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A Study On The Effects Of EFL Learners' Vocabulary Knowledge On Listening Comprehension

Posted on:2012-02-14Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:T T TaoFull Text:PDF
GTID:2215330368992717Subject:English Curriculum and Pedagogy
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
Listening is one of the traditional language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) that EFL (English as Foreign language) learners should acquire in their language learning process if they are willing to successfully communicate with others using this target language. The ability to get meanings or information through listening is seen as the most difficult but essential among all the skills, for it is an invisible and complex mental process, as a common-used metaphor among students saying"getting something", listening comprehension means"catching what the speaker says"(Rost, 2002). And the utmost difficulty in"getting meaning or information"through aural input is word recognition (Goh, 2000) which is closely related to one's vocabulary knowledge that is always a pre-requisition of the performance of all the language skills. Many previous studies have been conducted on the role of vocabulary knowledge in reading comprehension by foreign and domestic scholars, but most of them did not touch upon vocabulary knowledge together with listening comprehension. And even in the domain of L2 listening comprehension, much more attentions have been drawn to listening strategies, very few to the basic factor– vocabulary knowledge. Thus teachers and students have long been puzzled about the exact role of vocabulary knowledge that plays in L2 listening comprehension. Standing on the grounds of previous related researches, the present research, based on the conceptual vocabulary knowledge framework put forward by Nation (1990) and the operationalized definition of vocabulary knowledge proposed by Qian (1999, 2002), focuses on two dimensions of vocabulary knowledge (breadth and depth) and analyzes their roles both respectively and collectively so as to generalize the role of vocabulary knowledge in the realm of listening comprehension.Therefore, the present study, consisting of three pen-and-paper tests: listening vocabulary level test, word associates test and CET-4 listening comprehension test along with a follow-up interview, was conducted with a sample of 117 EFL college sophomores who are non-English majors from several different departments in a certain university. And the quantitative research methods of Pearson Correlations analysis and a Multiple Regression Analysis programmed in SPSS 16.0 as well as a qualitative research method in terms of interview were employed as the primary analysis tools for the data collected.The major findings of the study indicate that: 1) there exist significant, positive and moderate correlations between EFL learners'vocabulary size and depth and their listening comprehension; 2) EFL learners'vocabulary size and depth together can predict over half of their performance in listening comprehension; and 3) differences of perceptions about the role of vocabulary knowledge in listening comprehension exist between the successful listeners and the less successful listeners: the former group viewed the role of vocabulary knowledge as very important predictor in their listening comprehension and was relatively competent to deal with the unfamiliar vocabulary knowledge in listening comprehension flexibly, making the best of their comprehensive knowledge, including vocabulary knowledge (breadth and depth dimension), strategic knowledge and so on. Instead, the latter group, though admitted the role of vocabulary knowledge in listening comprehension, dealt with the unfamiliar words using the single dimension, usually the breadth dimension.Based on the findings of the present study, it is revealed that 1) vocabulary knowledge is a primary element in listening comprehension, therefore EFL learners should enhance their vocabulary knowledge and make full use of it to improve listening comprehension; 2)vocabulary learning is not only a simple matter of recognizing and memorizing the superficial word meaning. Learners must have in-depth vocabulary knowledge of individual words in various aspects, especially the depth dimension of vocabulary knowledge; 3) to improve listening comprehension, it is not wise to neglect the role of vocabulary knowledge, the utmost basic foundation in the process of listening. Generally speaking, the findings of the present study may have novel and important implications for both vocabulary and listening teaching and learning in China.
Keywords/Search Tags:vocabulary knowledge, vocabulary breadth, vocabulary depth, listening comprehension
PDF Full Text Request
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