單字常被視為語言學習的基礎，因此，許多研究探討單字與英語聽說讀寫的關係。就認讀單字而言，許多過去的研究指出，認讀單字與英語閱讀理解的關係較其與英語聽力理解的關係明顯。然而，過去的研究往往忽略第二語言程度在英語聽力理解和單字上潛在的影響；此外，過去的研究往往用閱讀的方式測量受測者的認讀字彙在英語聽力測驗表現上的影響，此方法往往高估受測者在聽力測驗時，所擁有的聽力字彙。因此，本研究改善過往研究疏漏的部分，研究聽力單字與閱讀單字以及第二語言程度在聽力測驗表現上的影響。以下為本研究探討的問題:

(1) 在考量到第二語言的程度下，認讀的單字與聽力測驗表現的關係為何?
(2) 在考量到第二語言的程度下，聽力的單字與聽力測驗表現的關係為何?
(3) 在考量到第二語言的程度下，受測者的聽力單字與認讀單字是否有落
差?
(4) 語言學習者需要習得台灣大考中心高中英文參考字彙表多少比例的單字，進而通過全民英檢中級聽力測驗或進而達到良好的高中英語聽力測驗表現?

本研究共203位高一至高三的學生參加。本研究使用大考中心單字層測驗來測量受測者聽力與認讀的單字；舊制大考英聽模擬測驗和全民英檢中級聽力測驗用來測量受測者英語聽力表現；全民英檢中級初試通過與否用來判定受測者的第二語言程度。研究結果顯示，對於第二語言程度較低的受測者，聽力與認讀單字皆與聽力測驗表現相關。其中，聽力測驗表現良好與否，聽力單字占了34.4百分比的因素，遠高於認讀單字在聽力測驗表現上的影響(12.4百分比)。對於第二語言程度較佳的受測者而言，只有聽力單字對其英語聽力測驗的表現有影響。其中，聽力測驗表現良好與否，聽力單字占了至少45%因素。為了通過全民英檢中級初試聽力測驗，受測者需至少習得大考中心公告的高中參考字彙表，字彙表單字層一至單字層二，百分之八十五的聽力字彙；字彙表單字層三至單字層四，百分之七十的聽力字彙；此外，在分析大考中心英語聽力測驗模擬試題的腳本字彙涵蓋量時發現，如能精熟大考中心公告的高中參考字彙表，字彙表單字層一至單字層四，就能達到大考中心英語聽力測驗96%字彙涵蓋量。

Vocabulary knowledge is often viewed as the building block of language. Therefore, the effect of the vocabulary knowledge in four skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) has long been investigated (Bonk, 2000; Laufer & Ravenhorst-Kalovski, 2010; Mecartty, 2000; Mehrpour & Rahimi, 2010; Dong, 2007; Prichard & Matsumoto, 2011; Stæhr, 2008, 2009; van Zeeland & Schmitt, 2013) . It is widely accepted that vocabulary knowledge is more significantly related to reading comprehension than to listening comprehension (Mecartty, 2000; Mehrpour & Rahimi, 2010; Stæhr, 2008; Wise, Sevcik, Morris, Lovett, & Wolf, 2007). However, these previous studies did not take the potential effect of L2 proficiency on listening and vocabulary knowledge into consideration. Also, the vocabulary knowledge in these studies was measured by testing the meanings of the words in a reading mode rather than the meanings of the words in a listening mode, which may lead to an overestimate of learners' vocabulary knowledge since Asian students' orthographic vocabulary knowledge could be bigger than their phonological vocabulary knowledge (Wang, 2015). Thus, the present study investigates the effect of vocabulary knowledge, including orthographic vocabulary knowledge and phonological vocabulary knowledge, on listening comprehension test performance when L2 proficiency is considered. The following research questions are proposed:

(1) How does orthographic vocabulary knowledge relate to listening comprehension when L2 proficiency is taken into consideration?
(2) How does phonological vocabulary knowledge relate to listening comprehension when L2 proficiency is taken into consideration?
(3) Is there a gap between the participants’ orthographic vocabulary knowledge and phonological vocabulary knowledge when L2 proficiency is taken into consideration?
(4) How many percents of the words in the College Entrance Exam Center Vocabulary Reference List do students need to know in order to pass the first stage of the GEPT intermediate-level test?

Two hundred and three Chinese-speaking participants from a senior high school in Taiwan participated in this study. To make sure that there was a variability across L2 proficiency level, the participants were from 10th grade to 12th grade. Their orthographic vocabulary knowledge and phonological vocabulary knowledge were measured by the College Entrance Exam Center Vocabulary Levels Test (the CEEC Vocabulary Levels Test) both in a reading mode and in a listening mode (Chen, 2011; Chen & Tseng, 2012). Listening comprehension test performance was measured by a mock test of the old version of the Test of English Listening Comprehension (the TELC Mock Exam) designed by the College Entrance Exam Center in Taiwan. L2 proficiency depended on the criterion of passing or failing the first stage of the GEPT intermediate-level test which include both listening and reading sections.
The results revealed that both phonological vocabulary knowledge and orthographic vocabulary knowledge were significantly related to the low-proficiency learners' listening comprehension test performance. For the low-proficiency listeners, phonological vocabulary can explain at least 34.4 percent of the variance in the TELC Mock Exam, which was more that the 12.4 percent of the variance in the TELC Mock Exam explained by orthographic vocabulary. In contrast, only the effect of phonological vocabulary knowledge on listening comprehension test performance was significant and stable for the high-proficiency learners. Phonological vocabulary knowledge can account for around 45 percent of the variance in the TELC Mock Exam. Furthermore, in order to pass the GEPT intermediate-level test (i.e., to be qualified as a high-proficiency learners in this study), listeners had to answer correctly at least 85% of the words in the first two levels of the CEEC Vocabulary Levels Test in the phonological version and at least 70% of the words in the third and fourth levels.

ABSTRACT (Chinese) i
ABSTRACT (English) iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS viii
LIST OF TABLES xii
LISTS OF FIGURES xiv
TABLE OF APPENDICES xv
Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Research Background 1
1.2 Purpose of the Study 3
1.3 Definition of Terms 3
1.4 Significance of the Study 5
Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 6
2.1 Overview of this Chapter 6
2.2 Listening Comprehension 6
2.2.1 One-way Listening and Two-way Listening 7
2.2.2 Bottom-up, Top-down and the Interactive Processing 8
2.2.3 Factors that Affect L2 Listening Comprehension 10
2.3 Vocabulary Knowledge 13
2.3.1 Lexical Threshold and Lexical Coverage in L2 Listening 16
2.3.2 Vocabulary Size for Comprehending L2 Listening 25
2.3.3 Types of Vocabulary Size Tests 35
2.4 L2 Proficiency in L2 Listening Comprehension 44
2.4.1 The Effect of L2 Proficiency on Listening 44
2.5 Summary of the Chapter Two 47

Chapter 3 METHODOLOGY 49
3.1 Research Questions 49
3.2 Research Design 50
3.3 Participants 53
3.4 Instruments 54
3.4.1 A Mock Test of the Old Version of English Listening Comprehension 54
3.4.1.1 Data scoring of the TELC Mock Exam 59
3.4.2 Retired the first stage of the GEPT Intermediate Level Test 60
3.4.2.1 Data scoring of the first stage of the GEPT intermediate level
test 66
3.4.3 The College Entrance Exam Center Vocabulary Levels Test in an
Orthographic Version 67
3.4.4 The College Entrance Exam Center Vocabulary Levels Test in a
Phonological Version 68
3.5 Data Collection Procedure 71
3.6 Data Analysis 74
3.6.1 Outliers 74
3.6.2 Statistical Analysis 75
3.7 Summary of the Chapter Three 77
Chapter 4 RESULTS 79
4.1 Overview 79
4.2 How to Divide Participants into Different Groups Based on L2 Proficiency 79
4.3 Results of Research Question 1 and Research Question 2 (Relationship
between Orthographic and Phonological Vocabulary Knowledge and
Listening Test Performance) 84


4.3.1 Relationship between Orthographic Vocabulary knowledge and
Listening Test Performance 85
4.3.2 Relationship between Phonological Vocabulary Knowledge and
Listening Test Performance 92
4.4 Results of Research Question 3 95
4.5 Results of research question 4 101
4.6 Summary of the Chapter Four 109
Chapter 5 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 111
5.1 Overview 111
5.2 The Relationship between Orthographic Vocabulary Knowledge and Listening
Comprehension 111
5.3 The Relationship between Phonological Vocabulary Knowledge and Listening
Comprehension 114
5.4 The Gap between Orthographic Vocabulary Knowledge and Phonological
Vocabulary Knowledge 116
5.5 The Minimum Percentages of the Words in each CEEC Vocabulary Reference
List that Students Should Know to Pass the First Stage of the GEPT
Intermediate Level 118
5.6 Contributions and Implications 122
5.7 Limitations and Future Research 124
References 127
Appendices 131
Appendix A 131
Appendix B 138
Appendix C 148
Appendix D 153
Appendix E 158
Appendix F 164
Appendix G 166

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