ERIC Number: EJ993582
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012-Sep
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0742-7778
EISSN: N/A
Concordance-Based Glosses for Academic Vocabulary Acquisition
Poole, Robert
CALICO Journal, v29 n4 p679-693 Sep 2012
This study compares the effectiveness of online textual glosses enhanced with modified corpus-extracted sentences presented in concordance lines and textual glosses enhanced with dictionary definitions drawn from an online learner's dictionary for academic vocabulary learning at higher proficiency levels. Particularly, the study aimed to determine which textual gloss technique would be most beneficial in helping intermediate to advanced language learners, who likely possess foundational receptive knowledge (i.e. they recognize the word and know the definition), gain productive knowledge of academic lexical items. While the usefulness of multimedia and pictorial glosses are not disputed, lexical items from an academic word list may not be easily glossed through these techniques, and the development of a concordance-based modality may prove beneficial for more proficient learners seeking productive vocabulary knowledge. Also investigated were learner attitudes towards the textual annotation techniques. Participants in both experimental groups exhibited post-test gains in receptive and judgment tasks, but only the concordance-based group displayed improvement on the productive assessment. Furthermore, the concordance-based group indicated that the glosses were beneficial and likely to be used for subsequent language study, while the dictionary group indicated the glosses would not be later used as the annotations were perceived as ineffective. (Contains 2 figures and 4 tables.)
Descriptors: Pretests Posttests, Experimental Groups, Control Groups, Foreign Students, Student Attitudes, Dictionaries, Academic Discourse, Computational Linguistics, Word Lists, Sentences, Vocabulary Development, Learning Strategies, Freshman Composition, Web Sites, Computer Assisted Instruction, Second Language Learning, English (Second Language), Second Language Instruction, College Students, College Instruction, Statistical Analysis, Comparative Analysis
Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium. 214 Centennial Hall, 601 University Drive, San Marcos, TX 78666. Tel: 512-245-1417; Fax: 512-245-9089; e-mail: info@calico.org: Web site: http://calico.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A