Ko, M.H. (2012). Glossing and second language vocabulary learning.TESOL Quarterly, 46(1), 56-79.
Please answer the following questions. Write a couple of sentences per question but no more than a paragraph.
1. On p. 62, Ko reports the results of a Cloze test. Why did she conduct a Cloze test as part of her study?
2. On p. 63, Ko says: “The text with no gloss had no aid except for the boldfacing of the target words for the same saliency of the input.” In your own words, why was it important that target words were boldfaced even in the no-gloss text?
3. On pp. 64 and 65, Ko describes the design and administration of the immediate and delayed vocabulary tests. Why did the inclusion of an immediate vocabulary test probably inflate the scores on the delayed vocabulary test?
4. On p. 66, Ko describes her scoring method where she only awarded a point in the final score if learners showed understanding of a vocabulary word in the L1 and L2 versions of the test. What was her rationale for doing that?
5. At the beginning of her Discussion section (p. 69), Ko says: “Overall, the results of the present study indicate that glossing has a positive effect on L2 vocabulary learning.”
a. Why is this conclusion justified in terms of her study?
b. Why might it still be misleading to a reader?[Hint: Think about how Ko operationalizes vocabulary learning.]
6. How do we know that Ko’s study was probably an experimental rather than a quasi-experimental study?
7. What is the take-away message from the study? In other words, if someone asked you to summarize the most important finding in 1-2 sentences, what would you say?