DIFFERENTIAL EFFECTS OF SENTENCE WRITING AND CONTEXTUAL READING IN SECOND LANGUAGE VOCABULARY LEARNING

This study investigates the effect(s) of two different methods of teaching and learning vocabulary, namely writing novel sentences with new words and reading new words in context. Seventy English words, 30 target and 40 distracter words, were selected from a vocabulary book to be taught and tested. Sixty university students majoring in English translation studies volunteered for the study. They were randomly assigned to two groups, one of them receiving sentence writing method (G1) and the other receiving contextual reading method (G2). To realize if the participants differed significantly in terms of their knowledge of the target words, both groups were required to provide the L1 equivalent of each of the words. While G1 viewed each of the selected words alongside its English definition one by one on an overhead projector screen and was given one minute to write an English sentence using each word, G2 read each word in four short contexts after viewing the English definition of each. Immediate and delayed post-tests on receptive vocabulary knowledge were administered. According to the results, G1 showed more improvement of knowledge of the target vocabulary than G2 on the immediate and post-test and more retention on the delayed post-test.