L2 Vocabulary Development as Mediated Through an ICALL Tool, LangBot

In recent years, lexical acquisition has taken a more prominent role in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) by clarifying the “learning burden” (Nation, 2001) or the effort that learners face for learning the infinite number of words in the L2 that often have special socially and culturally constructed meanings. For the L2 learner, learning new words can be an overwhelming experience and instructors don’t often know how to affectively teach vocabulary. Fortunately, Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) has made advances in providing interactive online tools that help learners engage and work through their L2 development. This dissertation reports on how an Intelligent CALL tool (ICALL), LangBot, helps learners at the intermediate and beginner levels with their lexical acquisition through both quantitative and qualitative analysis. Modeled after instant messaging systems, which create a synchronous communicative environment, LangBot acts like a pedagogical scaffold that caters to the lexical needs of each individual learner. It provides 1) translation requests with examples in context, 2) a frequency based “word of the day” and 3) quizzes based on recent inquiries and a specific frequency range according to the learner’s level. The results from definition and word association tasks, along with two surveys (N 140), suggest that intermediate learners that have access to LangBot greatly improve when compared to those who do not have access. There was no significant difference, however, for beginner learners. Nevertheless, patterns of usage and survey responses suggest that all learners value this type of online language tool. Additionally, the qualitative study suggests that this type of tool can help foster learner autonomy.