The Effects Of Chinese Learners’ Receptive And Productive L2Vocabulary Learning On Reading Comprehension And Writing

This study is to investigate the effects of Chinese learners’ receptive andproductive L2vocabulary learning on reading comprehension and writing. Fourgroups of participants from a university in Shandong were involved in the presentstudy. They were all second-year English major students studying English as a foreignlanguage (EFL). Two groups of nonsense target words and one group of authentictarget words were presented to the participants, who learned these L2target words onword cards (flashcards) receptively and productively. After learning, four testsincluding picture description test, true/false test and two translation tests were used tomeasure writing, reading comprehension, productive knowledge and receptiveknowledge. After a week, the participants who learned the second group of nonsensetarget words and authentic target words would be tested again using the same fourtests. The results of the participants were collected and analyzed by using the softwarepackage SPSS (Version19).The results of the data analysis suggest that, the participants who have learned thetarget vocabulary may be able to understand sentences containing those words. Theresults also indicate that the participants who have learned the target vocabulary maybe able to use some of the target words in sentences.Descriptive statistics of the results of tests of the participants’ learning nonsensetarget words and authentic target words indicate that the participants’ L2vocabularylearning may not only improve sentence comprehension, but result in the successfuluse of target words in picture description tests, which is showed in the experiment.The independent samples t-test of the results of tests of the participants’ learningnonsense target words indicate that receptive learning of word cards may be betterthan the productive learning of word cards in improving the use of taught L2words,which is in contrast to S. Webb’s (2009) conclusion that receptive tasks are likely tobe more effective than productive tasks in improving reading comprehension. Thereis no statistical difference in the true/false tests for both receptive learningparticipants and productive learning participants. However, the independent samplest-test of the results of tests of the participants’ learning authentic target words indicatethat receptive learning of word cards may be better than the productive learning ofword cards in improving reading comprehension, which is in accordance with S.Webb’s (2009) conclusion that receptive tasks are likely to be more effective thanproductive tasks in improving reading comprehension. There is no statisticaldifference in the picture description tests for both receptive learning participants andproductive learning participants.The paired samples t-test of the results of tests of the participants’ learningnonsense target words and authentic target words indicate that the results ofimmediate picture description post-test is better than those of one-week delayedpicture description post-tests. From the results, the durability of the learning matters alot. Memory plays a crucial role in the process of learners’ L2learning, especially inreceptive and productive L2vocabulary learning. It is concluded that, Chinese learners’ receptive and productive L2vocabularylearning may have a great effect on their reading comprehension and writing.Nonsense words or authentic words, exam-oriented learning method, memory andword card learning may be the factors that matter in successful vocabulary acquisition.It is then suggested that decontextualized tasks and contextualized tasks should bothbe incorporated in the L2classroom. Teachers and learners should clearly know thegoal of their L2teaching and learning to adopt different teaching or learning methods.Teachers and learners should pay much attention to the time effect. L2learners shouldbe enhanced by the follow-up tasks to guarantee their learning outcomes.