Effects Of Chants-gestures-and Flashcards-based Vocabulary Teaching Methods On 5-to-7-year-old EFL Learners’ Attention And Word Recall

Vocabulary plays a central role in EFL learning,particularly in early childhood education.Often when learning L2 or L1,the first linguistic utterances are words rather than sentences or phrases.In addition,grammar proficiency is built upon vocabulary acquisition.Hence,the study of vocabulary teaching and learning is of great importance.However,although there is a variety of ESL vocabulary teaching methods,practitioners are often unaware of the effects of these pedagogies on children‘s core cognitive functions,such as those related to attention and recall.In this line,studies simultaneously exploring the effects of chants-gestures-based(CGB)and flashcards-based(FCB)teaching methods on attention and word recall are insufficient.Similarly,synchronous application of chants and gestures as an ESL vocabulary teaching method(CGB)does not appear in prior studies as a research topic despite being practiced in the classroom.Further,it is commonly accepted that attention enables word recall in the learning process and that these two cognitive functions play a critical role in vocabulary acquisition.Therefore,the present study seeks to explore how these two cognitive functions are affected by CGB and FCB teaching methods.In that sense,the present study poses four research questions,namely,RQ1: What are the effects of CGB vocabulary teaching method on young learners‘ attention? RQ2: What are the effects of CGB vocabulary teaching method on young learners‘ word recall measured at three points in time?RQ3: What are the effects of FCB vocabulary teaching method on young learners‘ attention?RQ4: What are the effects of FCB vocabulary teaching method on young learners‘ word recall measured at three points in time? To approach these questions,the present study adopted a mixed methods research design combining quantitative and qualitative methodological orientations.As for the quantitative part,the present study adopted a one-group exploratory experiment research design(Gall et al.,2015,p.306),including a short-term longitudinal word recall testing process consisting of an immediate test,a one-month,and three-month delayed tests.The test consisted of computing children‘s word production after prompting the tested items.The participants were ten5-to-7-year-old Chinese learners who were intervened before the testing process in an experimental teaching program of one month,in which eight 37-minute teaching sessions were conducted—four sessions for each teaching method.Meanwhile,children’s attention rate was measured through direct observation and timing registration of attention and distraction episodes/events during instruction.This was a post hoc process aided by video recording.The study also adopted a qualitative approach consisting of an observation process of children’s attention-related behavior based on an adaptation of the checklist method described by Bentzen(2009).In addition,CGB and FCB methods were locally designed based on variations of commonly known applications of age-appropriate EFL/ESL vocabulary teaching techniques for young learners that employ chants and gestures,on the one hand,and imagery flashcards on the other.The results regarding RQ1 showed that CGB method provoked an attention rate of M =35.55,SD =.97 out of 37 minutes.That mean value represents the sum of all attention spans wherein brief distraction events or lapses occurred in between.Meanwhile,attention-related behavior displayed by the children during instruction,such as willingness,engagement,and enjoyment,observed through the qualitative analysis,were remarkable in CGB method.Only a few particular cases of indifference and displeasure were observed.In relation to RQ2,children recalled a total average of M = 3.5 words for the three testing times.The immediate mean score was the lowest,while the one-month delayed test‘s score was the highest.A slight decrease was seen in the last delayed test‘s score.Besides,a within-method analysis through ANOVA test revealed that learners‘ word recall in CGB condition,statistically significantly changed over time,F(2,18)= 6.12,p=.009.Furthermore,the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test indicated that the number of words recalled by the participants as effects of CGB method in the one-month delayed test were statistically significantly higher than the number of words retrieved in the immediate test.Meanwhile,there was no statistical difference significant at an alpha level of.05 between the one-month delayed test and three-month delayed test.As for the effects of FCB method on attention relative to RQ3,children displayed an attention performance of M = 35.80,SD = 1.43 out of 37 minutes.Positive attention-related behaviors observed and reported here in order of importance were willingness,enjoyment,and engagement,while the cases of distraction and eye contact loss were less than in CGB condition.In relation to RQ4,children recalled a total average of M = 3.2 words for the three testing times.A decreasing word recall tendency was observed over time from the first to the last test.However,the ANOVA test in the within-method analysis indicated no statistically significant change throughout the three post-tests in FCB condition.The findings in relation to RQ1 indicate that children′s attention performance in CGB condition was high when complementing with factors such as thorough lesson planning,the instructor‘s dynamic teaching style,the small target words number in each session,and the small class size.The musical effects embedded in CGB method seem to participate in this positive performance as music stimulates the brain producing positive emotions,leading children to an enjoyable experience and engagement during instruction.Moreover,CGB method seems to allow some events of eye contact loss from children in relation to the instructor without causing significant disengagement.Besides,chanting can be performed even if children are sharing their attention with other things or activities in sporadic episodes—a phenomenon called divided attention(Schweizer,2010).This results in less demanding attention work or cognitive load during the pedagogical process.Similarly,children can perform gesturing without necessarily looking at the teacher‘s moves but at their peers‘ without disengaging from the learning experience.In reference to RQ2,the relatively increasing tendency in the number of words recalled by children in CGB condition from the first to the last test without rehearsal or target word exposure could indicate that CGB method provokes a greater effect on long-term word recall.Consequently,a deferred recall effect phenomenon could have occurred as an effect of teaching novel words through CGB method,in which words are recalled at a later time after a silent period.Besides,word attrition(loss)pattern tends to be lower than in FCB condition.Musical effects embedded in chanting could be responsible for these phenomena,causing deeper memory traces without necessarily resorting to intense cognitive work during the information processing or encoding stage at the beginning when the stimulus is perceived in the brain.In that sense,CGB method is less attention-demanding during the pedagogical process,giving place to more relaxation and other positive emotions,favoring word recall with less cognitive effort compared to FCB method.Also,word recall was favored because CGB method could provoke spontaneous rehearsal beyond the classroom through unconscious repetitive chanting.Moreover,semantically relevant gestures in CGB method could have directly affected children‘s brain activity,enriching encoding and,thus,favoring memorization.Regarding RQ3,this study found that children‘s attention performance in FCB condition was slightly higher than in CGB condition,but it was not enough to be significantly different.As noted earlier,incidental or indirect factors could play a role as well in this positive outcome(e.g.,teaching style,etc.).Besides,FCB method seemed to be more attention-demanding.That is,images in FCB method required children‘s eye contact more permanently,which is characteristic in a selective or focused attention type(Schweizer,2010).However,flashcards-based games performed in this method could contribute to children‘s high attention rate by provoking an enjoyable learning experience.This may suggest that the employment of imagery flashcards in FCB method serve as a useful attention-getter in the classroom.However,the act of looking at a flashcard in the pedagogical process could demand concentration and could not be shared with another action simultaneously without disrupting the learning experience,which differs from what occurred in CGB condition.The last findings relative to RQ4 revealed that FCB method provoked a more powerful impact on children‘s WM or STM compared to CGB method,as FCB produced a statistically significantly higher number of words recalled by children in the immediate test.However,FCB method‘s effects on long-term word recall were weaker than CGB‘s,yet this difference was not sufficiently wide to be statistically significant.This reveals a potential normal word decay or attrition pattern whereby the lexical items remembered and produced at an earlier moment fade away progressively over time from the children‘s brains in conditions absent of rehearsal or word exposure.While FCB method also provides multi-sensory stimuli(e.g.,visual,auditory,and affective ones supplied by FC and games)and seems to be powerful to catch children‘s attention during instruction and provoking positive short-term word recall,it might be insufficient to create richer memory traces that secure long-term word recall if FCB method is not combined with other pedagogies and continuous target word rehearsal/exposure.As for the pedagogical implications and contributions of the present study,attention-related issues in the EFL/ESL classroom with young learners—which often occur due to children‘s maturity state—may be coped with the employment of both CGB and FCB methods,as they are promising to engage 5-to-7-year-old students,provided that other factors are present such as thorough lesson planning,a dynamic teaching style,and both a small target words number and class size.On the other hand,a combined application of CGB and FCB methods may produce richer multi-sensory codes,deepening information processing and,thus,creating strong memory traces that facilitate long-term word recall.In any event,musical and gestural stimuli should be present in the ESL/EFL classroom to boost long-term word recall,and they can be employed with FCB method or any other teaching technique in the pedagogical process.It should be noted that FCB method alone might not guarantee word recall in the long run regardless of being highly influential in catching children‘s attention and keeping them engaged with the activities unfolded through this method.Most importantly,optimum word recall cannot be attained without continuous target word rehearsal/exposure,which drastically revert or slow down a normal(decreasing)word attrition pattern in any teaching method condition.Finally,one major limitation of the study was the small and underrepresented sample size employed for the empirical process,which does not allow generalizing findings to a wide population.Also,the study adopted non-standardized methods and instruments of data collection that may entail a degree of subjectivity.Applying standardized measurement methods and instruments may allow obtaining more conclusive findings.These limitations can be addressed in future research.