This study investigated whether the framework of writing for English learners should be guided by the well-established reading-writing relation or by the receptive and productive nature of literacy skills. The writings of 209 advanced English learners in Korea were analyzed in relation to receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension while controlling for writing fluency. Two sets of structural equation models were fitted: (1) productive skills (productive vocabulary and writing fluency) mediating receptive skills (receptive vocabulary and reading) and (2) reading mediating receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge. The results supported the second model in which reading completely mediated the contribution of receptive and productive vocabulary to writing. Although there were no direct effects of receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge, both had significant indirect effects on writing through reading and writing fluency. These results show that reading has a strong direct effect on writing above and beyond vocabulary, and that vocabulary knowledge contributes to writing development through reading.

This study aimed to explore the role of inference making in the relation between vocabulary knowledge (breadth and depth) and reading comprehension for 487 ninthgrade Chinese EFL students who were categorized as either struggling or adequate. Path analysis was used to examine both direct and mediated effects. The results indicated a statistically significant indirect effect of vocabulary knowledge on reading comprehension, mediated by inference making, for the entire participant group. However, there were notable differences between the struggling and adequate readers, as evidenced by distinct path diagrams. For struggling readers, the indirect effect of vocabulary breadth on reading comprehension through inference making was significant, while that of vocabulary depth was not significant. For adequate readers, both vocabulary breadth and depth directly explained reading comprehension. These results are discussed in the EFL context, encompassing assessment and instructional implications for EFL readers with varying levels of reading abilities.

This study investigated the relative predictive power of vocabulary depth and reading fluency on the reading comprehension of advanced Korean EFL learners in college. By doing so, the scope of paradigmatic relations, as part of vocabulary depth, was extended to encompass associative vocabulary as well as synonyms and antonyms, and reading fluency at the discourse level was considered. For this study, 139 college students were tested on a range of vocabulary depth tests, as well as reading comprehension and text-level reading fluency. The findings revealed that although both vocabulary depth and reading fluency are significant contributors to reading comprehension abilities, the predictability of vocabulary depth was larger than that of reading fluency. In addition, associative vocabulary not only revealed additional predictive power for reading comprehension on top of reading fluency, synonyms and antonyms, but also showed stronger predictability compared to synonyms and antonyms. These results highlight that both vocabulary depth, especially the knowledge of how words are related together, and text-level reading fluency play a crucial role in boosting the reading comprehension abilities of even advanced L2 readers.

Despite the recognized importance of morphological knowledge to literacy outcomes such as vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension, two of its subconstructs— morphological awareness and morphological processing—have received comparatively little attention. In response, the aim of the study reported here was to examine how the relationships between morphological awareness and morphological processing, especially in terms of morphological transparency and morphological frequency, contribute to the vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension of 62 native Korean-speaking secondary school students—27 eighth-graders and 35 tenth-graders— learning English as a foreign language. The students’ performance on the Test of Morphological Structure and the Word Reading Test was assessed to gauge their compounding awareness, inflectional awareness, vocabulary knowledge, and reading comprehension. The results indicated that the students’ performance was varied depending on morphological transparency and frequency. In addition, it was not morphological processing, but rather morphological awareness that explained variances in vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension, when compounding awareness and inflectional awareness were controlled for. This paper discusses what such findings imply for teaching English as a foreign language to Korean learners.

The present study aims to investigate the direct and indirect contributions of Korean EFL college students’ L2 receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge to their L2 writing performances by using a structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis with a goal to explore the pathways of vocabulary knowledge to writing. Data from 178 students were collected through tests of receptive and productive vocabulary breadth and depth, a writing test and a reading test. In testing a hypothesized model on the roles of receptive and productive vocabulary in writing, the results of the SEM analysis reveal the direct role of productive vocabulary in writing. The indirect role of receptive vocabulary on writing was observed through the mediating role of productive vocabulary or reading ability due to the direct contribution of receptive vocabulary to both productive vocabulary and reading and that of productive vocabulary and reading to writing. Findings from the study shed light on the relations of L2 receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge with L2 writing abilities, suggesting potential benefits of both receptive and productive vocabulary learning for L2 writing.

The present study examined the comparative role of vocabulary and grammar in different test measures of L2 reading comprehension. A total of 83 students were asked to take three reading tests with a different technique each (multiple-choice, cloze, and recall), a vocabulary test, and a grammar test, and to respond to a questionnaire. The findings were as follows: 1) learners’ reading performance differed across the three reading test measures, and the two language variables exerted different influences in L2 reading as measured by the cloze test technique; and 2) concerning the comparative contribution of the two language variables to L2 reading comprehension according to learners’ L2 proficiency, the contribution was significant exclusively in the recall test, and it varied depending upon their L2 proficiency. This research demonstrates the importance of taking into account the type of test techniques in studies of the relative role of vocabulary and grammar knowledge in L2 reading.

The present study investigated which facets of perceived self-efficacy (PSE) in L2 reading are significantly related to L2 reading proficiency (L2RP), which type of linguistic knowledge feeds into PSE, and how they are related to L2RP when considered together. Participants (n = 95) were college students from two universities in Seoul. Four subcomponents of PSE were identified for investigation: text-based PSE, general PSE, PSE in linguistic knowledge, and PSE in authentic reading. The result of stepwise multiple regression analysis showed that the general PSE whose items reflect dimensions of social comparative influences and perceived controllability over environments was the only significant predictor of L2RP (R2 = 17.7%). For the relationships between linguistic knowledge and PSE, vocabulary knowledge (VK) was shown to be the only significant predictor of PSE when considered together with grammar knowledge (GK) and L2RP (R2 = 22.9%), while VK and GK were significant predictors of L2RP (R2 = 69.4%). PSE was not found to make an independent contribution to L2RP when considered with linguistic knowledge.

The present study examines L2 reading proficiency effects on the relative contribution of vocabulary knowledge and grammar knowledge to L2 reading comprehension for Korean high school EFL learners. To this end, 200 high school students were asked to take a vocabulary knowledge test, a grammar test, and a reading comprehension test. The participants were divided into three sub-groups by L2 reading ability in order to examine L2 proficiency effects. Multiple regression analyses for the sub-groups indicated the relationships among the three variables as distinctive. The results showed that syntactic knowledge had a predictive power for reading performance in the high reading group, but vocabulary had the same quality in the intermediate reading group. For the low reading group, neither vocabulary nor grammar could significantly account for the L2 reading variance. Theoretical implications and directions for further studies are discussed.

This study attempted to investigate the relative contribution of vocabulary and grammatical knowledge to second language reading comprehension ability. With 44 EFL adult learners whose language proficiency fell within the low-intermediate level, three different measures were conducted: vocabulary and grammatical knowledge were measured by researcher-developed tests and L2 reading comprehension was measured using the reading section of the TOEIC test. In order to examine the two predicting variables (i.e., vocabulary and grammatical knowledge) a multiple regression analysis was performed. The study found that both grammatical and vocabulary knowledge related significantly to L2 reading comprehension. Additionally, vocabulary knowledge showed a slightly stronger contribution to reading comprehension than syntactic knowledge. These findings suggest that it is equally important for lower level readers to understand vocabulary as well as basic syntactic rules and structures when it comes to EFL reading comprehension.

This study examined whether vocabulary knowledge has meaningful effects on reading comprehension of Korean high school EFL learners and investigated which specific type of vocabulary knowledge, between vocabulary breadth and depth, plays a bigger role in reading comprehension when the learners’ English language proficiency is taken into account. The participants of this study were ninety eight high school EFL learners in Seoul, Korea, and they were tested on a series of measures tapping on their reading comprehension abilities and vocabulary knowledge in two different dimensions (vocabulary breadth and depth). Their listening comprehension abilities were also measured in order to control for the effects of general oral language comprehension abilities known to be the foremost contributor to reading comprehension and thus to enable focused analysis of the role of vocabulary knowledge. The study findings revealed that 1) vocabulary knowledge itself played a critical role in predicting reading comprehension abilities even after controlling for their listening comprehension abilities and that 2) compared to vocabulary breadth, vocabulary depth played a relatively more important role in predicting reading comprehension, regardless of the learners’ language proficiency. The findings provide important implications for vocabulary and reading comprehension instructions for Korean EFL students.

This study investigated whether or not there is any difference in the extent to which incidental vocabulary learning takes place according to the presence of background knowledge. Along with background knowledge, three other variables such as reading comprehension ability, reading strategies, and knowledge of words were examined to determine how each variable contributes to incidental vocabulary learning. The data from two groups of 60 second grade students in a Korean middle school was analyzed in this research, and the followings were measured: the use of reading strategies, reading comprehension ability, knowledge of passage sight vocabulary, background knowledge on a text, and knowledge of target words. The findings revealed that the participants inferred the meaning of unknown words better when they had more background knowledge. Each of the four variables was a significant predictor of their incidental vocabulary learning and played a facilitative role in the lexical inferencing process. The results are discussed in terms of the conditions for efficient incidental vocabulary learning through reading.

TOEIC continues to be an important test in Asia and TOEfC preparation classes are as popular as they have ever been. Little research has been done, however, to determine the most effective ways to help students prepare for this test. This study sought to analyze the impact of explicit TOEIC instruction when supplemented with Silent Sustained Readi ng (SSR) and an online vocabulary learning program. Four combinations of these practices were tested: ( I) explicit instruction supplemented by online vocabulary instruction, 2) a combination of explicit instruction, SSR and online vocabulary practice, 3) explicit instruction supplemented by SSR, and 4) expli cit instruction on ly. Total time for instruction and practice were kept constant among the four groups. Due to between-group differences on pre-test TOEIC scores, an ANCOVA analys is was used. On total TOEIC scores, all groups made sign ificant and statistically eq ual gains. However, on an analysis of the reading portion of the TOEIC resu lts, group 2 (combination of explicit instruction, SSR, and online vocabulary practice) outperformed group 4 (exp licit practice only group). The author concludes that the combination of all three practices had a synergistic effect on the reading portion of the test and led to superior gain s.

This paper explored the relative roles of grammar and vocabulary in different L2 reading tasks, i.e., scanning and receptive reading. The participants involved 14 advanced and 14 intermediate adult ESL learners with diverse L1 backgrounds, enrolling at a university-affiliated language institute. For the scanning task, the participants were asked to read two English articles and highlight each occurrence of a key word given at the outset for each article. For the receptive reading task, the participants read another two articles for comprehending and remembering the content and to answer 7 multiple-choice comprehension questions for each article. Additionally, the participants completed a 35-item multiple-choice grammar test and a 20-item multiple-choice vocabulary test. The results of a multiple regression analysis revealed that relative importance of vocabulary and grammar varied depending on the types L2 reading task.

The study investigated whether Korean EFL students' vocabulary used in reading-based writing differed according to writing topic and their reading and writing proficiency. College students enrolled in writing courses (n=95) were asked to write argumentative essays in response to two readings on judging people by appearance (JPA) and disclosing personal information of serious criminals (DPI). These students were divided into high and low proficiency writer groups and into high and low proficiency reader groups according to their writing and reading scores respectively. The students' vocabulary used in writing was then analyzed by VocabProfile, which provided four lexical frequency lists: the first 1000 frequent words (K1) including function words (FW) and content words (CW), the second 1000 frequent words (K2), academic word list (AWL), and off the list words (OLW). The results indicated that the topic JPA produced a higher proportion of K1 and content words, whereas DPI generated more K2 and off the list words. None of the vocabulary profiles, however, significantly differed according to the students’ reading proficiency. In contrast, proficient writers were found to use significantly more K1 and function words than their counterparts. With the topic effect further considered, for JPA, proficient writers used more K1 words and function words whereas less proficient writers used more K2 and off the list words. With regard to DPl, proficient writers were found to use more function words than low proficient writers. Findings are discussed in more detail, along with implications.

The purpose of this study was to investigate to what extent Korean college students can acquire vocabulary from reading course materials. The participants were 32 college students who enrolled in a TEFL methodology course. A vocabulary test was administered at the beginning and the end of the course, and the results showed that the participants were able to recognize meanings of an average of 3.6 new words, suggesting that small but significant amounts of incidental vocabulary learning can occur as a result of reading course materials. The findings also showed that there was a statistically significant relationship between the number of times each word occurred and its relative learning gain. The results of this study suggests that incidental vocabulary learning is possible from reading even though the amount of such learning is not large. Implications for vocabulary learning and teaching are discussed.