This study investigates the idea that knowledge of specialist subject vocabulary can make a significant and measurable impact on academic performance, separate from and additional to the impact of general and academic vocabulary knowledge. It tests the suggestion of Hyland and Tse (TESOL Quarterly, 41:235-253, 2007) that specialist vocabulary…

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…

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…

This paper reports an investigation into whether a test of productive vocabulary size using a category generation task can be useful and effective. A category generation task is a simple task where learners are asked to name as many as words as they can from a prescribed category such as "animals" or "body" parts. The virtue of…

This study investigates word difficulty and learning among learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) in Saudi Arabia. Difficulty factors examined in the study include repetition of words in learners' EFL textbooks, word length and parts of speech, and adds a further consideration which is underexplored in the literature; word translation…

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…

Any description of what it means to know a word in a foreign language is likely to include recognition of form, both how a word sounds when heard and what it looks like when written. However, tests of vocabulary knowledge focus almost exclusively on the written form of the word. We have little idea of learners' phonological vocabulary knowledge or…