The Role of Phonological Processing Abilities in the Taiwanese Seventh Graders' English Vocabulary Size

• Main Authors: Ya-chen Ko, 柯雅珍
• Other Authors: Dr. Yeu-ting Liu
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2011
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/25945267175650573883

碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 英語學系 === 100 === The English vocabulary gap between junior high and senior high education stage is huge, so students in Taiwan often find it challenging to expand their vocabulary from 1,200 words to 7,390 words. Since a vast body of research has demonstrated a positive link between vocabulary learning and phonological processing abilities, the present study intends to shed some light on the role of phonological processing abilities in the Taiwanese seventh graders’ vocabulary size. Specifically, phonological processing abilities consists of three subcomponents—phonological awareness, phonological short-term memory, and phonological recoding in lexical access. The current study aims to investigate 1) the correlation between the three subcomponents of phonological processing abilities and vocabulary size, 2) the relative contribution of the three subcomponents of phonological processing abilities to vocabulary size, and 3) the difference between students with high phonological processing abilities and those with low phonological processing abilities in terms of their vocabulary size. The participants were fifty-five seventh graders from two classes in the same junior high school. All participants took a battery of assessments: 1000-Word Level Test, Phonological Awareness Skills Test, Children’s Test of Nonword Repetition, and rapid letter naming and rapid object naming in Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing. The results of two-tailed Pearson correlation showed that all of the three subcomponents of phonological processing abilities were significantly correlated with vocabulary size at the 1000-word level. The regression analysis revealed that phonological awareness and phonological short-term memory had significant predictive power in vocabulary size, while phonological recoding in lexical access did not. In addition, the results of independent sample T-test indicated that learners with high phonological awareness and phonological short-term memory differed significantly from those with low phonological awareness and phonological short-term memory in terms of their vocabulary size. In contrast, learners with high phonological recoding in lexical access did not differ significantly from those with low phonological recoding in lexical access in terms of vocabulary size. Based on the present findings, phonological processing abilities, phonological awareness and phonological short-term memory in particular, played a very important role for Taiwanese junior high school students in attaining their vocabulary size.