The effects of listening-based lexical focus-on-form on the learning of morphologically complex words

Abstract

This study explored the effects of listening-based lexical focus-on-form (lexical FonF) on the acquisition and retention of morphologically complex words. One hundred eighty-two adult English learners with two levels of English proficiency (higher and lower proficiency) from a public university in mainland China were assigned to three different conditions: morphological instruction (MI), an experimental condition in which morphological instruction related to target words was provided in addition to a series of audio passages containing the target items; word meaning explanation (WME), an experimental condition in which explanations of the word meaning of target items were offered in addition to the listening activity; and one control condition (CT) in which learners were exposed only to the listening activity. The results indicated that lexical FonF led to more vocabulary gains than purely incidental FonF and that the MI condition significantly outperformed the WME condition in both the acquisition and retention of morphologically complex words. In addition, no interaction was detected between the preintervention proficiency level and word learning conditions.

摘要

本研究探讨了基于听力的词形关注 (lexical FonF) 对语素复杂单词的习得和保持的影响。来自中国大陆一所公立大学的182名具有不同英语水平的成人英语学习者(高水平和低水平)被分配到三种不同的实验条件下: 在语素干预实验条件(MI)下, 学习者除了包含目标词的听力活动外, 还接受与目标词相关的语素规则讲解；在词义解释实验条件下(WME), 学习者除了包含目标词听力活动外, 还接受目标词的词义解释；在对照条件(CT)下, 学习者只进行包含目标词的听力活动。结果表明, 词形关注比纯粹的附带词形习得更有利于词汇学习, 而且在语素复杂单词的习得和保持方面, 语素干预效果明显优于词义解释。此外, 干预前的语言水平与单词学习条件之间并没有发现交互作用。

PLAIN LANGUAGE SUMMARY

This study looked at the effects of combining a meaning-focused listening activity and explicit vocabulary teaching (lexical FonF) on the acquisition and retention of morphologically complex words. One hundred eighty-two adult English learners with two levels of English proficiency (higher and lower proficiency) from a public university in mainland China were placed in three different conditions: morphological instruction (MI), an experimental condition in which learners were taught internal structure of target words in addition to a series of audio passages containing the target items; word meaning explanation (WME), an experimental condition in which explanations of the word meaning of target items were offered in addition to the listening activity; and one control condition (CT) in which learners only listened to a series of audio passages containing the target items. The results indicated that the combination of a meaning-focused listening activity and explicit vocabulary teaching led to more vocabulary gains than purely incidental vocabulary learning from a meaning-focused listening activity. In addition, the MI condition significantly outperformed the WME condition in both the acquisition and retention of morphologically complex words. The learners’ initial proficiency levels did not influence the impact of the intervention conditions.

关键词:

• 习得
• 词形关注
• 语素复杂单词
• 干预前语言水平
• 保持

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).