Learning academic vocabulary through reading online news

Abstract

Although corpus-driven studies have suggested that non-academic texts such as online news can be a potential resource for learning specialized words and multiword sequences, no intervention studies have been conducted to examine whether learning actually happens from exposure to these texts. Adopting a quasi-experimental design, the present research investigated the potential of online news for incidentally learning academic words and multiword sequences. Fifty-three university students in China were divided into an experimental group (n = 28) or a control group (n = 25). Students in the experimental group read six pieces of online news containing 16 academic words and 26 academic multiword sequences. Students in the control group were not exposed to such online news. This study showed that reading online news resulted in learning gains of both academic single words and multiword sequences. Frequency of occurrence significantly contributed to the learning outcomes of academic words, but not multiword sequences. Learners’ previous vocabulary knowledge did not play a significant role in explaining the learning gains of academic single words nor multiword sequences.