This article discusses the problem of vocabulary acquisition
in L2 learners. Specifically, Ghadirian describes his own software, Text
Ladder, a way in which texts can be arranged and sequenced to facilitate the
acquisition of English vocabulary. This CALL tool would allow learners to
progress through a sequence of texts with a controlled number of unfamiliar
words in each text. This would help learners with the reading-based acquisition
of vocabulary. While this type of CALL task seems feasible for English,
adapting this type of tool for other languages might be extremely
time-consuming, or not even possible. Perhaps with other languages, for which
there isn't as extensive corpus research, other CALL strategies of vocabulary
acquisition, besides reading-based, may be better suited. Although Text Ladder
seems to be a very interesting tool, the author does state that there has been
no attempt to determine whether or not this CALL program results in 'measurable
learning'. Needless to say, this statement doesn't give me much confidence in Text
Ladder.
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