A study on the relationship between working memory capacity, L2 vocabulary size, and L2 listening proficiency

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to find out how working memory is related to English vocabulary size and listening comprehension of Korean EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners. 30 college students, all English education majors, were recruited for the study. In this experiment, the backward digit span task and the operation span task were used to measure the participants’ working memory capacity. The Listening Vocabulary Level Test (LVLT) and the Michigan English Test (MET) were adopted to measure their vocabulary size and listening proficiency, respectively. To analyze the data, both descriptive and inferential statistics, in particular the correlational analysis, were employed. The results show that there is quite a variation in the participants' storage capacity, which was confirmed by the relatively high standard deviations. The correlational analyses reveal that the bigger one’s working memory storage is, the better the person processes incoming input. However, there was no statistically significant correlation between working memory capacity, English vocabulary size, and listening proficiency, which might have been caused by the fact that a small group of relatively homogeneous subjects participated in the study. Follow-up studies with bigger and diverse samples should look at what factors interacts with L2 listening that can affect listening skills in addition to L2 vocabulary knowledge.