Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition Through Listening Tasks

Words are the basic blocks used for building the whole language, the units ofmeaning from which larger structures such as phrases, sentences, and passages aremade, therefore, mastering vocabulary is indispensable for language learning. But alarge amount of vocabularies seems very daunting for learners. How to effectivelylearn new words has been a hot issue paid attention to by second language researchers.Lots of empirical studies at home and abroad show that incidental vocabulary learningthrough reading tasks is very effective, but whether listening tasks can attribute tovocabulary acquisition needs further study. Therefore, the present study attempts tofind out the effectiveness of listening tasks on incidental vocabulary acquisition.Laufer&Hulstijn (2001) proposes the Involvement Load Hypothesis, whichholds that different tasks induce different effectiveness of vocabulary acquisition andretention. The tasks with higher involvement load yield better word acquisition andretention than the task with lower involvement load. However, the results of thecurrent studies to testify the hypothesis differ from each other. Moreover, most of thestudies on involvement load hypothesis are through reading tasks while few of themtest the effectiveness of listening tasks. The present study is to test the validity of theinvolvement load hypothesis through listening task. The research questions are:(1)Do listening tasks with higher involvement load lead to better word gains than thetask with lower involvement in immediate test and delayed test?(2) Is there anysignificant difference between tasks that share the same involvement load but withdifferent distribution of components in immediate and delayed test?(3) Which task ismore facilitative for intermediate students on incidental vocabulary learning throughlistening?85first-year English majors from Qingdao Agricultural University participatedin this study. A pilot study was conducted by10students, and the rest were classifiedinto three groups to complete three tasks with different involvement load. Theinvolvement load of task1was1. The involvement load of task2and task3was3.However, the search was1, the moderate evaluation was1in task2while the searchwas0and the strong evaluation was2in task3. Both the immediate vocabulary testand delayed vocabulary test were conducted. The average interval between two testswas two weeks. The results were analyzed by SPSS17.0The results can be concluded as:(1) incidental vocabulary learning can occurthrough listening tasks. The task with higher involvement load yields better wordgains than the task with lower involvement load.(2) There is no significant differenceon incidental vocabulary learning when two tasks share the same involvement loadbut with different distribution of components. However, compared to the mean scores,the task2with search and moderate evaluation gets the highest scores of all the threetasks.(3)The tasks with higher involvement are more facilitative on vocabulary acquisition and retention than the task with lower involvement. Task2is moresuitable than task3, taking learner’s language proficiency in consideration in presentstudy.The result of the present study shows some theoretical significance as well as thepedagogical implications for vocabulary learning and teaching. Theoretically, theresult fully support the validity of involvement load hypothesis through listening tasks,enriches its application filed. Pedagogically, it serves as a new guideline for teachersto design the vocabulary teaching syllabus. Teachers can design the appropriate tasksthat are conducive to vocabulary learning through listening, fostering students’ abilityto process the target word with psychological-cognitive knowledge. It also providesthe students a new perspective to learn target words, helping them to know how tolearn the unknown words through listening tasks.