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Article published In: ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 173:1 (2022) ► pp.120–152

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Receptive academic vocabulary knowledge and extramural English involvement – is there a correlation?

ORCiD logo with link | Stockholm University
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with Stockholm University.

Published online: 1 December 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/itl.21021.war
Abstract
Extramural English (EE) exposure has been shown to correlate with general vocabulary knowledge. It remains uncertain, however, how academic vocabulary knowledge correlates with EE and can be explained by EE factors and demographic factors. Therefore, an academic vocabulary test, a background questionnaire, and a survey on current EE involvement were administered to 817 Swedish upper-secondary students in university-preparatory study programmes. A linear model revealed little explanation from demographic factors (age, gender, number of first languages, length of English instruction, and parental educational level) whereas EE factors (reading, listening & viewing without textual support, viewing with Swedish subtitles) accounted for 26% of the variation. Since extensive EE involvement may support the incidental learning of academic lexis, the paper suggests pre-tertiary instructional principles being guided by extramural as well as intramural incidental learning opportunities.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Background
    • Extramural English
    • EE and academic vocabulary
  • Aim and research questions
  • Method
    • Participants
    • Vocabulary instrument
    • Background questionnaire
    • EE survey
    • Data analysis
  • Results
    • To what extent are Swedish EFL upper-secondary students involved in different EE activities, and are there differences between age and gender groups?
    • How do students’ different EE activities correlate with academic vocabulary knowledge?
    • Which EE and demographic factors are significant predictors of students’ academic vocabulary knowledge?
  • Discussion
    • Current amount of EE involvement
    • The relationship between EE involvement and academic vocabulary knowledge
    • EE and demographic factors’ explanatory power to predict academic vocabulary knowledge
    • Limitations and suggestions for future research
  • Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
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