Promoting L2 Vocabulary Learning through Narrow Reading

Abstract

Krashen (2004) has advocated that narrow reading, i.e., reading a series of texts addressing one specific topic, is an effective method to grow vocabulary. While narrow reading has been championed to have many advantages for L2 vocabulary learning, there remains a relative dearth of empirical studies that test the impact of narrow reading on L2 learners’ lexical growth. The present study examines whether narrow reading results in L2 vocabulary learning. A total of 61 high intermediate learners read a series of texts either thematically related (narrow) or unrelated (wide) over one month. The findings showed that narrow reading considerably facilitated learners’ understanding of meanings of target words and their ability to appropriately use them. The narrow group’s responses to an exit questionnaire revealed several factors that could have accounted for this improvement in their vocabulary knowledge. Several implications for vocabulary teaching are discussed.

Keywords

Narrow reading vocabulary vocabulary learning through reading EFL vocabulary learning

Introduction

It is commonly believed that reading is a powerful tool for vocabulary growth (Dupay and Krashen, 1993). Despite general faith in this belief, L2 empirical research evidence has strongly challenged this point of view. Studies have found that learners acquire only a limited number of words at a very slow rate through reading (Nation, 2001; Peters et al., 2009; Read, 2004). In addition, results of L2 vocabulary studies generally suggest that explicit teaching of words is far more effective for L2 vocabulary learning than reading textual input without instructional assistance (Laufer, 2005). Even though the research shows that L2 vocabulary gains from ‘reading only’ are meager and that learners benefit more from explicit word-focused instruction, the role that reading plays in vocabulary development cannot be ignored. One major reason that reading remains important is related to the difficulty in promoting vocabulary growth solely by means of classroom instruction. In a study on the relationship between vocabulary and comprehension, Nation (2006) estimates L2 readers should know at least 8,000 to 9,000 word families to deal with authentic written texts. This large amount of vocabulary cannot be well developed when vocabulary learning is confined to 2-3 hours of classroom instruction per week. In addition, as a command of vocabulary entails knowledge of spelling, syntax, meaning, and usage, learners need to repeatedly encounter target words in a variety of contexts to fully acquire new words.

Acknowledging the strengths of reading for vocabulary development, researchers have suggested a number of ways to potentially make reading more efficient. Krashen (2004) has advocated that narrow reading, i.e., reading a series of texts addressing one specific topic, is an effective method to grow vocabulary because it guides learners in coming across the topic-related words recurrently in diverse contexts. By persistently reading on a certain topic, Krashen (2004) believes, learners can develop a wide array of knowledge on the topic as well as the vocabulary involved. While a number of researchers (Krashen, 2004; Schmitt and Carter, 2000) have championed narrow reading, there remains a relative dearth of empirical studies that test the impact of narrow reading on L2 learners’ lexical growth. There is, therefore, a need for more research investigating whether narrow reading results in L2 vocabulary learning.The aim of this paper is to examine the effects of narrow reading on L2 lexical development and explore its pedagogical applications in instructional L2 learning. A more complete understanding of the relationship between narrow reading and vocabulary learning may provide guidance for L2 vocabulary teaching.

Literature Review

Contributions of Narrow Reading to L2 Vocabulary Learning

Literature on L2 vocabulary learning suggests that continuous exposure to words is one of the primary factors determining the success of vocabulary learning (Peters et al., 2009). As suggested by Nation (1997: 15), ‘If the learning of a word is not soon reinforced by another meeting, then that learning will be lost’. When L2 learners read about only one topic, the frequency of exposure to topic-relevant words is high, and therefore vocabulary gains can be accrued. The positive effects of high word reiteration on incidental vocabulary learning have also been validated by empirical studies where the occurrence of words in textual input is manipulated by the researchers (Ekert and Tavakili, 2012; Laufer and Rozovski-Roitblat, 2011). However, narrow reading can achieve the benefit of having L2 learners obtain multiple exposures to a set of new words without modification of the word frequency.

Researchers (Krashen, 2004; Schmitt and Carter, 2000; Kinsella, 2014) have proposed several different instantiations of narrow reading that ensure word repetition. One manner is to encourage students to read ongoing news stories on current issues, such as Japan’s volcano eruption in 2014. The accounts of the eruption are likely to include words like ‘debris’, ‘victim’, ‘spew’, or ‘ash’. Thus, while reading the stories, learners encounter words that are closely related to the topic. Each story deals with the same issue but at different time points and from different points of view (Kinsella, 2014). To take the Japanese volcanic eruption as an example, an initial news article would offer information about the volcanic eruption, ranging from the time of its occurrence to the number of casualties. Subsequent news reports would briefly summarize simple background information on the eruption and then transition into new aspects of the incident, such as the search-and-rescue operations and the effectiveness of the warning systems for volcanoes. Therefore, the group of words covered is naturally expanded from the volcano per se to a broader set of topics such as the consequences of the explosion and people’s reactions to the phenomenon. Widening coverage of a single topic increases the likelihood that learners will encounter a wide range of topic-related vocabulary in a meaningful context.

As illustrated above, one of the major positive attributes of narrow reading is the recurrent presentation of main ideas and related vocabulary. Informed by insights from cognitive psychology, Han and D’Angelo (2009) account for how the attributes of narrow reading contribute to vocabulary learning. Most cognitive theorists recognize that human cognition has limited capacity. Due to limited individual attentional resources, L2 readers have difficulty in processing meaning and linguistic forms concurrently when processing input (VanPatten, 2004). While reading, tackling unfamiliar topics may be a negative factor in that it can exhaust learners’ processing resources, leaving relatively little for incidental vocabulary acquisition. However, reading familiar content is likely to decrease the burden on learners’ processing resources, thus freeing up processing capacity for the task of word learning. In addition, second language acquisition (SLA) researchers hold that language learning does not take place if learners do not notice or recognize linguistic features of input (Schmidt, 1990). Based on the notion of noticing in L2 learning, Han and D’Angelo point out that the recurrence of certain words makes them more salient, consequently promoting vocabulary acquisition.

Review of Previous Studies on Narrow Reading

While the theoretical support for narrow reading as a way to learn vocabulary is well established in the literature, narrow reading has not been widely researched empirically. The existing studies are mainly corpus-driven, and have investigated whether narrow input more effectively recycles vocabulary. These studies compare vocabulary use of related stories with that of unrelated ones. For instance, Hwang and Nation (1989) looked into the recurrence of vocabulary in successive accounts of newspaper stories. Their analysis revealed that in a corpus of a newspaper stories and their follow-ups, there were more repetitions of words, specifically the ones beyond the range of the most frequent 2,000 words, than unrelated content. Based on this result, the researchers concluded that vocabulary demand in running stories is relatively low compared to stories on disconnected topics, and therefore, running stories provide more optimal conditions for learning advanced vocabulary.

Sutarsyah, Nation, and Kennedy (1994) also discovered appreciable differences in the distribution of vocabulary between texts in one academic discipline (in this case, economics) and a set of unrelated academic texts. Analyzing a corpus of a single university textbook of approximately 300,000 words, they found that the vocabulary load in a single related topic is much smaller than a corpus of similar length consisting of random academic texts. That is, a larger number of word types and word families were found in the unrelated academic texts than in the economic texts, which poses a potential challenge for learners to understand them. The findings led the researchers to conclude that it would be useful to narrow the theme of reading materials by using texts on related topics rather than making use of a group of unrelated texts. They maintained that this narrow reading approach might ‘greatly reduce the vocabulary knowledge needed to cope with the material and allow learners to give their attention to skill development’ (1994: 49).

While the prior corpus-based studies suggest the vocabulary-recycling benefits of narrow reading, they do not provide evidence about whether L2 readers can actually build vocabulary knowledge via reading. To my knowledge, the only study that explores learners’ vocabulary gains through narrow reading was done by Cho, Ahn, and Krashen (2005). In the study, Cho et al. asked 37 learners enrolled in an elementary school in Korea to read the Clifford book series (short fiction stories written for English-speaking children), in a class that lasted 40 minutes per week over a period of three months. The participants were tested on L2 vocabulary items selected from both the book series and their English textbook at the first and last week of the study. A questionnaire inquiring about their interest in reading was also distributed before and after the treatment. It was found that their level of interest and confidence in reading improved drastically at the end of the study. The study also revealed that students made significant vocabulary gains after narrow reading. These results are promising but not definitive due to several methodological limitations. First, the study did not include a comparison group. As noted by the researchers, without the presence of a comparison group, it is difficult to determine whether there are indeed significant effects of narrow reading on vocabulary learning. In addition, participants engaged in a variety of activities along with narrow reading, including shared reading, book making, jigsaw reading, listening to the supplementary CD, and completing a reading log after each book. This makes it difficult to find individual contributions of narrow reading to vocabulary gains. Finally, the study measured only receptive vocabulary gains by asking students to provide Korean equivalents of target words. However, including productive vocabulary measures could have provided further insights on the potential benefit of narrow reading for L2 learners’ vocabulary use.

Although Cho et al.’s (2005) study is pioneering and informative, the methodological shortcomings mentioned above suggest that there is a need for more methodologically sound research on narrow reading. As a first step toward this goal, the present study presents an empirical study on learners’ vocabulary learning through narrow reading. Specifically, it investigates how intermediate EFL learners engage in narrow reading and acquire vocabulary over a period of one month. Importantly, it examines multiple aspects of vocabulary knowledge by including both receptive and productive vocabulary measures, which the previous study (Cho et al., 2005) was not able to explore. Accordingly, this study is guided by two research questions: (1) Does narrow reading contribute to L2 learners’ receptive vocabulary learning? (2) Does narrow reading contribute to L2 learners’ productive vocabulary learning?

Methods

Participants and Setting

The participants were 61 high intermediate-level students in grade 11 enrolled in a senior high school in Korea (ages 17–18 years-old). All of the participants started the study of English as a required subject in grade 3. A background questionnaire revealed that they had never lived in any English-speaking country before. They received 50 minutes of English instruction four times a week. The main focus of the instruction was on reading and listening skills. The Korean national English curriculum suggests that by the end of grade 10, students are expected to know approximately 1,800 to 2,000 word families. The participants were from two classes, and each class was assigned to one of the two reading conditions: a narrow reading group, consisting of 30 students, who read texts about one topic; and a regular reading group, consisting of 31 students, who read random texts whose topics were not related. To ensure the correspondence between each group’s reading proficiency before treatments, their mid-term scores were compared. The midterm test consisted of 35 reading comprehension questions that needed to be done within 50 minutes. The test scores confirmed that no pre-treatment differences existed between these groups’ reading proficiency (t = −0.723, df = 59, p > 0.5).

Reading Materials

Initially, all the participants in the study read a brief excerpt from a book on secondhand smoking. All target words occurred in the text, and were glossed in English in the margins. Other words, such as medical jargon and low frequency words, which were likely to hinder learners’ comprehension, were glossed as well. After reading the main text, the narrow reading group continued to read slightly adapted versions of three online newspaper articles addressing the issue of secondhand smoke. The three texts were similar in terms of length, difficulty, and content (Table 1). The comparison group read three passages on three different topics— a tsunami, Babe Ruth, and Boxing Day. The topics were chosen from an online newspaper because similar topics were previously covered in the learners’ textbook, and so the learners were not unfamiliar with the topics. No marginal glossary was provided in the additional three reading texts assigned to each group. On average, there were approximately 450 words in each text. The vocabulary appearing in each text was analyzed with Cobb’s (2014) online lexical profiling software, which dissected the text into Laufer and Nation’s (1995) word frequency categories. Table 1 shows approximately 80% of the words used in the texts were from the 0–2,000 vocabulary frequency level.

Table 1.

Readability and Lexical Coverage of Texts Used for Each Group.

Topic	Main Text^a	Narrow Reading Group			Control Group
	Secondhand Smoke	A Warning on Hazards of Secondhand Smoke	A Strong Warning about Danger of Secondhand Smoke	Dangers of Secondhand Smoke	Tsunami Causes Deaths on Solomon Islands	A Short Biography of Babe Ruth	Boxing Day in United Kingdom
Word count	473	446	417	449	447	466	448
Flesh-Kineaid Grade Level^b	9.5	10	9.2	9.8	10	8.9	9.9
1K +2K Word Level Coverage	81.04%	80.26%	81.39%	80.69%	80.24%	82.40%	83.73%
AWL^c	8.54%	9.68%	8.28%	9.64%	3. 79%	2.45%	3.30%
Offlist^d (Proper nouns)	10.42%(1.17%)	10.05%(0.87 %)	10.33% (1.05 %)	9.67% (0.84%)	15.96% (11.19%)	11.66% (8.04%)	12.97% (3.2%)

Note. ^aAll participants read the main text.

A number indicates a grade level. For instance, a score of 9 would mean that a US student in 9^th grade can read and comprehend the text.

AWL: Academic Word List (Coxhead, 2000).

Off-list: words that do not belong to the 1K + 2K frequency level as well as the AWL list. Proper nouns were also included in the list.

Table 2.

Description of Vocabulary Measures.

Test order	Task type	Vocabulary knowledge assessed
1	L1-L2 word translation	productive knowledge in isolation
2	Sentence production	productive knowledge in context
3	L2-L1 word translation	receptive knowledge in isolation
4	Multiple-choice gap-fill task	receptive knowledge in context

Target Words

Fifteen English words that were unlikely to have been known to the participants were selected for the study. At the beginning of the study, all participants were asked to supply L1 meanings of the target words along with 15 distracters. Seven participants who reported that they knew the words were excluded from the current dataset. The target words appeared in the first text that all participants were required to read. They also occurred in the three additional narrow reading texts. A vocabulary frequency profiler (Cobb, 2014) indicated that all target words were beyond the level of 2,000 most commonly used English words. The participants’ responses to the background questionnaire revealed that they were not exposed to any of the target words outside the treatments. Participants’ textbooks did not cover any of the words either.

Assessment Measures

Since the study only included target words that the participants had no prior knowledge of, vocabulary learning was analyzed by means of immediate and delayed post-tests. To scrutinize both receptive and productive vocabulary gains, the study adapted vocabulary measures from previous studies (Peters, 2007; Peters et al., 2009). These measures made it possible to assess four levels of vocabulary knowledge: (i) receptive knowledge in context, (ii) receptive knowledge in isolation, (iii) productive knowledge in context, and (iv) productive knowledge in isolation. That is, in this study, vocabulary gains were examined in terms of two dimensions (a) recognition vs. production and (b) context vs. isolation. As for isolated tests, a participant’s knowledge was assessed at the word level, whereas context tests assessed the participants’ knowledge in context. With regard to receptive tests, participants’ recognition of target words’ meanings was tested, whereas productive tests focused on participants’ use of target words. Specific tasks for each measure are shown in Table 3. Production tasks were administered earlier than receptive tasks so that receptive tests did not serve as cues to complete productive tests.

Table 3.

Receptive Vocabulary Test Scores (Recognition of Meaning of Target Words).

Group	N	Mean	SD	Gain^a
Narrow reading group
Context	30	10.2	4.18	2.07*
Isolation	30	13.93	1.68	1.41*
Comparison group
Context	31	8.12	3.67
Isolation	31	12.51	1.87

Notes. Maximum score = 15.

Narrow ↔comparison gain comparisons for both Context and Isolation (Independent-sample t-test, *p < .05, **p < .001).

As for the L1-L2 translation task, meanings of target words were given in L1, and learners were asked to write the L2 equivalents. On the other hand, the L2–L1 translation task required learners to supply L1 meanings in response to the given L2 words. Sentence production involved the construction of an original sentence with each given target word. With regard to a multiple choice gap-fill task, a passage was presented with target words deleted, and learners were asked to find target words suitable for each blank from a list of 5 distracters and 15 target words.

Procedure

The study involved three stages—pre-test, treatment, and post-test. In the pre-test, 15 target words along with 15 distracters were provided in English, and the participants were asked to supply L1 equivalents of the words. Students who knew the target words were eliminated to ensure that prior knowledge of target words would not affect the results of the study. One week after the pre-test, each of the classes was randomly assigned to one of two conditions: narrow reading and regular reading. Both groups read a text on the harmful effects of secondhand smoking.¹ Participants were provided with a glossary including L1 and L2 meanings of target words along with other medical jargon. Participants read the story, and the teacher checked their understanding by asking questions. Then, participants individually completed ten comprehension questions in a true/false format. While the narrow reading group continued to read about the topic throughout the next three sessions of the treatment, the regular reading group read about a number of unrelated topics in each session. True/False comprehension items were also provided along with each reading text. No glossary was provided when reading the additional three texts either on secondhand smoking or on random topics. The researcher was present in all of the treatment sessions to check participants’ active participation. Participants were told to focus on comprehending the content of the texts.

A post-test was administered in the same week in which the participants had completed the last session of the treatment. Each learner’s vocabulary gains were measured via both receptive and productive measures. The procedure is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

The Procedure of the Study.

Scoring and Data Analysis

To examine vocabulary gains from narrow reading, two receptive (isolation and context) and two productive vocabulary tests (isolation and context) were administered. An isolated receptive vocabulary test required learners to supply word meanings of target words in L1. The items comprising the test were scored as correct with 1 point, partly correct with 0.5 points, or incorrect with 0 points. A partial point was assigned to answers that were semantically acceptable but grammatically incorrect such as using an inaccurate part of speech. For instance, the verb expose was understood as the noun exposure. As for a receptive test that measured vocabulary knowledge in context, no partial credit was allowed because it followed a multiple-choice format. Thus, it was scored dichotomously, with 1 awarded to a correct answer and 0 to an incorrect answer On the other hand, a partial point was granted for responses to a productive test in context where participants produce a sentence using a target word. For instance, if a sentence included usage of a target word with a minor error such as an omission or addition of articles or plural(s) (e.g. ‘There is a scientific evidence’), 0.5 points were given. However, a sentence containing a target word with other types of errors did not receive any points (e.g. Many children exposed to secondhand smoke; Mr. Kim is a chemical teacher). Since the focus of the study was on the vocabulary learning of target words, incorrect usage of non-target words in the answers did not affect scores. As for isolated productive vocabulary tests in which learners were asked to write L2 target words based on given L1 equivalents, the same scoring scheme was employed. Answers that had minor spelling errors with one or two letter mistakes were awarded 0.5 points.

Results

Does Narrow Reading Contribute to L2 Learners’ Receptive Vocabulary Learning?

To measure receptive vocabulary learning, two different measures were used: a vocabulary test in isolation and a vocabulary test in context. Descriptive statistics for the participants’ scores on the two receptive vocabulary tests are presented in Table 3. Differences in the means between the groups suggest that the narrow reading group performed better on both isolation and context tests than the comparison group. An independent-samples t-test confirmed the statistically significant differences in the scores of an isolation test (t = 3.10; df = 59, p < .05) as well as those of a context test (t = 2.05; df = 59, p < .05) between the two groups. Thus, the results suggest narrow reading leads to better gains in learners’ receptive vocabulary knowledge than random reading.

In addition, in general and across groups, a mean score of the isolation test tended to be higher than that of the context test. That is, participants generally performed better when target words were tested in isolation rather in context. As for the narrow reading group, the average score of an isolation test was 13.93 (SD = 1.68), whereas the mean score of a context test was 10.2 (SD = 4.18). Similarly, the comparison group exhibited a higher mean score on the isolated test (M =12.5, SD =1.87) than on the context test (M = 8.12, SD = 3.67). It is clear that the narrow reading group performed better than the comparison group, and the higher scores were seen on isolated measures regardless of the group membership.

Does Narrow Reading Contribute to Learners’ Productive Vocabulary Learning?

Similar to receptive tests, the two productive tests were administered to measure participants’ productive vocabulary knowledge. The data was dealt with in the same manner as described for the receptive vocabulary measures. Table 4 summarizes the results of productive vocabulary tests. As suggested in Table 4, the narrow reading group exhibited higher scores than the comparison group. Gain scores for the narrow reading group were calculated, and an independent samples t-test was conducted to determine whether the gains were statistically significant. It was found that the productive vocabulary gains from narrow reading were statistically reliable on both the isolated (t = 7.94; df = 59, p< .001) and the context measures (t = 3.04; df = 59, p< .001).

Table 4.

Productive Vocabulary Test Scores (Production of Target Words).

Group	N	Mean	SD	Gain^a
Narrow reading group
Context	30	10.13	3.77	3.04**
Isolation	30	12.90	2.48	5.41**
Comparison group
Context	31	7.08	2.47
Isolation	31	7.48	2.82

Notes. Maximum score = 15.

Narrow ↔comparison gain comparisons for both Context and Isolation (Independent-sample t-test, *p < .05, **p < .001).

When test types were compared, similar to the receptive tests, both groups performed better on isolation measures.

Discussion

The first research question posed was whether narrow reading promotes receptive vocabulary knowledge. In order to answer the first research question, receptive vocabulary gains from narrow and comparison groups were compared via isolated and in-context measures. The results showed that participants engaging in narrow reading performed substantively better on two receptive vocabulary measures: (i) a L2–L1 word translation task and (ii) a multiple-choice gap filling task. The results suggest that L2 learners benefit more from reading texts arranged around a common theme than reading random texts in terms of accurate recognition of word meanings. This finding is consistent with Cho et al.’s (2005) study that found positive effects of narrow reading on vocabulary acquisition.

The narrow reading group’s responses to an exit questionnaire revealed several factors that could have accounted for the improvement in their receptive vocabulary knowledge. One of the reported factors was increased background knowledge of the given topic, secondhand smoking, thanks to the repeated encounters with the theme. A few participants in the narrow reading group pointed out that while they continued to read about the topic, they could easily understand what secondhand smoking is, why it is harmful, and how its risks can be prevented. For this reason, they emphasized that they could easily remember target words, all of which, in a way, were related to secondhand smoking. The benefits of narrow reading on retention of target vocabulary meanings are illustrated below with a quotation by a student:

Because many words are related to each other in terms of meaning and belong to the theme of secondhand smoking, it helped me learn the words. In the texts, words “asthma” and “respiratory diseases” constantly occurred together in the texts. As asthma is one example of respiratory diseases, one word naturally reminded me of the other when I was asked the meaning of them on the tests.

As mentioned above, repeated encounters with the thematic concept appeared to help learners develop semantic networks around the words. These findings are supported by the extant literature on the thematic relevance among target words and vocabulary acquisition. Tinkham (1997) found that presenting new L2 words in thematically related sets (e.g. frog, pond, green, slimy) facilitates the learning of those words, as compared to presenting new words in unrelated sets (e.g. cloud, office, risks, ease). Thus, the narrow reading condition might have enhanced learners’ ability to thematically integrate the content-related target words, thereby contributing to accessibility to the words easily.

In addition, participants in the narrow reading group reported that frequent encounters of target words in recurring contexts helped their learning. Generally speaking, L2 vocabulary research suggests that multiple encounters are necessary conditions for retention of words (Zahar et al., 2001). Because narrow reading provides abundant repetition of words that are closely related to a topic, such ample vocabulary recurrence might have reinforced the form and meaning mapping of words. Table 5 displays the comparison of recurrence of target words between the narrow reading and general reading texts. Although there is no single index for the number of exposures required for vocabulary learning, 5 to 15 encounters are generally considered as a requirement for vocabulary acquisition (Nation, 2001). As shown in Table 5, in the narrow texts, several target words appeared within this 5-15 range, with one word, “expose,” occurring a total of 32 times. In contrast, texts with no relation to the topic of secondhand smoking did not include any of the target words. Since narrow texts recycle target words more efficiently than do unrelated materials, narrow reading might have provided learners with more exposure to the words, increasing their possibility for acquisition. The result of the study is also in line with findings of previous corpus-based studies that illustrated vocabulary-recycling benefits of narrow reading (Hwang and Nation, 1989; Schmitt and Carter, 2000). This study, by extension, suggests that such lexical merits of narrow texts are likely to boost learners’ recognition of word meanings, as illustrated by the results from two receptive vocabulary tests.

Table 5.

Word Frequency in Both Narrow and Random Texts.

Target word families¹	Total occurrence
Target word families¹	Main text	Three narrow texts	Three random texts
Expose	5	32	0
Evidence	2	4	0
Chemical	1	9	0
Eliminate	1	7	0
Restriction	1	3	0
Reveal	1	3	0
Ban	1	7	0
Hazard	1	6	0
Venerable	1	3	0
Adverse	2	5	0
Asthma	1	4	0
Inhale	3	3	0
Ventilation	1	3	0
Respiratory	2	4	0
Toxic	1	3	0

Note. 1. Word families indicate groups of words which originate from the same root and meaningfully related, e.g. exposure, expose, exposing, etc.

All participants read a main text (See Figure 1).

The benefits of narrow reading were not limited to receptive vocabulary learning. The second research question in the present study asked whether narrow reading contributes to productive vocabulary knowledge. Similar to the results of the two receptive tests, the narrow reading group performed significantly better than the comparison group on the productive tests whether target words were assessed in both isolation and context. This indicates that even though narrow reading does not entail the use of productive vocabulary knowledge, it can contribute to development of productive vocabulary knowledge. According to Schmitt and Carter (2000), repeated exposures to target words through narrow reading can facilitate the productive dimension of vocabulary knowledge. They argue that in order to use a word competently, learners must know more than the basic meaning of a word, and abundant exposures to words through narrow input can create the conditions for outgrowth of knowledge about a word’s usage, including a word’s grammatical behavior and part of speech. In the study, participants in the narrow reading group were consistently exposed to target words in similar but various contexts, which might have enhanced their mastery over different aspects of vocabulary knowledge. For instance, the word exposure appeared not only in the form of a noun, but also as a verb (e.g. expose +somebody +to) and an adjective (e.g. be exposed to). It is likely that recurrence of words in diverse forms in various contexts can assist learners in expanding their knowledge about a word, resulting in learners’ deeper understanding of a word’s usage. Not surprisingly, the narrow reading group was better able to produce a sentence with the correct usage of a word on the productive vocabulary test when asked to use a word in a sentence. For instance, regarding the use of exposure, most students in the narrow reading group were able to use it with the preposition to while most students in the comparison group failed to use the preposition along with the word.

Another result worth mentioning is that both of the groups performed better on the tests when target words were assessed in isolation than in context. As for productive tests, participants’ superior performance on the isolated test in relation to the context test was expected because contextual production of words at the sentence level is inherently more demanding than the isolated production of words. Conversely, as for receptive tests, which entail recognition of target words, previous studies (e.g. Peters, 2007; Peters et al., 2009) showed that participants’ performances were better in context than in isolation because they were able to guess meanings of target words based on contextual cues. Thus, the opposite result of the current study may look puzzling, but this result might be an artifact of the construction of the context tests. In the previous studies, receptive contextual tests generally involved recognizing the meaning of a target word embedded in a discrete sentence. However, in this study, the receptive context test involved filling in gaps at the discourse level with target words that were presented as a list. The list of words included 15 target words and five distractors. Therefore, participants had to reduce the number of possible word choices while reading a text. Also, because the context test was constructed at the discourse level, it might have blurred the line between a vocabulary test and a reading test. It is possible that the construction of the contextual recognition of words had inadvertently biased the outcomes in favor of the receptive isolation test, which, in the study, involved recalling the meaning of target words.

Conclusion

The present study provided empirical evidence that reading a series of thematically linked texts can help learners understand meanings of words and become aware of the appropriate use of words. The findings of this study have several implications for vocabulary learning and teaching in both ESL and EFL settings. Most L2 researchers and educators have hitherto considered narrow reading as a form of recreational reading through which learners can boost their general reading proficiency and increase their motivation for learning the target language. However, the present findings suggest that when learners read supplementary texts that are thematically linked, their productive as well as receptive vocabulary knowledge is enhanced.²

Another implication lies in how to prepare materials for narrow reading. The advent of technology in the classroom offers a wealth of opportunities for compiling thematically related written material. The Internet is a tremendous source for locating and collecting such material. In this study, narrow reading texts were generated by drawing from online news accounts of a particular event by several different newspapers. However, this is just one approach as there are multiple applications for online material. As suggested by Schmitt and Carter, the Internet offers a plethora of authentic texts on ‘almost any topic imaginable’ (2000: 8). Using such an accessible and resourceful tool can help L2 teachers easily incorporate narrow reading into their classrooms.

In addition, narrow reading can work well in tandem with content-based instruction (CBI). In a content-based approach, classroom activities are specific to the subject matter being taught. In this respect, narrow reading lends itself quite naturally to CBI. However, as suggested by one anonymous reviewer, language learning will eventually be required to proceed from specific to general to maximize language input.

It should be emphasized that this study is not without its limitations. First, the study was not designed to evaluate the long-term effects of narrow reading. As a result, it is not possible to determine whether the observed positive effects of narrow reading will be maintained. In future research, it might be worth investigating the longer-term effects. In addition, in the present study, students’ reading comprehension was not measured on the post-test, and it was therefore difficult to examine whether increased reading comprehension translates to vocabulary growth. Thus, in further research on vocabulary learning through narrow reading, information on the level of comprehension of narrow texts and vocabulary learning would better help researchers understand the mechanism behind vocabulary reading via narrow texts.

Footnotes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes

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