Multi-Faceted Morphological Awareness and Vocabulary Knowledge in English as a Second Language Learners: A Multivariate Analysis

This study investigates the role of morphological awareness in ESL vocabulary acquisition. Participants were 198 Chinese college students enrolled in a joint program which required them to study in China for the first two years and then study in the U.K. to complete their degrees. They completed a total of four paper-and-pencil tests: Morpheme discrimination, morpheme recognition, vocabulary size test (VST) and word associates test (WAT) tests. We drew upon path analysis to explore the interconnected relationships among multiple explanatory variables (facets of morphological awareness) and outcome variables (facets of vocabulary knowledge). The results demonstrated that English derivational awareness was strongly predictive of both ESL vocabulary breadth and ESL vocabulary depth, and that preexisting ESL vocabulary breadth could enhance the relation between derivational awareness and ESL vocabulary depth. To summarize, these results indicate that an improved English derivational awareness not only helps to expand ESL vocabulary size but can also consolidate learners' deep understanding of word properties, which will in turn assist them to establish connections with other associative words and phrases.