Use orthography in L2 auditory word learning: Who benefits?

Abstract

The effect of capitalizing on orthography in auditory learning of English words was examined in 74 children who spoke Mandarin Chinese as their primary language. To use orthographic information for auditory word learning, children must recode printed words phonologically to assist the reconstruction of the speech single misheard or underspecified, an ability that may depend heavily on phonological awareness (PA). In this study, children with poorer PA of Chinese and those with better PA were taught novel English words in an auditory learning task under two exposure conditions: auditory words presented with their written forms and auditory words presented with undecodable symbols. Word learning performance was better in the written form condition than in the symbol condition, but the effect was smaller for children with poorer PA. The facilitative effect was associated with L2 PA for children with poorer PA but not for children with better PA. The results are discussed with regard to how poor PA may constrain auditory word learning in an L2 context.Keywords L2 word learning Á Orthography Á Phonological awareness Á Vocabulary acquisition It has been shown that orthographic inputs facilitate word learning/memory over phonological inputs in adults (

The Effectiveness of Phonological-Based Instruction in English As a Foreign Language Students at Primary School Level: A Research Synthesis

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The role of verbal and pictorial information in multimodal incidental acquisition of foreign language vocabulary

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“…The only tentative benefit found for teaching approach was that learners with lower levels of English language literacy seemed to make more progress as they moved into secondary school and in relation to production if they had received French instruction with a stronger literacy focus at primary school. This indicates, perhaps, that such learners need access to the written form in order to facilitate retention of vocabulary and grammar forms, as suggested by Hu (2008) in relation to learners with lower levels of phonological awareness and by Harley and Swain (1984) commenting on the needs of young learners. It is possible that presenting language in an oral form only places a heavy burden on such learners, preventing them from retaining the language to which they are exposed or from recalling it easily.…”

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