A Reader Response to File and Adams’s “The Reality, Robustness, and Possible Superiority of Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition”

THE FORUM TESOL Quarterly invites commentary on current trends or practices in the TESOL profession It also welcomes responses to rebuttals to any articles or remarks published here in The Forum or elsewhere in the Quarterly A Reader Response to File and Adams’s ‘‘The Reality, Robustness, and Possible Superiority of Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition’’ BENIKO MASON Shitennoji University Osaka, Japan STEPHEN KRASHEN University of Southern California Los Angeles, California, United States doi: 10.5054/tq.2010.238721 & File and Adams (2010) conclude that their data confirm the superiority of form-focused vocabulary instruction over incidental acquisition In our view, their data actually confirm the reality, robustness, and possible superiority of incidental acquisition Their subjects heard two passages read to them that contained target words that were set in bold and were explained either before or during the course of the reading There were also target words in each passage that were not explained or set in bold, as a test of incidental acquisition The gains in word knowledge were indeed greater for the taught words, but the gains for the incidental words were impressive, despite the fact that the conditions for acquisition were far from ideal In addition, incidental learning might have been more efficient: There was more time devoted to the taught words Subjects improved 3.4 points on incidental words, from pretest to delayed posttest (from 19.6 to 23; Table 1; perfect score 60) Each fully acquired or learned word was worth points, with fewer points awarded for partial knowledge Thus, the gain for incidental word learning was equivalent to about 2/3 of the full meaning of one word, or an overall gain of about 6%, a result remarkably similar to that found for children reading in English as a first language (Nagy, Herman, & Anderson, 1985) This is quite impressive considering that the reading 790 TESOL QUARTERLY Vol 44, No 4, December 2010 was not self-selected, and subjects had to follow along while the text was read to them Also, the passages were demanding: Our analysis of Article using the Text Word Frequency Analyzer at http://www.edict.com.hk revealed that only 78% of the words were from the most frequent 2000 Students were given a reading comprehension test, but File and Adams did not share the results In contrast, under the isolated focus-on-form condition (words taught before the passage was read), the gain was 7.1 points (from 18 on the pretest to 25.1 on the delayed posttest), equivalent to about 1K words, a 12% gain In the integrated focus-onform condition, with words explained during the course of reading the passage, the gain was 6.3 (from 18.3 to 24.6), or 1Mwords, a 10.5% gain The gain for instructed words was greater, but students had more exposure to these words: Considerable time was taken to explain their meanings (although the exact amount of additional time used to explain meanings was not specified; File &Adams, 2010, pp 231–232) Thus, it may be the case that the incidental condition was as efficient or even more efficient than the focus-on-form conditions, in terms of vocabulary acquisition per unit of time.1 It should also be pointed out that the focuson-form words were rapidly forgotten, with scores plummeting between the immediate posttest and the delayed posttest, given only 16 days after the treatment This was not the case for incidentally acquired words (see Table and Figure 1, from data in File & Adams, 2010, Table 2) DISCUSSION Even if it were established that focus-on-form vocabulary1 development is as efficient or even more efficient than incidental learning, incidental acquisition has major advantages Reading results in much more than vocabulary development: It contributes to grammatical competence, writing ability, spelling, and more knowledge of the world (Krashen, 2004) In addition, it is, for most people, interesting and TABLE Pretest, Posttest, and Delayed Test Results Incidental Integrated Isolated Pretest Posttest Delayed 19.6 18.3 18 21.9 33.6 37.1 23 24.6 25.1 Note: Focus-on-form conditions: incidental, integrated, isolated (see text for explanation) Mason’s studies consistently show that developing vocabulary knowledge through hearing stories is more efficient than focus-on-form vocabulary exercises (Mason, 2007; Mason & Krashen, 2004; Mason, Vanata, Jander, Borsch, & Krashen, 2009) THE FORUM 791 FIGURE Test results pleasant, making it likely that acquirers will continue doing it The same cannot be said for form-based activities It has been hypothesized that language acquisition proceeds optimally when acquirers encounter a great deal of input that is comprehensible and extremely interesting, even compelling (Krashen, 2004) It is unlikely that the passages used in this study were compelling; they were difficult, and the segments were short If we want to see the full potential of reading for vocabulary development, we should examine vocabulary acquisition in situations in which these conditions are met THE AUTHORS Beniko Mason is on the faculty of Shitennoji University in Osaka, Japan Some of her publications are found at www.benikomason.net Stephen Krashen taught at the University of Southern California Some of his publications can be found at www.sdkrashen.com REFERENCES File, K A., & Adams, R (2010) Should vocabulary instruction be integrated or isolated? TESOL Quarterly, 44(2), 222–249 doi: 10.5054/tq.2010.219943 Krashen, S (2004) The power of reading Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann; Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited Mason, B (2007, November) The efficiency of self-selected reading and hearing stories on adult second language acquisition Selected Papers from the Sixteenth International 792 TESOL QUARTERLY Symposium on English Teaching, English Teachers’ Association/ROC Taipei, pp 630–633 Mason, B., & Krashen, S (2004) Is form-focused vocabulary instruction worth-while? RELC Journal, 35(2), 179–185 doi: 10.1177/003368820403500206 Mason, B., Vanata, M., Jander, K., Borsch, R., & Krashen, S (2009) The effects and efficiency of hearing stories on vocabulary acquisition by students of German as a second foreign language in Japan The Indonesian Journal of English Language Teaching, 5(1), 1–14 Nagy, R., Herman, P., & Anderson, R (1985) Learning words from context Reading Research Quarterly, 20, 233–253 doi: 10.2307/747758 The Authors Reply KIERAN A FILE Victoria University of Wellington Wellington, New Zealand REBECCA ADAMS University of Auckland Auckland, New Zealand doi: 10.5054/tq.2010.238720 & We would like to thank Mason and Krashen for their comments on our recent article published in TESOL Quarterly They have provided an interesting reinterpretation of our results and have also brought up several valid points regarding the efficiency of vocabulary learning from instruction, especially with regard to attrition We take the opportunity below to respond to several of the points made by Mason and Krashen A growing body of research has found that form-focused instruction can lead to favourable learning gains (Hill & Laufer, 2003; Knight, 1994; Laufer, 2003; Paribakht & Wesche, 1997; Watanabe, 1997) What has yet to be thoroughly explored is the timing of such form-focused instruction and whether timing of instruction has an effect on the learning and retention of vocabulary items (Spada & Lightbown, 2008) It was our focus in the current study to examine two of the commonly employed choices that teachers have at their disposal when providing focus on form during reading lessons: isolating instruction (before the reading lesson) or integrating it (during the reading lesson) Our data illustrated that form-focused instruction promoted learning, at least over the short term, but that there was no statistically significant difference detected between the two approaches to providing instruction While the main purpose of our study was to compare integrated and isolated instructional focus, we also examined incidental learning of lowfrequency vocabulary items for comparison purposes Mason and THE FORUM 793