UC Riverside

The aim of this study is to examine different methods (i.e., interactive and direct instruction) of teaching foreign vocabulary. In order to help instructional designers build more effective lessons, a quantitative experimental study with post-test only design on L2 vocabulary acquisition through storybook reading was conducted with 115 UCR college students. The participants were distributed into three different conditions: direct instruction (providing L1 translations of the new vocabulary), interactive instruction (providing additional tasks on the new vocabulary), and control (no instructions were provided). Results showed that the impact of direct and interactive instructions on college students was the same and not generalizable for all age groups. Moreover, the findings indicate that prior familiarity with the story significantly affects vocabulary acquisition.