JON CLENTON

Jon conducts research on the assessment of vocabulary knowledge, second language (L2) productive vocabulary development, productive vocabulary knowledge and fluency, second language acquisition, word association studies, lexical processing, and second language assessment. He has analysed various methods for measuring productive vocabulary, focusing on isolating the specific aspect of productive vocabulary knowledge. His research has appeared in journals such as Bilingualism Language and Cognition, TESOL Quarterly, Language Testing, System, The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, and Language Teaching Research. He is a co-author of First Language Influences on Multilingual Lexicons (Routledge, 2020), Vocabulary and the Four Skills (Routledge, 2021), EAL Research for the Classroom: Practical and Pedagogical Implications (Routledge, 2023), and Vocabulary Studies in L1 and L2 Development (MDPI, 2025).


He currently supervises the following PhD students:
Wakako Takinami (identifying technical vocabulary in the agricultural context, establishing an Agriculture Word List),
Tom Stones (vocabulary knowledge growth), and
Chris Hollis (fluency in dialogues).


Completedsupervisions include
Dion Clingwall (productive vocabulary knowledge and aspects of fluency),
Daniel Hougham (MWS-fluency relationships),
Gavin Brooks (bridging the vocabulary gap for English as an additional language learners),
Thwin Myint Myint Maw (typical IELTS lexical profiles),
Yajie Li (productive vocabulary measures, writing, and IELTS), and
Zheng Guangliang (effects of massing and spacing on learning explicit and tacit vocabulary knowledge through flashcards).