Abstract
This study investigated (1) differences between receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge for first-year non-English majors; (2) effects of CALL-based vocabulary learning alone (CALL-Alone), and CALL-Alone plus additional review tests (CALL-Plus), on vocabulary gains at the 3,000-word level; and (3) learners' attitudinal differences between the CALL-Alone and CALL-Plus learner groups. CALL-Plus was conducted by giving two groups learners a different review test, either original sentence writing or L1/L2 matching, based on the vocabulary they had studied with CALL. CALL-Alone did not contain any review tests but allowed for additional time using CALL. The results for the pre-tests indicated that non-English majors know fairly well the vocabulary at the 1,000-word to 3,000-word levels, but their productive knowledge showed a sharp downward contrast, particularly at the 3,000-word level, productive scores being nearly 10 times lower than receptive scores. The results for the post-tests showed that CALL-Alone yielded a significant increase in receptive vocabulary, as good as CALL-Plus, but productive vocabulary scored significantly lower than CALL-Plus, suggesting that sentence writing facilitated productive knowledge. There was, however, no significant difference between sentence writing and matching exercises. Regarding learners' attitudes, those in CALL-Plus were encouraged to study for a longer time and wanted to challenge higher levels of vocabulary. In contrast, some learners in CALL-Alone seemed to lose interest in self-study CALL as time went by.
