Vocabulary and listeningFuture research, tools, and practices

Listening in a foreign language, including its relationship with vocabulary knowledge, is less well researched than the other skills. The features which make it more difficult to research, probably also make it more difficult to learn than other skills. The spoken language is transient and unidirectional. The language itself is rather different; there are more forms of spoken words and, usually, no word boundaries. The L2 listener cannot control the rate of input. This chapter argues that while vocabulary knowledge is needed for good listening skills to develop, the nature of that knowledge may not be same as for other skills such as reading. The small-scale study reported in this chapter confirms that vocabulary for listening appears to develop more slowly than the equivalent vocabulary knowledge needed for reading. The quality of input needed to promote the vocabulary knowledge needed for good listening may have to be rather different than that needed for reading.