Japanese Vocabulary Acquisition by Learners in Three Contexts.

By Dan Dewey. 2008

103 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This study is an investigation of the development of vocabulary knowledge during study abroad (SA), intensive domestic immersion (IM) and academicyear formal classroom (AY) learning. Freed (1999) has emphasized the importance of knowing how stateside IM and AY experiences compare with SA and of determining the specifi c shared and unique linguistic benefi ts of each of these contexts. While few in number, comparisons between these contexts have been made (e.g., DeKeyser, 1986; Dewey, 2004; Freed, 1995b; Freed, Segalowitz & Dewey, 2004; Lafford, 1995; Milton & Meara, 1995). Only one study was found (Freed et al., 2004) comparing all three contexts (SA, IM and AY). One specifi c linguistic feature explored by researchers comparing SA and stateside learning is vocabulary development (Collentine, 2004; DeKeyser, 1986; Dewey, 2002, 2004; Laufer & Paribakht, 1998; Milton & Meara, 1995). Dewey (2004) found that learners of Japanese in Japan made signifi cant gains on one measure of vocabulary knowledge over a semester abroad, but these gains were matched by their counterparts at home in an IM setting. Milton and Meara (1995) reported that ESL students in Britain (from Germany, Spain, Italy and France) acquired English vocabulary fi ve times faster than AY learners. DeKeyser (1986) explored the development of a range of linguistic abilities of Spanish learners and found that vocabulary growth was the one note worthy difference in linguistic development between American students living in Spain and their fellow students at home. Collentine’s (2004) study produced less clear-cut results. In a comparative analysis of oral interviews conducted prior to and following a semester of study at home (AY) or abroad, he found that AY learners did very well overall in comparison with SA participants in terms of showing evidence of acquisition of new words over the study period, but that SA participants produced more unique words than AY learners in their post-study speech samples simply by virtue of being able to speak more fl uently (i.e., produce more words per minute). Freed, So and Lazar (2003) employed a number of measures to analyze vocabulary use in written French essays and found no signifi cant differences in terms of gain between learners who went abroad and learners who stayed at home. To summarize, while

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Language and Linguistics

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Citations in the corpus

A Longitudinal Analysis of the Effects of One Year Abroad (2012, background): “Dewey (2008) examined the receptive vocabulary of American undergraduates learning Japanese in three learning contexts: AH, IM (domestic immersion), and SA.”
Social Network Development, Language Use, and Language Acquisition during Study Abroad: Arabic Language Learners' Perspectives. (2013, methodology): “Maintaining strong ties with home and weaker ties with locals can have negative effects on linguistic gains during study abroad (Dewey, 2008).”
The many faces of study abroad: an update on the research on L2 gains emerged during a study abroad experience (2011, background): “Some of these have examined the vocabulary growth of SA participants without comparing them to participants in another learning context (Ife, Vives, & Meara, 2000; Llanes & Muñoz, 2009; Milton & Meara, 1995), and others have compared the vocabulary development among participants in two or three diff”