Vocabulary learning from watching YouTube videos and reading blog posts

This study compared second language vocabulary acquisition from engagement with two different online media: written blog posts and video blogs. It also explored whether there were differences between which aspects of vocabulary knowledge (i.e., orthography, semantics, and grammatical function) were best learned from these media. The results showed that incidental vocabulary learning occurred in approximately equal amounts from reading blog posts and watching video blogs. There were some indications that different types of vocabulary knowledge were gained from the two types of media. The written blog entries promoted greater gains in orthographic knowledge than the videos. There was also tentative evidence that the videos promoted greater recall of the target words’ grammatical functions and greater recognition and recall of their meanings.