A Review of Key Recent Studies on Effectiveness of Vocabulary Learning Tasks in L2

A review of the key empirical studies, published since 2001, in which the effectiveness of different vocabulary learning activities in L2, all including at least one writing exercise, is examined. The conclusion is that form-focused activities and those requiring a higher involvement load (Hulstijn and Laufer, 2001) or mental effort from learners, amongst which is writing, are the most effective in most experiments; while, on the other hand, fewer words are learned by reading.