Classroom experiments test whether instructional procedures that increase the salience and cognitive processing of targeted words in reading texts can support L2 vocabulary acquisition¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causalr?·q2
Currency · newest study 1996 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q2 i? The chapter's classroom experiments use instructional procedures designed to increase the salience and cognitive processing of targeted words encountered by L2 students in reading texts, aiming to make incidental acquisition more directed and efficient. → T. Sima Paribakht and Marjorie Wesche 1996
Evidence¶
T. Sima Paribakht and Marjorie Wesche 1996¶
T. Sima Paribakht and Marjorie Wesche. (1996). Vocabulary enhancement activities and reading for meaning in second language vocabulary acquisition. Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition: A Rationale for Pedagogy, Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139524643.013
q2 · i? · causal · r?
The chapter reports classroom experiments in which instructional procedures were "designed to increase the salience and cognitive processing of targeted words encountered by L2 students in reading texts." The stated aim is to test whether intervention can make incidental acquisition more directed and efficient; no outcome statistics appear in the available text.
"The classroom experiments reported here attempt to do this, using instructional procedures designed to increase the salience and cognitive processing of targeted words encountered by L2 students in reading texts."
Discussion¶
Word knowledge in these experiments was tracked with the Vocabulary Knowledge Scale (VKS), which Paribakht and Wesche built to register partial and growing knowledge of a word rather than a known/unknown split.
Related Claims¶
- Pairing Contextual Encounters With Explicit Instruction Produces Stronger Vocabulary Outcomes Than Either Alone — related
- The more often learners meet a word while reading, the more likely they are to learn it incidentally; a meta-analysis of correlational studies finds a moderate correlation — related
- Incidental vocabulary exposure produces reliable learning, but learners pick up only a small share of the unknown words they meet — related
- Low-frequency or low-salience L2 elements are hard or impossible to learn through mere exposure and require extensive practice to proceduralize form-meaning mappings — a broader claim this one bears on
- L2 learners pick up vocabulary incidentally from meaning-focused input, with reading the most-studied mode and listening yielding similar proportions of words learned — a broader claim this one bears on
- Meaning-focused exposure to spoken L2 input yields large vocabulary gains (g = 1.05) in incidental word learning — related
- Vocabulary Knowledge Grows Incrementally With Repeated Encounters In Varied Contexts — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
vocabulary-enhancement-activities-support-reading-acquisition |
title |
Classroom experiments test whether instructional procedures that increase the salience and cognitive processing of targeted words in reading texts can support L2 vocabulary acquisition |
description |
Classroom experiments test whether instructional procedures that increase the salience and cognitive processing of targeted words in reading texts can support L2 vocabulary acquisition |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
weak |
newest_evidence |
1996 |
source_checked |
2026-10-20 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-15 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — t-sima-paribakht-and-marjorie-wesche-1996 |
Frontmatter is the page's machine-readable record — see the Schema & Guide.