This paper is in answer to Ellis's (1994) call for more research about vocabularyacquisition from oral input in four areas. It is a hypothesis-generating study of nine advanceduniversity EFL learners' incidental vocabulary acquisition from oral and written dialoguejournals over a semester's time. All teacher and student entries in the two types of journalswere transcribed and analyzed using WordCruncher (1993). The analyses compare thecharacteristics of the input to the learners in the two modes as well as quantitative and qualitativeevidence of vocabulary acquisition by the learners from the two modes. Findings of this studyindicate several specific places (14 statements) where further research could be undertaken. Thesefit in three of the areas Ellis named for exploration: (a) “the nature of the input,”(b) “the role of interaction,” and (c) “individual learner factors” (p.1). The findings suggest measures that can be used for quantitative and qualitative evidence ofvocabulary acquisition from natural sources