The Effects of Receptive and Productive Learning of Word Pairs on Vocabulary Knowledge

English as a foreign language students in Japan learned target words in word pairs receptively and productively. Five aspects of vocabulary knowledge orthography, association, syntax, grammatical functions, and meaning and form were each measured by receptive and productive tests. The study uses an innovative methodology in that each target word was tested in ten different ways. The results showed that the direction of learning had a significant effect on the type and amount of knowledge gained. Productive learning led to larger gains in both receptive and productive knowledge of orthography, and productive knowledge of meaning, syntax, and grammatical functions. In contrast, receptive learning led to larger gains in receptive knowledge of meaning. The findings suggest that if only one method is used, productive learning of word pairs might be more effective. The effects of each learning task on the different aspects of vocabulary knowledge are discussed in detail.