American researchers in SLA who are more familiar with incidental vocabulary acquisition will find in this volume some informative pieces about a more explicit and interventionist approach to vocabulary learning well known in European English as a second language (ESL) circles—namely, the use of corpus-based methods to promote acquisition of second language (L2) lexis and, in particular, of L2 collocations. Although the authors represent a broader range of scholars, the volume highlights the work of the Assessing and Developing Lexical Competence (ADELEX) research group centered at the University of Granada. Of the 18 chapters, 3 are theoretically oriented, 4 report results of corpus-based lexical studies of English, and 7 fall within applied linguistics and use corpus linguistics to assess the validity of instructional tools or to demonstrate pedagogical uses of corpus-based approaches. The L2 context of the data-oriented chapters is ESL, often with Spanish first language learners. One example of a pedagogical approach (Chambers) deals with advanced French L2.

Some subthemes treated include the analysis of vocabulary teaching techniques according to the involvement load hypothesis (Nation), the inadequate treatment of lexis and specifically collocations in ESL materials (especially Abello-Contesse & López-Jiménez), the Web as multimodal corpus (Baldry), and the use of film to teach conversational language (Rodríguez Martín & López Sako).

For this reader, the most significant contribution is Boulton’s well-executed compilation and systematic comparison of the results of 27 empirical studies of learner outcomes of data-driven learning (i.e., corpus-based instructional approaches), the analysis of which leads Boulton to a position of cautious optimism. Also noteworthy are Moren Jaén’s chapter, describing a virtual module for learning about collocations in English and a small-scale study of its outcomes as well as López-Mezquita Molina’s chapter on ADELEX CAT, a computer-adaptive test of lexical knowledge of advanced ESL learners. The book provides information for accessing both the module and the CAT via the ADELEX website, at http://www.ugr.es/∼inped/exploringnewpaths/collocations/m3_0.htm and http://mcaweb.unipv.it:8080/mcaweb/EEL/volume1.html, respectively. Five of the chapters have helpful online supplements at http://mcaweb.unipv.it:8080/mcaweb/EEL/volume1.html.