Language Learning 46:1, March 1996,pp.

101-135

The Vocabulary-Learning Strategies of

Foreign-Language Students
Michael J. Lawson and Donald Hogben
Flinders University

Using a think-aloud procedure, we observed the behav-

ior of 15 university students in Australia with experience
in Italian as they attempted to learn the meanings of new
foreign language (Italian) words. The great majority of
the procedures they used involved some form of repetition
of the new words and their meanings-mostly a simple
reading of the dictionary-like entries provided, or repeti-
tions of the word-meaning complexes. They gave rela-
tively little attention t o the physical or grammatical fea-
tures of words, nor did they commonly use elaborative
acquisition procedures. The lack of association between
use of context and recall of word meaning is of major
interest, given the stress placed on context by many
researchers and commentators. Even when students did
use the cues in the sentences to generate possible mean-
ings for the target words, this did not help them establish
representations for the meanings of the words. Consider-
ation of the use of context in vocabulary acquisition sug-
gests a need to distinguish between the use of context for

Michael J. Lawson and Donald Hogben, School of Education.

This research was supported by a grant from the Flinders University
Research Budget. We gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of students of
the University of Adelaide, and the assistance of Roy Meli with the project.
Correspondence should be addressed to Michael Lawson, School of
Education, Flinders University, General Post Office Box 2100, Adelaide 5001
South Australia. Telephone: (08)201-2829. Internet: edmjl@flinders.edu.au

101
102 Language Learning Vol. 46, No. 1

generation of meaning of a new word and the use of context

for acquisition of the meaning for subsequent recall.

During the past decade, researchers and commentators have

pointed t o the importance of vocabulary acquisition for second
language (L2) learners (Allen, 1983; Laufer, 1986; Nation, 1990;
Richards, 1980). Paradoxically, they have also noted that vocabu-
lary has until recently been something of a “poor relation” as far
a s linguists and language teachers have been concerned
(Maiguashca, 1993). Meara (1982) contrasted the neglect of L2
vocabulary acquisition by applied linguists with the importance
afforded it by students:
This neglect is all the more striking in that learners
themselves readily admit that they experience consider-
able difficulty with vocabulary, and once they have got
over the initial stages of acquiring their second language,
most learners identify the acquisition of vocabulary as
their greatest source of problems. (p. 100)
Although the amount of empirical research on vocabulary
acquisition is increasing (e. g., Haastrup, 1991; Mondria & Wit-
de-Boer, 1991; Wang, Thomas, Inzana, & Primicerio, 1993), con-
sensus is lacking over issues such as the conceptualization of the
process by which vocabulary acquisition occurs, the importance of
context use for acquiring vocabulary, and the extent to which
students do develop specific strategies for vocabulary learning
during their language studies. To gain further information about
each of these issues, we observed the behavior of a group of
experienced foreign language students as they attempted t o learn
the meaning of new words. We presented students with a number
of sentences in the foreign language (Italian), each of which
contained a word unknown t o them. At the same time, they had
access t o dictionary-like definitions in English. Their task was to
think aloud as they attempted to learn the meaning of the new
words by whatever means they chose.
The task is representative of several situations in which
foreign-language students typically find themselves. They fre-
 Lawson and Hogben 103

quently encounter unknown words in text material and need t o

learn and retain the meanings of some of these words for later use.
In this situation, because the reading purpose is not simply
comprehension-which could be satisfied by inferring word mean-
ing and leaving it at that, students are likely t o adopt some
deliberate procedure designed to facilitate long-term retention of
word meaning. They probably consult a dictionary t o check on a
guess made in the initial reading. In addition, they might write
the word’smeaning in the margin of the text; or they might add the
word t o a personal word list; or perhaps they enter the word and
its meanings into a card system of the kind recommended by
Mondria and Mondria-de Vries (1994). In another language
learning situation, students may be using a textbook that is part
of a graded series. Many such textbooks, even for advanced
learners, present learners with new words whose meaning they
should acquire (e.g., the Headway series by Soars & Soars, 1986-
1993). In this case, the student must again decide on some
deliberate procedure. It may be one of the procedures above, or it
may simply involve repeating the word and its meaning several
times. In each case, students make a decision t o use deliberate
procedures for remembering word meanings. In designing our
study, we did not intend t o cover all language-learning situations,
nor to enter the debate about the extent t o which vocabulary
learning is a conscious activity. We focused on investigating the
procedures students use in situations where they attempt some
deliberate acquisition of vocabulary.

Deliberate Vocabulary Acquisition

There seems no reason t o believe that deliberate vocabulary

acquisition should proceed in a manner different from any other
deliberate knowledge acquisition. The learner must undertake
some analysis of the to-be-acquired word-meaning complex and
must then establish a representation of this complex in memory.
A considerable body of research from other fields demonstrates
that the quality of this representation is central t o the success or
104 Language Learning Vol. 46, No. 1

otherwise of subsequent retrieval (Anderson, 1990). The more

effectively the to-be-learned material is elaborated during acqui-
sition, the more readily it will be recalled (Mayer, 1992; Wittrock,
1992). Hence, in learning vocabulary, the active, constructive
elaboration of the word-meaning complex during acquisition in-
fluences its subsequent recall during reading. Other strategies,
such as rehearsal, may be important for maintaining a particular
item; but simple rehearsal alone should not be very effective for
long-term use, because it does not involve extensive elaboration of
the word-meaning complex. Carter (19871, having reviewed the
elaborative keyword technique for vocabulary learning, argued
that:
the clear principle which emerges is that the more that
words are analysed or are enriched by imagistic and other
associations,the more likely it is that they will be retained.
Such a technique, linking as it does form, meaning, and
structure through cues which, in turn, facilitate a combi-
nation of productive and receptive senses, does appear t o
have advantages over an exclusive focus on straightfor-
ward translation and rote learning. (p. 155)

For long-term recall, the successful learner not only can

analyze and rehearse the new word and its meanings, but also can
elaborate the word-meaning complex and establish it within a
suitable network of meaning. As noted above, this elaboration
probably increases the chances that the word and its meaning will
be available for use at a later time. In the early stages of language
learning, when the tasks being undertaken by the student are
more novel, this processing activity is more deliberate than
automatic (Hasher & Zacks, 1979). The deliberate procedures, or
strategies, developed during this period are probably retained;
these strategies should be apparent in the behavior of students as
they undertake a vocabulary learning task. Given this view of
knowledge acquisition, we should expect that the strategies em-
ployed by sophisticated language learners involve significant
elaboration as well as rehearsal, and that the strategies involving
more elaboration would be associated with better retention than
 Lawson and Hogben 105

less elaborative strategies. So, central t o the present research was

identification of the extent to which advanced foreign-language
students, when presented with a vocabulary-learning task, would
employ complex, elaborative learning strategies in addition to the
common strategy of repetition.

Use of Context

Writers such as Moulton (1966), Twaddle (1980), Schouten-

van Parreren (cited in Mondria & Wit-De-Boer, 1991),Sternberg
(19871, and Krashen (1989)have placed considerable emphasis on
the value of reading and the importance of context in the learning
of word meanings. However, in discussions of vocabulary learning
and the value of context, it is not always clear how the discussants
conceptualized the influence of the context surrounding the un-
known word. This lack of clarity arises because writers do not
always clearly draw the distinction between comprehension of
word meaning in context and the acquisition of word meaning
from context.
Comprehension of the meaning of a new word in context
might involve no more than generation of a meaning that suggests
a coherent interpretation of the sentence or passage. No addi-
tional, deliberate analysis of the features of the word or the word-
meaning complex need be undertaken at this time. The student’s
intention is simply to generate a meaning for the momentary task
of interpretation of a section of the text. By way of contrast,
acquisition of meaning through analysis of surrounding contex-
tual cues would involve deliberate use of some such procedures as
those discussed above.
In the report of her study of language learners’ lexical
inferencing procedures for vocabulary acquisition, Haastrup (1991)
made clear the distinction between procedures for comprehension
of words in context and those for learning of those words: “In my
view it [inferencing] is a comprehension procedure that does not
automatically lead to learning, although it has the potential for
doing so”(p.23). Others have not always explicitly differentiated
106 Language Learning Vol. 46, No. 1

the learners’ two different sets of intentions and procedures.

Carter (19871, for example, detailed a five-step strategy that
language learners might follow in deriving word meaning, noting
that the more advanced learners are “the more likely they are to
benefit from learning words in context” (p. 169). Carter appar-
ently had in mind deliberate learning of word meaning from
context, although he actually said in. Nattinger (1988) seems t o
be referring to comprehension when he asserted: “Guessing vo-
cabulary from context is the most frequent way we discover the
meaning of new words”(p. 63). Oxford and Scarcella (1994) also
appear to be talking about comprehension when they wrote: “By
far the most useful [vocabulary learning] strategy is guessing
from context” (p. 236). In contrast, Nation and Coady (1988)
clearly had learning in mind when they threw doubts on the value
of context: “Studies on learning words from context have not
shown the large amounts oflearning we might expect, considering
the rates at which first-language learners seem t o increase their
vocabulary” (p. 103). Beheydt (1987) left no doubt as to his view:
“From a psychological as well as a linguistic point of view,
undeniably the first guideline would be that vocabulary must be
learned in context. The meanings of words are more easily
semanticized if they are embedded in a meaningful context” (p.
63). Ahmed (1989) and Schouten-van Parreren (cited in Mondria
and Wit-de Boer, 1991) agreed. Our concern with context in this
study is how, and to what extent, students make use of context in
learning meanings of new words.

Students’ Strategies for Vocabulary Learning

Graves (1987) suggested that, because students actually do

most of their learning of new words independently, it makes sense
to encourage them “to adopt personal plans t o expand their
vocabularies over time” (p. 177). In fact, theorists now place
considerable stress on the importance of foreign language stu-
dents’developing autonomous learning strategies (see, e.g., Rossini
Favretti, Silver, Gasser, & Tamburini, 1994), and books aimed at
 Lawson and Hogben 107

teachers provide practical advice on teaching vocabulary and

encourage student language-learning strategies (e.g., McCarthy,
1990; Nation, 1990; Oxford, 1990).
At issue, however, is the extent to which students will
spontaneously develop or adopt effective vocabulary-learning
practices as a result of their language learning experience. For
example, some theorists have assumed that, even quite early in
their foreign language studies, high-school students acquire vo-
cabulary-learning techniques that are at least as effective as, for
example, the powerful keyword mnemonic technique. Thus con-
cluded Fuentes (19761, Levin, Pressley, McCormick, Miller, and
Shriberg (1979), and Willerman and Melvin (19791, explaining
the lack of effect in their studies using the keyword method with
high-school foreign language students. Levin et al. (1979) re-
ported that about half of the high-school Spanish students in their
control group used “strategies involving cognates, phoneme corre-
spondences, and some other mnemonic tricks” (p. 5871, though
less than 10% reported use of a keyword strategy. This latter
figure stands in contrast t o Fuentes’ (1976)finding that 55%of his
control participants used keyword-like techniques. Fuentes re-
ported that:
Apparently, successful second-year foreign language stu-
dents spontaneously use mnemonic techniques closely
akin to the keyword as a matter of course. In addition their
learning repertoire includes other approaches such as the
use of root words and occasionally rote. (Fuentes, cited in
Nation, 1982, p. 26).
Willerman and Melvin (1979) did not gather data on the
strategies actually used by the French language students in their
experiment, but, in contrasting their participants with those more
commonly used-university students enrolled in psychology
courses-they observed: “Students who have been studying a
foreign language, even if only for a month or so, have most likely
developed conscious or unconscious learning strategies to master
the material” (p. 452).
In contrast t o the above studies, Hogben and Lawson (1993)
108 Language Learning Vol. 46, No. 1

found that experienced high-school Italian students did not report

a high frequency of use of strategies of similar complexity t o the
keyword procedure. Most of the strategies reported by these
students focused on some simple form of repetition of the target
word and its meaning. Very few reported strategies that involved
detailed elaboration of the word-meaning complex. This evidence
suggests that these students typically did not use complex vocabu-
lary-learning strategies. Hogben and Lawson asked students to
report on strategy use; possibly the use of a self-report procedure
about a vocabulary acquisition task leads t o underestimation of
the strategic resources available t o students for it. So, in contrast
to the self-report studies discussed above, we used a think-aloud
procedure in our present study. Using this procedure enabled us
t o undertake detailed observation of the strategies students
spontaneously employed as they engaged in the vocabulary acqui-
sition task we set for them. In exploring the vocabulary-learning
strategies used by advanced foreign language students, the study
was designed t o seek answers to the following questions:
1. What types of strategies do experienced learners use when
asked t o undertake a deliberate vocabulary acquisition task, and
how frequently are these different strategies used?
2. What relationships exist between particular vocabulary-
learning strategies and the number of words recalled at the
conclusion of a word learning session?
3. To what extent do students attempt t o derive word
meaning from context as a means toward vocabulary acquisition
before resorting to translations/definitions? Does this vary with
the degree of contextual cue existing in sentences containing the
words?

Method

Participants

The students involved in our study were all enrolled in the

advanced section of the first-year Italian course at a university in
 Lawson and Hogben 109

Adelaide. This course is designed for students who have previ-

ously studied Italian t o Year 12 standard prior to commencing
university Italian studies. For most students, this means at least
five years of high-school study of the language. In 1993, 25
students were enrolled in this course and 19 agreed to take part
in the study. By the time that interviewing began, 17 women
students were available for interview. Unfortunately, during the
interviewing, two tapes were spoiled due to equipment failure and
so the results are based on 15 interviews. Ten of the students
came from families with an Italian background, though only 3 of
these students spoke Italian or dialect with parents or grandpar-
ents. The remaining 5 students had no family background
involving use of Italian language.

The Learning Task

In the course of the interviews, we asked the students to

learn 12 Italian nouns. We used the following five criteria in the
selection of the 12 words:
1. Each word had t o be one for which the students did not
know the meaning. This was established with each student. (See
details in The Interviews below.)
2. It had t o represent a familiar object or concept.
3. It had t o be no longer than three syllables.
4. Four of the words were to contain suffixes: two, the suffix
ezza; two, the suffix astro. (These words will be referred t o as
“suffix”words.)
5 . All words were to have at least one “related word”
commonly found as an accompanying entry in a dictionary. Re-
lated words were usually adjectives, verbs, or adverbs; occasion-
ally another noun.
To cover the possibility of some of the words being known to
the students, we also selected six reserve words as fulfilling the
above criteria. If any student knew the meaning of a word on the
standard list, we substituted one of the reserve words of the same
type.
110 Language Learning Vol. 46, No. 1

We provided the information for the word-learning task to

the students on 3"x5" index cards. The front of each card con-
tained the particular Italian word followed by a sentence contain-
ing that word. Half of the sentences provided some salient clue(s)
t o the words' meanings; half provided no such assistance. The
example below is of a sentence providing clue(s) to the meaning.
The layout is that employed on each of the 3"x5" cards:
DRAGA
La draga e stata usata per aumentare la profondita
del porto.
Following is an example of a suffix word and a sentence providing
no clue:
GRETTEZZA
Senza dubio quella risposta sa di molto grettezza.
Following is an example of the layout employed on the reverse side
of each card:
GRETTEZZA means stinginess, meanness, miserliness.
Can also mean narrow-mindedness.
Related words: Grettamente: meanly, stingily, pettily,
narrow-mindedly.
Gretto: mean, stingy, petty.

The Think-Aloud Procedure

In a self-report procedure, students provide a retrospective

report on cognitive actions already carried out. Such reports are
potentially limited by significant degrees of interpretation by the
student, or even by rationalization (Matsumoto, 1993). In con-
trast, the present study produced a concurrent report of cognitive
action, generated through use of a think-aloud procedure (Ericsson
& Simon, 1993). The think-aloud procedure, like all data-gather-
ing procedures, has limitations. The verbal report will not
produce a complete report of all possible strategies used for the
vocabulary learning task. But the products of cognitive activity
that are in the current focus of attention will be reported. The
 Lawson and Hogben 111

individuals are not asked t o describe or explain what is being

done-they report on the thoughts that are in the focus of their
attention. This restriction is placed on the interaction between
participant and observer so that the sequence of thoughts is not
changed, as might occur when an explanation of a past cognitive
event is called for. Ericsson and Simon (1993) reviewed a wide
range of evidence indicating that the concurrent think-aloud
procedure does not lead t o changes in the sequence of thoughts,
although it does tend t o increase the time for completion of the
task when compared with silent conditions. This perspective has
received broad support (see Crutcher, 1994; Payne, 1994; Wilson,
1994),though there is evidence that some tasks are reactive t o the
method. However, the vocabulary acquisition task examined here
would not be highly reactive t o use of the think-aloud procedure
because the strategic procedures of interest are high-level pro-
cesses (Payne, 1994). Think-aloud procedures have now been
employed in several language learning studies (e.g., Ahmed, 1989;
Haastrup, 1991; Zimmermann & Schneider, 19871,although none
of these studies has engaged students in the type of task employed
here.

The Interviews

We tape recorded all interviews; these lasted an average of25

minutes (range 17 t o 38 minutes). The interview schedule with
each student proceeded as follows. We first reminded each
student of the general purpose of the research and what was
required of her. Part of this introduction ran as follows:
To get information on ways in which people learn new
[Italian] words, I want to observe you as you go about
learning a small group of 12 words. I will ask you to tell
me what you are thinking to yourself, and saying to
yourself, as you try to learn them. At the end of the
session I will ask you to write down the meanings of the
words you have learned.
We then gave the student a sheet listing the 12 core Italian nouns
112 Language Learning Vol. 46, No. 1

followed by the 6 reserve words. The words were in a single list.

We asked the student to mark any word whose meaning she was
sure of. If no words were marked, the interviewer proceeded with
the core set of 12 cards. If any words in the 12-word core were
known, the cards for those words were replaced with the appropri-
ate card from the reserve set. The experimenter then explained
the think-aloud procedure to the student.
This explanation was followed by the student listening t o a
tape-recording of a person from another research project using a
think-aloud procedure. The interviewer drew the student’s atten-
tion t o important features of the episode, and the student then
practiced the procedure on a neutral task. The interviewer
prompted the student during the description t o keep her talking
and rendering a full report. The student then practiced the think-
aloud method with a sample card whose layout was identical t o
that explained above. Again the interviewer prompted the stu-
dent as seemed necessary. Typical prompts included: “Keep
talking”; “Tell me all those little details. I’m interested in all your
thinking, so don’t leave out any details”; “Don’t leave anything
out”. We requested no retrospective reports.
We instructed the students to use the card however they
thought best: in whichever way they thought would best help
them learn the meaning(s) of the new word. As was the case later
with each of the cards containing the 12 Italian words to be
learned, the students received the card with the side containing
the sentence uppermost. We told them t o consider themselves as
reading a piece of text and coming across the unfamiliar word.
Their task was to learn the meaning of the word for use at a later
time. The back of the card, which they were free to consult at any
time, was designed to represent an excerpt from a bilingual
dictionary entry. Having completed the practice card, each of the
students was then taken through the 12 cards featuring the
Italian nouns whose meaning was t o be learned.
At the completion of each learning and think-aloud session,
the interviewer engaged the student in approximately 30 seconds
of “small t a l k , to inhibit any recency effect in working memory,
 Lawson and Hogben 113

and then presented her with a test paper. The test consisted ofthe
12 words, each followed by a space in which the student could
write in the word's meaningb). The order of the words on the test
paper was random and differed from the order in which the words
were learned. We set no time limit for the testing session, but all
students completed the task within 10 minutes. The students'
responses t o each of the 12 words were scored either 1or 0. A score
of 1was awarded where at least one correct English definition was
provided for the given Italian word; approximations or closely
related definitions were not accepted, and were scored zero. The
mean recall of word meanings for the group was 6.94, with a
standard deviation of 3.36. At the completion of the interviews, we
transcribed all tape recordings for analysis.

Analysis of Tape Transcripts

We coded the tape transcripts for different types of strategic

moves made by the students as they attempted to acquire the
meanings of the new words. The framework used t o develop the
codes came from two main sources. The first was the research
literature on vocabulary acquisition, examples of which have been
noted in the introduction t o this article. Probably the most
frequently discussed technique involves some form of repetition or
rehearsal of either the word-meaning complex or the word itself.
The exact form of rehearsal could be just a simple reading or
writing of the word, the repetition of the word and the meaning,
or repetition involving some form of structuring (Oxford, 1990).
The literature also contains frequent references to the importance
of context in providing initial clues t o word meaning, as noted
above (e.g., Sternberg, 1987). This use of context can also range
in degree of complexity from simply guessing the meaning of the
new word t o more detailed speculation on the meaning of the word
using what is already known about other constituents of the
sentence, perhaps following set routines (Carter, 1987). As
previously noted, employing contextual clues as a means of vo-
cabulary acquisition differs from using these clues t o generate

Repetition
Reading of Related Words.
The student makes use of
the information on words
related to the new word by
reading them out at least
once as an aid to learning
the target word.
Simple Word Rehearsal.
The student repeats the
word, with or without re-
peating its meaning, a t
least once.
Writing Word and Mean-
ing. The student writes out
the word and its meaning.
Cumulative Rehearsal. The
student not only repeats
the word andlor meaning,
but also returns to previ-
ous words and rehearses
these in a sequence; this
Table 1
Codes Used in this Anal.ysis by Category
Word Feature Analysis Simple Elaboration
Spelling. The student com- Sentence Translation. The
ments on the spelling of student translates, or at-
the word, perhaps actually tempts to translate, the
spelling it out. Italian sentence contain-
Word Classification. The ing the target word. For
student comments on some ex a m p 1e : “ S or d a s t ro .
observed pattern in the Quell’uomo 6 u n sordastro.
word, or makes some ob- I have no idea. That man
servation related t o its is a -. Let’s take a look.”
grammar; for example, “So (Here the student turns to
it can be a noun or an ad- the back of the card.)
jective . . .” Simple Use of Context. The
Use of Suffixes. The stu- student suggests a possible
dent makes some use of meaning for the word prior
knowledge of suffixes. to referring to the back of
the card. No specific refer-
ence is made to any other
word(s) in the sentence.
This is interpreted as
simple guessing from con-
text. For example: ‘%ascio.
Complex Elaboration
Complex Use of Context.
The student makes a seri-
ous attempt to derive word
meaning from the sen-
tence, as a first step to-
ward acquisition, by mak-
ing reference to meaning
or features of other words
in the sentence, perhaps
suggesting possible alter-
native meanings for the
target word. For example:
Draga. La draga e stata
usata per aumentare la
profondita del porto. . . . Is
it a crane? A certain ma-
chine to dig a bit more of
the port?”
Paraphrase. The student
identifies synonyms for the
new word, or comments on
could be all words up to
that point, or only some of
them.
Testing. The student self-
tests by covering the En-
glish meaning, or the Ital-
ian word, and trying to gen-
erate the other part of the
pair.
Reminds me of fascismo,
so fascism. Lo metta i n u n
sol fascio. Oh, I have no
idea.” (Here student turns
to the back of the card.)
Appearance S i m i l a r i t y .
The student links the word
to an English word, or to
another Italian word based
onits physical appearance.
For example: “Scaltrezzu
. . . starts with an s, and
shrewdness and sharpness
start with an s. So per-
haps it’s a start. Perhaps I
will remember it from that
... 9,
Sound Link. The student
identifies a basis for link-
ing the sound of the word
to an English word, or to
another known Italian
word. For example:
“Sordastro. Sounds a bit
like disastro, which is di-
saster. . .”
some related word (Italian
or English). For example:
“Purtroppo, Carlo B un
furbastro. Something . . it
would read furbo, which
means cunning. . .”
Mnemonic Use. The stu-
dent employs a detailed
mnemonic procedure, such
as that involved in form-
ing a picture or image of
the word and/or meaning.
For example: “Purtroppo,
Curlo e u n furbastro. . . .
My father’s name is Carlo,
and he thinks he is a smart
aleck also.”
116 Language Learning Vol. 46, No. 1

possible word meaning without necessarily following this up in

any way. There is also support for the value of using deliberate
mnemonic strategies, particularly in the early stages of foreign
language learning (e.g., Carter, 1987; Carter & McCarthy, 1988;
Nation, 1990; Oxford, 1990). Some strategies use physical fea-
tures of the new word, such as its appearance or its sound as a
basis for identifying its features. Grammatical features of the
word, such as affixes might also be used as a basis for classifica-
tion. In other strategies, the transformation of the word and
meaning is more elaborate so that the student might develop a
paraphrase for the word or the sentence, or might develop images
such as in the keyword procedure (Atkinson, 1975).
The codes were developed without knowledge of the study of
lexical inferencing procedures carried out by Haastrup (1991).
Haastrup’s taxonomy also included strategies for use of context
(contextual cues), for reference t o word features (intralingual
cues), and for reference to other languages (interlingual cues),
though it allowed for more differentiation within each these
categories. However, the nature of the task Haastrup asked her
informants to undertake was different from that used in this
study, and her coding taxonomy reflected the different focus of her
research questions.
The second source of codes derived from our observations of
the students in this study, and other students, as they were
involved in deliberate vocabulary acquisition tasks. In a list-
learning task, students commonly develop some type of self-
testing procedure, perhaps covering up one of the word or meaning
pairs and attempting to retrieve the remaining member of the
pair. They also commonly attempt a direct translation of the
sentence, which may or may not be followed by quite detailed use
of the sentence context.
We developed the 15 categories used in this analysis to
represent these broad classes of events. We developed prelimi-
nary codes and undertook the analysis of trial transcripts to
identify the extent t o which codes represented the output of the
students’ transcripts. We refined the codes until they could
 Lawson and Hogben 117

represent all the think-aloud data. Two independent raters then

applied the final coding system to a number of transcripts; the
resulting interrater reliability of coding was acceptable ( 94%).
The 15 codes can be grouped into 4 higher-level categories.
The first represents strategies based upon the repetition of the
word and/or the meaning. The second involves some form of word
feature analysis. The final 2 groups represent a more substantial
transformation of the features of the word and/or the meaning:
simple elaboration and complex elaboration. The 15codes used in
the final analysis are described in Table 1.

Results

Strategy Use

We classified the students’ responses to each of the presented

words using the above 15 categories. We obtained responses to the
full set of 12 words from 13 of the 15 students involved: 1other
student responded to 11 words and 1 t o 10 words. The total
number of possible responses was thus 177. Table 2 below
provides a n overall description of the manner in which the
students dealt with the presented words. Column 1 shows the
total frequency of use for each strategy category. Column 2 shows
the number of students who employed each particular strategy;
the figures in this second column provide an indication of the
spread of category use. For example, although “writing word and
meaning” and “complex use of context” were employed approxi-
mately the same amount in total (45 and 42, respectively), only 6
students used the former category whereas 11 used the latter.
Column 3 shows the average category use per student. The figures
in Column 3 are the total frequencies divided by number of
students using the particular strategies. These figures also
indicate, therefore, the number of words on which the strategy
was used. Each of the Spearman rank order correlation coeffi-
cients in Column 4 represents the correlation between the number
of word meanings recalled on the recall test and the frequency of
 Table 2
Descriptive Statistics on Category Usage

Frequency of Students Words on Which Correlation

Strategy Use Using Strategy Strategy Used With Recall
Strategy ~ (max=177) (max=15) (max=12) Total

Repetition
Reading of Related Words 156 15 10.4 .42
Simple Rehearsal 137 14 9.8 .46*
Writing of Word and Meaning 45 6 7.5 .35
Cumulative Rehearsal 15 3 5.0 .17
Testing 6 2 3.0 .42
Subtotal 359
Word Feature Analysis
Spelling 16 7 2.3 -.04
Word Classification 9 4 2.3 .32
Suffix 0 0 0 0
Subtotal 25
Simple Elaboration
Sentence Translation 66 12 5.5 .27
Simple Use of Context 36 13 2.8 -.03
Appearance Similarity 18 7 2.6 .52*
Sound Link 5 3 1.7 .46*
Subtotal 125
Complex Elaboration
Complex Use of Context 42 11 3.8 -.01
Paraphrase 28 11 2.5 .62*
Mnemonic 7 3 2.3 .52*
Subtot a1 77
*Spearman rank correlation coefficients between frequency of use of code and recall score significant at p<.05 level
120 Language Learning Vol. 46, No. 1

use of a particular strategy. The categories within the four

groupings have been arranged in the table in descending order of
total usage for ease of reference.
The most frequently used procedures involved some form of
repetition. Not only did students use repetition in almost two
thirds of the opportunities, but repetition was used on most of the
words by most of the students. These procedures did not involve
the students in any significant degree of transformation of the
word-meaning complex. When used by themselves, these proce-
dures do not require students to identify specific features of the
new words; this makes transformation or the generation of links
to existing knowledge unlikely. Students infrequently selected
specific features of the words for analysis. None of the students
made use of the suffixes -ezza and -astro in the words containing
them.
Each ofthe codes in the Simple Elaboration category allowed
for the specification of a link between features of the word-
meaning and existing knowledge. In the case of the translation
and simple context codes, the links could be drawn between
elements of the sentence. With the appearance and sound codes,
the new words could be related to known words using these
features. Students did use the first two codes frequently, though
on only a minority of the new words. They did not widely use
physical appearance and sound as bases for generating meaning.
Almost all students used some form of more complex elabo-
ration in an attempt to establish the meanings of new words.
Nevertheless, there was a small amount of context use here (36
instances). Only 3 students provided evidence of use of a special
mnemonic strategy for acquisition of the meaning of the new word.
Compared with their extensive use of repetition, the students did
not heavily use context. Most students did occasionally use the
sentence context as a means of generating cues for word meaning,
but on only a few of the words.
Overall, the great majority of strategic activity in this vo-
cabulary acquisition task did not involve extensive transforma-
tion of the word/meaning complex in ways that would relate these
 Lawson and Hogben 121

two components in a richly linked framework. Although the

students showed that they had a number of different procedures
for working on the vocabulary acquisition task, and that they
actively employed these strategies, the strategies were concerned
more with repeating the new information than with transforming
it in a way that would set up relationships of the new material
with existing memory structures. Relatively little activity was
concerned with detailed analysis of the word and its meaning in
ways that would allow for the establishment of powerful associa-
tive relationships between the two.

Correlational Analysis

There was a strong positive Spearman rank order correlation

coefficient (r=0.83,p<.Ol)between students’ overall frequency of
strategy use and their recall test scores. Thus, there was a strong
tendency for those students employing many strategies for word
learning to recall more word definitions than those students
employing fewer strategies. This conclusion is in line with that of
Ahmed (1989), who noted: “Good learners not only use more
strategies, but they rely more heavily on different strategies than
the poor learners use”(p. 9). Two features of the pattern of
correlations shown in Column 4 of Table 2 are of note. First, both
repetition and elaborative strategies were associated with better
recall. The significant relationship between simple rehearsal and
recall supports the findings of Wang et al. (19931, who found that
on a list-learning task students who used repetition did achieve
high levels of recall performance. Second, the strongest relation-
ships observed were between various forms of elaborative activi-
ties and recall. Although these activities were not used by all
students, and were used with relatively few of the words, their use
was associated with better recall.

Influence of Supporting Context

The sentences containing the unknown words presented to

122 Language Learning Vol. 46, No. 1

Table 3
Word Meaning Clues and Frequency of Context Use

Context Use Clue Provided No Clue Total

No Use of Context 45 54 99
Simple Use of Context 14 22 36
Complex Use of Context 28 14 42
Totals 87 90 177

the students were constructed so that half of them provided some

clue(s) to the meaning of the words and the other half did not.
Table 3 sets out the frequencies of context use by the students
related to the provision of clues. In most instances, students did
not attempt to use contextual information t o generate possible
elements of meaning for the unknown word. Such action might
not be expected in half of the instances, because these sentences
provided no salient clue that would indicate a profitable direction
for further search prior to turning t o the dictionary definition.
However, this activity was associated with using other parts of
sentences for generating contextual clues. Where the sentences
provided salient clues, students used these on less than 50%of the
occasions. In most instances, students moved straight t o the
dictionary-like definition on the back of the card.
The provision of clues did, however, change the students’
behavior t o some extent. They employed complex use of context
twice as often where the sentences provided some salient clue t o
word meaning. In contrast, simple use of context appeared more
often when the sentence provided no obvious contextual support
for generating the meaning of the word.

Student Profiles

As a supplement t o the overall results, we performed com-

parative analyses on the 4 students who obtained the highest
scores on the word meaning recall test and on the 4 students who
performed least well. Using the same strategy categories as in
 Lawson and Hogben 123

Table 2, Table 4 sets out the overall strategy use by these

students. Each student is identified by a single letter. The
numbers in brackets-also given at the head of the table-are the
scores out of 12 each of the students obtained on the recall test:
High scorers: A (121, B (111,C (lo), D (10); Low scorers: W (41,X
(31, Y (21, z (1).
In the body of the table, the figures represent the instances
of strategy use by the students: A figure of 12 for a particular
strategy for a given student means that the student employed that
particular strategy in the learning of all words; a figure of 0 means
that a strategy was never used.
In Table 4,the single feature most obviously distinguishing
the two groups is the total amount of strategy use: The high-
scoring group recorded more than twice the number of word-by-
strategy instances. As previously noted, Ahmed (1989) reported
the use of more strategies by better language learners. The
students in the high group not only used many more strategies on
average, but they also used these strategies much more fre-
quently. Both the top-scoring group and the bottom-scoring group
made considerable use of simple rehearsal (word repetition) and
both groups attended to the related words that were supplied on
the reverse side of the cards. However, the top group used both of
these strategies, somewhat more often and more consistently.
Apart from this consistency of use, the students in the top-
scoring group did use a variety of procedures. Student A, for
example, made only limited use of the sentences provided on the
cards; that is, Student A made little use of context, either simple
or complex. This limited use of context was also apparent for
Students C and D (2 words in the case of Student C, none by
Student D). Student B, however, attended t o the provided sen-
tences in every case, and made complex use of context for 8 of the
12 words. Students A and D wrote out each word and its
meaning(s) as an aid t o learning. Students B and C, in contrast,
made no use at all of this strategy. Student B, however, in
addition t o making considerable use of context, did engage in some
sentence translation on 8 ofthe 12words, used some paraphrasing
 Table 4
Strategy Use by High- and Low-ScoringStudents

High-Scoring Group Low-Scoring Group

D W
Word-Learning Strategy (10) (4)

Repetition
Reading of Related Words 9 10 12 12 8 8 3 11
Simple Rehearsal 11 12 9 12 12 4 7 6
Writing of Word and Meaning 12 0 0 12 0 0 0 1
Cumulative Rehearsal 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Testing 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Word Feature Analysis
Spelling 0 0 2 4 3 0 1 0
Word Classification 0 0 6 1 0 0 0 0
Suffix 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Simple Elaboration
Sentence Translation 3 8 1 6 9 0 1 6
Simple Use of Context 2 4 2 0 0 6 1 1
Appearance Similarity 2 4 4 0 0 0 0 0
Sound 0 4 1 0 0 0 0 0
Elaboration
Complex Use of Context 1 8 0 0 0 4 1 1
Paraphrase 0 6 4 3 0 1 0 0
Mnemonic 0 4 2 0 0 0 0 0
Total Strategies 51 60 43 50 32 23 14 27
Note: The maximum possible total for any cell in the table is 12, which indicates that the student employed the particular
strategy on all 12 words learned.
126 Language Learning Vol. 46, No. 1

with 6, commented on appearance similarity and word sound on

4,and employed some form of mnemonic strategy 4 times. Stu-
dent C was the only other student from either group to use any
form of mnemonics.
Perhaps somewhat surprising was the students’ limited use
of self-testing. Only Student A used this technique, and on only
one word. No student in the bottom group employed this strategy.
Student C attempted some word classification in 6 instances, but
Students A and B did not use this procedure at all. Student D, who
used it once, also made some use of paraphrasing (3 words) and
paid some attention to word spelling (4words). Student C also
used paraphrasing (4words), but only commented twice on word
spelling.
As we have already noted, the bottom-scoring group was
most obviously characterized by its limited strategy use. Even
where a student used some particular strategy t o a considerable
extent, she would employ others rather inconsistently. Student X,
for example, made considerable use of context (simple use on 6
words, and complex use on 41,but employed simple rehearsal on
only 4 words. Apart from one instance of paraphrasing, Student
X gave no indication of any other technique use. Student W used
simple rehearsal on all words and engaged in sentence translation
in 9 instances. However, apart from 3 comments on spelling of
words, Student W used no further strategies. Student Z was
characterized by inconsistency. She paid attention to related
words on 11occasions, used simple rehearsal on only 6 words, and
used cumulative rehearsal once. She attempted some sentence
translation on 6 occasions, and wrote out the word and its
meaning(s) on one occasion. The profile of Student Y was also
characterized by limited and inconsistent strategy use. Student
Y used simple word rehearsal, but only on 7 words: There was no
cumulative rehearsal. She used context only twice, and at-
tempted sentence translation on one occasion. She made one
comment on spelling. She revealed no other strategies or proce-
dures during the interview.
The above analysis shows that no obvious profile of particu-
 Lawson and Hogben 127

lar strategy use clearly characterized either the top- or the

bottom-scoring group. Although actual strategy use varied con-
siderably within the top-scoring group, these successful students
tended to be consistent in whatever strategies they did employ. In
contrast, the bottom-scoring group exhibited more limited and
inconsistent strategy use, although Student W did consistently
use a simple rehearsal strategy. The data presented above tempt
one t o suggest that one element of success in learning foreign
language vocabulary is the consistent and skillful use of individu-
ally congenial strategies rather than the employment of some
particular fixed set of strategies. However, this leaves aside the
possible effect of training in elaborative strategy use, the effects
of which can be considerable (cf. Pressley & McCormick, 1995).

Discussion

We observed the students as they attempted t o learn the

meanings of the new words in the sentences presented to them.
Our interest was in the types of procedures, including use of
contextual cues, that they would use for this task. The study
involved them in a deliberate vocabulary acquisition task in
which they knew that their recall for the word meanings would be
tested. Such a procedure can provide information on what these
students could do in this situation, as distinct from what they
might do in other situations. The students’ behavior would, of
course, have been influenced by how they were presented with the
material to be learned. However, the types of words, and the
format of the learning, are typical of many vocabulary learning
situations. The results therefore provide a reasonable estimate of
the range of procedures that students could access when deliber-
ately attempting to acquire the meanings of new words.
As a group, the students had access to a wide variety of
acquisition procedures; they typically drew upon more than one
procedure when focusing on a new word and its meaning. We can
reasonably describe these experienced foreign language learners
as being active in their approach to this task.
128 Language Learning Vol. 46, No. 1

With reference t o our first research question, clearly the

great majority of the procedures observed in this group involved
some form of repetition of the new words and their meanings,
mostly a simple reading of the dictionary-like entries or repeti-
tions of the word-meaning complexes. In this respect, these
students behaved in a manner typical of other language students
with whom we have worked. Such students see repetition as a
procedure of major importance for vocabulary acquisition; this
view is supported by research such as that of Wang et al. (1993).
The use of a repetition procedure can be seen as relevant t o a
situation where the retention interval is relatively short, as was
the case in our study.
The retention interval was not a trivial feature of the study.
All students were required to retain meanings of new words for
periods in excess of 15minutes, and to do this for a list the length
of which would be beyond their immediate memory span. The
memory load was, therefore, significant; meanings that were not
available for recall at the end of the learning phase would not be
available at longer retention intervals.
The relationship between use of particular types of strate-
gies and recall of word meanings was the second research ques-
tion. The students gave relatively little attention t o the physical
or grammatical features of words, and evidenced much less use of
more elaborative acquisition procedures. Although most of the
students did use the available contextual cues for generation of
word meanings, they typically used this procedure on about one
third of the new words. This procedure was not, however,
associated with successful recall of the word meanings. In con-
trast, the paraphrase and deliberate mnemonic strategies, though
infrequently used, were both associated with success in recall.
There was no evidence of use of the full keyword procedure, and
mnemonic procedures similar t o some component of the keyword
method were used by only 3 students.
We cannot conclude on the basis of these findings that these
students had not acquired the more elaborative procedures. How-
ever, the findings suggest that they were more inclined to use
 Lawson and Hogben 129

procedures that did not involve the development of specific inter-

relationships among features of the word-meaning complex, even
though such procedures were less strongly associated with suc-
cessful recall than were the complex elaborations. The pattern of
correlations set out in Table 2 is compatible with our introductory
position: that elaborative procedures are more useful for recall
than are those based on repetition. If this is the case, and if
students are not aware of the advantages of these procedures for
some vocabulary acquisition situations, there is a need t o press
this point more directly during language teaching.
The use of contextual clues for generation of meaning from
context was our final research question. The clear anomaly in the
correlational analysis is that relating to complex use of context. In
classifying this form of strategic activity as a form of complex
elaboration, we reasoned that the act of drawing out relationships
between parts of the sentence on the basis of known words would
establish strong links between the new word and other known
words. These links could then be used to facilitate the retrieval of
the meaning later. However, this type of activity was not in fact
associated with high levels of recall.
In seeking to understand this anomaly, we note the argu-
ment made by Nation and Coady (1988). They suggested that the
very richness of a given context may actually militate against its
usefulness for acquisition of the meaning of a particular word for
long-term use:
Indeed the very redundancy or richness of information in
a given context which enables a reader to guess an un-
known word successfullycould also predict that that same
reader is less likely to learn the word because he or she was
able t o comprehend the text without knowing the word.
(p. 101)
In this view the richness of the context can inhibit the degree of
elaboration of the new word. In the short term, the high level of
support available from the sentence context can suggest the
meaning. What Nation and Coady argued is that this may not be
advantageous for long-term retrieval of word meaning.
130 Language Learning Vol. 46, No. 1

The pattern of our results related t o this issue is of particular

interest. Our study was designed so that half of the sentences
contained cues that could be used to generate possible meanings
for the new words. The results in Table 3 show that these clue-
present sentences did encourage greater use of context of a more
complex type. It is also clear from Table 3 that the difference in
use of context associated with the two types of sentences was not
dramatic. On 46%of the clue-present sentences the students did
not use the contextual clues, instead moving straight to the back
of the card to read the dictionary-like entries for the new words.
This pattern may have been encouraged by the ready avail-
ability of the dictionary-like definitions. However, the lack of
association between use of context and recall of meaning is of
major interest. Even when students did use the clues provided in
the sentences t o generate a possible meaning for the new words,
this procedure did not appear to help them establish representa-
tion for the meanings of the words. Why should this apparently
more associative procedure have this effect, and be so different in
effect compared with procedures that involved simple repetition
and identification of the appearance of the word or its sound?
The observations of Nation & Coady (1988) strengthen the
position, discussed in our introduction, that there is a need to
reconsider the position of context use for vocabulary acquisition.
When the context is rich in cues for the word meaning, the reader
need not engage in any detailed examination of the word or its
features. The rich context is sufficient for generation of a likely
meaning; the reader might pay little attention to the word itself.
Having generated a likely meaning for the unknown word from
this supportive context, the reader might then comprehend the
meaning of that part of the passage and so pass on quickly to the
remainder. Mondria and Wit-de Boer (1991) offered a similar
explanation for their finding that their “pregnant contexts” did
not result in improved word retention by students learning French
vocabulary. In their words: “We may submit [as an explanation]
that the inherent difficulty of guessing in highly pregnant con-
texts is too low to bring about a positive learning effect” (p. 262).
 Lawson and Hogben 131

Aless rich context, or an unsupportive one, would require the

reader t o pay more attention t o a detailed analysis of the word. In
that case, ifthe reader wished t o build a representation ofthe text,
it would be necessary to use other deliberate procedures for
analysis of the word. In our view, the long-term effect of use of
these procedures in an attempt to build this representation will
depend on the degree of elaboration of the word-meaning complex.
The pattern of results in Tables 2 and 3 suggests that
although most of these experienced language learners knew how
to use contextual clues, they were not convinced that this proce-
dure should be used on many of the unknown words they were
studying. Further, when they did use contextual clues, the
observed correlations between context use and recall suggest that
the clues were not being used t o generate meaning from context.
So there is a need t o distinguish between the use of context
for generation of meaning of a new word and the use of context for
acquisition of the meaning for subsequent recall. The latter use
requires some attention to the features of the word-meaning
complex. Our results support the view that this attention is best
concerned with use of a variety of procedures, including ones
involving some complex form of elaboration. Haastrup’s (1991)
findings from her study of lexical inferencing support this view. In
her study, performance was facilitated when participants drew on
several levels of inference. The analysis of the individual profiles
of the high- and low-scoring students also supports this position.
The more successful students were generally more active in their
use of the information made available to them, and showed
evidence of being able t o access a wider range of acquisition
procedures, including the more complex elaboration procedures.
Generating a possible meaning for an unknown word by
using contextual cues can lead t o development of a suitable
representation of the sentence or passage of text. The reader may
therefore be able to comprehend the sentence or text. Although
this comprehension purpose can be seen as distinct from the case
where the reader interrupts the comprehension exercise t o em-
ploy a deliberate vocabulary acquisition procedure with an un-
132 Language Learning Vol. 46, No. 1

known word, the former case will not necessarily preclude that
vocabulary acquisition. As Craik and Lockhart (1972) argued in
their major reorientation of research on retention effects, the
nature of the processing carried out with new items of informa-
tion, rather than the intention to remember, governs the long-
term retention outcome. Thus, the reader who is primarily
concerned with development of a suitable text representation-
one who has a Comprehensionpurpose-may engage in processing
that is effective for long-term retention. Conversely, the reader
whose purpose is deliberate vocabulary acquisition could employ
procedures that are not effective for long-term retention: The less
successful students in our study provide illustrations of this
second case. Hence, the distinction sometimes drawn between
comprehension and learning purposes is useful as a heuristic
device, but is not necessarily predictive of retention outcomes.
That this distinction between learning and comprehension
purposes can be justified does not imply that it can be usefully
extended toprocesses of learning and comprehension. The distinc-
tion based on purpose suggests that the learner makes a decision
about the length of time over which the meaning of the new word
must be held. For comprehension purposes, this interval may be
no more than one minute, thereby allowing the reader to build a
representation of the meaning of the sentence without establish-
ing a strong representation of the word-meaning complex. How-
ever, the processes of both learning and comprehension require
that learners establish a representation of meaning in memory:
the difference between learning and comprehension processes is
more one of degree than of kind.
Revised version accepted 15 September 1995

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