How Many Times Do Students Need to Read a Word

How Many Times Do Students Need to Read a Word Before They Can Learn It?Chapter One1.1. IntroductionIn Japan many learners learn a foreign language, which is usually English. Some earlier starters learn their foreign language in kindergarten, while most children start when they become 12 years old in junior high-school. Recently, the government ordered all junior high-schools in Japan to teach junior high-school learners English. High-schools also have put more English into the curriculum. There are many learners learning English, or other languages, so learning another language or teaching another language is an important focus in the field of education.Nowadays many educators or researchers discuss what kind of learning is best, or what kind of teaching is most useful for learners.Japanese learners, for example junior high-school learners or high-school learners, do not read so much or get enough exposure to the language that they are learning. Many learners read only their textbook and their teachers also do1 not introduce books for the learners to read in the language that the learners are studying. When Japanese learners study foreign languages they are given a text and a workbook. They come to class after they read one or two pages of the textbook and try to translate the content by themselves first. In class they are checked by their teacher and the content mostly is grammar. After the class, the teacher gives homework with the main focus is to improve their grammar skills. Learners never read for fun because most of their reading is focused on translating. So as a result, there are many learners who do not like English class. Many Japanese think just reading a book is not useful for learning language. Japanese learners need to read more.1.2. Effects of readingReading is the most important skill for Japanese learners. From reading texts learners or readers can begin to learn new words and enrich their vocabulary that they have already met and improve their grammatical knowledge, become more familiar with text structure, acquire the power of reading, get new information and get pleasure from reading books and so much more. While reading learners can also check their level or know what points they need to learn or relearn.For this reason many researchers have tried to discover what learners do when they read in a foreign language.2 1.3. How much vocabulary is learned from reading? There is a lot of research in reading in a foreign language and it is received wisdom that people learn a lot from reading, especially vocabulary. There is no doubt that by learning from context a learner can improve his/her vocabulary knowledge gradually. Moreover, learners can get additional content knowledge from their reading and if there are large quantities of reading it has a stronger effect. In these cases we can estimate how many unknown words learners can acquire from their reading.One of the central questions asked in reading in a foreign language is "how much do learners actually learn from their reading?" It is not easy to answer to this question.This is in part because we have to decide what types of knowledge change we are looking for. We could look at reading speed increases, increases in comprehension scores and a whole host of other elements. Most typically though, the answer has been investigated by looking at vocabulary growth. Words are considered an easy way to assess language gains because each word can be treated as a separate unit which allows for easy data collection and analysis. In other words, we can measure the number of words known both before and after reading to see how many words have been learned during the course of the reading.There have been many attempts to discover the amount of vocabulary that is learned from reading. Some of the3 vocabulary studies that report gains in vocabulary from reading in a second language.1 Some of these studies involved rather little reading while others quite a lot. The general picture that emerges from these studies of second and foreign language reading is that learners do learn vocabulary from their reading but not very much. Typically the gains in scores after reading are only just significant and not much better than random guessing on the tests. This is hardly surprising, of course because words need to be met several times in the text before they are learned and most of the texts in these studies would not have repeated the words very often. Moreover, as the readers would be reading at very high levels of text comprehension they will meet few unknown words, thus there will be few to learn.These gains are in stark contrast to the L1 literature that report very high levels of vocabulary growth due to reading. Herman, Nagy and Anderson2 for example suggest that several thousands of words are learned per year by children learning English as their first language. Nagy3 estimates that on the assumption that a learner reads a million of running words yearly, and does not know two per cent of these words, it shows he meets 20,000 unknown words yearly. If he can learn five per cent of the unknown words he would gain 1,000 new words per year. One million running words will come to about three or four undergraduate textbooks, or ten to twelve novels, or 25 complete Newsweek magazines4, or 65 graded readers of various levels.54 1.4. Problems with this body of research This research has left us with some very interesting results, but the results are mixed largely because the studies often have several kinds of problems as pointed out by Waring.6One of the reasons for this difference between native level gains and second language learners’ gains can probably be found in the types of test have been employed when testing gains in vocabulary from reading in a foreign language. Some tests were multiple-choice, others were simple form recognition and so on. It is presumed that the level of difficulty of the test given will have a significant effect on the amount of learning that occurred that can be demonstrated and therefore it will affect the gains that can be shown. A more sensitive test (i.e. one that allows the subject to demonstrate even a small amount of information about the word such as a simple form recognition test "have you seen this word before?”) will be easier than an insensitive test(i.e. one that demands that the subject demonstrate more detailed knowledge or demonstrate shades of meaning or the differences from similar words, for example.)Waring shows that the body of Extensive Reading (ER) research often has a lack of quality control in test construction and have often tended to be careless, which means that we can not always be sure of the real amount of learning from context. Most studies looking at gains from context when5 reading extensively commonly we use multiple-choice test.7However, this type of test is not necessarily the most suitable for assessing how much learning has occurred from exposure to ER texts.Another reason for the difference between L1 and l2 rates may be that that there is something about L2 reading ability which does not allow for such gains to be made. One possible reason could be that L2 readers have a much smaller vocabulary at their disposal than L1 learners from which they can guess the meanings of unknown words. L1 learners know thousands of words even by the time they start school and thus have much better resources for guessing meanings. Moreover, the texts will be culturally familiar and thus easier to read. It seems also that there may be a threshold of vocabulary knowledge at which the vocabulary spurt can really take hold.One question that rarely gets asked in the research dealing with the amount of vocabulary learned from reading, is how long these effects last. The vast majority of the studies already conducted on gains from exposure are cross-sectional tests which usually take place just after the reading. As knowledge of the new words will be fresh in the mind, the subjects will of course score higher on the test when some of memory of the new words has decayed. This is not enough to measure the subjects’ real amount of learning and we have to suspect that the “real” and lasting gains demonstrated in the research and they would probably have been over-estimated. Only one study has attempted to gather data on how much6 learning was kept in the subjects memory over time.8 From retention data we can get a lot of useful information to improve the quality of the test and the possibility of learning from context but researchers have tended to ignore this aspect of learning from context until now. By getting the retention data we can create more useful extensive reading texts to provide the right rate of repetition to help subjects to learn words. 1.5. Other things to consider when conducting this researchAnother body of research has looked at how many meetings of a word is takes before a word can be said to be learned.While all words are different and there will be easy words and difficult words an average word takes between 8-20 meetings before it is said to be learned receptively (Nation 2001).This means that the learners can see the word in their reading and they can know its meaning. This does not mean that the word can be used productively or that shades of meaning and nuances are known. Waring also said that the rate of unknown words can affect the result of the research. Research has investigated the appropriate density of unknown words to already known words that can allow for successful guessing from context. Hu and Nation9 explored this question in detail and concluded that98% to 99% of the other words in fluent reading should be known before successful guessing can occur. They found that7 if the text is too difficult, say one unknown word in ten (90% coverage) then the chance of a correct guess is almost zero.While it is unclear what rate of known to unknown words was in these texts, the shorter texts would have had a higher than adequate rate.The focus of this thesisThe above seems to imply that in order to answer the question about how much can be learned from reading it is best to: a) use a lengthy passage rather than a short one b) test knowledge gains with several types of test c) assessed knowledge over a longer period of time d) use a passage which is not too dense with unknown words so that little learning can take place.From the above we can see that there is a need to discover how much vocabulary is learned from reading a graded reader to answer the following research questions: a) How many new words are learned from reading a graded reader over time? b) Do different test types show different levels of learning from a graded reader?8 6. ConclusionThis chapter reviewed much of the research that has been done into learning from context from second language reading.In this review we discovered several areas that are in need of research. Come of these areas will be investigated in an experiment to be conducted in the following chapter. InChapter Three we will analyze the results.9 9 Chapter TwoThe study2.1. IntroductionIn the previous chapter, we reviewed some of the research on how many words learners learn from context. We discovered that there was a lot of research but many of the results from the studies were mixed and these studies had some methodological problems. In this chapter we will report a study that addresses many of the problems found in previous studies with the aim of discovering how many times students need to read a word before they can learn it. Chapter Three we will discuss the results. 2.2. The experiment2.2.1. OverviewThe aim of the study is to determine how many times students need to read a word before they can learn it. In this study 25 words that appeared with different occurrence frequencies were selected from the graded reader, Little10 Princess, and were changed into substitute words. The subjects read the book and were tested on their recall of the words in three tests over three test periods.2.2.2. MethodA) Subjects16 Japanese female subjects from a university in WesternJapan were the subjects in this experiment. Twelve of them were in the English department. Their ages ranged from 19 to22 years old and were at least post-elementary level. B) TextTwelve graded readers were selected as candidates for this study. Each book was scanned and converted into text and then analyzed by computer for the frequency of occurrence of various types of words. The aim of this was to find a text with a suitable range of frequencies which would be easy to read for post-elementary level subjects. In the end, theLittle Princess was selected as it met the criteria (see below). The Little Princess text is one of Oxford UniversityPress’s graded readers Level 1, and has 500 different headwords. Level 1 of the Oxford reader books is about at the level that Japanese junior high school students can read and11 therefore would be quite easy for university students which they would be able to enjoy.C) Selecting the test wordsWe needed to select words which the subjects can guess without too much difficulty, but must not already know. Nouns and adjectives are easier to guess than adverbs so these were chosen. Verbs were not selected because they appear with various inflections. This can make it difficult to decide whether the word is “known” because a subject may see the word saw and then seeing and not realize they come from the same word family. We needed to test at least 25 words which the subjects would have to guess from context. We selected 5 words from 6 different levels of occurrence. These were from words occurring only one time, 2 to 5 times, 6 to 10, 11 to 15, 16 to 20 and 21 to 25 times. After looking at the occurrences of words in the LittlePrincess we made sets of 5 words appearing 1 time, a group that include 5 words appearing 4 to 5 times, the 8 to 10 group, 13 to 14 group, the 15 to 20 group and the 21 to 31 group. The sum of the number words from all 6 categories that need to be learned was 480 words. However, previous research on coverage shows that learners can guess easily from context provided that more than 95% of the other words are known. TheLittle Princess has 5872 words and with 480 test words made12 for only 91.9% coverage which meant that the chance of guessing would be low and would be potentially too difficult for the learners and may affect the study. Therefore, we deleted the group of 21 to 25 times, and we were left with 221 test words which left us with the “known words” coverage of96.2%. In calculating this figure of 96.2%, we worked on the assumption that all the other words in the book would be known as it was at a reading level far below what learners of their ability should have been capable of. Clearly, this would not be true for all learners, and for all words, but was the best assumption we could make without having the learners read and underline every word they did not know before reading the text. The list of words appears in Table 1.Table 1: the list of English words and their Substitute word equivalent and the number of occurrences in the text.English Substitute Number of Test word group word word occurrences in the textHouse / s Windle / s 17 15-18 GroupYes Yoot 17Face Mand 18Mine Brench 18Money Mear 15Good Mork 14 13-14 GroupNight Cadle 1313 Beautiful Smorty 13New Tantic 13Window Bettle 14Name Parrow 9 8-10 GroupYear / s Jurg / s 10Dead Molder 8Rich Tring 8Bread Toker 8Head Nase 4 4-5 GroupLate Bick 4Week Prink 5Snow Sind 4Winter Greal 4Sun Blund 1 One OccurrenceSpecial Palk 1 GroupMoment Tance 1Wrong Vack 1World Rimple 1Substitute wordsOne problem was that we had to find test words which the subjects did not know, but the subjects would be likely to know all the other words in the text. We could not use real words because we wanted to ensure that the all readers have never met them before. If we had used real words and pre-14 tested them, then it would have prejudiced the test as the subjects would then have been aware of which words were testing and therefore may have expended greater efforts to learn them. Moreover, it would have caused us problems if some of the subjects knew some words but not others.Therefore, we decided to substitute the words for an imaginary word form for the tests. We prepared 25 substitute word forms, which we called substitute words, for this test.These substitute words look like English words and take on the English spelling conventions. For example, we changed house into windle, yes into yoot, name into parrow, week into prink and so on The substitute words were checked by 5 L2 learners who were not part of the experiment as being plausible English words, and we ensured that that they could pronounce them fairly well. The 25 substitute words can be found in Table 1. These substitute words are not made bold, colored or underlined in any way in the text to highlight them for special attention, they were left unmarked for natural reading. We ensured that the words fitted smoothly into the text, which on occasions meant making some words plural by using the unmarked “add an s” rule.D) Test instrumentsWe decided to have 3 tests because we want to test different types of word knowledge--test A) word form15 recognition test, B) unprompted recognition test of meaning(translation), C) prompted recognition (multiple choice.)These will be described below.Word Form Recognition testIn this test the subjects were presented with a list of words and were asked to circle any words they recognized from the text. In the test, the subjects were given forty-two substitute words including the twenty-five substitute words that they had met in the text. Data were collected for the number of correct recognitions and the number of false recognitions (i.e. when they circled a substitute word that did not appear in the text.) The test is in Appendix 2.Meaning (Translation) testWe show the twenty-five substitute words appearing in the story and ask their meaning. The subjects were asked “What do these words mean? Write the meaning in Japanese.” The 25 words were presented as a test in a list. The test appears inAppendix 3. They can answer in Japanese, so if they know the unknown words they were asked to write the word’s meaning.Second and third answers options were given to give them a chance to guess with a number of plausible answers. The second and third answer column were created to discover whether the subjects could guess a near answer or if they could never guess any meaning.16 Multiple-Choice Recognition testThis test is a prompted recognition test, called theMultiple-Choice Recognition test. There are four choices for each word plus a do not know option to prevent subjects from guessing when they did not have any idea. The subjects were asked to circle the words they thought were nearest to these words. These choices are same part of speech. For example, the substitute word mand means face. Face is a concrete word, so the four choices are concrete nouns. Care was taken to ensure this was a sensate test (i.e. the distractors were from different semantic sets.) The test appears in Appendix 4. The tests were given in a strict order. The most sensitive test came first. This was the Word Form Recognition test. This test did not require the subjects to know the meaning, only the word form. The second test was the Meaning(Translation) test. The subjects were asked to write the translation of the item before seeing the meanings in test three (the Multiple-Choice Recognition test which has the correct meaning and three distractors.) If the subject had taken the Meaning (Translation) test after the Multiple-ChoiceRecognition test they would have been able to remember some meanings and taken this information to the meaning test.As this research was trying to see how much vocabulary was learnt from natural reading, asking the subjects to state word meanings, it was decided not to test the words in context.This was because if context had been used (whether contrived17 or from the text itself), the subjects could have been able guess what the word meant by working it out at test time.Therefore we would not know if the word was learned from reading, or at test time.E) ProcedureThe changed text and the three tests were put into a test booklet. At Time 1 (immediately after reading) the subjects were asked to “read this story as usual and enjoy it.” They were told there would be a test after reading, “after reading we want you to do a simple test,” but there was no detailed information given about the test. The subjects were not told that there would be some unfamiliar words in the text. The subjects read the story and took the tests after reading.During the test the researcher checked that the subjects were not turning to the tests to see the test words, and during the test sessions the researcher ensured that the subjects did not look back. Subjects are not allowed to use a dictionary. As soon as each subject finished the test, they were allowed to take the tests in strict order. The time taken to read was collected for each subject. After reading, each subject was asked if they thought the text was a) easy to read, b) difficult, or c) very difficult. During the reading there were some questions from subjects, such as “there are a lot of unknown words,” “is this televised?” but they were only told “please enjoy it.”18 Seven to ten days after the first test, the subjects had the second test. The aim of this was to determine the rate of forgetting that had occurred from the learning from context.Three months later the subjects were tested again. Both these tests were a surprise. The subjects only took the same tests without reading the story again and they never met the words again. At teach test administration the order of presentation of the test items on each test was changed, but the order in which the tests were given was retained. Table 2 has a summary of the types of tests given at each stage. Table 2: Summary of the types of tests givenTest Type (in order of presentation) Test timeReading the text Immediately after1. Word Form Recognition test reading2. Meaning (Translation) test (n = 15)3. Multiple-Choice Recognition test1. Word Form Recognition test One week later2. Meaning (Translation) test (n = 15)3. Multiple-Choice Recognition test1. Word Form Recognition test 3 months later2. Meaning (Translation) test (n = 14)3. Multiple-Choice Recognition test19 F) MarkingIn the Word Form Recognition test, the correct answers were counted as one point. False recognitions were also counted. These were the “correct” and the “selected in error” scores found in Table 3. In the Meaning (Translation) test, correct answers were given one point and a word with a similar meaning was given a half point. For example, if the test word’s correct answer was shame, one point was given, but if the subject supplied pity, or regrettable, because the answer is near the correct answer, a half point was given. There were only 15 of these throughout the 16 tests. In theMultiple-Choice Recognition test only correct scores were counted.2.3. ResultsThe average length of time to read the graded reader was56.3 (s.d. 16.0) minutes at an average rate of 104.8 words per minute. The average of difficulty was given as 1.5 (0.6) which shows that the text was not difficult for the subjects. The data for 15 subjects were collected in test three because one subject had left the country at that time.2.3.1. Overall dataThe data in Table 3 and Figure 1 show the total scores by20 test over the three tests. The table show a decrease in mean test scores for each of the three test types over the three test times. The highest scores were obtained on the Word FormRecognition test, the next best scores were on the Multiple-Choice Recognition test with the Meaning (Translation) test posting the lowest scores.The data are shown graphically in Figure 1. These data show consistent decreases at each time interval for each of the tests. The Word Form Recognition test was the easiest, theMultiple-Choice test was next and the Meaning (Translation) test was the most difficult.Table 3: The mean scores by test type for the three test times. (Max = 25, n = 15)Test time 1 Test time 2 Test time 3(Immediate (One week) (Three months) posttest) (n = 14)Mean s.d. Mean s.d. Mean s.d.Word Form 15.3 (3.3) 11.1 (5.5) 8.4 (4.3)Recognition testMultiple-Choice 10.6 (4.0) 7.9 (5.4) 6.1 (4.2)Recognition testMeaning 4.6 (3.5) 1.9 (1.7) 0.9 (1.1)(Translation) test21 Figure 1: The total score by test over the three test times. (Max = 25, n = 15)25.0 Form recognition testMultiple choice recognition test 20.0Meaning test e r 15.0 o c s l a t o 10.0 T5.00.0 Immediate posttest One week Three months TimeThe data for each of the three tests will now be presented.2.3.2. Word Form Recognition test dataTable 4 shows that for the Word Form Recognition test the mean at test time 1 was 15.3 (s.d. 3.3) and decreased to 11.1(s.d. 5.5) by test time 2 and to 8.4 (4.4) by test 3. It is interesting to note that the standard deviations as a percentage of their means all increased as a percentage of their mean from time 1 to time 3 which seems to indicate high levels of individual variation of performance on these tests.Table 4 and Figure 3 show the mean scores on the Word22 Form Recognition test for the three test times. It also shows the number of word forms which were selected in error. For example the test word bettle was meant to represent theEnglish word window and appeared in the text. However, the substitute word stoll did not represent an English word found in the text and therefore should not have been selected on the word form recognition test. The column “selected in error” inTable 4 indicates how well the subjects were selecting the correct items. If they selected many substitute words in error it shows that they could not recognize the real test items well. The data by subject are shown in Appendix 5.Table 4: The test scores by occurrence rate for the three test times on the Word Form Recognition test. (Max = 5, n =15)15 to 13 to 8 to 4 to 5 once18 14 10 times only times times timesImmediate posttest 4.2 4.2 4.1 2.3 0.5One week 2.8 2.9 2.7 1.7 0.9Three months (n=14) 2.3 2.4 2.1 1.2 1.0Table 5 and Figure 2 show that the mean number of incorrect substitute words selected increased from 1.3 items at test time 1 to 2.8 items by test time 2 and to 2.4 by test time 3.Individual variation also increased as shown by the increase23 in standard deviation scores.Figure 2: Word Form Recognition test data for each group over time. (Max = 5, n = 15)5.04.54.03.53.02.52.0 Immediate 1.5 posttest One week 1.00.5 Three months0.0 15 to 18 13 to 14 8 to 10 4 to 5 onceTable 5: Mean scores and number of errors on the Word FormRecognition test for the three test times. (Max = 25 , n =15)Test time 1 Test time 2 Test time 3(Immediate (One week) (Three months) posttest) (n = 14)24 Correct Selected Correct Selected Correct Selected in error in error in errorMean 15.3 1.3 11.1 2.8 8.4 2.4 s.d. (3.3) (1.8) (5.5) (3.5) (4.3) (1.6)Figure 3: The rate of correct and missed recognition on theForm Recognition test over time. (Max = 25, n = 15)25.020.0 Correct Misses15.010.05.00.0 Immediate posttest One week Three months Test time2.3.3. Multiple-Choice Recognition test data The data for the Multiple-Choice Recognition test are shown in Table 6 and Figure 4. Table 7 shows the mean scores by occurrence rate for the three test times. The standard deviations and data by subject can be found in Appendix 6.25 Table 6: The mean total scores for the Multiple-ChoiceRecognition test. (Max = 25, n = 15)Test time 1 Test time 2 Test time 3(Immediate (One week) (Three months) posttest) (n = 14)Mean 10.6 7.9 6.1 s.d. (4.0) (5.4) (4.2)Table 7: Data by occurrence rate for the three test times on the Multiple-Choice Recognition test. (Max = 5, n = 16)15 to 18 13 to 14 8 to 10 4 to 5 once only times times times timesImmediate posttest 3.6 2.0 2.7 1.5 0.8One week 2.7 1.6 2.0 1.0 0.7Three months (n = 15) 1.9 0.9 1.9 0.8 0.5Figure 4: Multiple-Choice Recognition test data for each group over time. (Max = 5, n = 16)26 5.04.5 Immediate posttest4.0 One weekThree months 3.5 ) 5 x a 3.0 m ( e t a 2.5 r n o i t i 2.0 n g o c e 1.5 R1.00.50.0 15 to 18 13 to 14 8 to 10 4 to 5 onceThe number of times the word was read2.3.4. The Meaning (Translation) test dataThe mean scores for the Meaning (Translation) test by test time are shown in Table 8 and Figure 5. The mean scores by occurrence rate are shown in Table 9.Table 8: The mean total scores for the Meaning (Translation) test. (Max = 25, n = 15)Test time 1 Test time 2 Test time 3(Immediate (One week) (Three months) posttest) (n = 14)27 Mean 4.6 1.9 0.9 s.d. (3.5) (1.7) (1.1)Figure 5: Test scores for the Meaning (Translation) test by occurrence rate. (Max = 5, n = 15)5.04.5 Immediate posttest 4.0 One week Three months 3.53.02.52.01.51.00.50.0 15 to 18 13 to 14 8 to 10 4 to 5 onceThe data by occurrence rate for the three test times on the Meaning (Translation )test are shown in Table 9. The data by subject are shown in Appendix 7.Table 9: Data by occurrence rate for the three test times on the Meaning (Translation) test. (Max = 5, n = 15)15 to 13 to 8 to 10 4 to 5 once only28 18 14 times times times timesImmediate posttest 2.1 0.8 1.4 0.2 0.0One week 0.5 0.3 0.9 0.1 0.1Three months (n = 14) 0.3 0.0 0.6 0.0 0.02.4. ConclusionIn this chapter we reported a study of the rate at which words are learned from a graded reader. In the following chapter we will discuss the results. 29 Chapter 3Discussion3.1. IntroductionChapter One discussed the previous research into learning vocabulary from context and discovered that there had been numerous problems with the research. In Chapter Two, an experiment to determine how many words are learned from context with tests of different difficulties, and over different time periods since reading was presented. This chapter we discuss the analysis of these data and discuss the results of the experiment. 3.2. General results In general we can say that the subjects can learn from a graded reader, however their memory of the words disappears day by day. This is shown in Table 3. Moreover, the subjects were able to learn words from context, but are more successful if they meet the word several times. We can also say that there are words that are easy to forget and those that are easy to remember. Importantly, there seems to be a critical30 threshold of the number of times a word has to be met before learning can take place. Learning in this instance means that the subject can determine a word’s meaning (i.e., it is known on the Meaning (Translation) test or the Multiple-ChoiceRecognition Test). The data in table 3 seem to suggest that From these data we found the following 5 things, a) people can learn from graded readers; b) they do not learn much-–there is less than a 40% chance of a word being learned even if it is met more than 18 times; c) different tests types lead to different vocabulary gain scores; d) there is considerable individual variation in the test scores. The above five points will be discussed in the next section3.3. DiscussionWe can see that people can learn some words from graded readers. According to the data, the learning rate is mixed, but the subjects have obviously learned something. However, we should also say that the subjects who learned from reading, have forgotten the vast majority of their words they read and learned. Moreover, the vast majority of the words were not learned. Secondly, Table 3 shows that people do not learn many new words (in the sense that they make a form-meaning connection) from their reading and the results vary considerably from test to test. The word form recognition test (Table 4) shows that if the word is met fewer than 8 to 10 times, there is a31 likelihood it will not be recognized again after three months.But when meaning is involved in the test, the results are far lower (Tables 6 and 9.) There is about a 40% chance the form- meaning relationship will be retained if the word is met more than 18 times.Thirdly, different tests types lead to different vocabulary gain scores. Results of guessing from context depend on the type of test used, and the test form. The easiest test is the Word Form Recognition test, second one is the Multiple-Choice Recognition test and the most difficult one is the Meaning (Translation) test. This is shown in Table2. This has testing implications for researchers looking at vocabulary gains from graded reading because it implies that different gain rates will result from different test types.For example, a Multiple-Choice Recognition test will generate scores more double that of a translation test immediately after the reading increasing to more than 6 times higher for the Multiple-Choice test than the Meaning (Translation) test after three months (Table 3.) This lends considerable credence to the idea that different tests types assess different aspects of word knowledge.Fourthly, as one would expect, there is considerable individual variation in the gain scores (see Appendixes 5, 6 and 7.) At the immediate posttest we asked all subjects whether the story was easy to read, difficult or very difficult for them, and also we asked what they thought of the story. 4 subjects read the graded reader and felt it was32 difficult and could not enjoy it so much. Most of these subjects got low scores especially on the Meaning(Translation) test. We can thus say that when learning from context, the most important thing is whether the text difficulty fits the reader. Fifthly, there are some words which the subjects can easily guess or easily make a mistake with. For example in the 8-10 group, several words were easy to learn and retain.For example, in Group 8 to 10 the word jurg/s appeared with the meaning of year/s. In the Little Princess, jurg/s appears at all times before numbers which may have lead to it having a high learning rate. In all 3 tests, many of the subjects could select the right meaning of jurg/s.Also there are some words which lead the subjects to incorrectly guess. This may be because subjects try to connect this form to information they already have, whether it is English or Japanese. Some subjects misunderstood a word that sounds similar to their L1, here Japanese, or the sounds of words they know in English. For example, the substitute word windle was confused with the English window or wind. TheSubstitute word brench was confused with branch, and cadle was confused with candle. Molder was confused with the nameMolder who is a character from a TV program. Bick was confused with big because it appears as a loan word in their first language and the pronunciation or meaning is changed only a little. Prink was confused with pretty and sind as sand. The word tance was confused with Japanese tansu which means33 furniture in English. 3.4. ConclusionFrom the data of learning from context we found that people can learn from context (here a Graded Reader,) and correct associations between a word’s form and its meaning did only occurred than 40% of the time during reading even if the subjects meet the word more than 18 times, an only at the immediate post test. This dropped to about one third after three months (Table 3.) We can see then that they could not guess and learn all the unknown words. However, this research is limited to a only one time reading. If learners read a graded reader at their own level every day, they will be able to learn many new words in a year. We can say that readers are not good at guessing even at this rate of coverage and the guess is sometimes not correct.This may be because in a graded reader there are not so many words they can guess correctly because there are few words which appear more than 18 times. So, if learners try to learn from a graded reader they need to read many more books and expose themselves to unknown words. Through reading graded readers, learners may meet an unknown word many times but it is clear that they do not learn many new words. Moreover, when learners reading this way, if the story is not enjoyable or it is very difficult, they will34 not be able to learn much, especially if the story is short.35 ReferencesDay, R., Omura, C. and Hiramatsu, M. Incidental EFL vocabulary learning and reading. Reading in a Foreign Language. 7:(2).1991. 541-551.Dupuy, B. and S. Krashen. Incidental vocabulary acquisition inFrench as a foreign language. Applied Language Learning, 4:(1). 1993. 55-64.Ferris, D., Kiyochi, E., and Kowal, K. ESL vocabulary acquisition and extensive reading. Paper presented at TESOL'88 Convention, Chicago. 1988, March.Grabe, W. and F. Stoller. Reading and vocabulary development in a second language: a case study. In Coady, J. and T.Huckin. Second language Vocabulary Acquisition: A rationale for Pedagogy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1997.98-122.Hayashi, K. Reading strategies and extensive reading in EFL classes. RELC Journal. 30: (2). 1999. 114-132.Horst, M.; T. Cobb and P. Meara. 1998. Beyond a ClockworkOrange: Acquiring second language vocabulary through reading.Reading in a Foreign Language. 11:(2). 207-223.36 Hu, M. and P. Nation, Unknown vocabulary density and reading comprehension. Reading in a Foreign Language 13:(1). 2000.403-430. Mason, B. and S. Krashen. Extensive Reading in English as a foreign language. System, 25:(1). 1997. 91-102.Mason, B and S. Krashen. Can we increase the Power of Reading by adding more output and/or more correction? Texas papers inForeign Language Education. In press.Mason, B. and Krashen, S. Can extensive reading help unmotivated students of EFL improve? ITL Review of AppliedLinguistics. 1997. 117-118, 79-84.Nagy, W. On the role of context in first- and second-language vocabulary learning. In Schmitt, N. and M. McCarthy (Eds.):Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition and Pedagogy. Cambridge,Cambridge University Press. 1997. 64-83.Nation, P. and M. Wang. Graded Readers and Vocabulary. Reading in a Foreign Language. 12:(2). 1999. 355-380.Pitts, M., H. White and S. Krashen. Acquiring second language vocabulary through reading: a replication of the ClockworkOrange study using second language acquirers. Reading in aForeign Language. 5:(2). 1989. 271-275.37 Sutarsyah, C., P. Nation and G. Kennedy. How Useful Is EAPVocabulary for ESP? A Corpus Based Case Study. RELC Journal: AJournal of Language Teaching and Research in Southeast Asia,Singapore, Singapore (RELC). 25:(2). 1994. 34-50.Waring, R. Research in Extensive Reading. Kiyo, Notre DameSeishin University: Studies in Foreign Languages andLiterature. 25:(1). 2001. 44-67.Yamazaki, A. Vocabulary Acquisition through Extensive Reading.Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. Temple University Tokyo.1996.38 AppendicesAppendix 1The cover of the test bookletName ………………………………………………………………………………………Today’s date …………………………………………………………………How long did it take to read? (読むのにどのくらいかかりましたか？)Was it 1：easy to read, 2：difficult, 3：very difficult?(読むのは 1：簡単だった 2：難しかった 3：大変難しかった)Why? (それはどうしてですか？どういう点で難しい又は簡単と感じましたか？)What did you think of the story?(この物語をどう思いますか？)Thank you for your help!!!!!!!39 Appendix 2Word Form Recognition testTest 1: Circle the words you met in the story.(物語の中に出てきたと思う単語に丸をして下さい。) bandle bettle tantic bing windle sind borch tance vack clath parrow jurgs crasty greal blund dice mear mork diggle brench yelt fale bick prink flart yoot mand mave tring toker nutious cadle palk quent smorty stoll sheddle molder rimple smick nase speat40 Appendix 3Meaning (Translation) testTest 2: What do these words mean? Write the meaning inJapanese.(以下の単語の意味は何だと思いますか？日本語で答えて下さい。もし考えが複数ある場合は、自信のある順に書いて下さい。) windle 1……………………………………… 2……………………………………… 3……………………………………… yoot 1……………………………………… 2……………………………………… 3……………………………………… mand 1……………………………………… 2……………………………………… 3……………………………………… brench 1……………………………………… 2……………………………………… 3……………………………………… mear 1……………………………………… 2……………………………………… 3……………………………………… mork 1……………………………………… 2……………………………………… 3……………………………………… cadle 1……………………………………… 2……………………………………… 3……………………………………… smorty 1……………………………………… 2……………………………………… 3……………………………………… tantic 1……………………………………… 2……………………………………… 3……………………………………… bettle 1……………………………………… 2……………………………………… 3……………………………………… parrow 1……………………………………… 2……………………………………… 3……………………………………… jurgs 1……………………………………… 2……………………………………… 3……………………………………… molder 1……………………………………… 2……………………………………… 3……………………………………… tring 1……………………………………… 2……………………………………… 3……………………………………… toker 1……………………………………… 2……………………………………… 3……………………………………… nase 1……………………………………… 2……………………………………… 3……………………………………… bick 1……………………………………… 2……………………………………… 3……………………………………… prink 1……………………………………… 2……………………………………… 3………………………………………41 sind 1……………………………………… 2……………………………………… 3……………………………………… greal 1……………………………………… 2……………………………………… 3……………………………………… blund 1……………………………………… 2……………………………………… 3……………………………………… palk 1……………………………………… 2……………………………………… 3……………………………………… tance 1……………………………………… 2……………………………………… 3……………………………………… vack 1……………………………………… 2……………………………………… 3……………………………………… rimple 1……………………………………… 2……………………………………… 3………………………………………42 Appendix 4Multiple Choice Recognition testTest 3: Circle the words you think nearest to these words.(１～２５の単語の意味に近いと思う単語を 4 つの中からそれぞれ選んで下さい。分からない場合は I do not know を選んで下さい。) blund sun mountain photo flower I do not know palk happy doubtful special easy I do not know tance air moment love respect I do not know vack hard busy free wrong I do not know rimple world mouth music club I do not know parrow letter piano hand name I do not know jurgs year/s sea bird song I do not know molder peaceful hot clean dead I do not know tring rich dark pretty interesting I do not know toker shoe bread car stair I do not know mork red clever mad good I do not know cadle tree night college glass I do not know smorty dry crazy beautiful dirty I do not know tantic new intelligent cold active I do not know bettle cow window mud station I do not know nase bag head paper desk I do not know bick late ugly wet exact I do not know prink box bike week hat I do not know sind snow pepper chair eye I do not know greal paper tape game winter I do not know windle bread elephant house book I do not know yoot yes oh why OK I do not know mand dog room face sky I do not know brench water mine help cake I do not know mear money pen cat file I do not know43 Appendix 5Data by subject for the Word Form Recognition testImmediate posttest 0ne week Three monthsSubj. 15-18 13-14 8-10 4-5 1 TOT miss 15-18 13-14 8-10 4-5 1 TOT miss 15-18 13-14 8-10 4-5 1 TOT missM.I 4 4 4 3 0 15 0 1 1 2 0 0 4 1 0 2 3 0 1 6 2 N.T 5 5 4 3 0 17 0 4 3 1 2 2 12 5 4 1 1 2 2 10 5 C.K 3 5 5 4 0 17 2 3 5 4 2 1 15 2 ------T.O 4 5 4 1 1 15 0 2 3 3 1 0 9 2 3 4 3 0 1 11 2 Y.O 5 5 5 2 3 20 1 5 4 3 3 0 15 3 4 4 4 4 1 17 3 M.T 4 1 3 0 1 9 1 2 2 2 0 0 6 2 2 1 2 0 0 5 4 A.T 5 4 4 1 1 15 1 3 4 2 0 0 9 0 3 4 2 1 0 10 0 M.T 5 5 4 3 0 17 1 3 4 3 0 0 10 1 1 2 0 0 0 3 2 Y.N 5 5 5 3 0 18 0 4 4 5 4 2 19 1 2 3 4 2 1 12 2 R.A 5 4 4 2 1 16 1 2 2 2 1 0 7 3 1 1 1 1 0 4 1 T.S 3 3 2 3 0 11 3 4 4 4 5 4 21 14 4 2 0 0 1 7 3 T.O 5 5 5 5 0 20 2 4 5 4 3 3 19 1 4 4 3 3 2 16 2 K.K 1 5 3 1 0 10 7 2 2 2 2 1 9 6 1 2 3 2 3 11 6 S.A 4 4 4 2 1 15 1 1 0 2 2 0 5 1 2 2 2 2 1 9 3 S.S 5 3 5 1 0 14 0 2 1 2 0 1 6 0 1 1 2 0 1 5 1 4.2 4.2 4.1 2.3 0.5 15.3 1.3 2.8 2.9 2.7 1.7 0.9 11.1 2.8 2.3 2.4 2.1 1.2 1.0 8.4 2.444 Appendix 6Data by subject for the Multiple-Choice Recognition testImmediate posttest 0ne week Three monthsSubj. 15-18 13-14 8-10 4-5 1 TOT 15-18 13-14 8-10 4-5 1 TOT 15-18 13-14 8-10 4-5 1 TOTM.I 3 1 2 0 0 6 1 1 3 0 0 5 1 1 1 0 1 4 N.T 1 2 1 1 1 6 1 0 1 0 1 3 2 1 1 1 1 6 C.K 5 4 4 3 1 17 4 4 3 4 2 17 ------T.O 5 3 4 1 0 13 4 3 5 1 0 13 4 3 5 1 1 14 Y.O 3 3 1 1 1 9 3 2 1 3 0 9 3 1 3 0 1 8 M.T 3 1 4 3 2 13 1 1 2 1 0 5 0 0 2 1 0 3 A.T 4 2 2 0 1 9 4 2 1 1 0 8 3 1 2 1 1 8 M.T 4 2 2 0 0 8 2 1 1 0 0 4 1 0 1 0 0 2 Y.N 4 4 4 3 2 17 5 4 4 1 3 17 3 2 3 2 1 11 R.A 4 3 3 2 2 14 4 1 3 0 0 8 3 2 4 0 0 9 T.S 4 0 2 1 1 8 4 0 1 0 2 7 1 0 2 0 0 3 T.O 4 4 5 3 0 16 4 3 3 4 2 16 2 3 4 4 0 13 K.K 3 0 2 2 1 8 0 2 0 0 0 2 2 0 1 0 1 4 S.A 4 1 2 2 0 9 1 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 1 0 3 S.S 3 0 3 0 0 6 2 0 2 0 0 4 2 0 0 1 0 3 3.6 2.0 2.7 1.5 0.8 10.6 2.7 1.6 2.0 1.0 0.7 7.9 1.9 0.9 1.9 0.8 0.5 6.145 Appendix 7Data by subject for the Meaning (Translation) test data.Immediate posttest 0ne week Three monthsSubj. 15-18 13-14 8-10 4-5 1 TOT 15-18 13-14 8-10 4-5 1 TOT 15-18 13-14 8-10 4-5 1 TOTM.I 2.5 0.5 1 0 0 4 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 N.T 0.5 0 1 0 0 1.5 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 C.K 5 3 2.5 1 0 11.5 1 1.5 1 1 0 4.5 ------T.O 3 1.5 4 0 0 8.5 0.5 2 3 0 0 5.5 1 0 2 0 0 3 Y.O 3.5 0.5 1 0 0 5 0.5 0 1 0 0 1.5 1.5 0 1 0 0 2.5 M.T 0.5 0 1 0 0 1.5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 A.T 4 0 1 0 0 5 1 1 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 1 M.T 1 1 1 0 0 3 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 Y.N 2 1.5 3 1 0 7.5 2 0 1 0 1 4 0 0 2 0 0 2 R.A 2 0 1 0 0 3 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 T.S 0 0 0.5 0 0 0.5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 T.O 3 3 3.5 1.5 0 11 0 0.5 3 0 0 3.5 0 0.5 2 0 0 2.5 K.K 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 S.A 3 1 0 0 0 4 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 S.S 1 0 1 0 0 2 0 0 2 0 0 2 0 0 1 0 0 1 2.1 0.8 1.4 0.2 0.0 4.6 0.5 0.3 0.9 0.1 0.1 1.9 0.3 0.0 0.6 0.0 0.0 0.946 47 1 For example, Day, Omura and Hiramatsu (1991), Dupuy and Krashen (1993), Ferris (1988), Grabe and Stoller (1997), Hayashi (1999), Horst, Cobb and Meara (1998), Mason and Krashen (1997), Mason and Krashen (in press), and Pitts, White and Krashen (1989). 2 19853 Nagy, 1997 p.754 Kennedy, 1987 5 Nation and Wang, 1999 6 Waring, 2001 7 For example, Day, Omura and Hiramatsu, 1991; Dupuy and Krashen, 1993; Pitts, White and Krashen, 1989 8 Yamazaki, 1999 9 Hu and Nation. 2000

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