Incidental Vocabulary Learning Through Comprehension-Focused Reading of Short Stories*

Abstract

This study investigated the amount of incidental vocabulary learning through comprehension-focused reading of short stories and explicit instruction to this goal. Forty male high school students were selected randomly, and divided into two groups of twenty. One group of these students was given five 400-word-level short stories to read with the purpose of comprehension, and the students in the control group were explicitly taught twelve vocabulary items selected from the short stories. Results demonstrated that students in the incidental learning condition did better and gained more vocabulary. The contributions of the study to the field of English language teaching were mentioned eventually.