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.