Paul Pauwels

Vocabulary Materials and Study Strategies at Advanced Level.

This paper reports on a quasi-experimental study of the effect of different vocabulary study materials and strategies used by upper-intermediate English as a foreign language students in higher education. Students were assigned a selection of 163 words from the Academic Word List and were provided with different types of study materials. They were informed that they would be tested on the vocabulary five weeks later. The vocabulary assignment was embedded in theircoursework, and the tests – translation of passages of academic writing into L2 – were similar to the end-of-year tests for this course. Students kept logbooks detailing their study efforts (type of activity, duration and timing) and were post-tested twice. Post-tests show better results for two types of materials – thematically organized lists with L1 glosses, and similar lists with example sentences instead of glosses – but the differences were significant only on the immediate post-test. Time spent studying did not significantly affect the results. Amore fine-grained analysis of the qualitative data showed that students, given time, tailor the study materials to fit their ingrained study habits, and that amajority prefer shallow strategies. Overall, gains were modest at around sevenwords/hour on average, which is much less than reported elsewhere, but thisis clearly a factor of the challenging nature of the productive task in this experiment.

How advanced students approach intentional vocabulary study

ABSTRACT To date, research into vocabulary learning strategies has mainly made use of questionnaires about studying preferences in general or of interviews following a specific study task, focusing on finding out which strategies were most popular. The present investigation attempts to provide more insight into the effects of the parameters of timing and approach on a specific task in the context of the students’ regular coursework. Students were given six weeks to study an academic vocabulary of 163 headwords/266 items with the aim of being able to use it productively. Fifty-five students were divided into groups with different instructions for timing and overall approach with a view to quantitative analyses. Data for qualitative analysis were gathered through study logs. The study used pre- and post-tests consisting of the translation of passages from academic book reviews into English, targeting 25 of the items. The study confirms the potential for large gains of intentional study going beyond immediate effects of form recognition or form recall. Results showed no statistically significant differences for either timing or overall approach. Qualitative study of the logpages confirms the popularity of list learning and provides further indications as to effective and less effective strategies.