Review and Discussion of Learning Strategies of Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition

Learning second language (L2) vocabulary can be a challenge for L2 students. As researchers and TEFL practitioners, we perpetually strive to seek ways to help our students with necessary linguistic tools to be ultimately both productive and resourceful. Moroccan EFL students in L2 are able to use learning strategies, which are valued in the school system, in order to, among other things, expand their vocabulary knowledge for the purpose of being able to communicate verbally and non-verbally. It is complex, however, to determine to what extent these strategies are used. In fact, very few studies have emphasized vocabulary learning strategies. Therefore, this study is of interest to Moroccan university students so as to determine which strategies to use, how often, and whether their use has an impact on students’ vocabulary growth.

Vocabulary Growth in Lexical Categories Between Ages 13 and 24 Months as a Function of the Child’s Sex, Child, and Family Factors

We examined the vocabulary growth of lexical categories in 719 children (age 13–24 months) as part of a longitudinal cohort study (the STEPS Study) and found a discrepancy in how these categories were affected depending on the child’s sex. In girls, attending day care at 24 months of age predicted a positive vocabulary growth in the lexical categories sound effects, nouns, people, and games and routines, compared to girls staying at home. Firstborn girls had a greater vocabulary growth in descriptive and function words, in contrast to those born later. A boy attending day care at age 24 months was likely to have greater growth in sound effects and animal sounds, compared to boys not in day care. A family history of late onset of speech predicted less vocabulary growth in all lexical categories in boys, except for sound effects and animal sounds. Early vocabulary is of importance for later language and literacy development. Vocabulary is not an impenetrable entirety but consists of various types of words (lexical categories) developing at different tempos as they contribute to the developing language. Factors influencing early vocabulary development in boys and girls have been painstakingly studied, but fewer have examined these factors across lexical categories, let alone whether they have an equal effect in both sexes. More knowledge of what affects the variation in early vocabulary in boys and girls is needed for clinical practice and preventive purposes. Vocabulary was measured with the Finnish version of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory. The effect of child and family factors on vocabulary growth in various lexical categories was analyzed separately for boys and girls using structural equational modelling. The results of the present study indicate that vocabulary development in the lexical categories is affected differently by child and parental factors in girls and boys as early as the second year of life, which gives new insights into the factors that need consideration in clinical practice and preventive work.

Timing storytime to maximise children's ability to retain new vocabulary

Shared storybook reading is a key aid to vocabulary acquisition in childhood. However, word learning research has tended to use unnaturalistic (explicit) training regimes. Utilising a storybook paradigm, we examine whether children (particularly those with weaker vocabulary) are more likely to retain new words if they learn them closer to sleep. Parents read their child (5-7ys, n=237) an alien adventure story that contained 12 novel words with illustrations, at one of two training times: at bedtime or 3-5hrs before bedtime. Using on-line tasks, parents tested their child’s ability to recall the new words (production) and associate them with pictures (comprehension), immediately after hearing the story and again the following morning. As hypothesized, we replicated two findings: children showed overnight improvements in their ability to produce and comprehend new words when tested again the next day, and children with better existing vocabulary knowledge showed larger overnight gains in new word comprehension. Counter to expectations, overnight gains in comprehension were larger if the story was read 3-5 hours before, than at, bedtime. These ecologically valid findings are consistent with theories that characterise word learning as a prolonged process supported by mechanisms such as consolidation and retrieval practice, with existing vocabulary knowledge acting as an important source of variability in retention. The findings provide preliminary evidence that encountering new words in stories later in the day (but not too close to sleep) may help to harness vocabulary growth and may be more beneficial than leaving shared storybook reading just for bedtime.

Superordinate Word Knowledge Predicts Longitudinal Vocabulary Growth

Does knowing certain words help children learn other words? We hypothesized that knowledge of more general (more superordinate) words at time-1 would lead to faster vocabulary growth as measured through vocabulary checklists administered at later timepoints. We find that this is indeed the case. Children who have similar vocabularies at time-1, but differ in their productive knowledge of more general words such as "animal", "picture", and "get" go on to have different rates of word learning. Knowledge of more general words is associated with faster vocabulary growth, particularly of words semantically related to the superordinate terms they are reported to produce. This positive relationship between knowledge of more general words and word learning remains even when controlling for measures of verbal and nonverbal intelligence.

Spontaneous verbal repetition in toddler-adult conversations: a longitudinal study with Spanish-speaking two- year-olds

The role of children’s verbal repetition of parents’ utterances on vocabulary growth has been well documented (Masur, 1999). Nevertheless, few studies have analyzed adults’ and children’s spontaneous verbal repetition around the second birthday distinguishing between the types of repetition. We analyzed longitudinally Spanish-speaking parent-child dyads during spontaneous interaction at 21, 24 and 30 months. Linguistic level was measured using the Spanish version of the MacArthur CDI (López-Ornat et al., 2005). Children’s and adults’ repetitions are about 17% of the speech. Children repeated adults’ utterances in a reduced manner whereas adults produced more extended repetitions. Adults’ rate of repetition predicted children’s linguistic level at 30 months. Children’s rate of repetition did not predict linguistic level. These results suggest that parents adapt their speech to children’s communicative abilities. Since children’s rate of repetition did not predict linguistic level, we suggest that verbal imitation plays an indirect and complex role in communicative development.

Web-CDI: A system for online administration of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories

Understanding the mechanisms that drive variation in children’s language acquisition requires large, population-representative datasets of children’s word learning across development. Parent report measures such as the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDI) are commonly used to collect such data, but the traditional paper-based forms make the curation of large datasets logistically challenging. Many CDI datasets are thus gathered using convenience samples, often recruited from communities in proximity to major research institutions. Here, we introduce Web-CDI, a web-based tool which allows researchers to collect CDI data online. Web-CDI contains functionality to collect and manage longitudinal data, share links to test administrations, and download vocabulary scores. To date, over 3,500 valid Web-CDI administrations have been completed. General trends found in past norming studies of the CDI are present in data collected from Web-CDI: scores of children’s productive vocabulary grow with age, female children show a slightly faster rate of vocabulary growth, and participants with higher levels of educational attainment report slightly higher vocabulary production scores than those with lower levels of education attainment. We also report results from an effort to oversample non-white, lower-education participants via online recruitment (N = 241). These data showed similar demographic trends to the full sample but this effort resulted in a high exclusion rate. We conclude by discussing implications and challenges for the collection of large, population-representative datasets.