The effects of writing activities on L2 vocabulary learning

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of writing activities on story-based vocabulary learning. In total, 104 students from the 5th grades at a secondary school participated in the study. In order to conduct the study, 80 vocabulary items were selected randomly from four graded books. In the experimental group, 50 participants read the stories in the class and then performed the writing activities including the target vocabulary items. In the control group, 54 participants read the same stories; however, this group worked with word cards instead of writing activities. The study lasted 9 weeks, including four weeks of the readings and activities sessions. The results were compared through a pre-test and a post-test which were adapted from the Cambridge Starters Exam. The findings suggest that the experimental group who did the writing activities in addition to the stories outperformed the control group who only worked on the words through the stories. Moreover, the results also show that the control and experimental groups developed their knowledge of L2 vocabulary further. Overall, this study also has implications for the use of graded readers in vocabulary learning.