Wei Chu and Philip I. Pavlik Jr.

Language as a tool of communication, for native speakers, most of their total communication time is spent on listening. Listening is the foundation of language acquisition. While, for second language (L2) learners, especially for most of adult learners, since they have fewer opportunities to be exposed to an immense quantity of contextualized target L2 aural input environment than native speakers, consequently, they typically have suboptimal aural vocabulary knowledge which means they have difficulty recognizing meanings of words when these words are presented in their aural form. Research has shown that aural vocabulary knowledge is an important predictor of L2 learners’ listening comprehension success. However, compared to literature that investigate strategies to increase L2 learners’ written vocabulary knowledge, far less research has focused on helping L2 learners remember aural vocabulary knowledge effectively. Therefore, the current study aims to explore the appropriate practice context and practice time schedule for native English speakers to learn aural Chinese vocabulary effectively. Participants are assigned to one of the three practice contexts: context only includes illustration of an aural Chinese word, context only includes English translation of an aural Chinese word, or context includes both illustration and English translation of an aural Chinese word. Besides, aural Chinese words are presented in three different spaced fashions: narrow, medium, and wide. The results of this experiment will produce evidence on which practice context and which practice schedule are more effective for native English speakers to memorize aural Chinese vocabulary.