Foreign Language Vocabulary Acquisition and Retention in Print Text vs. Digital Media Environments

Abstract

In the context of very current trends in digital language education generally supported by governments and educational institutions, it seems necessary to evaluate the efficiency of these tools from various points of psycholinguistics and applied linguistics, mostly when it comes to learning a foreign/second language (L2). Therefore, this paper aims to evaluate vocabulary retention in L2 when using print text in contrast with digital media. The research was conducted among 122 participants who were university students and were divided into two groups to learn 60 new phrasal verbs; one group of them using a standard print text, the other using the same text displayed and annotated on their digital devices. There were two memory tests after four weeks of studying the four sets of phrasal verbs, i.e., 15 verbs a week, and another test after another month to evaluate students’ memory retention of the given vocabulary in time. The results clearly show a slight but clear discrepancy in these two groups in favor of the group using the print text in both tests performed. The findings of this study suggest that students can retain L2 vocabulary better in conditions where they have access to printed vocabulary and if they can make notes, highlight or write their translation in their native language. However, these findings should be verified from other perspectives as well to obtain more reliable data.