The effect of vocabulary notebooks on vocabulary acquisition

This study investigated the effectiveness of vocabulary notebooks on vocabulary acquisition, and the attitudes of teachers and learners towards keeping vocabulary notebooks. The study was conducted with the participation of 60 pre-intermediate level students, divided into one treatment and two control groups, and their teachers at the English Language Preparatory School of Zonguldak Karaelmas University. A fourweek vocabulary notebook implementation was carried out according to a schedule and activities adapted and developed by the researcher. The data was gathered through receptive and productive vocabulary tests, free vocabulary use compositions, group interviews with the students and a one-to-one interview with the teacher of the experimental group. After the administration of receptive and productive vocabulary pre-tests to all of the groups, the learners in the experimental group started to follow the vocabulary notebook schedule incorporated into the regular curriculum, whereas the learners in the control group simply followed the normal curriculum. Every week all of the participant students wrote free vocabulary use compositions on the topics of the units of the week. At the end of the treatment, the same receptive and productive vocabulary tests were given to the groups again. All of the learners in the experimental group and the participant instructor were interviewed in order to see their attitudes towards using vocabulary notebooks. The quantitative and qualitative data analyses demonstrated that vocabulary notebooks are beneficial for vocabulary acquisition. Further, both students and their teacher expressed positive attitudes to vocabulary notebooks. This study implied that vocabulary notebooks could be incorporated into language classes in order for the students to recognize and use the words that are taught to them.