Abstract:
Most of the models accounting for L2 oral production have deemed a significant role for vocabulary knowledge in this process. Previous studies have demonstrated a positive relationship between different aspects of lexical knowledge and performance or proficiency of second language skills including the speaking performance. Meanwhile, the findings have suggested a determining role for the task type used for measuring speaking performance when one or more aspects of lexical knowledge are in focus. This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between the EFL Learners’ deep vocabulary knowledge (DVK) and speaking performance by scrutinizing the mediating role of task type. To this end, 102 bachelor ELT students were given Word Associate Test to measure their DVK, and a planned presentation task and unplanned tasks of description, narration and reasoning to elicit speaking performance. The elicited samples of speaking performance were transcribed and analyzed in terms of fluency, accuracy, lexical complexity and grammatical complexity. Structural equation modeling indicated a lack of causal relationship between DVK and aspects of speaking performance as measured with both planned and unplanned tasks. However, mixed results were obtained in the case of the correlations of fluency, accuracy, grammatical complexity and lexical complexity with DVK across different tasks. Although the findings do not provide evidence for a strong relationship between DVK and speaking performance when DVK is analyzed in isolation from other aspects of vocabulary knowledge, the variation witnessed in findings provide further proof for the importance of task effectiveness in the study of lexical access.
Machine summary:
Relationship between Second Language Deep Vocabulary Knowledge and Speaking Performance: Mediation of Task Type* Davoud Amini (Corresponding author) ** Department of English Language and Literature, Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University.
This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between the EFL Learners’ deep vocabulary knowledge (DVK) and speaking performance by scrutinizing the mediating role of task type.
To this end, 102 bachelor ELT students were given Word Associate Test to measure their DVK, and a planned presentation task and unplanned tasks of description, narration and reasoning to elicit speaking performance.
As a consequence, a substantial amount of studies have been done to show the developmental efficacy of vocabulary knowledge and almost all of them have demonstrated the crucial effect of vocabulary knowledge on second language speaking performance (Funato & Ito, 2008; Hilton, 2008; Segalowitz & Freed, 2004; Uchihara & Saito, 2016).
4. Does the type of the rhetorical mode in unplanned oral production tasks (narrative, descriptive, and reasoning) make up a source of variation in the relationship between deep vocabulary knowledge and speaking performance?
The common measure of lexical complexity which has also been adopted in this study is the type-token ratio of words (Ellis & Barkhuizen, 2005) Relationship between DVK and speaking performance Vocabulary has an undeniable role in learning language skills (Schmidt, 2010; Stahr, 2009).
Therefore, a structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to study any paths on the strengths of correlations between the components of speaking performance as measured through different types of oral tasks and depth of vocabulary knowledge.