The Effects Of Output On L2 Vocabulary Acquisition

This thesis investigated the effects of output on Chinese L2 learners' vocabulary acquisition. Altogether 62 English majors from three classes took part in this study. The three existing classes were randomly designated as the oral output group, the written output group, and the reading comprehension group. The three groups performed an oral reconstruction task, a written reconstruction task, and a reading comprehension task respectively. After the treatment, an immediate posttest and a delayed posttest were administered to assess the three groups'productive and receptive vocabulary knowledge acquired through different tasks. The data collected were analyzed quantitatively. Results shows that:a) the two output groups achieved significantly more productive vocabulary knowledge than the reading comprehension group; b) the reading comprehension group achieved significantly more receptive vocabulary knowledge than the two output groups; c) the oral output group achieved more productive and receptive vocabulary knowledge than the written output group, though the differences were not statistically significant. Briefly, output was more effective for productive vocabulary acquisition but not for receptive vocabulary acquisition; oral output might be more effective than written output for vocabulary acquisition. The findings were interpreted from the perspective of the different mental processes of participants from different groups. The present study also found that those above superior effects were not durable. As the treatment time was too limited in the present study, the durability of those above superior effects should be explored in the future research.