The Relationship Between Young EFL Learners’ Vocabulary Knowledge and Listening Comprehension

The Relationship Between Young EFL Learners’ Vocabulary Knowledge and Listening Comprehension

This study investigates the degree to which an elementary school EFL learner’s level of second language (L2) vocabulary correlates to their L2 listening ability. The study aims to further identify whether or to what extent various measures of vocabulary knowledge predict the variance in L2 listening comprehension. In particular, the study focuses on the relatively unexplored area of phonological knowledge of vocabulary. Three phonological measures which tap into both vocabulary breadth and depth knowledge were adopted in this study: the receptive phonological vocabulary breadth knowledge (RVB), productive phonological vocabulary breadth knowledge (PVB), and phonological vocabulary depth knowledge (VD) measures. Twenty elementary school EFL learners participated in the study and were required to complete an L2 listening comprehension test, followed by three vocabulary knowledge tests. Correlation analysis revealed that RVB most strongly correlated with L2 listening comprehension score (r = .77). Stepwise multiple regression analysis showed that the best fitting model which consists of RVB and VD could predict about 75% of the variance in L2 listening comprehension. The findings indicate that phonological vocabulary knowledge is a significant predictor of L2 listening ability of young EFL learners.