Vocabulary Acquisition through Storytelling
Presented at PAC5, Vladivostok, Russia, June, 2004
TexTESOL III Newsletter. February, 3-5. 2005
Beniko Mason

Introduction

It has been demonstrated that vocabulary acquisition is possible from listening to stories⁽¹⁾, but it has also been argued that this source of vocabulary is insufficient and inefficient, that students need direct instruction as well⁽²⁾. In this study, I attempt to confirm that listening to stories leads to the acquisition of vocabulary, and also attempt to determine how efficient this acquisition is, that is, how it compares to direct instruction.

Experiment 1: Story-telling vs. List-learning

The 60 participants (n = 27, n = 33) were first year English majors at a four- year-private college in Osaka, Japan. All students participated in both treatments.

In the storytelling treatment, participants first took a pretest on 30 words (write a definition in Japanese). They then listened to a story, "The North Wind and Sun," that contained the 30 words. The words on the sheet were written on the blackboard in front of the class. While the teacher told the story she pointed to the words on the board so that students could tell which word was used to tell the story. The participants occasionally raised their hands to indicate to the teacher when they did not understand the meaning of the word, which the teacher then explained or clarified using a drawing. The story took about 20 minutes.

After listening to the story, the participants retook the vocabulary test. A week later, students took an unexpected follow-up test on the same words presented in a different order.

The second treatment was given a week later immediately after the same participants took the follow-up test for the storytelling method. Subjects were tested on a different list of 30 words. They were given the Japanese definitions of the words and were told to try to learn the words in the next 20 minutes, using any techniques they wanted to use. Students were allowed to work together. Subjects then took a posttest and a follow-up post-test one week later, which may or may not have been unexpected.

As shown in table 1, the List method was very successful immediately after learning. The mean score of the list method immediately after list learning was 28.5 out of 30, while the mean score of the story method was 17.2 out of 30. The results of the follow-up test showed a large drop in retention for list-learning with much less of a drop for words acquired from story-telling. Sixty three percent of the list-learned words that were learned were forgotten on the follow-up (26.1 words unknown, 24.6 learned, 15.7 forgotten), but only 25% of the words acquired via story-telling were forgotten on the follow-up test (21.7 words unknown, 17.2 acquired, 2.2 forgotten).

These results were confirmed by an Analysis of Covariance. The adjusted means for the follow-up post-test were not significantly different (list-learning = 14.6, story-telling = 13.2; F = 1.5, p = .23).

Table 1: Story-telling vs. List-learning

FU = follow-up, one week later

Experiment 2: Story-telling plus Skill-building vs. Story-telling Alone

Subjects were 58 first year Japanese female students at a junior college in Osaka who had had very little exposure to aural input in English. One class (n = 27) was a story only group (Story-Only Group) and the other class (n = 31) was a story plus supplementary activities group (Story-Plus Group)

The Story-Only group experienced the following method:

(1) The 20 target words from a story ("The Three Little Pigs") were written on the board in front of the class.

(2) The participants took a translation test (pretest) on these 20 words. (5 minutes) They were asked to write the meaning in Japanese for each English word on the list.

(3) The students put down the paper and the pencil and listened to the story, which contained the target words. (15 minutes)

(4) After listening to the story the participants took the posttest on the same list of the words. (5 minutes)

The Story-Plus group experienced the following method:

(1) through (3) were identical to the method followed by the Story-Only group.

(4) The teacher asked oral comprehension questions that used the target words and that were asked in a way that the target words had to be used to answer the questions. (10 minutes)

(5) The participants took the same translation test again. (mid-test, 5 minutes)

(6) After taking the test, the participants exchanged test papers with their neighbor and checked the answers with the teacher, who gave the correct answers in Japanese. (10 minutes)

(7) The students read a written version of the story. They were asked to underline the words they wanted to learn including the target words. (10 minutes)

(8) The participants told the same story to their study partner. They were encouraged not to refer to the text, but to use the target words that were on the board. (20 minutes)

(9) The participants took the same translation test again as the posttest. (5 minutes)

(10) The teacher gave the correct answers for the test. (5 minutes).

The Story-Plus group spent almost the entire class time (85 minutes) hearing the story and doing different activities as described above. The Story-Only group listened to the story for only 15 minutes.

There was little interaction between the teacher and the participants during the story telling. The participants saw the words on the board and took the pre-test which primed them to notice the words and pay attention to the words during the storytelling. When the participants looked uncertain, the teacher clarified the meaning of the words using drawings or verbal explanations.

Note that the Story-Only group took the translation test twice, but the Story- Plus group took it three times. In addition, both groups were given an unexpected follow-up test five weeks later.

Results

Mean scores on the pretest were similar (table 2). The Story-Plus group was better on all measures, including the surprise follow-up test given five weeks later, learning about twice as many words as the Story-Only group. All differences were statistically significant (p < .001).

Table 2: Story-Alone versus Story-Plus

The Story-Plus group, however, invested much more total time than the Story-Only group. If we count time for testing, the Story-Only group acquired .15 words per minute and the Story-Plus group acquired .13 words per minute, nearly identical results. Not counting testing time, the story-only group looks even better, acquiring .25 words per minute.

Table 3: Efficiency

Discussion and Conclusions

The first study showed no difference between a story method and a list-learning method for vocabulary learning on a delayed posttest. The second study found no difference in efficiency in vocabulary learning between story telling and story- telling supplemented with vocabulary learning activities. These findings are consistent with the results of previous studies showing that hearing stories results in vocabulary development.

The results appear to be consistent with the Comprehension Hypothesis⁽³⁾, which claims that language development is the result of the comprehension of messages. The story-telling method used here, however, used some focus on form: subjects knew that vocabulary development was the goal of the story and they were directed to pay attention to the new words. The Story-Only groups, however, did no language production and did not have their errors corrected, which confirms an important aspect of the Comprehension Hypothesis: Production and feedback are not necessary for language development to occur.

The finding that story-telling is as effective as more traditional methods is encouraging. Stories are far more pleasant and engaging than traditional instruction, and students can gain other aspects of language from stories, as well as knowledge.

References