Chapter 6 Conclusion
In this chapter, a summary of the major findings is first presented, followed by pedagogical implications for language teaching practitioners, and limitations of the present study and some suggestions for future research.
6.1 Summary of the Major Findings
The main results of the present study are summarized as follows:
1. The major purpose of the current study was to determine which of the two input sources, listening or reading, was more conducive to learners’ incidental vocabulary knowledge development. The results indicate that, overall, the incidental vocabulary knowledge of the TWs gained and retained through written input significantly exceeded that through spoken input. There were, however, two cases where aural input contributed to more robust gain and retention scores.
2. A secondary purpose of this study was to investigate the correlation between text comprehension and the probability of incidental word knowledge learning. The findings suggest a significant and positive interrelating relationship between text comprehension and L2 vocabulary acquisition in the listening learning condition, but not in the reading one.
3. Another secondary purpose of the study was to look into the effects of EFL learners’ English proficiency on incidental vocabulary acquisition and retention. It is revealed that the role of L2 proficiency proved relevant to incidental vocabulary acquisition and retention for Group L, but not for Group R.
4. Also explored in the present study was the extent to which frequency of occurrence of a word in a text affected incidental acquisition of that word. The findings show that
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word exposure frequency had an insignificant effect on incidental vocabulary acquisition and retention.
6.2 Pedagogical Implications
The present study established both reading and listening input as important sources for EFL incidental vocabulary learning specifically in the context of being exposed to a story. To effectively facilitate incidental learning of vocabulary in both learning conditions, the following considerations were put forward for language teachers. First, sufficiently rich texts should be provided to learners. Texts chosen should allow for moderate level of text comprehension, abound in contextual information, and arouse a high interest level from learners towards the content.
Second, before presenting texts, it is advised that target words introduced to learners, especially to learners who process texts by listening. This is because in the present study learners were generally less sensitive to the auditory representations than to the written ones. As indicated in 4.6, the participants in Group L responded that they would have felt much more secure and less disoriented in the vocabulary learning sessions if they had been provided with the written forms of the target words. Third, in the present study students heard or read the same stories twice. Although there is no research basis for the optimal number of a story or a passage, it was found in a study that more than two presentations were needed to significantly the learning of new vocabulary and that increased presentations resulted in greater word learning (Brett, et.
al., 1996).
The result that a modest positive significant correlation between the level of text comprehension and immediate and retention vocabulary gain was observed for Group L in the present study suggests the greater the level of comprehension, the greater the chances of making form-meaning connections for new lexical items encountered
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through listening. Thus, in order to enhance incidental vocabulary learning when using spoken texts, language practitioners may wish to provide comprehension strategy training to learners. Based on the results from Group R that text
comprehension was high but not significantly correlated to vocabulary gain and retention, language teachers are advised to design reading activities with tasks that promote the use of strategies deemed necessary for successful processing of texts at the micro and macro level (Lee & VanPatten, 2003, cited from Pulido, 2004).
The implication based on the result that it was difficult for lower-ability learners to learn vocabulary incidentally in Group L is that teachers should therefore not find it obvious that simply wide listening without further aids leads automatically to a
significant vocabulary gain for low-ability listeners. Such learners should be supplied with informative texts that provide maximum opportunities for successful lexical inferencing. The relationship between proficiency and vocabulary acquisition also suggests to high school EFL practitioners that when the purpose is to increase
vocabulary, extensive incidental reading may serve as a better approach than listening, while when wishing to get learners to learn lexical items through listening related activities, special assistance should be given to lower-ability learners.
It should also be noted that the true benefits of reading or listening for lexical acquisition may not lie in the immediate acquisition of a word, but in preparing students to acquire a new word or in increasing their depth of knowledge of a previously known word. Therefore, teachers should constantly provide learners with opportunities to read or listen to texts extensively.
Finally, it is not suggested here that incidental learning of vocabulary should be favored over explicit learning. Rather, a combination of explicit and implicit
approaches seems the best and the most efficient solution for vocabulary instruction.
It is indicated that both direct and indirect methods of vocabulary acquisition are vital
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to developing an adequate lexicon (Nation, 2001).
6.3 Limitations of the Study and Suggestions for Future Research
In future efforts to investigate the effects of listening and reading on incidental vocabulary acquisition, researchers may wish to consider the following limitations of the current study. First, the present study was limited to investigating incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading or listening quite brief and simple narratives.
Expository or even authentic narrative texts may be associated with different effects.
Second, the present study only examined the effects of the two learning modalities with a cross-section of two groups of high school students. Future research should be done longitudinally and conducted with a different population to make results more generalizable. Third, the instrument used for measuring vocabulary gain and retention was limited to the Vocabulary Knowledge Scale. Future studies should include
different or more vocabulary knowledge measurement tools at the same time to gain a more genuine picture of participants’ lexical gain. Fourth, future study may focus on other variables, such as contextual clues, level of text interest, level of topic
familiarity and so on, that might exert different effects on the vocabulary learning through listening or reading.
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