The effects of data-driven learning upon vocabulary acquisition for secondary international school students in Vietnam

• Published in: ReCALL (Cambridge, England) Vol. 28; no. 2; pp. 166 - 186
• Main Author: Karras, Jacob Nolen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.05.2016
• Subjects: CAI; College Students; Comparative Analysis; Computer Assisted Instruction; Computer assisted language learning; Control Groups; Correlation analysis; Dictionaries; Distance learning; Electronic Learning; English (Second Language); English as a second language learning; English for Special Purposes; Evidence Based Practice; Experimental Groups; Foreign Countries; Foreign languages; Foreign students; Instructional Effectiveness; Instructional Program Divisions; International Schools; Language Acquisition; Language Proficiency; Learning; Longitudinal Studies; Regular papers; Second Language Instruction; Second Language Learning; Second language vocabulary learning; Secondary School Students; Students; Teaching Methods; Training; Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh City); Vocabulary Development; Vietnam; data-driven learning; Corpora; second language vocabulary acquisition; online-dictionary learning
• ISSN: 0958-3440; 1474-0109
• DOI: 10.1017/S0958344015000154

Within the field of computer assisted language learning (CALL), scant literature exists regarding the effectiveness and practicality for secondary students to utilize data-driven learning (DDL) for vocabulary acquisition. In this study, there were 100 participants, who had a mean age of thirteen years, and were attending an international school in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. This particular milieu unsurprisingly comprised ‘third culture kids’ (TCKs) and ‘cross-cultural kids’ (CCKs). They were assigned to a control and experimental group; both had several intensive weeks of online-dictionary learning training, while the experimental group also experienced intensive DDL training. This was done prior to the start of the eight-week longitudinal study. Major findings included a significant longitudinal main effect for both groups, significantly overall higher results for the experimental group than the control, and a significant difference among subjects’ grade level was discovered. Furthermore, the experimental group exhibited a significantly marked increase in vocabulary results in the later weeks of the experiment. In general, these results show that DDL can be successful in the secondary school English as a foreign language (EFL) context and that it promotes significantly better vocabulary acquisition when used in conjunction with online-dictionary vocabulary learning methods, especially for a sustained longitudinal period of time.