The purpose of this study was to compare three learning strategies for low-level EFL readers' vocabulary acquisition and retention. One hundred and five Korean-speaking students were divided into three groups, and each group received one of three treatments: context, word form analysis, and combined context-word form analysis. Both fill-in and multiple-choice tests were implemented to measure effects immediately following and two weeks after treatment. The findings revealed that treatment effects were varied according to the assessment tasks. The immediate fill-in test scores showed that the context and the combined strategies significantly outperformed the word-form analysis strategy in facilitating EFL vocabulary acquisition; however, the combined strategy failed to yield significantly higher scores than the context strategy. The delayed fill-in test scores indicated that only the combined strategy was significantly superior to the word form analysis strategy in increasing EFL vocabulary retention. In contrast, the results of the immediate and the delayed multiple-choice tests reported that there was no significant treatment effect. Possible applications of these findings are provided.
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