An Empirical Study of the Effects of Incidental Vocabulary Learning Through Listening to Songs

Abstract

Most studies have shown that reading is an important source of incidental vocabulary learning, and repeated reading may have a positive effect on learning gains. However, the study of incidental vocabulary learning through listening is still limited, and the immediate and long-term effects on different vocabulary knowledge dimensions are unclear. Furthermore, no empirical studies have been conducted to investigate the association between learning gains and preexisting vocabulary knowledge in listening. This article examines the effects of listening to English songs on unintentional vocabulary learning and vocabulary retention through three different vocabulary knowledge dimensions: word recognition, meaning association, and grammar identification. A total of 114 Chinese college students participated in the study, and they were given vocabulary evaluations at different times based on three separate components of vocabulary knowledge. The effects of repeated listening (one, three, and five times) and learners’ prior vocabulary knowledge were also investigated. According to the findings, listening to songs can improve vocabulary knowledge, particularly in the area of word recognition, which can be retained 4 weeks later. Furthermore, the effect of listening three times (with exposure frequencies ranging from three to nine) was superior than listening one or five times, which provides teachers and learners with guidance for teaching or learning vocabulary more effectively. Finally, for low, intermediate, and high-level learners, there was an immediate and positive effect on the dimensions of word recognition and meaning connection after listening, and this knowledge is likely to be preserved 4 weeks later.

The potentials for incidental vocabulary acquisition from listening to computer science academic lectures: a higher education corpus-based case study from Macau

“…We carefully went through the target words and removed two proper nouns (i.e., Carol and Victor) that were misclassified by AntWordProfiler. For off-list words, we excluded 52 acronyms from the 137 off-list words since these words family as the counting unit because we wanted to follow practices discussed in previous studies on incidental vocabulary learning through listening (e.g., Chen and Teng, 2017;Pavia et al, 2019;Nie et al, 2022). By doing so, the present findings can be comparable across prior studies.…”

“…It is still inconclusive if there is superiority of any one of the counting units. In our study, we employed word family as the counting unit because we wanted to follow practices discussed in previous studies on incidental vocabulary learning through listening (e.g., Chen and Teng, 2017 ; Pavia et al, 2019 ; Nie et al, 2022 ). By doing so, the present findings can be comparable across prior studies.…”

Effectiveness of a Proposed Program Integrating MALL & Reciprocal Listening to Podcasts in Fostering EFL Faculty of Biotechnology Students’ HOTS, Vocabulary Acquisition and Speaking Fluency

“…Based on studies findings, Chavangklang, Chavangklang, Thiamhuanok and Sathitdetkunchorn (2019) concluded that the size of an EFL learner's vocabulary is a principal element in promoting his/ her ability to comprehend varied texts. Hence, acquiring a wide range of vocabulary contributes to fostering EFL learners' linguistic proficiency levels (Nie, Fu, Rehman & Zaigham, 2022).…”

“…It was, also, suggested to conduct further studies investigating the impact of the working memory strategy on EFL learners' speaking ability. Nie, Fu, Rehman and Zaigham (2022) explored the effect of listening to songs on Chinese EFL first year university students' ISSN 1110-2721 incidental acquisition of vocabulary. Participants were 140 students, and they were divided into a control group and three experimental groups.…”