The current study assessed the effects of two teaching stimulus presentations, i.e. picture to word and word to word, used to teach second language vocabulary to college students. It also evaluated the emergence of untaught relations when picture to word and word to word were used separately as a teaching strategy. The findings showed picture to word training resulted in more untaught relations. Several aspects such time allotted for online quizzes, experimental and teaching arrangements and vocabulary complexity were suggested for future research.

Sammandrag De flesta andraspråksinlärare som kommer till Sverige i vuxen ålder har som mål att lära sig det svenska språket så fort som möjligt för att kunna bli en del av samhället, vilket i sin tur innebär att man ska tillägna sig ett stort antal nya ord på kort tid. Frågan är hur man ska gå till väga för att maximera effekten av ordinlärning i undervisning av vuxna andraspråksinlärare. Syftet med denna interventionsstudie var att undersöka vilket sätt att tillägna sig nya ord på, ett visuellt, ett auditivt eller en kombination av dessa två som var mest effektivt när det gäller tillägnandet av nya ord. Tre grupper av vuxna andraspråksinlärare, som studerade svenska som andraspråk på grundläggande nivå på Komvux deltog i undersökningen. I experimentet genomfördes först ett pretest på ord som följdes av interventionen, då den ena deltagargruppen såg en video med undertext, den andra gruppen såg samma video utan undertext och den tredje läste en text med samma innehåll som videon. Därefter genomfördes det ett posttest, som var samma som pretestet. Studiens resultat visade att en kombination av det visuella och auditiva sättet att presentera nya ord på gynnade ordinlärningen bäst.

This study examined incidental receptive and productive vocabulary gains within conversation-class interactions. Eleven Mexican learners of English attended four videotaped conversation lessons where 40 target words were incorporated in different types of exposure. Stimulated recall interviews with students highlighted the effect of cognates, learners' access to passive vocabulary, and use of their vocabulary knowledge in learning related words. Posttests revealed a correlation between frequency and receptive/productive gains. Mean scores showed that words mentioned with synonyms were learned most often, followed by task-essential words and last those mentioned without explanation. A two-way ANCOVA revealed main effects for cognates, and a statistical interaction between cognate status and types of exposure. A statistical correlation was found between receptive and productive gains. Aptitude scores correlated with productive gains but not with receptive gains. The results provide implications for ESL teachers who consider incidental learning of vocabulary within their conversation lessons.

This study investigates the acquisition of conventional metaphorical expressions by Chinese learners of English. A conventional metaphorical expression, following the definition of cognitive semantics, refers to the use of a conventionalised non-literal meaning of a lexical item in a multi-word phrase. For example, the word 'attack' in the phrase 'attack one's idea', which should be interpreted as 'to criticise somebody or something severely', clearly departs from the literal meaning 'to use violence to try to hurt or kill somebody', and thus should be seen as a metaphorically used word. Consequently, the phrase 'attack one's idea' is a conventional metaphorical expression. This study explores learners' behaviour towards and acquisition of metaphorical expressions from two major perspectives: (1) possible cross-linguistic influence in the process of acquisition and factors that could affect cross-linguistic influence; and (2) the organisation of learners' bilingual lexicon and the status of metaphorical expressions in a bilingual lexicon. These two perspectives are considered to be the main factors that can influence learners' acquisition of metaphorical expressions: in order to acquire a metaphorical expression, learners should be able to integrate it into the bilingual lexicon, while the process of integration can be impacted by cross-linguistic influence. Previous research has mainly been conducted on the acquisition of certain figurative expressions in a second language, predominantly idioms; however, a combination of the two perspectives and a joint analysis on the acquisition of figurative language has yet to be accomplished. This study presents a first attempt of such analysis on the acquisition of a specific type of figurative language. The results of the experiments reported in this dissertation show that learners react differently to metaphorical expressions with different cross-linguistic availabilities (shared between Chinese and English or exclusively available in Chinese or English) but in general they encounter difficulty to achieve native-like performance when reading metaphorical expressions available in their second language. Persistent cross-linguistic influence is observed in two aspects, even among highly proficient learners: (1) learners encounter obstacles when acquiring the metaphorical expressions that are only available in their second language; and (2) learners seem to still activate the metaphorical meanings that are only available in their first language even when they read in their second language. These results altogether reflect that metaphorical expressions, regardless of cross-linguistic availability, are more difficult to acquire than literal expressions in a second language.

Researchers and educators have always strived for creating appropriate instructional tools and resources that help students to acquire knowledge. Animated pedagogical agents (APAs) embedded within multimedia learning settings are one of the emerging technologies that provide a powerful and supportive learning environment. According to previous studies, APAs can effectively promote learning and support social interaction with learners (Johnson & Lester, 2016; Lane, 2016). However, APAs also may cause cognitive load without providing motivational benefits in some cases and distract learners during the learning process. In other words, the results of previous studies on APAs do not provide enough evidence to argue that APA may be able to decrease cognitive load, promote motivational effects, or facilitate meaningful learning. The lack of enough evidence in the research findings seems to be variable depending upon the APA’s features, the learners, and the difficulty of the learning materials (Schroeder & Adesope, 2014). By focusing on these factors, this study provided new considerations related to embedding an APA’s role that facilitates “Word Parts” for adult students who speak English as a Second Language (ESL) with concentrating on their cognition, motivation, and vocabulary acquisition. Presenting two APA’s roles (expert model and peer model) differently influenced ESL learners’ motivation, specifically their satisfaction feelings. In addition, ESL learners’ prior knowledge affected their intrinsic and extraneous cognitive load, motivation, and vocabulary acquisition. The two different APA’s roles and their effects on ESL learners’ perceptions and learning outcomes serve as a media comparison research. Further, examining APA as a model to teach ESL students vocabulary acquisition skills serves a Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) research.

The process of second language vocabulary acquisition (L2VA) is investigated by looking at the learning, teaching, learner and environmental factors that affect the ways that adult Vietnamese learners of English acquire, store and use words. Data were collected by examination of informants' diaries, recorded classes, free conversations, interview-questionnaires and regular interviews during the English program. The data show that the process of building up the mental lexicon is slow, long and complicated. For adult learners coming from different English and job backgrounds, full time classroom learning is the biggest and most important source of L2 word input. It is also in this environment that the word storage and recall mechanisms are most facilitated. The L2VA process varies according to individual learners at different levels, with different learning goals, motivations, determination, areas of interest and word learning methods. It is hoped that the findings of the study help increase Vietnamese teachers' awareness of how to teach English vocabulary effectively and how to help learners work out individually suitable word learning methods.

The aim and purpose of this essay is to investigate how literature can be used as an educational tool and as a source for learning acquisition. More specifically, this essay investigates whether literature can facilitate vocabulary acquisition by exploring different aspects of learning through literature and by implementing a study to see how literature contributes to the development of vocabulary. The results of the study show improvement on vocabulary breadth with the help of literature and consequently serve to reinforce the importance of literature and substantiate the reasons why literature is used in school. This essay can serve as supplementary evidence for the significance and relevance of literature as an educational tool.

Vocabulary learning strategy plays an important role in vocabulary acquisition; one of the major vocabulary strategies is word part strategy. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether word part strategy can help students to understand words and facilitate vocabulary acquisition. Ten teacher trainee students from a university in Sweden participated in the study. All were given a vocabulary pre-test, a lecture about word-formation rules, two vocabulary tests and a questionnaire. The results show that word part strategy is helpful in understanding words and facilitating vocabulary acquisition. The strategy is especially useful for those students who have a good knowledge of affixes. In addition, the choice of affixes also affects the application of word part strategy. In order to master word part strategy, more time is needed to learn the meaning of affixes and to practise how to re-express the meaning of words with the aid of the meaning of the word parts. The results of the study show that there are great differences between individual results, which, in turn, leads to a questioning of the efficiency of word part strategy. The present study is a starting point for further research on the connection between students’ level of English and the effectiveness of word part strategy as a teaching method.

This paper discusses the teaching and learning of Arabic vocabulary with respect to the needs and desires of the modern learner of Arabic. It begins with an explanation of Arabic diglossia and a review of current research regarding the desires and goals of the modern Arabic learner. It then discusses the issue of teaching Arabic vocabulary showing that learning two varieties of Arabic at the same time, because it is a case of synonymy, creates a learning burden for Arabic learners but is nonetheless necessary. This paper then discusses a number of other reasons that make Arabic vocabulary acquisition a challenge and suggests possible methods to overcome this challenge. / text

abstract: The purpose of this experimental study was to investigate the effects of textual and visual annotations on Spanish listening comprehension and vocabulary acquisition in the context of an online multimedia listening activity. 95 students who were enrolled in different sections of first year Spanish classes at a community college and a large southwestern university were randomly assigned to one of four versions of an online multimedia listening activity that contained textual and visual annotations of several key words. Students then took a comprehension and vocabulary posttest and a survey to measure cognitive load and general attitudes towards the program. Results indicated that textual annotations had a significant positive effect on listening comprehension and that visual annotations had a significant positive effect on how successful students felt. No statistically significant differences were found for other variables. Participants also reported positive attitudes towards vocabulary annotations and expressed a desire to see more annotations during multimedia listening activities of this type. These findings provide further evidence of the impact that multimedia may have on language acquisition. These findings have implications for multimedia design and for future research. Language listening activities should include a variety of vocabulary annotations that may help students to understand what they hear and to help them learn new vocabulary. Further research is needed outside of the laboratory, in the online and increasingly-mobile language learning environment in order to align the research with the environment in which many students currently study. The incorporation of motivation into multimedia learning theory and cognitive load should be explored, as well as new measures of cognitive load. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Educational Technology 2010