Vocabulary learning is the process of acquiring building blocks in second language acquisition. The impact of vocabulary on proficiency in second language performance "has become […] an object of considerable interest among researchers, teachers, and materials developers". From being a "neglected aspect of language learning", vocabulary has gained recognition in the literature and reclaimed its position in teaching. Educators have shifted their attention from accuracy to fluency by moving from the grammar–translation method to communicative approaches to teaching. As a result, incidental vocabulary teaching and learning have become one of the two major types of teaching programs along with the deliberate approach.
Goals of vocabulary learning Vocabulary learning goals help in deciding the kind of language to be learnt and taught. Paul Nation suggests three types of information to keep in mind while deciding on the goals. 1) Number of words in the target language. 2) Number of words known by the native speakers. 3) The number of words required to use another language. It is very difficult to know all the words in a language as even native speakers do not know all the words.
Types and strategies There are two major types of vocabulary learning: deliberate and incidental. Vocabulary learning types and low-frequency are important components in a vocabulary teaching program. The two major types of vocabulary learning are deliberate and low-frequency. These types are complementary—rather than mutually exclusive—and use different vocabulary learning strategies and their combinations. Scott Thornbury describes these types by stating that "some of the words will be learned actively", while others "will be picked up incidentally". Dodigovic and Nation emphasize the same distinction—only using a different term for the one side of this dichotomy: deliberate vocabulary learning. Nation also adds another nuance to this concept by calling it "deliberate, decontextualized vocabulary learning". Elgort uses the term deliberate, while DeCarrico prefers to talk about "explicit versus implicit learning". Other authors, although employing various terminology are also in favor of this same distinction. For example, throughout their article, Alemi and Tayebi talk of "incidental and intentional" vocabulary learning, as does also Hulstijn. Expanding the terminology even further, Gu uses the terms explicit and implicit learning mechanisms throughout his article in discussing the second language learning strategies. Whatever terminology is used in the literature by different authors, the two major types of vocabulary learning are discussed: explicit and incidental. These two concepts are not competitors but rather mutually reinforcing. In both types of vocabulary learning or their combination, the efficiency of learning is achieved by following one or more of the vocabulary learning strategies. Different researchers examine the nature of the concept from various perspectives. Given that vocabulary learning strategies are very diverse, Schmitt suggests a summary of major vocabulary learning strategies and classifies them into five groups: determination, social, memory, cognitive and meta-cognitive. Building on this classification, Xu and Hsu suggest two major categories of vocabulary learning strategies—direct and indirect. The first category includes four types of strategies: memory, cognitive and compensation strategies; the second category contains the meta-cognitive, effective and social strategies. Based on their research, Lawson and Hogben distinguish repetition as the major strategy of vocabulary learning, while Mokhtar et al. explain that ESL students prefer vocabulary strategies such as guessing and using a dictionary.
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