number of target words in frequency categoryb. mean score (max 2)c. percentage of possible points scoredd. *Wilcoxon Signed Ranks p .01To highlight the vocabulary gains on the post-test, pre-test items that were fullyknown were eliminated because there was no room for the participants to demonstratelexical growth. Therefore, the words that increased in the posttest from 0 to 1, 0 to2 or 1 to 2 were calculated to show the actual learning that occurred from theextensive reading activity. The participants mean scores are presented in Table 1.4.
１３０Brian STRONGTable 1.4Freq.SpellingPercentage of words in which learning occurred%ABC152.762.647.52 343.269.84 571.66 3.361.577.286.67510 6972.283.320 47.272.258.3CollocationTotal .340.7%A Participant A, B Participant B, C Participant BTable 1.4 reveals that the participants improved in all three tests according to threeparts of speech, and low scores in higher frequency bands seem to indicate a ceilingeffect rather than a learning obstacle. Overall, the results suggest that theparticipants learned 107 (27.7%) target words in one aspect of word knowledge, 37(10.3%) in two word knowledges and 5 (1.45%) in three word knowledges. Thisamounts to 149 words learned out of 360 words tested. The pick-up rate fromreading four graded readers is 41.38% or about one word for every 2.4 wordstested. This rate is less than what is reported in a similar study conducted by Pigadaand Schmitt (2006), but it is a significant increase in vocabulary learning fromreading than indicated by other studies.Analysis of the dataThe post-test results indicate that the participants improved in all aspects of wordknowledge during the course of reading four graded readers. For spellingknowledge, the greatest gains (see Table 1.4) seem to occur in the mid to highfrequency bands, and the least gains in the first frequency band. Interestingly, theword frequency band 20 is the second lowest score for spelling knowledge. Atfirst glance, this would seem to contradict the assumption that higher wordfrequency facilitates learning.On the meaning test, the greatest improvement occurred in the mid-frequencybands. Other significant gains occurred in frequency band 1 and 2 3 rather than inhigher frequency bands. The lowest scores occurred in higher frequency band.For collocation knowledge, the greatest gains occurred in the first frequencyband and the least in higher frequency bands.The most likely reason for the least amount of gains occurring in higherfrequency bands of the meaning and collocation tests is that the participants
Learning Three Aspects of Word Knowledge１３１demonstrated a high degree of knowledge of these word knowledges on the pretest,so there is little room for improvement. Therefore, it appears the participantsreached a ceiling effect with the higher frequency target words.When the results were viewed according to the target words’ part of speech,collocation knowledge of nouns showed the greatest gains in mid to low frequencybands followed by spelling knowledge of low frequency bands, and meaningknowledge improved in lower frequency bands.For verbs, the most significant enhancement occurred in grammaticalcollocation knowledge in the first frequency band and in band 6 10. Spellingknowledge of verbs increased more in the lower frequency bands than in higherfrequency bands, and meaning knowledge improved throughout the frequency band,but it increased greatly in lower frequency bands.For adjectives, all three different aspects of word knowledge appeared to beenhanced in a rather normal distribution.DiscussionThe first research question asked whether extensive reading facilitates learning of aword’s spelling, meaning and grammatical collocation. Pre- and post-test resultsshowed that extensive reading contributed to learning these different aspects of wordknowledge. The test results indicated a slight increase in the participants’ learning ofspelling and meaning knowledge but a signif
Since these texts are published by Penguin Readers, the participants took the Penguin Readers placement test to confirm that the texts were of the appropriate lexical level. The participants in this case study are advanced EFL learners, so they took the Penguin Readers placeme
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