Incidental Learning of Chinese Idioms through Academic Listening
Date
2023-03-30
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Abstract
The present study adopted a pre-test/post-test between-groups design to examine whether Chinese as a foreign language learners could incidentally acquire and retain unfamiliar idioms through listening to a lecture on medical science. Moreover, it investigated the effect of different types of idioms on the incidental learning gains. It also employed a retrospective interview to explore the cognitive processes involved in idiom learning and the listening strategies used for idiom interpretation. Finally, it investigated the relationship between lecture comprehension and idiom learning. 159 medical students participated in the study. Six weeks after the pre-test that measured their prior knowledge of 18 target idioms, students in the experimental group one (n = 53) listened to a lecture where 18 target idioms were embedded; the experimental group two (n = 53) listened to 18 short paragraphs extracted from the same lecture, with each paragraph including one target idiom; the control group (n = 53) did not receive any input. Then, all participants wrote a post-test to show their learning outcomes. Five participants in each group were interviewed to determine what listening strategies were used for idiom comprehension. Twelve weeks after the post-test, all participants wrote a delayed post-test to measure their retention of target idioms. The results demonstrated that 1) the mean score of the post-test in the experimental group one was significantly higher than that of other groups, indicating the positive effect of lecture on idiom learning; 2) The mean score of the delayed post-test in the experimental group one was significantly higher than other groups, suggesting that academic listening could facilitate idiom retention; 3) Chinese idioms having translation equivalents in English were the easiest to learn, followed by Chinese idioms with some and no components in common with English counterparts. This indicates that cross-language similarity between Chinese and English has a significant effect on incidental idiom learning; 4) Proficient listeners could use their metacognitive knowledge to monitor the listening process and direct the deployment of various cognitive strategies; 5) There was a strong and positive relationship between lecture comprehension and incidental idiom learning. The results have important practical and theoretical implications.
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Keywords
incidental idiom learning, academic listening, idiom retention, mental representations, listening strategies
Citation
Kang, S. (2023). Incidental learning of Chinese idioms through academic listening (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.