Maximising incidental vocabulary acquisition in Spanish as a Foreign Language

Resumen

This paper presents a study designed to contribute some evidence for incidental vocabulary acquisition in the foreign language. Finding the most effective approach to vocabulary learning and teaching has occupied researchers intensively. This is a small scale study in which the lexical learning of 52 Italian learners of Spanish as a foreign language is tested. Learners are submitted to three conditions with different requirements (output vs. input, multiple exposures vs. target word usage, meaning comparison and selection vs. message production), but in all three, vocabulary is learned in an incidental way and with a lexical learning condition present in the task. Results point to lack of statistical differences in lexical gains among the three interventions. From this finding, it might be assumed that it is not the nature of the manipulation, input or output, multiple exposures, or target word usage, but complying with any condition for lexical learning that plays a determining role in lexical acquisition.