A Comparative Study Of The Effects Of Listening And Reading Inputs On Incidental English Vocabulary Acquisition

Numerous researches have been done on incidental vocabulary acquisition,but the effects under specific inputs still remain controversial.Although many experiments have respectively verified the effectiveness of incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading input or listening input,few researches have included the empirical comparison between the effects of these two input modes.Therefore,based on the incidental vocabulary acquisition hypothesis as well as Krashen's input hypothesis,the present study attempts to explore quantitative evidences for the different effects of listening input and reading input on Chinese high school students' incidental English vocabulary acquisition,two objectives are specified as follows:1)To explore the differences between the effect of listening input and the effect of reading input on incidental English vocabulary acquisition,in terms of the word form,meaning and use.2)To explore the differences between the effect of listening input and the effect of reading input on English vocabulary retention,in terms of the word form,meaning and use.80 students in Grade two from a high school in Panyu district of Guangzhou were selected as the participants.An immediate vocabulary acquisition test and a delayed vocabulary retention test were used as instruments.The participants were divided into two groups of 40 students each either to listen or read the same material for ten minutes and then answer the relevant questions based on comprehension.There were 9 unknown words in the material chosen as target words,and after participants finishing the listening or reading comprehension exercises,they took the immediate test;the delayed test was conducted one week after the immediate one,with participants uninformed of the two tests.The quantitative data of both immediate and delayed tests were collected by the researcher and they were analyzed through independent sample t-test to observe the probable differences between listening and reading groups.The results showed that reading group outperformed listening group in the immediate test and there was a significant difference between them.According to the analysis of different items of the test,no significance was found in the word form and word meaning parts while there was an extremely significant difference between the two groups in the word usage part where reading group had a better performance than the listening group.As for the results of delayed test,there was no significant difference between the performance of listening group and reading group,although the results of the test of separate three parts were consistent with that of the immediate one.Based on the findings,we can draw the conclusion that 1)Chinese high school students can acquire some vocabulary knowledge incidentally through both the listening input and reading input;2)Reading input has a greater effectiveness on the vocabulary acquisition than the listening input,especially in the word usage part;3)The effects on the vocabulary retention through two input modes are nearly the same,although reading input has a better effect on the retention of word usage knowledge than the listening input.The findings in the present study have some pedagogical implications: First,it is necessary for teachers and students to utilize different input modes to promote different parts of vocabulary acquisition.The comprehensible reading material can be used to learn new word usage in context,while the listening input can provide auditory message of new words to keep better vocabulary retention.Second,frequent revision is essential for vocabulary learning.