Introduction
A well-balanced language course has
opportunities for incidental learning and
deliberate learning. Incidental learning
occurs when learners are reading, writing,
listening, or speaking with their attention
focused on the message. In spite of the focus
on the message, they manage to learn some
new words and phrases or become familiar
with some unknown or partly known
grammatical constructions. Incidental
learning can occur through meaning-focused
input when the learners are listening or
reading, through meaning-focused output
when the learners are speaking or writing, or
through fluency development activities in
any of the four skills.
Most vocabulary learning for native
speakers occurs as incidental learning.
However, learners of English as a foreign
language need extra support in order for
incidental learning to occur. This is because
foreign language learners do not usually get
enough contact with the language and
enough contact with language which is at
the right level for them for incidental
learning to occur. The purpose of this article
is to look at how teachers can provide this
support through the careful design of
activities.
Let us first look in detail at a very effective
reading activity to see what conditions for
incidental learning it provides.
Vocabulary learning from extensive
reading
Extensive reading for foreign language
learners involves reading large quantities of
material which has been specially written to
be at the right vocabulary level for the
learners. The books which are most suitable
for extensive reading are called graded
readers and every major ELT publisher has
at least one and often several series of
graded readers. For example, Cambridge
University Press publishes the Cambridge
English Readers which are original texts
specially written at several vocabulary levels
(see Table 1).
For example, in level 2 of the Cambridge
English Readers, all the books are written
within the vocabulary of 800 words, so that
if you know these words you can read the
books with no difficulty. Note that the books
are quite long, and this gives learners a lot of
reading practice at a level which is easy
enough for them. The books are written to
be enjoyed and the stories are interesting
and exciting.
Extensive reading can be carried out in the
classroom (and it is best introduced by
scheduling regular classroom time for it) or
it can be carried out outside of class as a
homework activity. The learners choose
books which are interesting for them to read
at a level which is just beyond their present
vocabulary level so that there are some
unknown words in the books but not too
many. Ideally only around two words out of
every 100 running words should be
unfamiliar to the learners. The learners then
read the books to enjoy the stories and may
fill in a brief report form after reading each
book, but otherwise they are not required to
do any other assessment activities related to
the reading. The goal is to do a large amount
of enjoyable reading.
How does extensive reading help vocabulary
learning? As learners read they will meet
words that they only partly know or that
they have not met before. Each meeting
provides a small opportunity to learn about
the form, meaning and use of the word
within the contexts in which it occurs. After
the first meeting with the word, the learners
may meet the word again in the book and
when they do they have a chance to recall
what they learnt from the previous meeting.
This recall is probably done subconsciously.
Each time a learner meets a word and is able
to successfully recall some information from
previous meetings, this is called a retrieval.
Spaced retrievals help learning.
Ideally, learners should read at least one
graded reader every week because this
allows newly met vocabulary a chance to
occur again before the learners have
forgotten the previous meeting with it
(Nation & Wang, 1999). Vocabulary
learning is also helped if each meeting with
the word is in some way different from the
previous meetings (Joe, 1998). That is, if the
word occurs again with a different
inflection, in a slightly different grammatical
context, in a different meaning context, or in
a different collocation. Graded readers
naturally provide these conditions. If we
look at the occurrences of new words at a
particular level in a graded reader (this can
be done by running a computer text of the
graded reader through a concordance
program like AntConc or MonoPro), we find
that such words typically occur in different
contexts each time they occur. The different
contexts help enrich knowledge of the words
and make later retrievals easier. Sometimes
when a learner meets an unknown word in a
graded reader they are not able to guess its
meaning from the context clues, and so the
learner may look in a dictionary to find the
meaning. Looking a word up in a dictionary
is a form of deliberate learning and this can
make a strong contribution to knowledge of
the word.
Graded readers are texts written within a
very controlled vocabulary. The main
advantage of vocabulary control is that it
excludes the many words that are well
beyond the learners’ present vocabulary
level. If a learner tried to read an
unsimplified text that was way beyond their
proficiency level, they would meet hundreds
of words that are unknown to them. Most of
these words would only occur once in the
text and would therefore act as a barrier to
reading without having much chance of
being learnt (Nation & Deweerdt, 2001).
So, we can see that extensive reading
naturally provides very supportive
conditions for incidental vocabulary
learning. By reading graded readers, learners
meet a manageable number of unknown
words in comprehensible contexts. By doing
a reasonable amount of reading, they will
have the chance to meet these words again
and thus will have many opportunities to
retrieve knowledge of the words that they
have gained from previous meetings with
them. They will also meet these words in a
variety of contexts which will help enrich
their knowledge of these words and increase
their retention of them.
How can we maximise the vocabulary
learning opportunities provided by extensive
reading? The major way to maximise
vocabulary learning from extensive reading
is by getting the learners to do a lot of
extensive reading. Ideally, just under one
quarter of the time in a well-balanced
language course should be spent doing
extensive reading for meaning-focused input
and fluency development (Nation &
Yamamoto, 2012). Vocabulary learning can
also be maximized by making sure learners
are reading books which are at the right
level for them. In addition, vocabulary
learning from extensive reading will be
helped if the learners combine a little
deliberate learning with the incidental
learning. That is, when they meet some new
words in their extensive reading, they can
put them on word cards for later
decontextualised study. Immediately they
finish reading a graded reader, learners
might like to spend a small amount of time
to reflect back on any of the new words that
they met during their reading.
Learning conditions
In this description of incidental vocabulary
learning from extensive reading we have
looked at several conditions which support
learning. Firstly, we have the condition of
repetition. It is clearly easier to learn
something that is met several times than
something that is just met once. Although
there is no clear cut-off point for the
minimum amount of repetitions needed for
learning, there is plenty of evidence that the
greater the number of repetitions, the more
likely learning is to occur (Waring &
Takaki, 2003). Nation and Wang (1999)
found that it was necessary to read several
graded readers at the same level in order to
meet all of the new words which were
introduced at that level with enough
repetitions for these to have a chance of
being learnt.
Secondly, we have the condition of retrieval.
Having an opportunity to recall something
that has been met before strengthens
learning. When meeting a word again in a
graded reader, retrieval at least involves
recognising the form of the word as being at
least partly familiar and being able to recall
the meaning or part of the meaning that was
gained on previous meetings.
Thirdly, we have the condition of creative
use (Joe (1998) calls it "generative use").
Creative use can be receptive or productive.
Receptive creative use involves meeting a
word through listening or reading in new
contexts. Productive creative use occurs
when a learner produces the word in
speaking or writing using it in ways in
which the learner has not met it or used it
before.
Fourthly, we have the condition of
deliberate attention. Deliberate attention
means consciously focusing on the language
item in order to understand or learn it.
Deliberate attention occurs when we look up
the word in a dictionary or in a glossary, or
when we ask someone about the meaning of
the word. As long as this does not interrupt
the message-focused activity too much,
deliberate attention is a very useful
contributor to vocabulary learning.
Let us now look at a range of message-focused reading activities to see how these
conditions of repetition, retrieval, creative
use, and deliberate attention can be
maximised so that such reading not only
provides pleasure and improvement in
reading skills, but also contributes to
vocabulary growth.
Learning vocabulary through a range of
reading activities
We saw that one of the most important
effects of writing graded readers within a
strictly limited vocabulary is to greatly
reduce the vocabulary burden of a text.
Unsimplified text contains vocabulary from
a very wide range of frequency levels from
the first 1000 to beyond the 20
th
1000. One
way to reduce the vocabulary load without
simplification is to do what is called narrow
reading (Hwang & Nation, 1989; Schmitt &
Carter, 2000). Narrow reading involves
reading texts that are closely related to each
other. Reading closely related texts does
reduce the overall vocabulary load
(Sutarsyah, Kennedy & Nation, 1994), but it
does this to only a small degree (see Webb
& Rodgers, 2009a & b, for the effect of
narrow listening on vocabulary load). It is
thus an activity best suited to high
intermediate and advanced learners who
have a large enough vocabulary size to be
able to cope with unsimplified text without a
great deal of outside assistance. Narrow
reading is especially useful for the learning
of technical vocabulary, particularly when
the learner can draw on background
knowledge of the subject.
For beginning and intermediate learners,
repeated reading is a useful activity. In
repeated reading, the learner reads the same
text three times. For native speakers of
English, repeated reading is typically done
orally with the learner reading a text of 150
or so words long to the teacher or to another
more proficient learner. The time taken to
read the text is written down, and
immediately after the first reading, the text
is then read again, and then finally once
more. All three readings are within the same
reading session. Repeated reading is aimed
at developing reading fluency, but it also
clearly sets out conditions which are useful
for vocabulary learning. The repeated
readings of the text mean that the
vocabulary in the text is met three times.
The readings occur one after the other and
this means that retrievals should be
relatively easy to make. The activity does
not involve creative use. There is however a
deliberate element to repeated reading,
especially on the first reading of the text. It
is during this first reading that any word
recognition problems or problems with
unknown vocabulary are dealt with. For
more proficient learners, repeated reading
can be done silently with the intention of
gaining deeper comprehension of the text on
each reading.
Reading can occur in a series of linked skill
activities. In linked skill activities the
learner works on the same content material
at least three times, but each time using a
different one of the listening, speaking,
reading, and writing skills. For example, the
learners might read the text, then talk about
it to each other in small groups or in pairs,
and then write the main ideas from it. In this
example, the activity moves from reading to
speaking to writing. There are clearly many
combinations possible in linked skill
activities. From a vocabulary learning
perspective, linked skill activities provide
excellent opportunities for repetition (the
same material is worked on three times),
retrieval (both productive and receptive),
and creative use (the three tasks in the series
in a linked skills activity are different, but
are focused on the same content and make
use of the same language items). In a linked
skills activity, the last activity in the series is
the one that is typically done with the
greatest fluency because the learners now
bring a lot of background knowledge and
language knowledge to the task from the
first two parts of the activity. If the linked
skills activity involves a pair or group
speaking phase, then there could be the
opportunity for the negotiation of unknown
vocabulary. Linked skills activities are very
easy to prepare and provide the learners with
a lot of useful work. A reading text is often a
good starting point when designing such
activities even though reading may be the
second or third activity in the series.
Reading with discussion involves at least
two learners reading the same text. The
learners read to a predetermined point in the
text, say for example to the end of the first
paragraph. They then discuss what they have
just read with their partner to clear up any
problems in the reading. They then read the
next part of the text silently and then discuss
that. In this way the text is read making sure
that a high level of comprehension is
achieved (see Palincsar & Brown, 1986, for
a similar and more elaborate reading
strategy). This activity clearly provides
useful conditions for vocabulary learning.
The discussion will recycle the vocabulary
met in the text allowing an opportunity for
retrieval, and because the discussion is not
simply an oral repetition of the text, the
vocabulary is likely to occur in slightly
different contexts in the discussion. The
discussion also has some deliberate elements
in that it may be necessary in the discussion
to directly discuss the meaning of words and
constructions in order to gain clear
comprehension.
The reading with discussion activity is a bit
like having a text followed by exercises,
except that the discussion should be largely
comprehension focused. Reading with
exercises has been researched as a way of
encouraging vocabulary learning (Paribahkt
& Wesche, 1996). The exercises provide
opportunities for repetition, and, if they are
thoughtfully designed, for retrieval and
creative use. They are however usually
directed towards deliberate learning, and
with this activity we have moved to a large
degree away from incidental learning.
Tom Cobb’s website (www.lextutor.ca) has
a very useful Read with resources program.
Text can be pasted into the website and the
following resources can be drawn on.
1 Spoken form. Clicking once on
any word provides the spoken
form of the word. In a separate
program under the Text-to-Speech heading on Cobb’s web
page, it is possible to link written
texts to their spoken form where
this exists.
2 Examples in context. Clicking
twice on a word brings up several
instances of the word in context
(a concordance), like the one for
the word laugh (see appendix).
These extra contexts can be used to
help guess the meaning of the unknown
word, to gain information about the use of
the word (grammar and collocates), and to
gain information about the range of senses
of the word.
3 Meaning. Clicking on a link
brings up a substantial dictionary
entry for a word from a range of
possible dictionaries including
learner dictionaries.
4 Revision. Holding down the Alt-key and clicking puts the word in
a box at the top of the screen for
later revision. These revision
activities can include (a) a
dictation test where the word is
heard and the learner has to write
the word, (b) a meaning test
where a concordance appears but
the pivot word is missing and
must be chosen from the list in
the box (Nation, 2008).
Reading with resources provides a range of
deliberate focuses which result in repeated
attention to the words. The examples in
context provide plenty of receptive creative
use.
We have looked at a range of reading
activities including those which are
completely message-focused to those which
have strong deliberate learning features. It is
not too difficult to add deliberate learning
features to reading, but it is important that
the teacher's skill is also directed towards
making sure that message-focused reading is
also providing useful conditions for
vocabulary learning. The major ways in
which this can be done involve using graded
material which is at the right level for the
learners, ensuring that the learners do large
amounts of reading, providing recycling of
the vocabulary through repeated meeting of
the content as in repeated reading and linked
skills activities, and by providing occasional
deliberate language focuses through the use
of dictionaries, glossaries, hypertext,
concordances, and vocabulary exercises. It
is important that the deliberate language
focus is not overdone at the expense of
quantity of message-focused reading.
