Researching The Effects Of Lexical Frequency And Contextual Cues On Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition In Listening Of English As A Second Language

Recent years has witnessed a growing research body and pedagogical interest in the role of listening input in second language vocabulary acquisition,and though current research has investigated the effects of different input factors on vocabulary learning while listening,still not enough is known about the acquisition of different vocabulary knowledge dimensions and their relationship with different input factors.This study investigated the effects of lexical frequency and contextual cues from English listening on vocabulary acquisition of such dimensions as form and meaning knowledge,and the knowledge retention.The study attempted to answer the following three research questions as: 1)Which of the two factors has more effects on word form knowledge acquisition from English listening,lexical frequency or contextual cues? 2)Which of the two factors has more effects on word meaning knowledge acquisition from English listening,lexical frequency or contextual cues? 3)Which of the two factors has more effects on the retention of vocabulary knowledge in terms of form and meaning,lexical frequency or contextual cues?Seventy-eight non-English major graduate students at a university in Northeastern China were pretested in vocabulary and divided into two groups(a frequency group and a context group).A form immediate post-test and a meaning immediate post-test were performed right after a listening task,and a delayed post-test was performed three weeks later.The participants' performance on the post-tests was taken as a measure of acquisition,and their gain scores from the pre-test to the post-test and the delayed post-test were taken as an indication of the learning effects.The result showed that both of frequency and context have some impact on students' acquisition of vocabulary knowledge.In the immediate post-test,lexical frequency can promote the learners' acquisition of word form knowledge more than contextual factor.At the same time,the study has also pointed out that both frequency and context have an effect on students' acquisition of vocabulary meaning knowledge,and the acquisition of meaning knowledge in frequency group is better than that in context group after the immediate post-test.In addition,in terms of retention of word form and word meaning knowledge(three weeks later),the retention extent of form knowledge and meaning knowledge of the two groups is the same.The implication for teaching practice is due to the fact that incidental vocabulary acquisition is largely related to lexical frequency and context,teachers should consider adding these influencing factors into their teaching and material construction to facilitate students' incidental vocabulary acquisition from listening.