The Korean Association for the Study of English Language and Linguistics

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Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics - Vol. 26
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Korea Journal of English Language and Linguistics - Vol. 26, No. 0, pp. 21-45
Abbreviation: KASELL
ISSN: 1598-1398 (Print) 2586-7474 (Online)
Print publication date 31 Jan 2026
Received 11 Sep 2025 Revised 19 Oct 2025 Accepted 09 Dec 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15738/kjell.26..202601.21-45

개인 맞춤형 이야기가 제2언어 어휘 학습 성과와 학습 흥미도에 미치는 영향
Hakyung Kim ; Donghyun Kim
(First author) MA Student, Department of English Language and Literature Kyungpook National University (qwebnm232@naver.com)
(Corresponding author) Assistant Professor, Department of English Language and Literature Kyungpook National University, Tel: +82-53-950-5124 (donghyun@knu.ac.kr)

The effects of personalized narratives on second language vocabulary learning outcomes and interest

© 2026 KASELL All rights reserved
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Abstract

This study investigates the effects of personalized narratives on second language vocabulary learning outcomes and learning interest among Korean adolescents. Forty middle school students participated and were assigned to either a personalized (experimental) group, which learned target words through personalized narratives incorporating learner-provided information, or a general (control) group, which learned through a narrative without such information. Participants read a narrative text in Korean containing 20 target words and completed a five‑step learning task, followed by assessments of story comprehension, vocabulary tests, and a vocabulary learning interest survey. Results revealed that both groups achieved comparably high performance in meaning recall and meaning recognition, indicating that narrative-based learning was effective for vocabulary learning regardless of context-personalization. However, in the form recognition test, the personalized group outperformed the general group. This suggests that personalized narratives may provide a supportive context for facilitating form–meaning connections in new vocabulary. In the survey, both groups reported higher post-ratings than pre-ratings, which implies a positive perception of narrative-based vocabulary learning overall. This study empirically demonstrates the potential for personalized elements in story-based learning to enhance vocabulary learning and offers practical implications for the development of AI-based personalized learning materials.

Keywords: intentional vocabulary learning, narratives, context personalization, self-reference effect, learning interest, vocabulary recognition, vocabulary recall
Acknowledgments

This paper is based on the first author’s master’s thesis. This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2023S1A5A8078806).

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