Incidental Vocabulary Learning by Advanced Foreign Language Students: The Influence of Marginal Glosses, Dictionary Use, and Reoccurrence

of Unknown Words

y Jan H. Hulstijn, Merel Hollander & Tine Greidanus, (1996), The

Modern Language Journal , 80, iii

Section 1-Introduction
y Extensive (2L) reading is good for vocabulary acquisition.
(Brown, 1994; Grabe,1991; Nation, 1990; Swaffar, Aens, & Byrnes, 1991)

y As (1L) reading leads to (1L) vocabulary growth.

(Sternberg, 1987; Nagy, Anderson,& Herman,1987)

y It has been shown that advanced (2L) learners have a large

receptive vocabulary knowledge. y This knowledge cannot have been learned by intentional learning. y Thus, Many words are acquired during listening and reading when the learner s aim is to comprehend the meaning rather than to learn new words.(incidental learning) y Incidental learning is defined as spontaneous learning without intention.

y But, many readers fail to learn the meaning of unknown words

 Learners fail to notice the presence of unfamiliar words or claim of knowing it.  They notice the presence of unfamiliar words but they ignore them.  They pay attention to the meaning and Ignore the form.  They make erroneous inferences, so learn words incorrectly.

encountered in texts for one or several of the following reasons:

 When they have a dictionary, they do not look up all unknown words, especially for long

text.  the number of unknown words occurrence.

y Some factors might promote incidental vocabulary learning:

 Inferred meanings are better than given meaning, but sometimes the meaning is inferred     

incorrectly. Readers tend to pay more attention to words which are considered to be relevant to understand than irrelevant words. Using a dictionary has positive effects on incidental vocabulary learning. Marginal glosses help to understand the text. If the meaning of unknown words are given in the (1L), it will be more effective than (2L). Words occurring frequently in a text are more likely to be acquired than words occurring only once .

Section 2-In this study:

y 78 Dutch first-year university students of French read a French short story under three conditions:

1.

Marginal Glosses (MG).

L1 translation of target, unfamiliar words are provided. Free bilingual dictionary can be used.

2. Dictionary (D). 3. Control (C).

No marginal glosses nor dictionary, infer meaning or ignore from text.

y After reading, students were tested for their receptive knowledge of the 16 target words.

2 hypotheses:
y Retention of the meaning of unfamiliar target words

will be higher in the MG than in the D condition, and the lowest in the C condition. y Retention of the exact meaning of unfamiliar target words, MG students will profit most from reoccurrence, C student will profit least; D student will profit moderately.

Testing materials:
y Recognition and Recall test.
Recognize the 16 isolated target words from the list, and translate them

y Measure preknowledge of the target words.

Show the part-of-speech of the target words, and asked if they know these words before

y Provide the meaning of target words again.

Translate the 16 target words again, but given in the context from the a few lines taken from the original text

Section 3 - Conclusions
y Summary of the article s review of the incidental

learning testing findings, discussion of those findings and recommendations for teachers

Some general conclusions reached about incidental learning from the testing were:

Some general conclusions reached about incidental learning from the testing were:
1. As predicted in Hypothesis 2 of the article, the frequency of the appearance of target words in the text impacted on the retention of word meanings, but only exact word meanings, not exact plus partial word meanings.

Some general conclusions reached about incidental learning from the testing were:
1. As predicted in Hypothesis 2 of the article, the frequency of the appearance of target words in the text impacted on the retention of word meanings, but only exact word meanings, not exact plus partial word meanings. This would, therefore, not affect the Marginal Glosses (MG) group because they were already given the exact meanings of target words.

2.

Some general conclusions reached about incidental learning from the testing were:
1. As predicted in Hypothesis 2 of the article, the frequency of the appearance of target words in the text impacted on the retention of word meanings, but only exact word meanings, not exact plus partial word meanings. This would, therefore, not affect the Marginal Glosses (MG) group because they were already given the exact meanings of target words. Dictionary (D) group, who actively sought the meaning of F3 target words by consulting the dictionary were therefore expected to and did, in fact gain from the greater appearance frequency of target words because they were motivated to discover their meaning due to perceived relevance , (Hulstijn, 1996, 335)

2. 3.

Some general conclusions reached about incidental learning from the testing were:
1. As predicted in Hypothesis 2 of the article, the frequency of the appearance of target words in the text impacted on the retention of word meanings, but only exact word meanings, not exact plus partial word meanings. This would, therefore, not affect the Marginal Glosses (MG) group because they were already given the exact meanings of target words. Dictionary (D) group, who actively sought the meaning of F3 target words by consulting the dictionary were therefore expected to and did, in fact gain from the greater appearance frequency of target words because they were motivated to discover their meaning due to perceived relevance , (Hulstijn, 1996, 335) While students in the D group referred to their dictionaries for only 12% of the target words in the main test, post-testing revealed that their retention was likely to be superior to that of the MG group.

2. 3.

4.

Some general conclusions reached about incidental learning from the testing were:
1. As predicted in Hypothesis 2 of the article, the frequency of the appearance of target words in the text impacted on the retention of word meanings, but only exact word meanings, not exact plus partial word meanings. This would, therefore, not affect the Marginal Glosses (MG) group because they were already given the exact meanings of target words. Dictionary (D) group, who actively sought the meaning of F3 target words by consulting the dictionary were therefore expected to and did, in fact gain from the greater appearance frequency of target words because they were motivated to discover their meaning due to perceived relevance , (Hulstijn, 1996, 335) While students in the D group referred to their dictionaries for only 12% of the target words in the main test, post-testing revealed that their retention was likely to be superior to that of the MG group. The provision of marginal glosses did aid students incidental vocabulary learning. The MG group s retention scores were twice as good or better than the D group s. However, it is pointed out that these figures might be misleading in terms of the type of test taken (T1 the Reading test is a better measure of incidental learning than T3, a test with contextual cues provided, for instance) and in terms of the quality of that retention.

2. 3.

4.

5.

Recommendations
Several points, relevant to teachers and material developers, about the impact of the use marginal glosses and dictionaries on incidental learning were discovered during the course of the research, according to the authors. The most important of these led to the recommendation that since it has been demonstrated that incidental learning plays a vital role in L2 learners vocabulary acquisition, extensive reading should always be encouraged. However, the authors go on to say that reading for global meaning alone is insufficient; a wide range of elaborating activities are necessary to enhance students reading experience in as many ways as possible, thereby nourishing the incidental vocabulary learning process in particular, and L2 language acquisition generally.

Section 4- Comments
The review group found the report to be impressively thorough in its methodology and its attention to detail, especially with regard to the use of controls. The subsequent data set produced is therefore almost certainly reliable. However, it was felt that further research into the subject is essential, as indeed is acknowledged by the authors. Some examples of further possible areas of research, with the intention of extending the rather narrow scope of the original, include: 1. Due to the differences between French and English learning, this test might not be as adequate for English as it works for French. 2. It should consider lower level learners, as those learners may not be able to adopt the method well. 3. Marginal glosses and dictionaries should used to test incidental vocabulary learning of both higher and lower level L2 English learners.