ISSN 1799-2591

Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 5, No. 5, pp. 989-995, May 2015
DOI: [Link]

An Empirical Study on the Role of Vocabulary

Knowledge in EFL Listening Comprehension
Suping Wang
Binzhou Medical College, Yantai, China

Abstract—Existing literature supports the positive effects of vocabulary teaching on students’ comprehensive
English proficiency. However, there have been some imperfections in the research process such as the research
framework being somewhat narrow and the statistical instruments being a little conservative, which makes it
difficult to form differentiated instructional strategies aimed at different levels of students. Therefore, this
paper, based on mature vocabulary testing instruments, incorporates vocabulary breadth, depth, listening
comprehension into one study framework and conducts an empirical study by innovatively using quantile
regression models, so as to analyse the relationship between the two vocabulary dimentions and listening
conprehension at different levels of students. The study results show that both vocabulary breadth and depth
influenced listening scores significantly, but the overall effect of vocabulary depth was significantly greater
than that of vocabulary breadth; at three levels of listening scores, the enhancing effects of vocabulary breadth
showed a gradual increasing trend, while the influence of vocabulary depth shows no significant [Link]
study will offer important pedagogical implications to English vocabulary teaching strategies in EFL classes.

Index Terms—vocabulary breadth, vocabulary depth, listening comprehension

I. INTRODUCTION
Virtually every scholar of language recognizes that vocabulary knowledge is the basis and precondition for studies in
second language acquisition. Many studies have shown that vocabulary knowledge is an important factor for successful
reading comprehension in EFL (e.g. Hu & Nation 2000; Mecartty 2000; Qian 2002).
However, few studies have explored the relationship between lexical knowledge and listening comprehension,
especially the listening comprehension in EFL. Thus, teachers and students have been long puzzled about the exact role
that vocabulary knowledge plays in L2 listening comprehension.
Many researchers have pointed out that vocabulary usually involves two dimensions of breadth and depth (e.g. Qian,
1999; Read, 1993). However, among the few studies about vocabulary and listening, more attention has been put on the
effect of vocabulary breadth. Recently, more and more researchers tend to acknowledge the essential role of vocabulary
depth in listening. Nevertheless, not a few empirical studies have been conducted on the exact roles of vocabulary
breadth and depth in EFL listening comprehension
The emphasis in the study to be reported is on both dimensions of vocabulary knowledge. The analysis emphasis will
be on the role of vocabulary knowledge related to listening comprehension.
A. Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the study is to provide a review of the research literature related to the role of vocabulary knowledge
in listening comprehension and then to conduct an experimental study to test the respective effect of vocabulary breadth
and depth on different parts of listening comprehension so as to provide an empirical support for vocabulary teaching in
EFL listening class.
B. Significance of the Study
The study on the role of vocabulary knowledge in listening comprehension for EFL learners is important to the
practice of vocabulary teaching in EFL listening classes. This empirical research will provide teachers and students with
a relatively complete understanding about the correlation between vocabulary and listening, and thus enhance their
awareness about the importance of vocabulary in listening and help improve their teaching and learning methods in
terms of vocabulary. The study will also be of importance to others seeking information related to this topic.
C. Definition of Terms
EFL: English as a Foreign Language
Vocabulary Breadth: the size of a learner’s vocabulary, that is, the number of words for which the learner has at
least some knowledge of meaning (Staehr, 2009)
Vocabulary Depth: relates to how well one knows a word and is defined as the quality of lexical knowledge that
reflects how well a learner knows individual words and how well words are organized in the learner’s mental lexicon.
(Staehr, 2009)
CET 4: College English Test held nationally twice a year for non- English majors in China

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990 THEORY AND PRACTICE IN LANGUAGE STUDIES

D. Method of Approach
To conduct a brief literature review about the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and listening
comprehension, and then to summarize and synthesize the recent relevant studies.
To design an empirical experiment consisting of three pen-and-paper tests: vocabulary levels test (Nation, 1990),
productive levels test (Laufer & Nation, 1999) and CET-4 listening comprehension test. The quantitative research
methods of Pearson Correlations analysis and a Multiple Regression Analysis programmed in SASS 9.3 will be
employed as the primary analysis tools for the data collected.

II. LITERATURE REVIEW

It has long been recognized that there are many dimensions of vocabulary knowledge. Among the varying
dimensions, breadth and depth are two primary dimensions of vocabulary knowledge.(Nation, 2001.) So the few studies
about the relationship between lexis and listening mainly focus on the correlation of the two lexical dimensions and
listening comprehension.
It was claimed that vocabulary knowledge is the main obstacle to successful listening comprehension for EFL
learners (Kelly, 1991), but this claim has not been fully supported by empirical results. Bonk (2000) investigated the
relationship between knowledge of lexis in listening texts and gist comprehension of the texts. Fifty-nine Japanese
university students of low-intermediate to advanced English ability were tested using first-language recall protocols as
comprehension measures, and dictation as measures of lexical familiarity. The research was based on four texts of
increasing amounts of low-frequency lexical words. The two variables were found to be only moderately associated
(45%). Good comprehension frequently occurred with text-lexis familiarity levels at 90+ percent levels. But the study
results also show that some learners obtained good comprehension although they knew less than 75% of the word types
in the text and other learners knew more than 90% of the word types but did not obtain good comprehension. Bonk
relates this finding to learners’ ability with comprehension strategies, but “part of the explanation may be attributed to
the measures used to assess word knowledge and listening comprehension” (Staehr, 2008, p.140). So this study by Bonk
offered an equivocal result about the relationship between lexis and listening comprehension.
A slightly clearer picture is found by Milton, Wade and Hopkins (forthcoming), who investigated the relationship
between two receptive vocabulary size measures (the X_Lex and the A_Lex) and the IELTS test with 29 EFL learners.
The study produced modest, significant Spearman correlations between vocabulary size (the X_Lex) and the reading
and listening components of IELTS (0.54 and 0.52, respectively).
“An important issue in studies of how much vocabulary is needed to read a text or listen to a movie is what amount
of text coverage is needed for adequate comprehension to be likely to occur”(Nation, 2006, p.61). Hu and Nation (2000)
examined the relationship between text coverage and reading comprehension for non-native speakers of English with a
fiction text, finding that a 98% text coverage would be needed for most learners to gain adequate comprehension. Then
Nation (2006) reported on the trialling of fourteen 1,000 word-family lists made from the British National Corpus, and
used these lists to see what vocabulary size is needed for unassisted comprehension. In this study Nation transferred this
98% lexical coverage found in reading to listenng comprehenshon, suggesting that a vocabulary of as much as
6000–7000 word families is needed to gain adequate comprehension in spoken discourse. These figures are to some
extent suppored by an analysis of the spoken CANCODE corpus conducted by Adolphs and Schmitt (2003).
A study by Staehr (2008) about vocabulary size and the skills of listening, reading and writing similarly found a
substantial correlation between vocabulary size and a listening comprehension test. Vocabulary size could pridict 39%
of the variance in the listening scores and 6000-7000 word families have been suggesed for adequate listening. Staehr’s
another study (2009) got the result that a lexical coverage of 98% is needed for coping with the spoken texts that
constitute the listening test.
A recent study by Zeeland and Schmitt (2012) directly investigated the lexical coverage in regard to listening
comprehension, to determine whether it is reasonable to transfer the 98% text coverage got in studies about reading to
listening. Results showed that most native and non-native participants could adequately comprehend the spoken texts
with only 90% coverage, but the non-natives showed considerable variation at this level. At 95% coverage, non-native
participants also demonstrated relatively good comprehension, but with much less variation. Based on a 95% coverage
figure, language users would need to know between 2,000 and 3,000 word families for adequate listening
comprehension. The figures show a little difference from Nation’s (2006) calculation of 6,000–7,000 word families
based on a 98% coverage.
Although a small number of studies have provided empirical research for the relationship between vocabulary
knowledge and listening comprehension in L2, few of them have focused on the depth of vocabulary knowledge.
Staehr (2009) presents an empirical study to investigate the role of vocabulary knowledge in listening comprehension
with 115 advanced Danish learners of English as a foreign language. The dimensions of depth and breadth of
vocabulary knowledge were found to be significantly correlated with listening comprehension. Vocabulary breadth
could predict 49% of the varience in the listening scores. However, after the vocabulary depth was included in the
regression model, only 51% varience in listening comprehension could be achieved. Another study by Frances H.
Mecartty (2000) of Denver University examinated the relationship of lexical and grammatical knowledge with reading
and listening comprehension by foreign language learners of Spanish, finding that lexical and grammatical knowledge

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were significantly correlated to listening, but only lexical knowledge explained the variance in listening (13%). The
inconsistency in research results mainly comes from the different levels of participants and the measurement
instruments. In Staehr’s research, the participants were 115 advanced Danish learners of English as a foreign language,
40% of whom once stayed in English-speaking countries for at least 5 months. The vocabulary breadth and depth
knowledge were respectively measured by the Vocabulary Levels Test by Schmitt (2001) and the Word Associates Test
by Read (1993). While in Mecartty’s (2000) study, the 154 participants were “from a large Midwestern university in
their final semester of a four-semester basic Spanish language sequence” (p. 328) and the test score was based on
word-association tasks and word-antonym tasks. Taking sophomore English majors as the subjects, Zhang (2011)
examined the relationship between lexical knowledge and listening comprehension of TEM4 (Test for English Majors)
and found that lexical breadth accounted for 27% variance of listening comprehension, 24% variance of dictation and
different variance of other parts, while the depth explained 2% variance of listening comprehension and dictation
respectively. This study result about vocabulary depth is consistent with that in Staehr’s (2009) research.
From above studies, we can see that, despite the minor differences in specific figures, researchers are close to
agreement on the role of vocabulary breadth in listening comprehension. However, the study results about vocabulary
depth have been few and inconsistent. What’s more, there have been some imperfections in the research process, such
as the research framework being somewhat narrow and the statistical instruments being a little conservative, which
makes it difficult to form differentiated instructional strategies aimed at different levels of students. Therefore, this
paper, based on mature vocabulary testing instruments, incorporates vocabulary breadth, depth, listening
comprehension into one study framework and conducts an empirical study by innovatively using quantile regression
models, so as to analyse the relationship between the two vocabulary dimentions and listening conprehension at
different levels of students. This study will offer important pedagogical implications to English vocabulary teaching
strategies in EFL classes.
This paper will try to answer two questions:
1). How are vocabulary breadth and depth correlated with listening comprehension in general.
2).To what extent can vocabulary breadth and depth predict the varience of’ listening comprehension at different
English levels.

III. TEACHING IMPROVEMENT PROJECT

A. Participants
120 non-English majors (80 females and 40 males respectively) participating in this study were chosen randomly
from 3 natural classes in a medical university, with some extreme cases of especially being poor in English ticked out
according to their academic performances in English exams. All the participants were sophomores and from different
majors ranging from clinical medicine, nursing, psychology and laboratory [Link] used the same English
textbooks and attended the same English classes twice a week taught by the same teacher and they shared similar
educational background. Moreover, all of them have learnt English for at least 8 years and have prepared for the coming
CET 4 in December for several months. All of them were quite serious about their performances in the CET4, which
would be linked to their bachelor’s degree.
B. Instruments
1. Test for breadth of vocabulary knowledge. Tests measuring vocabulary breadth in this study are based on Nation’s
Vocabulary Level Test (the 1990), which has been widely used in vocabulary research context and can provide a valid
estimate of leamers’vocabulary knowledge at the different frequency levels (Staehr, 2009). This kind of test is divided
into five levels: 2000-word level, 3000-word level, 5000-word level, the university word level and 1 0000-word level.
The 2000-and 3000-word level contain high-frequency words; the university word level represents one type of
specialized vocabulary; and the 5000-word level is on the boundary of high-and low-frequency words. Finally, the
10000-word level contains low-frequency words (Nation, 1990, P. 261) and few EFL learners can achieve this level. In
accordance with participants’ reading vocabulary level and the requirement of Chinese New College English Syllabus
(To master the vocabulary of about 4795 words and 700 phrases, of which about 2000 words are active vocabulary), the
first four word frequency levels in Vocabulary Levels Test were chosen to test the participants. At each level, there are
10 groups comprising six words and three [Link] participants are required to match the three definitions on the
right with three of the six words on the left.
For example: (From 2000-word level)
1. copy
2. event (6) end or highest point
3. motor (3) This moves a car
4. pity (1) Thing made to be like another
5. profit
6. tip
The total score for this test was 120 points, with each blank one point.

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992 THEORY AND PRACTICE IN LANGUAGE STUDIES

2. Test for depth of vocabulary knowledge. Productive Levels Test (Version A) by Laufer and Nation (2001) is used
to test students’ vocabulary depth. Like the Vocabulary Levels Test, the Productive Levels Test involves the sample
words from the same five word frequency levels. Each word level consists of eighteen sentences in which the target
words are removed but the initial letter(s) given as clues to write it down. The students are required to complete the
underlined words with initial letter(s) as clues according to the meaning of each sentence. Given their reading
vocabulary level and the requirementof Chinese New College English Syllabus, the first four word frequency levels in
Productive Vocabulary Levels Test were chosen to test the participants. In scoring the vocabulary test, each correct
answer was given one point (grammar mistakes were ignored). The total score for this test was 72 points.
For example: (From 2000-word level)
I’m glad we had this opportunity to talk.
3. Listening comprehension test. In the case of listening comprehension test, the scores were extracted from CET4
held on December 19th, 2014. All the subjects took part in the test and the exam results came out in March, 2015. CET
is the most formal and large-scale nationwide English proficiency test in China with relative high validity and
[Link] is designed for all the college non-English majors who have finished the required English course to check
their language proficiency after approximately one and half years’ study. The Listening Comprehension part in CET-4,
which takes about 30 minutes to complete and is read at the speed of 130 words per minute, contains three main
sub-sections: Section A includes 15 multiple choices for short and long dialogues belonging to Listening Conversations
part; Section B contains 3 short passages in the form of also multiple choices; and Section C is compound dictation
requiring not only receptive knowledge but also productive knowledge. And each text is played only once, except the
compound dictation which was played three times. Additionally, the accents of the recordings are native-like English,
either British English or American English. The task types are ranged in multiple choice and sentence completion(see
Table). As for the listening material selection, it is authentic and sourced from native English magazines and
newspapers ranging from daily conversations, academic lectures, broadcast programs to interviews, concerning the
subjects that vary from natural science and social science to humanity science, etc.
TABLE:
STRUCTURE OF CET-4 LISTENING C OMPREHENSION
Testing contents Task type s Score
Short dialogues Multiple choice 8%
Conversations
Long conversations Multiple choice 7%
Passages Multiple choice 10%
Passages
Compound dictation sentence completion 10%
The total score for listening comprehension is 35 points.

C. Procedures and Data Collection

Date collection was conducted through the vocabulary tests in the second week of December, 2014, the very week
before the nationwide CET4. With the help of the fellow teachers, the survey was administered in regular English
classes. The students were asked to finish the Vocabulary Levels Test first and then the Productive Levels Test. Before
they went down with the test, the examiners spent a span of time instructing the requirements specifically with the
examples illustrated explicitly, making sure every testee was well equipped during the testing. When doing the
vocabulary tests, the participants were asked to finish each part on their own without looking up dictionaries or turn to
their classmates for help. The whole survey session was under the supervision of the English fellow teachers. The
testing time for vocabulary was 60 minutes, the first 30 minutes for Nation’s Vocabulary Level Test and the second 30
minutes for Productive Levels Test (Version A). After the first 30 minutes, the testing papers for vocabulary breadth
were collected so that students could focus on the second test. For the sake of the effectiveness and authenticity of the
experiment, the participants were told that all the tests would be documented and scored as one part of their daily
evaluation which would contribute to the final score in the end of the semester.
And data for the listening test were collected at the beginning of March, 2015 after the exam results for CET4 2014
were released to public.
After all the data were collected, the quantitative research methods of Pearson Correlations analysis and a Multiple
Regression Analysis programmed in SASS 9.3 were employed as the primary analysis tools for the data collected.

IV. DATA ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH RESULTS

When designing the model, the multicollinearity between the independent variables results in greatening parameter
estimation interval, which is easy to make wrong judgment in hypothesis testing. Therefore, we should be first to check
the presence of multicollinearity among the independent variables, generally using Spearman rank correlation
coefficient index. In table 1, the correlation coefficient between breadth score (CHGD) and depth score (CHSD) is
0.758, and correlation test P value is less than 0.05, that is, reject the null hypothesis. There is significant correlation
between the two independent variables, so, they are not suitable for us to establish simultaneous regression models with
the dependent variable, namely listening score (TLCJ). The regression models should be established respectively.

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THEORY AND PRACTICE IN LANGUAGE STUDIES 993

What’s more, from table 1 we can see the correlation test results between the dependent varible( TLCJ) and the two
independent variables( CHGD and CHSD) show significant correlation, sutible for the establishment of regression
models.
TABLE 1
CORRELATION TEST RESULTS BETWEEN VARIABLES
Variables breadth score depth score Listening score
Breadth score 1.000 0.758 0.368
depth score 0.758 1.000 0.408
Listening score 0.368 0.408 1.000

The existing research literature, when assessing the relationship between vocabulary mastery and language
performance, usually employ classical least-squares linear regression method, for three reasons: linear estimate method
is easy to calculate; when the random disturbance items are uncorrelated with independent variables and comply
with a same-variance normal distribution whose mean is zero, the least square method shows unbiasedness,
effectiveness and some other good properties; least squares provides a general method of estimating conditional mean
value function. However, the inescapable fact is that, when data show Leptokurtosis or have outliers and heteroscedastic
cases, the normality, independence and variance homogeneity assumption of least squares are difficult to meet, which
results in poor stability. In addition, the least squares regression assumes that the independent variables can only affect
the dependent variables’ conditional distribution position, but fail to depict the conditional distribution in greater detail
and to describe the basic characteristics of the conditional distribution. In order to overcome the disadvantages of least
squares, Koenker and Bassett in 1978 proposed the quantile regression (Quantile regression) idea. The basic thought is
to perform regression to independent variables according to the conditional quantiles of dependent variables, then
regression models on different quantiles are established. So, this method can accurately describe the influence of
independent variables on the variation range and conditional distribution of the dependent variables, and at the same
time capture the characteristics at tail distribution.
Therefore, to realize the transverse and longitudinal quantitative analysis evaluation about the relationship between
vocabulary mastery and students’ English listening proficiency at different English levels, this paper pioneered to
introduce the concept of fractional regression to data mining and model design. The 2 model forms eventually
established are shown in formula 1:

In the formula above, CHGD stands for the breadth of vocabulary, CHSD for the depth of vocabulary, and TLCJ for
listening scores. reprasents the conditional quantile of TLCJ that corresponds to quantile theta (0<
theta <1) in a given case of CHGD (Liu Shenglong, 2008). And the coefficient vector corresponding to
by minimizing the absolute deviation , i.e:

TLCJ- TLCJ-

Using Bootstrap intensive algorithm technology to achieve the estimation of regression coefficient, means obtaining
samples’ confidence interval by continuous sampling with replacement, thus to infer the coefficient. The estimation
results from the 2 models are shown in Figure 1, Figure 2, Table 2 and Table 3.

Figure 1 Vocabulary breadth and listening scores Figure 2 Vocabulary depth and listening scores

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994 THEORY AND PRACTICE IN LANGUAGE STUDIES

TABLE 2
QUANTILE REGRESSION RESULTS OF VOCABULARY BREADTH AND LISTENING SCORES
the lower limit of
the upper limit of the
quantile variable coefficient S.E the 95% P_ value
95% confidence interval
confidence interval
0.2 constant term 102.800 11.646 79.693 125.907 0.000
0.2 breath 0.371 0.184 0.006 0.737 0.046
0.5 constant term 111.071 9.524 92.158 129.985 0.000
0.5 breath 0.464 0.145 0.177 0.752 0.002
0.8 constant term 117.929 15.520 87.108 148.749 0.000
0.8 breath 0.643 0.203 0.240 1.046 0.002

TABLE 3
QUANTILE REGRESSION RESULTS OF VOCABULARY DEPTH AND LISTENING SCORES
the upper limit of the
the lower limit of the
quantile variable coefficient S.E 95% confidence P_ value
95% confidence interval
interval
0.2 constant term 111.500 6.422 98.748 124.252 0.000
0.2 depth 1.125 0.512 0.108 2.142 0.031
0.5 constant term 130.793 4.071 122.708 138.878 0.000
0.5 depth 1.069 0.292 0.488 1.650 0.000
0.8 constant term 148.000 9.055 130.019 165.981 0.000
0.8 depth 1.300 0.624 0.060 2.540 0.040

As Table 2and Table 3 show, the dependent variable fits the independent variables well, and in cases of 0.2, 0.5, 0.8
quantiles, the regression coefficients of the 2 models all show significicance at 0.1 significance level. If the quantiles
0.2, 0.5 and 0.8 are respectively regarded as the low, the middle and the high grade levels, following conclusions can be
drawn:
a. Conclusion one: From the transverse perspective, both vocabulary breadth and depth influenced listening scores
significantly, but the overall effect of vocabulary depth was significantly greater than that of vocabulary breadth.
b. Conclusion two: From a vertical view, at the lower, middle, and higher levels, the enhancing effects of vocabulary
breadth showed a gradual increasing trend, i.e. vocabulary breadth teaching can greatly improve the listening scores of
high level students more than the scores of other two level students; while the influence of vocabulary depth shows no
significant difference at three levels of listening scores.

V. TEACHING IMPLICATIONS
The study results above have great implications to vocabulary teaching in EFL listening classes:
Firstly, both vocabulary breadth and depth influenced listening scores significantly, so via these study results, we
could help students realize the importance of vocabulary study for their listening proficiency. Secondly, in actual
English classes, vocabulary teaching should appropritely tilt to vocabulary depth, requiring students not only to
remember the literal meaning of words, but give enough attention to lexical collocation, semantic field, etc. Teachers
should lead students to lay stress on the accumulation and mastery of active words that are listed in textbooks. Thirdly,
with the advance of students’ English level, teachers should strengthen the teaching of vocabulary breadth by increasing
students’ reading quantity and diversifying their reading materials.
The factors affecting listening comprehension are various, such as cognitive strategies, emotion, motivation, attention,
etc. This paper just investigated the influence of vocabulary at two dimentions. And, limited by the the testing
instruments, we can only test the relationship between reading vocabulary and listening comprehension. If conditions
permitting, a study can be conducted to investigate the correlations between listening vocabulary and listening
comprehension, and that would be of more practical significance to EFL listening.

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[3] Hu, M., & Nation, I. S. P. (2000). Unknown vocabulary density and reading comprehension. Reading in a Foreign Language,
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Suping Wang was born in Binzhou, China in 1977. She received her master’s degree in English Education from University of
Wisconsin-Platteville, America in 2014.
She is currently a lecturer in Foreign Language Department of Binzhou Medical College, Yantai, China. Her research interests
include applied linguistics and English Education.

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