Is Form-Focused Vocabulary Instruction Worth While?

Footnotes

These calculations do not consider time devoted to testing. As noted in the text, it could be argued that the pretest primed the students for the vocabulary words as well as focused them on the task. Moreover, the posttest could have helped subjects keep words in mind for the delayed posttest. Efficiency on the first posttest incorporating the pretest was recalculated, adding five minutes to the total time for the story-only group, and ten minutes for the story-plus-study group, as they had a posttest after hearing the story as well. Efficiency for the story-only group was 9.3/20 = .47, for the story plus study group it was 15/75 = .2. For the delayed posttest, recalculated efficiency for the story-only group was 3.8/25 (pre plus posttest included) = .15, for the story plus study group it was 11.4/85 (pre and two posttests included) = .13.

From listening to several students retell the story, the first author has noted that students did not make special efforts to use the target words in their retellings. Rather, their goal appeared to be to tell the story coherently. It appears to be the case that even when students are aware that the exercise is intended to help them acquire vocabulary, concern with meaning influences their retellings more than vocabulary learning.