Effects of post-reading word-focused activities on L2 learners’ reading behavior and vocabulary learning: an eye-tracking study

While there is ample evidence that engaging in word-focused activities after reading facilitates vocabulary learning, the mechanisms underlying this remain unclear. Does engaging in a post-reading word-focused activity influence the processing of target vocabulary in a subsequent reading round, thereby promoting vocabulary development? Using an eye-tracker, we recorded L2 learners’ eye movements as they read an English narrative containing 16 target non-words before and after engaging with one of three activities: (a) Comprehension-test (control), (b) Fill-in-the-blank activity, and (c) Summary-writing. Subsequently, participants received a vocabulary test. The results showed that interacting with target non-words via the Fill-in-the-blank activity or Summary-writing led to better vocabulary learning than taking a Comprehension-test. Moreover, the Summary group showed a significant relationship between (a) differences in reading times for target non-words during the initial and re-reading tasks and (b) their vocabulary test accuracy. In contrast, no such relationship was observed for the Fill-in-the-blank activity group. This suggests that post-reading activities influenced how target items were processed and remembered. Further analysis revealed that items that were not recalled during the post-reading activity but later remembered in the vocabulary test showed similar processing times between readings, an effect primarily seen in the Fill-in-the-blank activity.