Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition Through Listening

Abstract

Incidental acquisition of vocabulary has been extensively studied by many researchers through various media, such as employing reading comprehension. However, there is a dearth of studies that focus on the contribution of listening to the incidental acquisition of vocabulary. The current study aims to fill this gap. This study explored the effect of watching on-screen content on the incidental acquisition of vocabulary through listening. Participants were 49 Indian learners of English as a second language. Based on the survey on their frequency of watching videos, movies, or songs in English, we categorized them into viewer types. The different viewer types are associated with varying frequencies of listening to English. The participants were asked to take a vocabulary test. A one-way ANOVA was performed to test if the vocabulary scores differed among the groups. The between-group analysis of variance yielded a statistically significant value F (1, 47) = 79.56, p = .000, indicating strong evidence against the null hypothesis. The findings suggest that listening significantly contributes to the learners' incidental vocabulary acquisition and that their test scores vary based on the time they devote to listening.