The study explored the impact of proficiency, frequency, L1-L2 congruency, and semantic transparency on the knowledge of multi-word units (MWUs) among Iranian L2 learners (N = 256). A gap-filling test was used to assess learners' productive knowledge, employing a high-frequency MWU list created with the lemmatised concgramming method. The list,…

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; Vilkaite-Lozdiene & Schmitt, 2020). The lexical unit (word types, lemmas, flemmas, word…

This research explored the effectiveness of using the word network technique to teach English vocabulary to first graders in Thai Primary schools. The 150 top-frequency words used in three nationally-used textbooks were inventoried. The list of the words then was compared with the list proposed by the Ministry of Education, Thailand. The combined…

Vocabulary research provides valuable information on the construct of word knowledge (WK), and suggests ways to develop language learners' lexicon, arguably, the backbone of communication. The present study explores EFL students' vocabulary learning behavior; more specifically, the aspects of WK components they intentionally focus on when learning…

Purpose: This study attempts to evaluate the effect of the corpus-based inductive teaching approach with multiple academic corpora (PICA, CAEC and Oxford Corpus of Academic English) and conventional deductive teaching approach (i.e., multiple-choice items, filling the gap, matching and underlining) on learning academic collocations by Iranian…

This study investigates the relationship between depth of academic vocabulary knowledge and academic success among Saudi English-as-a-foreign-language university students. Fifty fourth-year university students majoring in English completed a vocabulary depth test, the Word Associates Test (WAT), based on the Academic Word List (AWL). Then,…

A gloss refers to a short definition or explanation of the meaning of a word in a text that can assist learners in reading comprehension and vocabulary learning. This study aims to investigate how glosses in English academic texts affect the reading behaviour of ESL undergraduates while reading is taking place. In addition, it also examines the…

This study explored the effects of three types of lexical tools (MOOCs, E-dictionaries, and lexical concordancers) and three types of lexical applications (technology-mediated communication-based applications (TMCA), Anki as an e-flashcard application, and WordUp as a dedicated lexical application) on learning academic core words among a sample of…

VocQGen is an automated tool designed to generate multiple-choice cloze (MCC) questions for vocabulary assessment in second language learning contexts. It leverages several natural language processing (NLP) tools and OpenAI's GPT-4 model to produce MCC items quickly from user-specified word lists. To evaluate its effectiveness, we used the first…

The awarding organizations that create and administer high-stakes assessments for beginner-to-low-intermediate 16-year-old learners of French, German, and Spanish in England provide optional topic-driven word lists as guides for teachers and textbook writers. Given that these lists are developed by the awarding organizations, they exert a powerful…

Word frequency has a long history of being considered the most important predictor of word difficulty and has served as a guideline for several aspects of second language vocabulary teaching, learning, and assessment. However, recent empirical research has challenged the supremacy of frequency as a predictor of word difficulty. Accordingly,…

To have more information about the English words known by second language (L2) speakers, we ran a large-scale crowdsourcing vocabulary test, which yielded 17 million useful responses. It provided us with a list of 445 words known to nearly all participants. The list was compared to various existing lists of words advised to include in the first…

Growing research suggests that digital flashcards may facilitate students' technical vocabulary learning efforts. The primary purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to compare the effect of digital flashcards (DFs) and wordlists on learning technical vocabulary as well as to explore students' perceptions regarding the use of DFs. Using…

Studies of lexical coverage are valuable because they reveal the importance of vocabulary knowledge to comprehension. Lexical profiling research is also extremely useful because it indicates the vocabulary knowledge necessary to understand different text types such as novels, newspapers, academic lectures, television programs, and movies.…

The purposes of this study were to: (1) build an appropriate model for predicting primary schoolchildren's English vocabulary knowledge; (2) examine whether the developed model applies to new data; and (3) discuss how to apply the model to L2 vocabulary instruction. More specifically, the study asked third- and fourth-grade public primary school…