A Study On The Correlation Between Depth And Breadth Of Vocabulary Knowledge And Listening Comprehension Of College English Majors

Depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge have been the focus of research on EFL learners' proficiency in using language in the past two decades;however,research on vocabulary knowledge has been confined to reading comprehension and the effects of depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge on L2 listening comprehension have remained less-researched.Therefore,the present study is aimed at studying the correlation between the two dimensions of vocabulary knowledge(breadth and depth)and listening comprehension in the context of learning English as a foreign language,and to determine which dimension of vocabulary knowledge is a stronger predictor of EFL learners' listening comprehension in particular.Moreover,it also attempts to find out the differences between high and low proficiency groups in performance on the two dimensions of vocabulary knowledge(breadth and depth).It is designed to address the following questions:(1)To what extent are breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge correlated with listening comprehension?(2)To what extent do breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge contribute to the prediction of listening comprehension?Which dimension is a stronger predictor of listening comprehension?(3)What are the differences between students in high and low proficiency groups regarding their performances on vocabulary tests?To this end,three tests including Word Association Test(WAT),Vocabulary Levels Test(VLT),TEM-4 listening comprehension test and semi-structured interviews were administered to 83 English majors at the second grade from a university in Hebei Province in China.Data were collected using two research methods,namely the quantitative and qualitative methods.(1)two analysis including Pearson Correlation Analysis and Multiple Regression Analysis,both of which are organized in SPSS 17.0,were used as the quantitative method;(2)the transcriptions of semi-structured interviews were analyzed as the qualitative method.The following findings are obtained by collecting and analyzing the statistics:First,according to the Pearson Correlation Analysis,both dimensions including depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge are positively and significantly correlated with EFL learners' listening comprehension scores,while depth of vocabulary knowledge shares a higher correlation;Second,Multiple Regression Analysis indicates that although both BVK and DVK contribute to the prediction of listening comprehension scores,DVK is a better predictor of EFL learner's listening comprehension performance;Third,there is a statistically significant difference in the effects of vocabulary breadth and depth on listening comprehension of learners in high and low proficiency groups.More specifically,high proficiency students'listening performance seems to have a closer correlation with depth of vocabulary knowledge compared with that of low proficiency students;in contrast,breadth of vocabulary knowledge correlates more closely with the listening comprehension of low proficiency students.Finally,based on the qualitative analysis,there are some differences in the attitudes of students in high and low proficiency groups towards vocabulary learning and listening comprehension as well as the correlation of these two aspects.Most of the students in high proficiency group deem that there is a closer correlation between depth of vocabulary knowledge to their listening comprehension,while most of the students in low proficiency group tend to believe that breadth of vocabulary has a closer correlation with their listening competence.This conclusion validates the results of the quantitative analysis of high and low proficiency groups.