Graded readers are a great asset to learners acquiring the vocabulary of another language. Homonyms, on the other hand, are a recognized source of trouble for students with that same goal. Publishers of graded readers control the presentation of old and new words, but does this control extend to homonyms? Are only the word forms controlled for--in…

In response to McLean (2021), Laufer (2021) makes three claims which are either not supported by research or are based on studies with important limitations. First is that a vocabulary size, instead of a level, can be used to match learners with lexically appropriate materials despite test creators and research not supporting this. Second is that…

The study investigated the effect of marginal glossing and frequency of occurrence on the incidental learning of six aspects of vocabulary knowledge through reading in the second language (L2) Chinese. Participants were 30 intermediate L2 Chinese learners in an American public university. The MACOVA tests indicated that the treatment group who…

This study used many-faceted Rasch measurement to investigate the difficulty of graded readers using a 3-item survey. Book difficulty was compared with Kyoto Level, Yomiyasusa Level, Lexile Level, book length, mean sentence length, and mean word frequency. Word frequency and Kyoto Level were found to be ineffective in predicting students'…

Jeff McQuillan offers case studies of intermediate level language learners who read young adult and adult fiction successfully as an argument against explicit vocabulary instruction. Case studies provide useful insights into whatever is being investigated but may not always be generalizable. However, McQuillan's reference to case studies has made…

This study looks at how much input is needed to gain enough repetition of the 1st 9,000 words of English for learning to occur. It uses corpora of various sizes and composition to see how many tokens of input would be needed to gain at least twelve repetitions and to meet most of the words at eight of the nine 1000 word family levels. Corpus sizes…

This study compares the impact of second language (L2) reading and listening on the incidental acquisition and retention of five dimensions of vocabulary knowledge--spoken form, written form, part of speech, syntagmatic association, and form-meaning connection--at the level of recognition (form-meaning connection was measured also at the level of…

This paper aims to be an introduction to the General Service List (GSL) that brings together descriptive data with material otherwise dispersed throughout the literature. The discussion first provides an historical overview of the work that scholars, researchers, and educators used as foundations for the manufacturing of the GSL. Following, a…

The present study addressed the role of speed as a factor in tests of second language (L2) vocabulary knowledge, presupposing that speed of performance is important in actual language use. Research questions were: (a) Do learners with a larger vocabulary size answer faster on an L2 vocabulary breadth test than smaller vocabulary sized learners?;…

Texts are routinely simplified for language learners with authors relying on a variety of approaches and materials to assist them in making the texts more comprehensible. Readability measures are one such tool that authors can use when evaluating text comprehensibility. This study compares the Coh-Metrix Second Language (L2) Reading Index, a…

Opportunities for incidental vocabulary acquisition were explored in a 121,000-word corpus of teacher talk addressed to advanced adult learners of English as a second language (ESL) in a communicatively-oriented conversation class. In contrast to previous studies that relied on short excerpts, the corpus contained all of the teacher speech the…

Second language vocabulary can be learned incidentally while the learner is engaged in extensive reading or reading for meaning, inferring the meaning of unknown words (Huckin & Coady, 1999; Hulstijn, 1992; Krashen, 1993; Pigada & Schmitt, 2006). 12 Korean learners of English read authentic literary texts and were tested on their knowledge of…

A word frequency study of two graded readers and an unsimplified text indicated that graded readers facilitated better foreign-language reading and vocabulary learning than did unsimplified texts. It was found that students needed to read several same-level texts to master vocabulary, and that vocabulary mastery was not necessary for successful…

A statistical study of 100,000 words from medical English literature to determine the core lexis of medicine across specialties is reported. It is suggested that both the research procedure and the results are applicable to instruction in reading medical English for professional purposes. (MSE)

Subtechnical vocabulary includes items that are neither highly technical nor obviously general, and rhetorical/organizational items are in this category. They serve to signal the writer's intentions or his/her evaluation of the material presented. A technique for identifying subtechnical items is explained. Three identified items are analyzed, and…