Which Elements Matter? Constructing Word Cards for English Vocabulary Growth

Barry Lee Reynolds, Wei-Hua Wu and Ying-Chun Shih

SAGE Open, 2020, vol. 10, issue 2, 2158244020919512

Abstract: An English reading class of 10th graders ( N = 50) was asked to self-construct English word cards for unknown vocabulary incidentally encountered when completing textbook readings. The students were assigned this task to determine what linguistic and nonlinguistic elements they would self-select to include on the cards and whether the appearance of those particular self-selected elements affect English vocabulary growth. Learners’ second language (L2) vocabulary size was assessed before and after the investigation, and learners’ self-constructed word cards were subjected to qualitative analysis uncovering additional “elements†included on the cards that were not suggested by the classroom teacher. Among the uncovered “element†themes (i.e., Formulaic Language, Word Formation, Additional Language Features, Creativity, Misunderstanding, and Carelessness), Word Formation was found to correlate significantly with L2 vocabulary growth. A multiple regression model accounted for 15.8% of the variance in vocabulary growth of which word formation explained the most variance, yielding a medium effect. A critical discussion of findings is provided in connection with previous literature to elucidate the feasibility of incorporating word card construction into L2 classroom instruction while also providing teachers suggestions on implementing a word card construction component into their classes.

Keywords: L2 vocabulary; word cards; vocabulary acquisition; L2 vocabulary growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244020919512 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:sagope:v:10:y:2020:i:2:p:2158244020919512

DOI: 10.1177/2158244020919512

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in SAGE Open
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().