Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Degree

Master of Arts

Program

Education

Supervisor

Dr. Stuart Webb

Abstract

This study investigated the extent to which different modes of L2 input contributed to vocabulary learning. One hundred and seventy-three EFL university students in China were randomly assigned to six groups, each of which was presented with the same full-length documentary in different modes: reading the transcript, listening, viewing with captions (VC), viewing without captions (VNC); silent viewing with captions (SVC), and a non-treatment control mode. A checklist-test and a multiple-choice test were designed to measure knowledge of the target words. Participants also completed the Vocabulary Levels Test (Webb, Sasao, & Ballance, 2017). The results showed that L2 incidental vocabulary learning occurred in all of the experimental modes, but no significant differences were found between them. Positive correlations were detected between vocabulary levels and vocabulary gains in the VC and SVC groups. Only in the VC group was frequency of occurrence of target vocabulary found to affect learning.

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