Vocabulary review: re-encounter or retrieval?

Receptive re-encounter Reminder by teacher, or encounter in an easy context Advantages: Easy, success-oriented, quick Disadvantages: Less attention: the quality of the review may be lower

Retrieval Receptively: seeing or hearing the English form(with or without context) and having to retrieve its meaning; Productively: having to produce the English form in order to represent a meaning Advantages: more attention, more learning value Disadvantages: may fail, may take more time

Barcroft, J.(2007). Effects of opportunities for word retrieval during second language vocabulary learning. Language Learning, 57 (1),

Definitions retrieval: access from stored information prior retrieval: prior access, facilitates later testing effect: previous tests improve later ones (provided it’s on the same material!) ‘Research has revealed that taking a test can facilitate subsequent test performance even more than additional exposure to the target material.’

Deep processing The more difficult it was to retrieve, the better the improvement in learning (link to deep processing and higher order thinking skills). Effort invested in retrieving improves learning (provided that the effort results in successful retrieval!)

The present research 44 English speakers learning Spanish: 24 words (names of tools). First all the words were presented with their pictures. Then: 12 words presented with pictures, the next 12 the picture only for 6 seconds, to give them time to recall the word, then the word given; the next 12 – simultaneously. The second group did the same the other way round (simultaneous first, retrieval second). The words learnt through ‘retrieval’ were learnt better.

Conclusion It produces better learning if students at second review are challenged to recall words / meanings on their own, rather than being presented with meaning and form together again. Provided that: a) they’ve already encountered the words previously b) the retrieval is success-oriented (they can do it, or if not then they’re told the answer immediately)

Barcroft’s application …if an instructor is using a picture file to present new words, the instructor might organize the picture file presentation so that each learner has an opportunity to try to come up with new words on their own instead of being presented with the new-word forms (either in spoken or written form) right away.

Karpicke, J., & Roediger, H. L. (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning. Science, 319,

Distinctions ‘Study’ or ‘encoding’: the student reviews the form and meaning of the word together, is not required to remember anything on his/her own. ‘Testing’ or ‘retrieval’: the student is required to understand or produce the item in his/her own in response to a cue. The question is what is the contribution of these to retention (long-term learning, memory) of vocabulary.

Four conditions: 1. Standard: all words studied, then tested; presented again and tested again; presented again and tested again (all the words every time) 2. Dropout condition 1: Once an item had been successfully produced in a test, it was dropped from study, but still included in tests 3. Dropout condition 2: Once an item had been successfully produced in a test, it was not tested again, but included in study 4. Dropout condition 3: once an item had been successfully produced in a test, it was dropped completely.

Results show that… Just studying on its own does not improve retention. Need the ‘test’ (retrieval) activities.

Conclusions Just being exposed to form and meaning again and again doesn’t help much. The student needs to make an effort to recall / recognize in order to learn.

But note that… This doesn’t necessarily mean a formal ‘test’ with a grade: what K calls ‘testing’ includes all the review activities that have the student retrieving knowledge of the vocabulary from memory. Note also that it implies successful retrieval: if the student can’t do the retrieval task, they won’t learn from it.