Learning and Retaining Vocabulary from Listening for EFL Learners
國立台灣師範大學英研所碩士班
程映蓁
1. INTRODUCTION
It is generally believed that vocabulary is mostly acquired through reading. According to
Anderson, Wilson, and Fielding (1988, cited in Laufer, 2003), children shows the largest
vocabulary growth when exposed to large amounts of reading materials during the primary
and secondary school years. Studies concerning L2 learners have also confirmed the effect of
extensive reading on vocabulary gains and reading proficiency (Elley & Mangubhai, 1983;
Hafiz & Tudor, 1989; Lao & Krashen, 1999; Mason & Krashen, 1997). However, several
recent studies challenged reading as the major source of vocabulary acquisition (Laufer, 2003;
Waring & Takaki, 2003). Laufer (2003), for instance, claimed that direct vocabulary
instruction with form-focused writing activities produced better vocabulary gains and
retention than learning vocabulary through reading. Although form-focused tasks may yield
better results, they are inevitably more time-consuming and thus decrease the potential for
more vocabulary learning. Therefore, more effort is still dedicated to developing more
effective and efficient ways to facilitate vocabulary learning.
Some researchers propose that aural input lead to greater vocabulary acquisition than
silent reading only (Henderson, 2001; Robbins & Ehri, 1994). As Henderson (2001) suggests,
children can learn more vocabulary from listening to a stories than from reading them silently,
which presents a possible superiority of aural input in learners’ ears over written input in
learners’ eyes in enhancing vocabulary learning. However, the effect of aural input is only
supported in studies concerning L1 children; related research on nonnative learners is still
limited. Therefore, it is worthwhile to investigate whether nonnative learners can also learn
vocabulary successfully from exposure to aural input of the target language. Some might
question the possibility and appropriateness of applying the method of learning vocabulary
from listening to FL learners, who are not in an English-speaking environment and do not
have good listening competence to comprehend the text as well as native children do.
However, since both L1 children and FL learners are usually labeled as low literacy, whether
the positive impact of aural input on native children will also be of some help to FL learners
deserves investigation. Besides, there have long been theories in the psychological field about
retrieving meanings more directly and quickly from speech sounds than from the form of a
word, which may partially confirm the importance of aural input in vocabulary learning as
well as the need for more research on aural input.
For all the reasons mentioned above, this study aims to investigate if aural input can
generate more vocabulary gains and longer retention than written input, which refers to
traditional way of learning vocabulary from silent reading. In the following, previous studies
related to vocabulary learning through reading and listening will be reviewed first with a set
of research questions proposed in the next section. Then, an experimental design of two
groups (i.e. a reading group and a listening group) for examining the effect of written and
aural input will be described in details. Results and analysis for the three groups will be
presented next followed by pedagogical implication and limitation of this study for future
research.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Learning Vocabulary from Reading
2.1.1 The importance of reading in vocabulary learning
Reading has long been recognized as the major source of vocabulary acquisition.
According to Nagy, Herman, and Anderson (1985, cited in Robbins & Ehri, 1994), extensive
reading contributes to an estimated amount of one third of a native child’s annual vocabulary
growth. Similar claims can be found in Krashen’s (1989) that vocabulary is mostly attainted
by comprehensible input in the form of reading and that the amount of reading functions as a
good predictor of reading and spelling competence as well as one’s vocabulary size.
2.1.2 Empirical studies of extensive reading
Many studies have confirmed the effect of extensive reading on vocabulary growth. In a
Reading and English Acquisition Program (REAP) in Singapore done by Elley (1991),
primary students aged from six to nine were incorporated to investigate the effect extensive
reading. While the control group received traditional instruction and activities, subjects in
REAP were provided with a range of interesting books of different levels and treated with
“Shared-Book Approach,” 20-30 minutes of book sharing after normal instruction, and
“Modified Language Experience Approach,” which combines reading and writing instruction
with focus on learner-based experiences. The results showed that students in REAP surpassed
the control group in general language ability, including reading comprehension, vocabulary,
and writing.
Aside from the large-scale of extensive reading programs, a short-term experiment on the
possibility of incidental vocabulary acquisition from reading also showed impressive results
(Rott, 1999). Subjects were 95 English learners of German, assigned to different exposure
groups (zero, two, four, and six exposures) to examine the influence of different exposure
frequencies on vocabulary acquisition and retention. All the target words selected were
unknown to the subjects before the experiment and presented to them in short passages
without instruction. One immediate posttest was administered to measure acquisition and two
delayed posttests (one week and four weeks after reading) were conducted for vocabulary
retention. Results showed that students with two, four, or six times of exposure during reading
demonstrated significantly more word knowledge about the target words than students who
had not encountered the target words during reading. Besides, word knowledge and retention
also correlated highly with frequency of exposure with six encounters resulting in
significantly more word knowledge and longer retention than the other groups. To sum up, L2
learners can acquire vocabulary incidentally from reading.
Although positive effect of vocabulary learning from reading is widely observed in
studies on EFL learners, there have been more and more claims against reading as the major
source of vocabulary learning.
2.1.3 Studies against the effect of reading on vocabulary learning
Many recent studies argued that learning vocabulary from reading does occur but
vocabulary gained from reading is only modest. To verify this issue, Waring and Takaki (2003)
conducted an experimental study involving 15 intermediate-level Japanese students to
examine how much vocabulary learners can actually learn and retain from reading a graded
reader A Little Prince. A posttest was administered right after reading to assess acquisition and
two delayed recall tests separately after one week and three months for evidence of retention.
Analysis of the three tests showed that only some words can be learned from reading a graded
reader. What’s worse, only 68% of the learned words are retained after one week and 50%
after a three-month delay, which is much more inferior to the high rate of retention (about
96% retained after a week and 81% after three months) in Rott’s study (1999). The different
results showed in these two studies may suggest that the effect of vocabulary learning and
retention from reading is still under debate and requires more research. Besides, in contrast to
the substantial vocabulary gains in Elley’s (1991), the small vocabulary growth in Waring and
Takakii’s (2003) might be attributed to the limitation of short-term exposure to reading and
inadequate encounters of the target words. However, if long term of reading exposure is
required for obvious vocabulary gains, then only better students of determination and
perseverance can stick through the long process and benefit from it. Moreover, what’s worth
noticing is that subjects in Elley’s (1991) were not only presented with the written input of the
reading texts but followed with writing assignments and in-class discussions. Thus, it is
questionable to ascribe all the vocabulary growth to the effect of silent reading.
A stronger opposition of the role of reading can be observed from Laufer’s (2003), in
which several experiments were conducted to compare the effect of vocabulary learning from
reading with that from productive word-focused tasks. In the first experiment, while the
reading group saw the target words in context with marginal glosses, the sentence writing
group were presented with the target words and their meanings without the context and
focused on how to use them in sentences. In the immediate posttest and a delayed posttest two
weeks later, the sentence making group scored significantly higher than the reading group. As
for the second experiment, subjects in the “composition group,” who were required to write a
composition with the 10 target words, recalled significantly more word meanings than the
reading group. As Laufer suggested in this study (2003), “if a word is practiced in a
productive word-focused task, its meaning has a better chance to be remembered than if the
word is encountered in a text.”
Although direct instruction with word-focused writing tasks seems to be more effective,
it is only applicable in school as the writing tasks are only available from the schoolteacher,
leaving little room for individual efforts at home as outside reading. Besides, the class time
involved in the writing tasks must be substantial, evoking the question on how much
vocabulary can be taught and learned during a semester. Therefore, a more effective and
efficient way to facilitate vocabulary learning still deserves effort.
2.2 Learning Vocabulary from Listening
In promoting vocabulary acquisition, some researchers propose that learning vocabulary
through listening is effective for native children (Elley, 1989; Robbins & Ehri, 1994; Brett,
Rothlein & Hurley, 1996; Penno, Wilkinson & Moore, 2002). A study done by Henderson
(2001) even suggests that listening to stories read aloud produces a much greater vocabulary
gain than silent reading only. However, related research on nonnative learners is still not
available nowadays, which evokes the interest of research for this study. In the following,
traditional views of listening in EFL field, relevant theories and empirical studies concerning
vocabulary learning through listening will be reviewed as follows.
2.1.1 Traditional views of enhancing vocabulary learning by listening
Listening is traditionally regarded as a useful means to facilitate language learning. As
recommended by Hedge (1994) in his suggestions for using graded readers to EFL learners,
students of lower proficiency level benefit much from listening to the teacher reading parts of
the story aloud or to a cassette, in which the dramatic intonation draws their attention,
involves them in a focused and highly-motivated learning atmosphere and gets them
acquainted with the sounds of words to develop better listening competence.
2.2.2 Theories of learning directly from aural input
Though neglected in the EFL field, learning directly from listening has long been
recognized as feasible and effective. According to the Input Hypothesis reviewed in Krashen’s
(1989), comprehensible input, both aural and written, results in more language acquisition
including vocabulary development.
Aside from the Input Hypothesis, theories from the field of psychology concerning
language processing can also partially support the effect of learning directly from listening.
Based on Conrad (1964, cited in Xu, 1991), linguistic material, whether presented auditorially
or visually, has to be retained in speech form in memory to be recalled afterwards. That is, if
the material to be remembered is orthographic, it has to be transformed into a speech-like
form first to be retained in memory, which is usually termed as phonological recoding.
According to this theory, it is inferred that the connection between sound and meaning is more
direct and closer than the form-meaning link. Thus, when students are presented directly with
aural input of the language, they can retain the newly-learned words by remembering their
sounds without transforming the codes. However, when they are provided with only written
input, those who have difficulty transferring orthographic forms to speech sounds might fail
to retain the acquired words for a long time. The phenomenon described above may well
suggest a possibility of learning and retaining new words more successfully from listening
than from reading.
In spite of positive support from some theories, empirical evidence of the effect of
learning vocabulary from listening is still limited and mainly restricted to native children with
materials of stories, which will be reviewed below as reference for this research design.
2.2.3 Empirical studies of learning vocabulary directly from listening
In Elley’s (1989) study, a classic one of this field, 7- and 8-year-old children listened to
the same stories read aloud for three times demonstrated some gain in identifying the correct
meanings of target words on a multiple-choice test. This gain increased even more
significantly when the meanings of the target words were provided for them. Therefore, Elley
(1989) claimed that “oral story reading functions as a significant source of vocabulary
acquisition, whether or not the reading is accompanied by teacher explanation of word
meanings.” Follow-up posttests of the experiment even showed that vocabulary learning from
this source was relatively permanent, and that students with smaller vocabulary size prior to
the experiment learned as much as those with greater vocabulary knowledge.
Many later studies also confirmed the results listed above (Robbins and Ehri,1994; Brett,
Rothlein & Hurley, 1996; Penno, Wilkinson & Moore, 2002). However, most of them,
including Elley’s (1989), were only confined to the investigation of the effect of aural input
instead of the comparison between aural and written input. The only study of comparison
found so far is the one done by Henderson (2001), in which 17 third-graders were involved
and assigned to listen to two stories and read another two silently per week during a month,
with a total of 16 stories in the whole experiment. Each story was repeated twice during a
week with brief discussion on the content but none of the target words were instructed
explicitly. A pretest and a posttest were administered respectively in the beginning and at the
end of every week to measure vocabulary gains. Four weeks later, analysis of the scores for
pretests and posttests indicated that students learned a significant amount of vocabulary
through both methods. However, a much grater gain was observed from the group of listening
to stories read aloud (with an average of 16 new words gained during the experiment) while
the silent reading group only acquired six news words on average. Potential explanation for
this result provided by the researcher was that reading stories aloud to children creates a
highly-motivated learning atmosphere. The interest level of the activity and persistent
attention of the children contributes to the great gain on vocabulary acquisition and further
leads on to positive attitude toward language learning.
Based on all the studies reviewed above, both reading and listening have been confirmed
to be effective sources for vocabulary learning with even better results from listening for
native learners. Despite positive support of aural input from previous studies, little research of
this topic is done on EFL learners, who are also labeled as of low literacy as native children,
in an urgent need of vocabulary growth, but most of the time only confined to the exposure of
written input. Therefore, this study aims to examine the effect of learning vocabulary from
listening and compare the different influences of written input and aural input on vocabulary
learning and retention for EFL learners for inspirations for pedagogical application.
Concerning this research topic, detailed questions to be examined in this study are addressed
as follows:
1. Do the silent reading group and listening group have a significant gain on the target
words in the posttest? Which group performs better?
2. Can both groups retain the acquired words in a delayed posttest after one week? Which
group retains better?
3. What different influences of written input and aural input have on vocabulary learning
and retention based on the analysis of the two groups?
3. METHOD
3.1 Participants
Participants of this study were two classes of tenth-grade students in a senior high school
in southern Taiwan with 41 or 42 students in each class. One class was assigned to learn
vocabulary from reading, and the other to learn from listening. Because students in this school
were equally distributed into classes according to their performance in the standardized Basic
Competence Test (BCT), these groups were inferred to possess similar proficiency and
learning attitude. However, to avoid any subtle differences affecting the experimental results,
a pretest was still administered to measure participants’ prior knowledge about the target
words to be compared with the posttest for vocabulary gains, which were later used to explain
the effectiveness of different experimental treatments.
3.2 Materials
The material for this experiment was The Fairly Intelligent Fly, a short fable from
Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated by James Thurber (1940). The fable was
selected for several reasons. First, it only has 172 words, short enough to be implemented
with the immediate posttest within a period of class. Second, it is composed mainly of simple
sentence structures and vocabulary with only 15 words not included in junior high school
textbooks (about a coverage of 8% unknown words). However, according to Hu and Nation
(2000, cited in Waring and Takaki, 2003), the optimal rate of unknown words in a text should
be under 5% for successful learning and guessing from context. Although the material in this
study was not intended for learning from context with inference skills, the appropriate rate of
unknown words was still considered to ensure a better learning experience for the participants.
Therefore, the original text was further simplified to contain 167 words with only 8
pre-supposed unknown words to the target participants (about 4% of unknown words).
Among the eight words mentioned above, six of them were selected as target words for
the experiment: trap, devour, intelligent, entangle, stuck, settle. They are either low frequency
words, such as devour and entangle, or inaccessible from the standardized course at school so
far. The other two were excluded (i.e. flypaper, land as a verb form) because they can be
easily guessed right by analyzing affixes and roots or inferred from its noun form.
3.3 Treatment
Two classes of students were randomly assigned to two different kinds of treatments:
learning from reading and learning from listening. The rationale for the experimental design is
that both groups were exposed to their target input within the same amount of time. Besides,
the meanings of the target words were provided for them in L1 since the purpose of this study
is not to examine the easiness or possibility of inferring word meanings from written and
aural context but only to test the effect of different input on vocabulary learning and retention.
Detailed steps for each treatment were presented in the following.
Reading group: Participants of this group were first required to read silently through the
fable with marginal glosses provided for the target words. Next, the teacher checked the
meaning of each sentence with students in L1 to ensure comprehension for the whole text but
avoided reading any of the target words aloud. Then, students were asked to read through the
fable again and given five comprehension questions involving the target words. Finally,
students were required to review the text one more time before the immediate posttest by
telling them that they were going to be tested how much they understand the fable instead of
informing them of a vocabulary test directly. All of the steps presented above were designed
to create as many times of exposure to the target words in the form of written input as
possible to establish links between word form and its meaning.
Listening group: Participants of this group listened to the fable read aloud directly
without the text. During the oral presentation of the fable, the teacher stopped to give L1
equivalents to any unknown word and repeat the previous sentence again to check
comprehension before continuing the story. After presentation and brief explanation, the fable
was read again to the students followed by the same comprehension questions presented orally.
Then the story was read again to them before the immediate posttest of vocabulary. Similar to
the first group, treatment for this group was also designed to build as many links between
sound and meaning as possible within a specific period of time.
3.4 Procedure
Pretest: A pretest was administered two days before the treatment to check how much
the participants knew about the target words and delete any word that was known to more
than 50% of the participants as suggested by Henderson (2001). Scores for the pretest was
also used to be compared with those for the immediate posttest for vocabulary gains from this
experimental treatment. To assess the students’ understanding of the target words, a test of
passive recall of the word meaning and a multiple-choice vocabulary test were designed for
the pretest. Aside from 12 questions for the six target words in two test types, another 10
distracting questions were added to the two sections of the pretest. Some of them are difficult
words (i.e. astonish, destiny) probably unknown to students and are from the same frequency
level as some of the target words in order to obscure students’ focus on the difficult target
words; some are newly-learned words in students’ textbook for this semester (i.e. ignorant,
observe) in order not to frustrate students too much and also to distract their attention.
However, all the distracting questions were not calculated as part of the score for the pretest.
Posttest: A posttest was implemented immediately after the treatment to measure
vocabulary acquisition from different input. Questions for the posttest were the same as those
for the pretest but all the distracting questions were deleted. In order not to discourage
low-achievers, easy words from the fable, such as bee, web, etc., were included as part of the
test but excluded from the final scores. (See Appendix A) One thing deserves attention is that
two types of test questions should be administered separately with passive recall first
followed by easier section of multiple-choice questions to avoid extra gains for the difficult
part from the easier part. Besides, materials for the three groups were collected back before
the posttest to avoid cheating or extra exposure before the delayed posttest.
Delayed posttest: a delayed posttest was designed to examine the rate of retention of the
acquired words. Questions of this test were basically the same as the immediate posttest.
However, the sequence for the choice items in the multiple-choice questions and the sequence
for all the 17 questions were changed in order to avoid memory effect.
3.5 Data Analysis
Scores for the pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest were entered into a 2 (group: reading
and listening) × 3 (time: pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest) ANOVA with time as the
repeated measurement to observe the change of students’ performance among the three tests
with particular attention to vocabulary gains in the posttest and the rate of vocabulary
retention from the posttest to the delayed posttest.
4. RESULTS
4.1 Overall results
The results of the repeated-measures ANOVA for the pretest, posttest, and delayed
posttest (see Table 2) showed that there was significant difference between the two tests
measured in different time (F=267.74*) within each group, indicating that both groups yielded
vocabulary gains in the posttest and also forgot some of the acquired words in the posttest.
Besides, the significant interaction1 between the variables of time and group (F=18.40*) also
suggested that the rates of learning and retention between the two groups are different,
implying the need for detailed analysis in the following section, though the difference did not
reach the significant level (F=0.09).
Table 1 Means and standard deviations for the pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest
Group
Reading group
1
Pretest
M
SD
2.05
1.27
Posttest
M
SD
7.79
2.24
Delayed Posttest
M
SD
4.52
2.36
The significant interaction between the variables of time and group is symbolized by the crossover of the two
lines presented in Figure 1, indicating the need for further analysis.
Listening group
0.83
1.13
6.49
2.06
5.88
2.34
Table 2 Repeated-measures ANOVA for the pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest
Source
SS
df
MS
F
Sig.
group
Error
time
time*group
Error
9.73
259.82
1388.35
95.39
420.03
1
81
2
2
162
9.73
3.21
3.04
.09
694.18
47.69
2.60
267.74
18.40
.00*
.00*
Estimated Marginal Means of MEASURE_1
group
Estimated Marginal Means
8.00
1.00
2.00
6.00
reading group
listening group
4.00
2.00
0.00
1
Figure 1
2
3
time
Overall results for the three groups
4.2 Results pertaining to the first two research questions
To answer the first two research questions, calculation of the mean scores for the two
groups provided in Table 1 is needed for subtle differences among their vocabulary gains and
rate of retention.
With regard to the first research question, both groups learned vocabulary successfully
under different kinds of treatments with the reading group performed better (about 5.74 gain
scores) than the listening group (about 5.66 gain scores). As for the second research question,
both groups could retain some of the acquired words. However, the listening group retained
better (about 89%). The low rate of retention (about 43%) for the reading group indicated that
more than half of the learned words had been forgotten in spite of its high vocabulary gain in
the immediate posttest. As a result, the listening group finally turned out to be the one that
gained better from the experiment owing to its high rate of retention as shown in Figure 1,
which corresponds to the results in Henderson’s study (2001).
5. DISCUSSION
To generalize different influences of written input and aural input on vocabulary learning
and retention as depicted in the third research question, results for the two groups would be
discussed respectively in the following with possible reasons provided for reference.
According to the vocabulary gains of the reading group revealed in the posttest, reading
is indeed an effective source for EFL learners to learn new words, which echoes with the
promotion of extensive reading programs in Elley’s (1991). However, without aural support,
newly-learned words cannot retain for a long time with a low rate of retention revealed in
Table 3, which corresponds to the finding in Waring and Takaki’s (2003) that only half of the
learned words are retained from learning through reading.
As for the results for the listening group, learning vocabulary from listening has been
confirmed effective for EFL learners though the vocabulary gain in the posttest is not as
satisfactory as the other group, which is different from Henderson’s (2001) finding that the
listening group outperformed the reading group in the immediate posttest. The slightly lower
scores for the vocabulary gain of the listening group is possibly attributed to the participants’
deficiency in good listening competence. According to the survey on students’ comprehension
of the fable right after the teacher’s oral presentation, most of those who scored low in the
posttest reported comprehending lower than 30% of the fable. Since most of the oral
presentation was not comprehensible, the rate of learning is not as high as expected. However,
once learned, the words can be retained longer with the rate of retention up to 89%. Therefore,
it is concluded that aural input functions well in facilitating retention of acquired words,
which conforms to the finding in Elley’s (1989) that vocabulary learning from listening was
relatively permanent. Possible reasons for this finding may be ascribed to the successful
storage of the learned words in memory in the form of speech sounds provided directly
through the aural input as suggested in the theory of phonological recoding, or to the effect of
highly-motivated learning proposed by Elley (1989) and Henderson (2001).
To sum up, aural input can be an effective source of vocabulary learning for EFL learners
and is of particular importance in assisting vocabulary retention. However, for EFL learners,
textual support still seems indispensable to help them follow the moves of the material more
clearly without missing any point for better vocabulary gains.
6. PEDAGODIAL IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION
The two experimental groups of this study separately represent different learning styles
commonly found in reality. While the reading group refers to those exposing themselves
widely to vast amounts of reading materials without the support of aural input and retaining
less than half of them in the end, the listening group may depict the experiences of learning
accidentally from watching films, listening to English songs, or story time in some English
cram schools. However, few words are acquired throughout the process though the acquired
words can be retained for a long time. Both styles of learning imply some shortages as the two
groups depicted in the current study. To best elaborate the benefits of both input for
facilitating vocabulary learning and retention, several suggestions are provided for
pedagogical application. For EFL learners to expand vocabulary size through self-learning at
home, reading materials like English magazines, newspapers, and graded readers, etc. still
serve as a sustainable and widely available source of vocabulary learning. However, students
should be encouraged to listen to the aural input provided by the cassette, CD, or mp3
accompanied with the reading materials to ensure high rate of retention. For classroom
application, the importance of aural input should be reminded while students are exposed to
both input. Besides, since learning vocabulary from listening is confirmed to be feasible and
effective for EFL learners, language teachers can design in-class activities to help students
learn from this source once in a while to add variety to traditional learning cliché.
To sum up, EFL learners can learn vocabulary both from reading and listening. While
aural input contributes to better retention of the acquired words, the support of written input
can help learners follow the moves of the materials easily for a more satisfactory vocabulary
gain. Studies concerning longer periods of retention and materials of different genres are also
expected in the future to examine the effect of learning from listening in comparison with the
traditional way of learning from reading.
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Appendix A
(Posttest)
Part I: 請寫出這些單字的中文意思。
1. intelligent (
5. entangle (
9. stupid (
)
)
)
2. trap (
6. land (
10. bee (
) 3. web (
) 7. stuck (
)
) 4. devour (
) 8. settle (
)
)
Class:
Number:
Name:
Part II: 選擇題，請依照前後文語意選出最適合空格中的單字。
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
) 1. A
is hung up in the kitchen to catch flies.
(A) flypaper
(B) lamp
(C) curtain
(D) stove
) 2. The poor rabbit was
in the net set by the hunter.
(A) landed
(B) entangled (C) settled
(D) followed
) 3. John is very
. He can finish everything quickly and correctly.
(A) intelligent (B) entangled (C) inviting
(D) generous
) 4. The two men died when they were
in a burning building.
(A) followed
(B) canceled
(C) trapped
(D) founded
) 5. After the rainy day, my car was
in the mud.
(A) landed
(B) settled
(C) stuck
(D) picked
) 6. The house had been empty for years, and dust had
on all the surfaces.
(A) settled
(B) trapped
(C) prepared
(D) followed
) 7. The tiger hungrily
the deer.
(A) stuck
(B) built
(C) devoured (D) settled