L1 textual glosses and word repetition: Facilitative interventions for incidental vocabulary acquisition

Abstract

In the field of second language acquisition (SLA), a large base of research has shown the great influence of L2 reading on L2 vocabulary acquisition. Nevertheless, researchers have also found that acquiring new vocabulary happens rather gradually and in small amounts. Without altering the incidental nature of vocabulary acquisition through reading, this study aims at providing facilitative reading interventions in the form of L1 textual glosses and word frequency of occurrence (word repetition) to promote vocabulary growth. A total of 146 intermediate-level students from a local school were divided into two main groups: treatment and control groups. The treatment group was split into three sub-groups; a gloss (G) group which received only L1 (Arabic) textual glosses, a repetition (R) group which received only repetitions of the target words, and a gloss/repetition (G+R) group which received both L1 textual glosses and repetitions of the target words. The control group received typical instruction. For assessment purposes, I used a set of 10 tests of binary distinctions, receptive and productive measures to measure vocabulary growth. The results indicated that students in the G, R, and G+R group outperformed their counterparts in the control group. Moreover, it appeared that glossing alone was more effective than word repetition alone and that both glossing and repetition together were more efficient than glossing alone.