A Comparison of EFL Fifth Graders’ Vocabulary Acquisition through Skype Videoconferencing and Face-to-face Picture Book Storytelling

Abstract

This quasi-experimental study explores the relative efficacy of computer-mediated communication (CMC) and face-to-face picture book storytelling for promoting young EFL learners’ English word acquisition. Thirty-two young EFL learners participated in a 40-minute story session in the two aforementioned modes. Receptive and productive word gains were assessed through immediate and delayed receptive vocabulary tests and productive story recall tests. To better explain how the CMC and face-to-face settings affected the participants’ word gains, their involvement in the two types of storytelling settings was evaluated using an involvement load survey. The results show that the participants’ task involvement was higher in the face-to-face setting than the CMC setting, which led to better word gains. Within each setting, high-involvement participants’ word gain was better than that of their low-involvement counterparts. However, the difference between high-involvement and low-involvement participants was only manifest in the receptive word gains for the participants in the CMC setting, but not the productive word gains. These findings suggest that face-to-face storytelling might be the more effective setting when picture book storytelling is adopted to promote EFL young learners’ word gains, especially for receptive word gains.

Keywords

• videoconferencing
• involvement load hypothesis
• young efl learners
• vocabulary acquisition