Enhanced Vocabulary Pre-Teaching

Literature has not yet agreed upon the effects of vocabulary pre-teaching on facilitating L2 learners’ listening comprehension. Some studies held positive views toward this type of pre-listening support (e.g. Chung & Huang, 1998) whereas others did not (e.g. Chang & Read, 2006). One possible reason accounting for the ineffectiveness of vocabulary pre-teaching in some studies is that the vocabulary instruction itself only involves the teaching of basic L1-L2 word pairs and their pronunciations. Thus, learners are less likely to effectively relate the L2 words with their translations and thus less likely to retrieve their word knowledge when engaging in listening tasks.

Jones & Plass (2002) conducted a research which provides some thoughts for the issue. They investigated the effects of two types of annotations in video-viewing activities. One hundred and seventy one FL college students were randomly divided into four treatment groups: (1) text with no annotation, (2) text with only written

annotation, (3) text with only pictorial annotation, (4) text with both written and pictorial annotations. After listening to computer-based materials, they were asked to take a written multiple-choice vocabulary post-test and a written recall posttest. Three weeks later, they took the same test again as the delay test. Results indicated that the combination of annotations is the most helpful listening support for students to recall both the listening passage and the newly learned vocabulary in the delayed test. But what deserves our attention is the comparison between written annotations and pictorial annotations. The study showed that in both immediate and delay tests, pictorial annotation group performed better than written annotation group.

Furthermore, the difference between the pictorial group and combination group reached marginal significance in the immediate posttest but such significance decayed in the delay test. Therefore, it seemed to suggest that the power of pictorial annotations persist with time.

Based on the research results, Jones & Plass contended that pictorial information supports both micro- and macro-level processing, thus aiding verbal and visual mental representations in the working memory and helping them enter the long-term memory as well. Kellogg and Howe (1971) also suggested that L2 words associated with visual images can be learned more easily than those that do not have them. Therefore, these studies argued that the role of pictures in the vocabulary instruction should deserve more concern.

In the literature, however, few studies incorporated the pictorial information in the teaching of new words for listening. But Tsai’s study (2002) is one example that implemented this method. In his study, the researcher attempted to compare the effectiveness of two types of pre-listening activities: target word instruction method and gist prediction method. Two intact classes, totaling one hundred and two English-major college students, participated in the study; they were also categorized

into more proficient and less proficient learners based on the pre-test. Class A received instruction on vocabulary, in which they were supplied with meaning-related visual aids, such as pictures, charts, magazines, fliers, or body actions, along with pronunciation practices and oral example sentences. Class B, on the other hand, was presented with the passage title, topic sentence of each paragraph, some pre-listening questions and a teacher-led discussion. Results showed that after receiving pre-listening instruction, participants in both classes did significantly better in their posttest, but there was no significant main effect difference whatsoever between the two types of pre-listening supports. However, if students’ proficiency level was being considered, it was revealed that target word instruction method did not help much for high-proficiency learners, but gist-prediction method exerted beneficial effects on both levels of language learners. Briefly, this study supported the value of vocabulary instruction with the incorporation of visual aids, yet indicated the caveat to consider student’s proficiency level.

As inspired by Jones and Plass (2002) and Tsai (2002)’s studies, we believed that enhanced vocabulary pre-instruction should include effective pictorial information to supplement the traditional L1-L2 translation presentation. Such decision could be supported by Mayer’s (1997, 2001, 2003) Generative Theory of Multimedia Learning, which posits that when information is supplied in different presentation modes, rather than just one mode, better learning effects can be expected.

(More details about this theory will be reviewed in section 2.5.4.) As a result, it seems plausible to integrate the traditional L1-L2 word pair with the pictorial information to solidate students’ retention of vocabulary knowledge.

Aside from the efforts to enhance the presentation of unfamiliar words, literature indicated that teaching and learning words in context plays a crucial role in vocabulary learning (Hunt & Beglar, 2002). Past studies have acknowledged the

importance of teaching form and pronunciation and of practicing saying new words in vocabulary instruction (Channell, 1988; Ellis & Beaton, 1993). As to how to relate L2 form with its semantic meaning, a growing trend has been proposing the idea of learning new words in contexts to take place of traditional word-pair translation method. Prince (1996) for example investigated the effects of vocabulary learning respectively through context and translation and further examined how the word learning method interacted with learners’ proficiency level. Results suggested that learners could learn a larger number of new words by translation learning regardless of their proficiency level; however, less proficient learners are unable to transfer the knowledge of new words they learned from translation method into L2 contexts, thus revealing the potential weaknesses of word-pair vocabulary learning. As suggested by Wiseman & Tulving (1976), one obvious setback of over-reliance on L1 translation is that learners are likely to depend on a single “trace” in memory and they are less able to retrieve the word knowledge when encountering different contexts. But learning words in contexts, on the contrary, provides learners with richer contextual clues and more dynamic, multiple “traces” of meaning retrieval (Wiseman & Tulving, 1976). In short, given the importance of learning words in contexts, the present study will also include such learning method in vocabulary pre-instruction.

Although learning vocabulary in context is promising as the above suggested, it seems that this method of learning requires much work on the part of learners than the traditional translation method. Prince (1996) indicated three steps that learners need to process before extracting the meaning of target vocabulary from contexts: (a) to process the sentences to gain sufficient understating of it, (b) to use that understating to infer the meaning of the unknown word, and (c) to associate the meaning with the form of the unknown word in such a way that a representation is formed that is available for future use (cited from Prince (1996), p. 481). Because of this arduous

work, weaker learners are usually less likely to benefit from context learning (Cohen and Aphek, 1980). Therefore, it is compulsory to help weaker learners (including beginner learners) deal with the difficulty of processing syntactic structures usually found within context. The present study thus designs sentence practices that offer contextual clues but have both clear semantic connotation and simple syntactic structures so as not to overwhelm learners. This sentence practice will function as a means to reviewing newly-learned words and not as the means to learning it.

Three reasons further account for why sentence practice exercises are employed in the current study. First, Schmitt & Schmitt (1995) confirmed the positive effects of sentence example practices. Among the eleven principles they advocated, one of them is the “retrieval practice effect” (Baddeley, 1990). This principle claims that the act of recalling a word results in higher chances for future recall. Therefore, if learners have an opportunity to recall their newly-learned vocabulary when they do sentence practices, chances are that they would have better retrieval of word knowledge.

Second, the fact that current study employed sentence practice soon after the presentation of new words can be supported by the principle of “expanding rehearsal.” This principle advocates to “review new materials right after the initial meeting” (Schmitt & Schmitt, 1995, p. 136) so that better learning can be expected.

Finally, sentence practice exercise also helps promote deeper mental processing as Craik and Lockhart (1972) suggested. Their hypothesis claimed that “if mental activities can be made to require more thoughts and manipulation, it could help learners to better learn the word” (cited in Schmitt & Schmitt, 1995, p. 135).

In conclusion, drawing on related methods and theories about vocabulary instruction, the current study will incorporate L1-L2 word pair presentation supplemented with pictorial information and along with sentence practices to maximize the effectiveness of vocabulary learning. And this package of vocabulary

teaching/learning will be referred to as enhanced vocabulary pre-instruction in the present study.