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Academic vocabulary and middle school English learners: an intervention study

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Abstract

The goal of this experimental intervention study was to determine if evidence-based instructional strategies for general vocabulary words are effective with middle school English learner (EL) students and academic vocabulary words. Participants showed significantly more growth in their knowledge of academic vocabulary during the treatment condition than during the control condition. A secondary goal of this study was to examine the predictive utility of students’ English language proficiency, and students’ general vocabulary knowledge in English was a positive predictor for their academic vocabulary growth during the intervention. However, participants’ growth during the control period had the greatest predictive utility for their growth during the intervention. Furthermore, this relationship was negative, suggesting that the intervention had the greatest benefits for students who made the least progress in English vocabulary in the absence of the intervention. Implications for instruction, policy, and future research are presented.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the thoughtful and constructive feedback provided by the first author’s doctoral committee members, Alison Bailey, Eric Knowles, Michael Martinez and Robin Scarcella. We would like to thank the principal, teachers, and students at Vista View Middle School. We are also indebted to Edmund Lee, Maritza Oregon, Jessica Briley, Charlene Lau, Shanehi Shah, and Karen Douglas who helped with running the study and collecting data. Finally, we wish to thank Cleb Maddux for his guidance with data analyses and the anonymous reviewers for their generous and constructive feedback.

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  1. University of Nevada, Reno, NV, USA

    Dianna Townsend

  2. University of California, Irvine, CA, USA

    Penny Collins

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  1. Dianna Townsend
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Correspondence to Dianna Townsend.

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Townsend, D., Collins, P. Academic vocabulary and middle school English learners: an intervention study. Read Writ 22, 993–1019 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-008-9141-y

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