Vocabulary Learning Through Viewing L2 Videos:the Effects Of Two Enhancement Techniques

Within classroom-based second language research,most of the studies have emphasized the importance of vocabulary knowledge learning through written materials.This study focuses on audio-visual input.In particular,it investigated the effects of enhancing video by using various types of captioning and test announcement.The present study explored the effects of various captioning types(no caption,keyword caption,and full caption),the test announcement conditions(informed and uninformed),and the combinations of these two variables on initial learning of new vocabularies while viewing three short video clips.Six possible conditions were investigated.A total of 60 primary school students,who are ESL(learning English as a second language)from Ganzhou Houde Foreign Language School,were divided into six experimental groups and assigned to one of six conditions in which 15 target words were included randomly.Three post-tests,which were used to measure the form recognition,meaning recall and meaning recognition,were administered immediately after the participants viewing three video clips.The researcher collected the data and analyze the results of the three post-tests by using SPSS 21.0.Results revealed that,first,the groups wing the keyword captioning video clips scored significantly higher than the full captioning and the no captioning groups.Second,test announcement contributes to more successful learning: the groups that were informed about post-tests performed better than those who were not informed.Third,the combination of captioning type and test announcement did not affect the result.Nonetheless,the group with keyword captioning and were informed about test announcement yielded the best results.This experimental study confirms that captioned videos coordinate two domains(verbal system and imagery system)and help ESL learners to obtain greater depth of word form processing,recognize meaning by disassembling language chunks,and test announcement can improve students’ noticing and reinforce the form-meaning link.Based on these major findings,it is hoped that this thesis could provide some pedagogical implications for teaching and guidelines for the future study.