Effect Of Word Exposure Frequency On Chinese College Students’ Incidental Acquisition Of Listening Vocabulary

In recent years, incidental vocabulary acquisition has received extensive attention in both first language and second language acquisition(SLA) areas. It has been widely proved in many reading-based researches that learners can acquire words incidentally and a certain threshold of acquisition exists when words are frequently exposed in reading. Meanwhile vocabulary researchers also have shifted their focus on study about vocabulary as a whole to different kinds of vocabulary such as reading vocabulary, listening vocabulary and so on. Since it has been confirmed that listening vocabulary is different from reading vocabulary, it is necessary to carry out further research to confirm that it is feasible to do inciental vocabulary acquisition in listening and find out how many times of exposure lead to word acquisition from the perspective of listening vocabulary acquisition.The current study includes a listening vocabulary test and a word-repetition experiment. Before the experiment, a listening vocabulary test in which 100 first-year students participate will be carried out to roughly estimate college students? listening vocabulary size. This test is based on the theory and vocabulary test instrument of Professor Gui Shichun.The word-repetition experiment tries to explore effect of word exposure frequency on incidental acquisition of listening vocabulary. 110 first-year students from University of Electronic Science and Technology of China(UESTC) participated in the experiment. They are randomly divided into five groups, one control group and four experimental groups and are asked to finish two vocabulary tests after listening to short sentences which contain the five target words. The five groups will listen to the target words once, 4 times, 6 times, 8 times and 10 times respectively. Scores collected from the two tests will be analyzed in SPSS 17.0 to compare vocabulary gains among the five different groups. The study tries to find out effect of different word exposure times and students? proficiency on vocabulary gains as well as difference and correlation between the two kinds of meaning-recognition tests. The statistical techniques employed in this study are descriptive statistics, One-Way ANOVA and Paired-Sample T Test.Through the analysis of data of listening vocabulary test and word repetition experiment, the author found several conclusions as follows:1. Chinese college students were able to incidentally acquire vocabulary from listening to materials in different comprehensible contexts. Word frequent exposure had a positive effect on their listening vocabulary acquisition. Vocabulary gains increased as word repetition increased. Compared with one exposure, 4 times and 6 times did not show any significant effect while 8 times and 10 times did.2. 8 times of exposure was the threshold of aqcuiring listening vocabulary from different contexts. To acquire a listening vocabulary might need at least 8 times of occurrence in different contexts. When students met target words 8 times, they get a high score in both Meaning-Translation test and Multiple-Choice test. When they met target words 10 times, scores still increased but not as significant as that between 8 times and 6 times.3. Students? proficiency influenced incidental acquisition of listening vocabulary when target words were met 8 times and 10 times but showed no effect under conditions of 4 times and 6 times. It indicated that incidental vocabulary acquisition in listening was difficult for students from all three levels of proficiency when words exposure was limited to below 8 times.4. Students did better in Multiple-Choice test than in Meaning-Translation test. Word frequent exposure correlated more strongly with Multiple-Choice test score than Meaning-translation test score. Score of Multiple-Choice test and Meaning-Translation test were in consistent trend as word exposure times increased.Based on the above conclusions, this study can give some practical guidance for teachers about college listening teaching and listening text books complilation.