Abstract It has been shown that language learners can benefit from a discovery-based learning process whereby they construct as well as consult their own specialist corpora and vocabulary portfolios, for the purposes of translator training (Castagnoli 2006), for general English (Smith 2011) and for academic English learning (Charles 2012; Smith 2015). In the present study, a cohort of 94 international students on an EAP module, majoring in Accounting and Finance, was divided into hands-on (treatment) and hands-off (control) groups. Both groups were subjected to a pre-test consisting of specialist terms that would be encountered on their course (not only in the EAP class, but also on the Accounting and Finance modules). The hands-on group spent about 20 min per weekly class constructing domain-specific DIY corpora and generating subject vocabulary portfolios. The results of a post-test indicated that the hands-on group had achieved a slightly greater improvement in domain vocabulary knowledge than the hands-off group (which used corpora and vocabulary lists provided by the teacher). A participant questionnaire showed that the students found the approaches useful for vocabulary learning.