The vocabulary content of the French MFL curriculum in England has received criticism (Häcker, M. 2008. Eleven pets and 20 ways to express one's opinion: the vocabulary learners of German acquire at English secondary schools. "The Language Learning Journal" 36, no. 2: 215-26; Tschichold, C. 2012. French vocabulary in Encore…

This study describes a vocabulary size test in Arabic used with 339 native speaking learners at school and university in Saudi Arabia. Native speaker vocabulary size scores should provide targets for attainment for learners of Arabic, should inform the writers of course books and teaching materials, and the test itself should allow learners to…

Language learning strategies are not confined to the classroom but can be extended to cover the whole context of learning. Where learners are part of a minority language group within a much larger national language environment, this context can include the language used for everyday life in the home. It might be thought that enhanced exposure…

Case studies in lexical uptake suggest that some well reported language learning strategies, such as extensive reading and listening to songs, can be quantified accurately in terms of time spent on task and the nature of the vocabulary input they provide. These studies also show that these strategies can link very convincingly to growth in…

On-line virtual 3D worlds offer the opportunity for users to interact in real time with native speakers of the language they are learning. In principle, this ought to be of great benefit to learners, and mimicking the opportunity for immersion that real-life travel to a foreign country offers. We have very little research to show whether this is…

Research repeatedly reports very little vocabulary uptake by English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in public schools in Saudi Arabia. Factors such as the teaching methodology employed and learner motivation have been suggested to explain this but a further explanation, the vocabulary input these learners receive, remains uninvestigated. An…

It is common to encourage foreign-language learners to use their language outside the classroom and to read books and papers, listen to songs and watch films in the foreign language. One of the benefits which are thought to accrue from these activities is that learners can build good vocabularies. It has even been argued that casual exposure to…

There is an acknowledged difficulty in demonstrating that the standard of school exams remains constant over the years. It is a source of debate every summer when exam results come out. There is some evidence that foreign language exams, and French in particular, have declined in standard since the 1980s, but empirical measures to demonstrate this…

Examined the foreign-language-learning abilities of 14- to 15-year olds in Britain, Germany, and Greece. Comparison of results from tests of students' foreign vocabulary knowledge indicated that British students had only one-third to one-half of the foreign language vocabulary knowledge of Greek and German students. They also spent less time…