2.4.3　Assessing Vocabulary Knowledge from Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition

2.4.3AssessingVocabularyKnowledgefromIncidentalVocabularyAcquisition

Thestudiesreportedintheprevioussectionhaveusedvariousinstrumentstomeasurethevocabularyknowledgeoftheparticipants.Table5providesabriefsummaryoftheinstrumentsusedinthestudies.

However,asarguedbyRead(2007),「thereisinfactmuchmoretoknowaboutwordsiftheyaretobecomefunctionalunitsinthelearner'sL2lexicon:howthewordispronouncedandspelled,whatitsmorphologicalformsare,howitfunctionssyntactically,howfrequentitis,howitisusedappropriatelyfromasociolinguisticperspective,andsoon」(p.113).Lexicalacquisitionisindeedaverycomplexissueanditcannotbeassumedthatacquisitionofaword'sbasicmeaningwillimplyacquisitionofotheraspectsoftheword.Thisbecomesespeciallyimportantinthecontextofincidentalvocabularyacquisitionfromlistening,whichdiffersfromvocabularyacquisitionthroughreadinginthatitmayleadtoknowledgeofthepronunciationofwords.

TheinstrumentslistedinTable5onlytestedtheparticipants'vocabularyknowledgeinoneortwoaspects.Forexample,bothtestsbyKazuya(2009)assessedtheparticipants'knowledgeofmeaning,butnotthespelling,pronunciation,oruseofthetargetwords.Thereforetheseinstrumentscanonlypartiallyrevealthevocabularygainsthatthelearnersmadethroughlistening.

Toinvestigatetheeffectsoflisteningonvocabularyacquisition,itisimportanttoemployinstrumentsthatcanspecificallytestlearners'vocabularyknowledgeinsuchaspectsaspronunciationofwords.

Table5InstrumentsUsedtoMeasureVocabularyKnowledge

AccordingtoNation(2001)aswellasWebb(2009),alltypesofknowledgeaboutawordcanbedividedintoreceptiveandproductiveknowledge,whichisillustratedinTable6.Itisclearthatvocabularyassessmentrequirestheuseofmultipletestsinordertoobtainacomprehensivepictureofthelearners'vocabularyknowledge.Testsareneededtomeasurelearners'receptiveandproductiveknowledgeinvariousaspectsofvocabulary.Someinstrumentsthatarefrequentlyusedtoassessvocabularyknowledgeintermsoforthography,meaning,andgrammaticalfunctionsarepresentedandillustratedinthefollowingsections.

Table6DefinitionsofReceptiveandProductiveKnowledge

(Source:Webb,2009,p.363)

(a)MeasuringReceptiveKnowledgeofMeaning

TheVocabularyLevelTestdevelopedbyNation(1990)isawayoftestingreceptivevocabularyknowledgeofmeaning.Theformatisverysimple.Teststakersaregivenalistofsixwordsintheleftcolumnandarerequiredtoselectfromthemtomatchthethreedefinitionsintherightcolumn.Inasubsequentdevelopment,Read(2000)designed「MatchingItems」toassessthelearners'receptiveknowledgebyaskingthemtochoosethreetargetwordsfromtheleftcolumnandproperlymatchtheirnumberswiththeirsynonymsordefinitionsintherightcolumn.Seethefollowingexample:

1.region

2.atlas5setofbonesinthebody

3.statue1partofacountry

4.cell4smallestpartoflivingthings

5.skeleton

(Source:Read,2000,p.172)

(b)MeasuringReceptiveKnowledgeofOrthographicForm

Webb(2005)developedatesttoassessthereceptivevocabularyknowledgeoforthographicform(pronunciationandspelling).Inthetest,thelearnerswererequiredtocirclethecorrectlyspelledtargetwords,whichappearedwiththreedistracters.Thedistracterswerecreatedtoresemblethetargetwordsbothphoneticallyandorthographically.Seethefollowingexample:

(a)dengie(b)dengy(c)dungie(d)dangy

(a)hodet(b)holat(c)halet(d)hedet

(Source:Webb,2005,p.39)

(c)MeasuringProductiveKnowledgeofGrammaticalFunctions

Webb(2005)developedasentenceconstructiontesttoassessthelearners'productiveknowledgeofgrammaticalfunctions,i.e.,howthewordisusedinasentence.Inthetest,learnersweregiventhetargetwordsandhadtowriteeachoneinasentence.Itwasmadeclearintheinstructionstotheparticipantsthattheonlydeterminingfactorforacorrectresponsewasusingthetargetwordswithgrammaticalaccuracy.Forexample,forthetargetword「masco」(n.=locomotive):

Themascoleftthestationearly.√

Itisamasco.√

Thegirlmascoedtoschool.×

(Source:Webb,2005,p.40)

(d)Self-ReportingVocabularyKnowledge

TheVocabularyKnowledgeScaledesignedbyParibakht&Wesche(1997)presentslearnerswithalistofwordsandasksthemtoindicatetheleveloftheirknowledgeofeachwordonafive-pointscale.Figure1describesthedifferentlevels.

TheVocabularyKnowledgeScalecombinesself-reportwithsomeverifiableevidenceofwordknowledgeintheformofasynonym,L1translationorsentence.Learnerscanusethescaletoreporthowwelltheyknoweachofthetargetwords.Itiseasytoadministertoalargenumberofstudents.However,itcannotassesshowlearnersacquirevocabularyknowledgeovertimeand,asRead(2000)pointedoutitdoesnotassesslearners'knowledgeofmultiplemeaningsofthetargetwords.Therefore,itisperhapsbestusedasapre-testforlearnerstoself-reporttheirknowledgeofcertainwordssothatresearcherscangetageneralideaoftheparticipants'vocabularyknowledgebeforethetreatment.

Figure1TheVKSElicitationScale

(Source:Paribakht&Wesche,1997,p.180)

Inthepresentstudy,thevocabularypre-testisdesignedinasimilarwaytotheVocabularyKnowledgeScalebyParibakht&Wesche(1997).Inthevocabularypre-test,theparticipantsareaskedtoself-reporttheirvocabularyknowledgeofalistoffortywords(composedofthetwentylexicalitemsforincidentalvocabularyacquisitionstudyandtwentydistracters)bycirclinganumberonafive-pointscaletoindicatehowwelltheyknowtheword(e.g.4=Iknowthewordwellandcanuseitcorrectly;0=Idonotknowthewordatall).

Example:

Webb(2005)administeredthevocabularypost-testofformdesigntoassessthereceptivevocabularyknowledgeoforthographicform.Thepresentstudyuseshisdesigntocheckiftheparticipantsareabletorecognizetheform/spellingofthetargetwords.Eachofthetentargetwordsisputinaword-listwithfourdistracters—wordssimilarinform.Participantsareaskedtocirclethetargetwordfromtheword-list,andtellhowcertaintheyareabouttheiranswerbyenteringapercentageintheboxaftertheword-list.

FollowingtheexampleofMatchingItemsbyRead(2000),thereceptiontestinthepresentstudyisdesignedfortheparticipantstochoosethreewords(onetargetwordalongwithtwodistracters)fromtheleftcolumnandproperlymatchtheirnumberswiththeirsynonymsordefinitionsintherightcolumn.

Example:

1.complicated

2.chemicalexceptional;higher

3.optimisticdifficultandcomplex

4.advancedexpectinggoodthings

5.stable

SimilartoWebb's(2005)testtoassessthelearners'productiveknowledgeofgrammaticalfunctions,theproductiontestofthisstudyinvolvessomeoriginalsentenceschosenfromthelisteningtextandpresentedwiththetargetlexicalitemsremoved.Participantsareaskedtofillintheblankstomeasuretheirabilitytoproducethewords.

Example:

ButweendedwithstrongersalesthanweexpectedandIamveryfornextyear.