Narrow Reading and English Vocabulary Improvement

Abstract

Vocabulary has played an important role in recent EFL studies, because it is an important factor in second language learning. Without vocabulary, communication is undoubtedly impossible. This study sought to investigate the impact of narrow reading on vocabulary intake. In this study, the effect of this kind of reading input was investigated in two levels: topic- limited lexical development and author- limited lexical development. Seventy five intermediate students were divided into three groups of equal number of students. Two classes were selected randomly as the experimental group. A pre- test was conducted on the first category of vocabulary. After a week, the treatment for the experimental group started. A week after the end of the treatment, a post-test was given to all three classes. The results showed that author- limited narrow reading was more helpful than topic-limited narrow reading and non- narrow reading. A one-way ANOVA and post hoc comparisons showed a great difference among the groups. The comparisons showed that those using author-limited narrow reading developed their knowledge of vocabulary more than the participants of the control group.