Effects of Incidental and Explicit Tasks on the Use of Vocabulary in EFL Learners’ Writing

The present study aimed at investigating the effects of the two tasks (narrow reading [NR] and sentence production [SP]) on EFL learners’ use of the target vocabulary items in writing, in order to provide substantial evidence of the controversial issue concerning which task (incidental or explicit) for vocabulary learning and use is more effective in EFL context. For this study, 154 college students (137 males and 17 females) were classified into three groups (NR, SP, and control groups), and they were asked to take pre- and post- vocabulary tests and three writing tasks. The results of the study were 1) the NR task was effective in the use of the target words in writing in terms of all three measures (the use of target word families in writing, the LFP ration, and the vocabulary tests), and so was the SP task in two measures except the LFP ratio; and 2) the NR group outperformed the SP group in the target vocabulary tests, though both groups failed to reveal any significant differences in the other two measures. Theoretical and pedagogical relevance of the findings is addressed.