Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition via Reading for Pleasure

Abstract

This study intends to examine the incidental acquisition of vocabulary through reading for pleasure versus the intentional acquisition through the traditional method among the third grade students of high school in Iran, Shahre-Kord. The methodology: A group of 80 students were selected randomly from among the third grade students and a proficiency placement test already piloted with another similar group was given to them to build two homogenous groups and the extreme items were deleted. Students who scored between +-2SD were selected and divided into a control group and an experimental group. A pretest of vocabulary consisting of 48 unfamiliar vocabulary items extracted from eight short stories supposed to be used in the study was given to both groups. After analyzing, items known by 10% or so were excluded. The treatment: The experimental group was given eight short stories during 10-15 minutes of each class session. The new words occurred only once or twice in the short stories. The control group received no treatment, just were asked to read the 40 new vocabulary items in a list, accompanied with their L1 (Persian) equivalents. Then, a post-test consisting of the same 40 items was given to both groups. Statistical t-test showed no significant difference between the mean scores of the proficiency tests and the pre-tests in both groups. But, the t-test between the mean scores of post-tests yielded a significant difference at 0.5 level of significance between two groups, i.e., the amount of acquisition of vocabulary in the experimental group was higher than that of the control group.