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HOW DOES MODE OF INPUT AFFECT THE INCIDENTAL LEARNING OF COLLOCATIONS?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2020

Stuart Webb Open the ORCID record for Stuart Webb [Opens in a new window]  and
Anna C.-S. Chang Open the ORCID record for Anna C.-S. Chang [Opens in a new window]
Stuart Webb
Affiliation:
University of Western Ontario
Anna C.-S. Chang*
Affiliation:
Hsing Wu University
*
* Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Anna C.-S. Chang, Department of Applied English, Hsing Wu University, 101 Section 1, Feng-Liao Road, Linkou, New Taipei 244, Taiwan. E-mail: annachang@livemail.tw
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Abstract

There has been little research investigating how mode of input affects incidental vocabulary learning, and no study examining how it affects the learning of multiword items. The aim of this study was to investigate incidental learning of L2 collocations in three different modes: reading, listening, and reading while listening. One hundred thirty-eight second-year college students learning EFL in Taiwan were randomly assigned to three experimental groups (reading, listening, reading while listening) and a no treatment control group. The experimental groups encountered 17 target collocations in the same graded reader. Learning was measured using two tests that involved matching the component words and recalling their meanings. The results indicated that the reading while listening condition was most effective while the reading and listening conditions contributed to similarly sized gains. The findings suggest that listening may play a more important role in learning collocations than single-word items.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , March 2022 , pp. 35 - 56
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

We would like express thanks to Emeritus Professor John Read of the University of Auckland for providing some useful suggestions while the authors were developing the tests. We would also like to thank the anonymous SSLA reviewers for spending their valuable time reading the manuscript and providing constructive comments.

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