Article published in:
EUROSLA Yearbook: Volume 1 (2001)Edited by Susan H. Foster-Cohen and Anna Nizegorodcew
[EUROSLA Yearbook 1] 2001
► pp. 29–49
The acquisition of word meanings while reading in English as a foreign language
Halina Chodkiewicz | University of Lublin
This paper represents an exploration into the effectiveness and nature of vocabulary acquisition through reading in English as a foreign language. The subjects, Polish learners of English, were instructed to read three newspaper articles for comprehension while performing three reading tasks: ‘read only’, read for the main ideas, and read for selected information. Their gains in the knowledge of 60 potentially least known words were then measured. It was found that although all the students showed some vocabulary gains, the medium- and high-proficiency students profited more than the low-proficiency students. The while-reading tasks had a modest effect on learning unfamiliar lexical items, with the ‘read only’ task proving slightly more efficient than the other two tasks. The data did not support the hypothesis that increasing text comprehensibility promotes a proportional increase in vocabulary acquisition.
Published online: 31 August 2001
https://doi.org/10.1075/eurosla.1.06cho
https://doi.org/10.1075/eurosla.1.06cho
Cited by
Cited by 4 other publications
Abbasian, Gholam-Reza & Banafsheh Arianezhad
Chodkiewicz, Halina
Rott, Susanne
Shokouh, Ali & Kian Pishkar
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 09 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.