An Investigation of Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition in Relation to Learner Proficiency Level and Word Frequency教材.pdfVIP

220 SUMMER 2006 An Investigation of Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition in Relation to Learner Proficiency Level and Word Frequency E. Anne Ferrell Tekmen WakeTechnical Community College Ay9egul Daloglu Middle East Technical University Abstract: This study examined the relationship between learners’ incidental vocabulary acquisition and their level ofproficiency, and between acquisition and word frequency in a text. Participants were Turkish learners of English at three proficiency levels. One reading text andfour vocabulary tests were administered over a two-week period. Analyses of the data revealed that lexical gains from reading were significant for each group (p .05). The higher proficiency groups were able to acquire more words than lower level groups. Word frequency in the text was also a signijicant fac- tor in vocabulary acquisition (p ,051,with 29% of the variance in acquisition being accounted for by frequency. However, frequency did not play a greater role in the vocabulary acquisition of lower level learners than in that of higher level learners. Key words: implicit and explicit instruction, incidental acquisition, reading, vocabu- lary acquisition, word frequency Languages:English, Turkish Introduction Many second language acquisition (SLA) researchers believe that sufficient lexical knowledge is the essential component in developing language proficiency (Grabe Stoller, 1997). In the past three decades, research has increasingly stressed the importance of lexis (Maley, 1986; Richards, 1976; Stoller Grabe, 1993). This trend has gradually