Thematic bilingual audio dictionary lessons delivered via Telegram for incidental mobile listening¶

Element · All elements
Evidence · 4 claims (4 for) · 2 studies (2 causal), q2 · 0 of 2 report an effect size · 4 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The researchers created seven audio vocabulary lessons covering homes-and-apartments topics such as "materials" and "opinions about housing arrangements", each about 2 to 8 minutes long. Each lesson pronounces a new word and its phrases in the students' mother tongue and, after a short pause, its meaning in L2, supplemented with text-format word lists. Students accessed the lessons via the Telegram app on their mobile phones and were expected to listen while walking or commuting, so repetition fit into daily routine without allocating spare time.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Students need mobile phones with the Telegram app to access the lessons
• Lessons are kept short so students can listen and repeat multiple times during walks or commutes
• Students need a mobile device with the Telegram app to access the audio lessons
• Students must pronounce the words and phrases aloud, not silently or in whisper, to activate auditory, verbal-logical, articulatory and muscular memory

Constraints¶

• The dictionary covered vocabulary related to homes and apartments, the unit studied in the experiment
• The lessons were organised in the sequence that new vocabulary was covered in class and were designed for listening during routine physical activity beyond the classroom

Target Learners¶

• ESL university students at pre-intermediate to intermediate level (B1)
• first-year university ESL students (A-2 CEFR proficiency)

Target Learning Goals¶

• Retention of 120 topical English lexical units through incidental listening
• receptive and reproductive skills of L2 vocabulary translation and communication

Claims¶

• The SVAS group outperformed the comparison group across oral comprehension and vocabulary rubrics, with the largest gaps in answering questions and translating from Ukrainian [+W]
• ESL students using a spaced L2 vocabulary acquisition strategy with monthly incidental listening outperformed comparison students on the End-of-Experiment test [+W]
• Audio lessons training vocabulary from L1 to L2 yield better L1-to-L2 translation than traditional L2-to-L1 training [+W]
• Listening to vocabulary lessons while physically active improves End-of-Unit exam performance over traditional intentional learning alone [+W]

Related Elements¶

Examples¶

• Distribute audio vocabulary listening across a spaced repetition schedule during routine physical activity

Key Sources¶

• Tetiana Zubenko, Anastasiia Gavrylenko, Tetyana Zhyvotovska, Nadiia Vasylieva. (2022). Spaced vocabulary acquisition while incidental listening by ESL university students. Advanced Education, 20. https://doi.org/10.20535/2410-8286.250501
• Tetiana Zubenko, Allan Shwedel. (2019). Integrating mobile listening and physical activity to facilitate intentional and incidental vocabulary acquisition. Advanced Education, Special Issue 11. https://doi.org/10.20535/2410-8286.165717