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Effects Of English Majors’vocabulary Knowledge On Their Listening Comprehension

Posted on:2017-05-21Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:J FanFull Text:PDF
GTID:2295330503959740Subject:Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
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Listening is one of the four skills(listening, speaking, reading and writing) that English learners must acquire, and it is a difficult skill to many English learners.Vocabulary is the prerequisite of English learning. This study is based on the vocabulary knowledge framework presented by Nation(1990). It aims to explore the relationship among the breadth of vocabulary knowledge, the depth of vocabulary knowledge and listening comprehension. There are three research questions: 1) What is the status quo of English majors’ breadth of vocabulary knowledge and depth of vocabulary knowledge? 2) Does English majors’ breadth of vocabulary knowledge affect their listening comprehension? If so, to what extent? 3) Does English majors’ depth of vocabulary knowledge affect their listening comprehension? If so, to what extent?Fifty English major sophomores from Qingdao University of Science and Technology are chosen to take part in this research as subjects. The quantitative method is adopted and three relevant tests are applied. 1) The listening comprehension test is applied to assess the subjects’ listening comprehension ability; 2) The vocabulary levels test is used to measure their breadth of vocabulary knowledge; 3)The word association test is used to investigate their depth of vocabulary knowledge.Based on the data analysis and discussion, three major findings are concluded: 1)The status quo is that English majors’ breadth of vocabulary knowledge meets the requirement of TEM-4; whereas, their depth of vocabulary knowledge does not meet the requirement of TEM-4. 2) The breadth of vocabulary knowledge has a positive andsignificant effect on learners’ performance in listening comprehension, and it can explain 45.6% of variance of listening comprehension. 3) The depth of vocabulary knowledge has little or no effect on learners’ performance in listening comprehension,and it can just explain 5% of variance of listening comprehension. These findings provide some implications for the teaching and learning of English listening.
Keywords/Search Tags:vocabulary knowledge, vocabulary breadth, vocabulary depth, listening comprehension
PDF Full Text Request
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