Abstract
This study investigated the incidental acquisition of second language (L2) vocabulary through the viewing of a 30-minute science documentary and the effect of captioning on this process. Thirty-four English language learners watched two documentaries (one captioned and one uncaptioned) and were then assessed on their knowledge of a set of words appearing in the documentaries. Results of the Vocabulary Tests (Form-recall/Spelling, and Meaning recognition) showed that documentary viewing led to significant acquisition of new vocabulary and that the captioning condition had a significant effect on this learning. Captioning boosted the gains on meaning recognition, form recall and spelling. Results indicated that relative gains in the captioning condition are 8% significantly higher than in the uncaptioned condition.
Highlights
The advent of the communicative approach has naturally led to a focus on incidental learning (DeCarrico, 2001)
In order to address these gaps, the present study examined the extent to which captioning affects the incidental acquisition of different aspects of lexical knowledge, namely word form recall/spelling and meaning recognition
In order to answer the research questions (i.e. How much vocabulary are participants able to learn incidentally from uncaptioned and captioned video viewing, as measured by Formrecall/Spelling and Meaning-recognition Tests? and Does captioning lead to higher incidental L2 vocabulary gains than words presented in audio-visual input with no captions, as measured by Form-recall/Spelling and Meaning -recognition Tests?), a two-way repeated measures ANOVA was run
Summary
The advent of the communicative approach has naturally led to a focus on incidental learning (DeCarrico, 2001) Since it has become a productive area of second language (L2) vocabulary acquisition research. Programs designed to promote incidental L2 vocabulary acquisition often employ materials adapted for language learners, which do not often include vocabulary beyond the 3,000 or 4,000 most frequent words (Rodgers, 2013). Studies have shown the effectiveness of audio-visual materials for the acquisition of new words at different levels of word knowledge (Nation, 2001), i.e., meaning recognition, form recognition, meaning recall, and form recall (Hui, 2007; Markham, 1999; Markham, Peter & McCarthy, 2001; Rodgers, 2013; Montero Perez, Peters, & Desmet, 2015; Montero Perez, et al, 2014; Peters, Heynen, & Puimège, 2016; Peters & Webb, 2018).
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