Cognitive Approaches to Examining the Modality-Specific Development of Lexical Sophistication in Young EFL Learners

Abstract

Despite the paramount importance of word production skills in second language (L2) acquisition, there is limited research on how cognitive factors influence young L2 learners’ vocabulary usage. This study addresses this gap by investigating the effects of two cognitive factors, modality and proficiency, on lexical sophistication among 11- to 12-year-old elementary school students learning English as a foreign language (EFL). We conducted speaking and writing tasks with similar prompts and analyzed participants’ responses using 19 lexical sophistication indices related to word frequency and range, academic languages, psycholinguistic information, hypernymy, and polysemy, across both production modes. The results indicate that young EFL students demonstrate higher levels of lexical sophistication in written production compared to spoken production. Moreover,
the study reveals a modality-by-proficiency interaction, suggesting that as students’ proficiency increases, they exhibit more enhanced vocabulary skills in either written or spoken production. The findings of this research shed light on theoretical perspectives of L2 word acquisition and use, and provide insights into the interaction of modality and proficiency in the development of vocabulary skills in young EFL learners.