Indonesian Journal of English Language Teaching, 12(1), May 2017, pp.

1-14

How vocabulary is learned

Paul Nation
School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies,
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

Abstract
Vocabulary learning requires two basic conditions – repetition
(quantity of meetings with words) and good quality mental
processing of the meetings. Other factors also affect vocabulary
learning. For example, learners may differ greatly in their
motivation to engage in learning, and words may differ greatly in
their learning burden. However, without quantity and quality of
processing, learning cannot occur. The greater the number of
repetitions, the more likely learning is to occur. The deeper and
more thoughtful the quality of processing, the more likely
learning is to occur. This paper explains quantity and quality,
and shows how teachers and learners can increase the quantity
and quality of their processing of vocabulary, thus increasing
their vocabulary size.

Keywords: vocabulary learning, mental processing,

vocabulary size, repetition

Introduction
Vocabulary learning requires two basic conditions – repetition
(quantity of meetings with words) and good quality mental processing of the
meetings. Other factors also affect vocabulary learning. For example,
learners may differ greatly in their motivation to engage in learning, and
words may differ greatly in their learning burden. However, without
quantity and quality of processing, learning cannot occur. The greater the
number of repetitions, the more likely learning is to occur. The deeper and
more thoughtful the quality of processing, the more likely learning is to
occur. This paper explains quantity and quality, and shows how teachers
and learners can increase the quantity and quality of their processing of
vocabulary, thus increasing their vocabulary size.
Quantity and quality are closely related to each other. Many of the
conditions affecting quality, such as retrieval, productive use, and varied
meetings, depend on a word having been met before, and repetition usually
involves changes in the quality of the mental processing of a word.

Direct all correspondence to: [email protected]

2 Nation, P.: How vocabulary is learned

Quantity of meetings (Repetition)

Repetition occurs when a word is met more than once. There are
other quantity factors such as the density of unknown words in a spoken or
written text, the number of unknown words and the overall frequency of
words in the language. However, these factors have a more indirect effect on
learning than repetition. The density of unknown words can affect the
opportunity to guess from context clues. The number of unknown words can
affect motivation and the manageability of the task. The overall frequency of
words can affect the usefulness of the words that are learned.
Repetition occurs after an initial meeting with a word. A critical
factor in repetition is the spacing of repetitions within a task or learning
session and between tasks. The overwhelming finding is that spaced
repetition results in better long-term retention than massed repetition
(Nakata, 2015). That is, it is better to meet a word now and then meet it
again several times later at spaced intervals than to concentrate on learning a
word by putting all the repetitions in one concentrated learning session.
Early research suggested that the repetitions should be increasingly spaced,
but more recent research suggests that evenly spaced repetitions are
effective. The important factor is that the repetitions should be spaced.
The importance of repetition for learning suggests that the first
meeting with a word should be seen as only one small step in the eventual
learning of a word. The first meeting with a word should result in enough
learning to last until the next meeting. This means that teachers need not
present words as if the presentation will result in full learning. Rather than
be concerned about how to present a word for the first time, teachers should
be more concerned with providing opportunities for words to be repeated.
Nevertheless, a brief effective initial meeting can increase the effectiveness
of later meetings because there is some useful knowledge of the word to
draw on and build on. Effective initial meetings can come from guessing
from context while listening or reading, deliberate learning from word cards
or flash card programs, look-up in a bilingual or monolingual dictionary or
gloss, brief L1, L2 or pictorial explanations by the teacher (Elley, 1989), the
teacher showing the relationship of the L2 word to an L1 cognate or loan
word (Daulton, 2008), the teacher doing word part analysis to relate the
unknown L2 word to a known L2 word (Wei & Nation, 2013), or using a
mnemonic technique like the keyword technique (Pressley, 1977).
Repetitions can verbatim or varied. A verbatim repetition involves
meeting the word again in exactly the same form, context and circumstances
as the previous meeting. Verbatim repetition is most likely to occur during
flash card learning and when re-reading or listening again to the same text.
In general, most repetitions are varied repetitions, but there is a wide range
Indonesian Journal of English Language Teaching, 12(1), May 2017, pp. 1-14 3

of degrees of variation. We will look at this more closely in the following

section on quality of meetings, but here we will consider the role of word
families in repetition.
A word family consists of a word stem and its closely related
inflected and derived forms (Bauer & Nation, 1993). ‘Closely related’ means
that as well as a regular form relationship between the members of a family,
the meaning of the stem remains roughly the same in the inflected and
derived family members. Let us look at an example, the word family based
on amaze, to clarify this.

amaze
amazed
amazes
amazing
amazingly
amazement

Every member contains the stem amaze. The family contains the
stem form, three inflected forms, and two derived forms. Note that to be a
member of the amaze family, all the members need to share the stem
meaning of “unexpected surprise”. The size of a word family depends on the
learners’ knowledge of the affixes of English. It is possible for a very short
period of time in their learning, learners may consider amaze and amazed as
different words. Amazingly might be a challenge for some learners even
when they know –ly. Being able to comprehend the members of a word
family involves an increase in the quality of knowledge of a word. It also
means an increase in the potential repetitions of a word because meeting
different family members is effectively a repetition of the same family.
Developing learners’ knowledge of the most common affixes of English is a
very important means of increasing the opportunities for learning words
through repetition.
How many repetitions are needed for learning? The safest answer to
this question is the more the better, although there are diminishing returns
for each successive repetition. Receptive knowledge of some words is
established with as few as three to five repetitions. In an innovative study,
Pellicer-Sanchez (2016) used eye tracking technology to measure how many
repetitions it took when reading a text before learners spent the same amount
of time focusing on a previously unknown word as focusing on already well
established words. She found that around 3 to 5 repetitions there was a noted
increase in speed of retrieval as evidenced by fixation time. With 8
occurrences (the maximum in her study) retrieval time was close to that of
known words. A follow-up set of vocabulary tests showed learners scored
4 Nation, P.: How vocabulary is learned

well on form and meaning recognition and moderately well on recall. It

seems safe to assume that for many but not all words around ten to twelve
repetitions may be a useful goal (Horst, Cobb & Meara, 1998; Webb, 2007;
Pellicer-Sanchez & Schmitt, 2010). Deliberate learning, especially flash card
learning of vocabulary requires fewer repetitions, though it must be borne in
mind that deliberate learning is more likely to involve verbatim repetition
which is likely to be less enriching in aspects of word knowledge than the
more varied repetition which is typical of meetings in listening and reading
input.
Single meeting learning may occur, especially when a word is a
cognate or loan word, but teachers need to see repetition as being essential
for all words, and vocabulary learning of each word being a cumulative
process.

How can we increase repetition in a course?

In many ways planning for vocabulary learning can be seen as a
battle between repetition and Zipf’s law. Zipf’s law (see Sorell, 2012 for a
clear explanation) shows that while there is a rather small number of words
in a text or collection of texts that are often repeated, around half of the
different words in the text occur only once. That is, around half of the words
in a text are not repeated. A well-planned vocabulary course deals with this
in several ways. The following recommendations are ranked in order of
importance.

1. The vocabulary in the course is controlled in carefully designed

stages so that words which are way beyond the learners’ current level
do not occur in the course material. This ensures that low frequency
one-timers do not occur in the material, and reduces the density of
unknown words. Graded readers are an essential part of this
approach.
2. There are large amounts of vocabulary controlled input so that high
frequency and mid-frequency vocabulary have plenty of
opportunities to be repeated. Nation (2014) estimates that around
300,000 tokens of input are needed to get at least twelve repetitions
of words at the 3rd 1000 level, and around one million tokens of
input are needed to get at least twelve repetitions of words at the 5th
1000 level. One million tokens of reading requires around 33
minutes of reading per day, five days a week for forty weeks of the
year. Vocabulary-controlled texts still demonstrate Zipf’s law with
large numbers of words occurring only once. However, in a
Indonesian Journal of English Language Teaching, 12(1), May 2017, pp. 1-14 5

vocabulary-controlled text, every word is worth learning and is likely

to be repeated in other texts.
3. Learners are taught, memorize and have practice in recognising the
most frequent affixes of English, beginning with inflections and
quickly moving to the most regular, frequent and productive
derivational affixes (see Bauer & Nation (1993) for an ordered list).
4. One-quarter of the time in a well-balanced course should be spent on
deliberate learning. Some of this should involve individualised
independent vocabulary learning using flashcards. Such learning is
not affected by Zipf’s law because it does not involve texts.
5. Learners are trained in deliberate vocabulary learning strategies so
that the quality of their learning reduces the need for substantial
repetition. We will look at these strategies in the next section of this
paper. Learners who are old enough should know about the
importance of repetition and how to add quality to their mental
processing of vocabulary.
6. One-quarter of the time in a course should be spent on developing
fluency across the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and
writing. Increasing reading fluency through speed reading courses
will increase the amount of reading input that learners can get.
Fluency, quantity of input and vocabulary repetition can also be
increased by re-reading texts that have been read before and listening
to texts that have been read or listened to before. Sonia Millett’s web
site contains a range of free vocabulary-controlled speed-reading
courses. There are also commercially produced courses (Malarcher
& Nation, 2017).
7. There are teaching activities and approaches to lesson and course
design that increase the opportunities for repetition. Perhaps the best
example is the linked skills activity (Nation, 2013c, Chapter 15
presents a lot of examples and a rationale for this activity). In a
linked skills activity, learners focus on the same topic three times
across three different skills. For example, they read about the topic,
talk about it and then write about it. This allows the same topic
vocabulary to occur in all three steps of the activity. Similarly,
content-based instruction (also called Language through the
Curriculum and Content and Language Integrated Learning)
increases the opportunity for repetition and a reduction in vocabulary
load through a narrowing of topic focus (Sutarsyah, Nation &
Kennedy, 1994). Narrow reading (Gardner, 2008) and narrow
listening (Krashen, 1996) may have similar effects. The common
feature in all these activities and approaches is the sustained focus on
the same topic or topic area.
6 Nation, P.: How vocabulary is learned

Quality of meetings
The importance of quality of processing in memory research was
given impetus by Craik and Lockhart’s (1972) Levels of Processing
hypothesis. The Levels of Processing hypothesis says that what really
determines what is remembered or not is the level or quality of mental
processing at the moment that learning takes place. If the processing is deep
and thoughtful, then the learning will last. If it is superficial, then it will
soon disappear.
Table 1 lists levels of processing for vocabulary. The major
distinction is between incidental attention and deliberate attention. This
distinction is not an easy one to make as many instances of incidental
attention contain some elements of deliberate attention. Nonetheless, we can
distinguish vocabulary learning while engaging in meaning-focused use of
the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing (incidental
learning) from deliberate attention to words as words rather than as part of
the message. Typically deliberate attention is more efficient and effective
than incidental attention. This is not surprising because incidental attention
assumes that most attention is focused on something else.
The conditions in column one of Table 1 are listed in order of quality
of processing with noticing being the most superficial, followed by retrieval,
varied meetings and use, and the deepest level of elaboration. Each of these
four levels can apply to both incidental and deliberate attention, and each
level can be divided into receptive and productive with productive attention
being deeper than receptive attention. So, retrieval for example can be
receptive retrieval as in reading and listening when the learner meets the
word form and has to retrieve its meaning, or productive retrieval as in
speaking and writing where the learner has a meaning to express and needs
to retrieve the appropriate word form.
Noticing involves giving attention to a word. It does not involve
recalling anything about the word or analysing it in any way. Noticing
occurs if we study a list if words and their meanings or if we meet an
unknown word in a text. Often our first encounter with an unknown word
involves noticing.
Retrieval includes noticing but also includes an attempt to recall
something that we have already noticed about the word. Retrieval can only
occur if we have met the word or a related word before. For example, if we
have looked up the meaning of a word in a dictionary, the next time we meet
the word in listening or reading we can try to retrieve its meaning. Similarly,
if we have made word cards with the word on one side and its translation
into the L1 on the other side, then when we go through the cards looking at
the words, we can try to retrieve its L1 translation before turning over the
Indonesian Journal of English Language Teaching, 12(1), May 2017, pp. 1-14 7

card to see if we are correct. Retrieval is a powerful learning condition and

each successful retrieval strengthens the form-meaning association we trying
to learn. Retrievals work best if they are spaced, and so listening and reading
set up good conditions for retrieval because the occurrences a word do not
occur immediately after each other but are spaced by other parts of the text.
When deliberately studying words on flash cards, it is good to be working on
several words because this means that the other words occur between the
repetitions of any particular word thus spacing its occurrences.

Table 1: Vocabulary learning conditions and example activities

Quality of Incidental attention Deliberate attention
attention
Noticing Guessing from context Text highlighting
Noticing a gap when speaking Focusing on a form or
or writing meaning using word cards
Dictionary or glossary look up
Being taught words
Receptive or Meeting a previously met word Retrieval using word cards
productive while listening or reading and Doing vocabulary exercises
retrieval recalling its meaning after reading a text
Recalling and using a recently Recalling using a word wall
met word in conversation or
writing
Varied receptive Meeting a previously met word Looking at a concordance
meetings or in a new form or context while Filling the blanks
varied productive listening or reading and True/false sentences
use recalling its meaning
Recalling and using a recently
met word in a new way in
conversation or writing
Elaboration Meeting and using a word in Using the keyword technique
genuine high stakes Semantic mapping
communication Word part analysis
Meeting and using a word in Focusing on words in teacher-
relation to pictures led intensive reading
Interactive reading (Shared Find the core meaning
blown-up book)

Receptive retrieval occurs when we see the word form and need to
retrieve its meaning. Productive retrieval occurs when we need to express a
meaning and thus need to retrieve the word form. Productive retrieval is
8 Nation, P.: How vocabulary is learned

more difficult than receptive retrieval (Griffin & Harley, 1996) (see Nation
(2013a: 46-58) for a discussion of possible reasons for this).
The deepest quality condition, elaboration, includes a variety of ways
of providing elaborative, analytical and enriching processing of vocabulary.
In incidental learning involving normal language use, elaboration relates to
the memorable nature of the language use and to the combination of visual
and language related aspects of the use. Elaboration is likely to occur during
genuine communication, especially that related to the here-and-now in the
presence of objects such as when learning how operate something, following
directions or buying something. In deliberate learning, elaboration occurs
when words are analysed for their known word parts and the meaning of the
parts is related to the meaning of the word. It also occurs when using the
well-researched keyword technique which similarly relates form and
meaning, and uses visualisation of a linking image. Semantic mapping
makes deliberate connections between the visual and mental relationships
between ideas and thus sets up the condition of elaboration. As with varied
meetings and varied use, we could create a scale of degrees of elaboration,
with greater elaboration resulting is stronger learning.

How can we increase the quality of meetings?

The quality of meetings depends on how much the teacher and
learners can include the conditions of deliberate attention, retrieval, varied
meetings and use, and elaboration to the opportunities for learning that
occur.

1 Deliberate learning using word cards or flash card programs quickly

provides a basic amount of knowledge of each word that is then
available for retrieval or varied meetings and varied use. Such
deliberate learning using flash cards makes use of the conditions of
receptive and productive retrieval and in some cases elaboration
when the keyword technique or some other mnemonic trick is used.
This deliberate learning can be planned so that the most useful
vocabulary is covered systematically.
2 Graded reading and where possible graded listening provide the
condition of retrieval through varied meetings. If this learning
through meaning-focused input is related to vocabulary learned
through word cards and flash card programs, then repetition and
quality of processing are nicely combined.
3 Relating input and output allows varied meetings to lead to varied
use. In other words receptive knowledge can become productive
knowledge. It is important that this relating of listening and reading
Indonesian Journal of English Language Teaching, 12(1), May 2017, pp. 1-14 9

input to speaking and writing does not restrict the amount of

meaning-focused input. Dealing with the same content in a variety of
different ways not only provides repetition of vocabulary but also
varies the contexts in which words occur. This varied occurrence
enriches and strengthens word knowledge,
4 Learners should be trained in how to learn vocabulary. This training
should include the guessing from context strategy, the word card and
flash card programs strategy with an understanding of the importance
of spaced retrieval and receptive and productive retrieval, the word
part strategy, the keyword technique, and an elaborative dictionary
use strategy that involves looking for core meaning, related words
and extra examples of use. Learners should also know how to test
their own vocabulary size and how to choose the most useful
vocabulary to learn based on this knowledge of their vocabulary size.
5 We can regard fluency of retrieval as an aspect of quality. Some high
frequency vocabulary such as numbers, days of the week, months of
the year, greetings, and survival vocabulary (Nation & Crabbe, 1991)
should get targeted fluency practice, largely involving deliberate
repeated retrieval. For example, the teacher says numbers in a
random order and the learners point to them. In addition there should
be fluency practice in each of the four skills of listening, speaking,
reading and writing so that vocabulary knowledge is readily available
for use.
6 Genuine communication can involve both receptive and productive
varied meetings and use. It can also provide visual and episodic
associations make words memorable.

Repetition and quality of processing

Table 2 combines the recommendations given above for increasing
repetition and the quality of processing. The recommendations are ranked in
order of effectiveness in providing repetition and quality of processing. The
justifications typically explain how each recommendation provides
opportunities for repetition and quality of processing.
The first recommendation, on vocabulary control, ensures that
learning effort is directed towards what is useful. The major effect of
vocabulary control is to deal with Zipf’s law in ensuring that learners do not
have to deal with large numbers of non-repeated words that are well outside
the learners’ current vocabulary needs. In many ways the recommendations
are macro-level recommendations that apply to course design and lesson
planning. It is also worth considering the need for repetition and quality of
processing at a micro-level which applies to what the teacher and learners
10 Nation, P.: How vocabulary is learned

are doing at any particular moment in the classroom or in independent

activities outside class. The sixth recommendation of strategy training and
awareness of how to learn encourages this micro-level thinking. Teachers
should regularly look at what is happening in the classroom and ask
themselves “At this moment are the learners applying good learning
conditions? If not how could I adjust the activity so that there are
opportunities for repetition and deeper quality processing?”. For an example
of these questions applied to spoken activities see Nation (2013a, 190-199).

Table 2: Recommendations for repetition and quality

Recommendation Justification
1 Control the levels of Vocabulary control ensures that all words met
vocabulary in the course to in a course are useful and that time is not
match the learners current level wasted on less useful vocabulary.
and needs
2 Include vocabulary learning Deliberate learning is both efficient and
using word cards or flash card effective, and provides opportunities for
programs elaboration. Cards involve retrieval and allow
for plenty of repetition.
3 Run a substantial, well- Although learning from meaning-focused input
monitored extensive reading is not as efficient as deliberate learning, large
program and an extensive quantities of input provide plenty of
listening program opportunities for repetition and varied
meetings.
4 Use theme-based learning and Limitation of topic areas reduces the number of
activities that give repeated different words, and revisiting the same topic
attention to the same topic across increases repetitions and opportunities of
different skills varied meetings and varied use.
5 Teach the most frequent Being able to deal with words as a part of word
affixes and give plenty of families greatly increases repetitions and
practice in recognising them quality of processing through varied meetings.
6 Train learners in strategy use Knowing why you are doing a particular
and understanding of how to activity increases motivation and focus.
learn Awareness and strategy use increases
elaboration and allows learners to consciously
apply the conditions needed for learning.
7 Have a strong fluency Fluency development increases the amount of
development component in the input and output and thus repetition and varied
course meetings and use.
Indonesian Journal of English Language Teaching, 12(1), May 2017, pp. 1-14 11

The most notable omission from Table 2 is recommendation 6 from

the section on quality of processing about genuine communication. One
reason for the omission is that that recommendation affects only quality of
processing and does not have positive effects on repetition. Another reason
is that there is a lack of research evidence to support this recommendation,
and my observation of the effect is based on personal anecdotal evidence.
Nevertheless, it seems a reasonable goal for a language course to be relevant
and engaging, and for language use to involve real-world high-stakes
communication.

Final Thoughts: Vocabulary learning and the four strands

While writing this paper I was struck how the recommendations
cover all the four strands of meaning-focused input, meaning-focused
output, language-focused learning, and fluency development (Nation, 2007,
2013b). While this is at least partially a persistent bias in my thinking about
language teaching and learning, it does suggest that a well-balanced course
sets up good conditions for learning. Table 3 classifies the recommendations
in Table 2 into the four strands.

Table 3: The four strands and the conditions for vocabulary learning
Strand Recommendation
Meaning-focused input 1 Vocabulary control
2 Extensive reading and extensive listening
Meaning-focused output 3 Repeated focuses on the same or related material
Language-focused 4 Word card learning
learning 5 Learn the most useful affixes
6 Training in strategies and learning how to learn
Fluency development 7 A fluency development strand

Recommendation 1, vocabulary control, is placed in meaning-

focused input because it most easily applies to the use of graded readers.
However it is relevant to all the other strands as well. Similarly,
recommendation 4 is placed in meaning-focused output when it really
applies across all four strands. Recommendation 4 suggests an important
addition to the principle of the four strands. The principle states that a well-
balanced language course should provide opportunities to learn across the
four strands and roughly equal time should be given to each strand. To better
take account of the conditions for learning, the content and language focuses
within and between the strands need to be well integrated so that learners get
plenty of opportunities to get focus on same material. This integration of
12 Nation, P.: How vocabulary is learned

reading with listening, speaking with reading, fluency development with

deliberate learning and so on would increase repetition of vocabulary and
quality of processing.
Research on vocabulary learning shows that there are clear
guidelines to follow when planning vocabulary learning in a course. This
paper has outlined these guidelines and suggested how they can be applied.
Their application is not difficult and the effects should be beneficial for
vocabulary learning.

The author
Paul Nation is Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics in the School of
Linguistics and Applied Language Studies at Victoria University of
Wellington, New Zealand. His books on vocabulary include Teaching and
Learning Vocabulary (1990) and Researching and Analysing Vocabulary
(2011) (with Stuart Webb) both from Heinle Cengage Learning., His latest
books on vocabulary are Learning Vocabulary in Another Language (second
edition 2013) published by Cambridge University Press, Making and Using
Word Lists (2016) from John Benjamins, and How Vocabulary is Learned
(2017) (with Stuart Webb).. Two books strongly directed towards teachers
appeared in 2013 from Compass Media in Seoul –What should every ESL
Teacher Know? (available free from www.compasspub.com/ESLTK) and
What should every EFL Teacher Know? He is also co-author of Nation, P.
and Malarcher, C. (2017) Timed Reading for Fluency. Books 1-4. Seoul:
Seed Publishing.

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