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"Webb, Stuart"
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UFOs
Explores some of the most popular UFO sightings of the past century, offers explanations, and discusses their impact on society.
Book
LEARNING VOCABULARY THROUGH READING, LISTENING, AND VIEWING
This study used a pretest-posttest-delayed posttest design at one-week intervals to determine the extent to which written, audio, and audiovisual L2 input contributed to incidental vocabulary learning. Seventy-six university students learning EFL in China were randomly assigned to four groups. Each group was presented with the input from the same television documentary in different modes: reading the printed transcript, listening to the documentary, viewing the documentary, and a nontreatment control condition. Checklist and multiple-choice tests were designed to measure knowledge of target words. The results showed that L2 incidental vocabulary learning occurred through reading, listening, and viewing, and that the gain was retained in all modes of input one week after encountering the input. However, no significant differences were found between the three modes on the posttests indicating that each mode of input yielded similar amounts of vocabulary gain and retention. A significant relationship was found between prior vocabulary knowledge and vocabulary learning, but not between frequency of occurrence and vocabulary learning. The study provides further support for the use of L2 television programs for language learning.
Journal Article
THE LEMMA DILEMMA
Recently there has been some debate about the appropriacy of different lexical units in pedagogy and research (e.g., Brown et al., 2020; Dang & Webb, 2016a; Kremmel, 2016; Laufer & Cobb, 2020; McLean, 2018; Nation, 2016; Nation & Webb, 2011; Vilkaitė-Lozdienė & Schmitt, 2020). The lexical unit (word types, lemmas, flemmas, word families) needs to be considered when developing wordlists, vocabulary tests, and vocabulary learning programs. It is also central to the lexical profiles of text and corpora, which indicate the vocabulary learning targets associated with understanding different types of discourse. Perhaps most importantly, the lexical unit of words found in vocabulary learning resources such as word lists and tests may affect their pedagogical value. The aim of this article is to highlight aspects of research and pedagogy that are affected by lexical units and describe issues that should be considered when operationalizing words in studies of vocabulary and learning resources.
Journal Article
RECEPTIVE AND PRODUCTIVE VOCABULARY SIZES OF L2 LEARNERS
This study investigated the relationship between receptive and productive vocabulary size. The experimental design expanded upon earlier methodologies by using equivalent receptive and productive test formats with different receptive and productive target words to provide more accurate results. Translation tests were scored at two levels of sensitivity to measure receptive and productive knowledge of meaning and form. The results showed that total receptive vocabulary size was larger than productive vocabulary. When responses were scored for fuller knowledge, receptive vocabulary size was also found to be greater than productive vocabulary size in each of three word frequency bands, with the difference between receptive and productive knowledge increasing as the frequency of the words decreased. However, when responses were scored for partial knowledge, there was little difference among vocabulary sizes at each frequency band. The findings also indicated that receptive vocabulary size might give some indication of productive vocabulary size. Learners who have a larger receptive vocabulary are likely to know more of those words productively than learners who have a smaller receptive vocabulary.
Journal Article
How effective is second language incidental vocabulary learning? A meta-analysis
There is a great deal of variation in gains found between studies of second language (L2) incidental vocabulary learning, as well as many factors that affect learning. This meta-analysis investigated the effects of exposure to L2 meaning-focused input on incidental vocabulary learning with an aim to clarify the proportional gains that occur through meaning-focused learning. Twenty-four primary studies were retrieved providing 29 different effect sizes and a total sample size of 2,771 participants (1,517 in experimental groups vs. 1,254 in control groups). Results showed large overall effects for incidental vocabulary learning on first and follow-up posttests. Mean proportions of target words learned ranged from 9–18% on immediate posttests, and 6–17% on delayed posttests. Incidental L2 vocabulary learning gains were similar across reading (17%, 15%), listening (15%, 13%), and reading while listening (13%, 17%) conditions on immediate and delayed posttest. In contrast, the proportion of words learned in viewing conditions on immediate posttests was smaller (7%, 5%). Findings also revealed that the amount of incidental learning varies according to a range of moderator variables including learner characteristics (L2 proficiency, institutional levels), materials (text type and audience), learning activities (spacing, mode of input), and methodological features (approaches to controlling prior word knowledge).
Journal Article
How Effective Are Intentional Vocabulary-Learning Activities? A Meta-Analysis
The present meta-analysis aimed to summarize the extent to which second language vocabulary is learned from the most frequently researched word-focused activities: flashcards, word lists, writing, and fill-in-the-blanks. One hundred effect sizes from 22 studies were included in meta-regression analyses and administered separately for the observations measured with meaning-recall and form-recall tests. The results revealed that the average percentage learning gains were 60.1% and 58.5% on meaning-recall and form-recall immediate posttests. These gains dropped to 39.4% and 25.1% on delayed meaning- and form-recall tests, respectively. These results suggest that learning through word-focused tasks is far from guaranteed. Moreover, the percentage learning gains among the different activities ranged from 18.4% to 77.0% on immediate posttests and from 23.9% to 73.4% on delayed posttests indicating that there is much variation in efficacy among the activities. Moderator analyses revealed that learners' place of study and direction of learning affected learning. (Verlag).
Journal Article
Approaches to Learning, Testing and Researching L2 Vocabulary
Together, the chapters in this volume highlight innovation in vocabulary studies and many directions for researching, testing, and learning words. Originally published as special issue of ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics 169:1 (2018).
eBook
INCIDENTAL VOCABULARY LEARNING THROUGH LISTENING TO SONGS
Research investigating incidental vocabulary learning through listening to songs has primarily relied on participant’s self-report surveys on listening behaviors and its relationship with their vocabulary knowledge (Kuppens, 2010). Only one experimental study has investigated vocabulary learning gains from listening to songs (Medina, 1993). From the results, the researcher concluded that learning does occur from listening to songs. However, the learning gains were not provided. The present study investigated incidental learning of three vocabulary knowledge dimensions (spoken-form recognition, form-meaning connection, and collocation recognition) through listening to two songs. The effects of repeated listening to a single song (one, three, or five times) and the relationship between frequency of exposure to the targeted vocabulary items and learning gains were also explored. The results indicated that (a) listening to songs contributed to vocabulary learning, (b) repeated listening had a positive effect on vocabulary gains, and (c) frequency of exposure positively affected learning gains.
Journal Article
The effects of context on incidental vocabulary learning
Japanese university students learning English as a foreign language (EFL) encountered 10 target words in 3 sets of 10 short contexts that were rated on the amount of information available to infer the target words’ meanings. One group of learners met the target words in contexts rated more highly than the contexts read by the other group. A surprise vocabulary test that measured recall of form, recognition of form, recall of meaning, and recognition of meaning was administered after the treatments. The results showed that the group that read the contexts containing more contextual clues had significantly higher scores on both tests of meaning. The findings indicate that the quality of the context rather than the number of encounters with target words may have a greater effect on gaining knowledge of meaning. Conversely, it is the number of encounters that will have a greater effect on knowledge of form.
Journal Article
THE EFFECTS OF TALKER VARIABILITY AND FREQUENCY OF EXPOSURE ON THE ACQUISITION OF SPOKEN WORD KNOWLEDGE
Eighty Japanese learners of English as a foreign language encountered 40 target words in one of four experimental conditions (three encounters, six encounters, three encounters with talker variability, and six encounters with talker variability). A picture-naming test was conducted three times (pretest, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest) and elicited speech samples were scored in terms of form-meaning connection (spoken form recall) and word stress accuracy (stress placement accuracy and vowel duration ratio). Results suggested that frequency of exposure consistently promoted the recall of spoken forms, whereas talker variability was more closely related to the enhancement of word stress accuracy. These findings shed light on how input quantity (frequency) and quality (variability) affect different stages of lexical development and provide implications for vocabulary teaching.
Journal Article