A Comparison Of FonF, FonFS And FonM On Students’Vocabulary Acquisition In College English Reading Class

As a fundamental aspect of second language acquisition, vocabulary acquisition is attracting more and more concerns from scholars at home and abroad in recent years. According to Long, there are three types of vocabulary teaching instructional approaches, namely Focus on Form (FonF) Approach, Focus on Forms Approach (FonFS) and Focus on Meaning (FonM) approach. FonF assumes that L2learners’attention should be drawn to some difficult linguistic features which may cause problems in that situation. FonFS posits that L2learners learn the L2system in an externally orchestrated sequence, while FonM means that rich input and enough meaningful use of L2make the incidental acquisition of L2system achieved easily.This study attempts to compare the effectiveness of three L2vocabulary teaching approaches on non-English major students’vocabulary acquisition in college English reading classes. Two research questions were proposed as follows:Research question1:Is there any difference in the immediate retention of L2vocabulary under the instructional approaches of FonF, FonFS and FonM? If so, which approach has a better effect on students’immediate retention of L2vocabulary?Research question2:Is there any difference in the delayed retention of L2vocabulary under the instructional approaches of FonF, FonFS and FonM? If so, which approach has a better effect on students’delayed retention of L2vocabulary?Based on the two research questions and theories related to SLA like Interaction Hypothesis, Noticing Hypothesis and so on, an experiment with5stages were carried out among120subjects. From an immediate post-test, a delayed post-test and a questionnaire, the data of the tests was collected and analyzed by the software of SPSS16.0, and the research got the answers to the two research questions:there are significant differences in the immediate retention and delayed retention of L2vocabulary under the instructional approaches of FonF, FonFS and FonM. The instructional approach of FonF has a better effect on students’ immediate retention and delayed retention of L2vocabulary than the approach of FonM, while the approach of FonFS is more effective than the approach of FonF in students’immediate retention and delayed retention. Some analysis of the research result are also provided by the author.In the last part of this thesis, some pedagogical implications gotten from this study are well illustrated, and the author also reveals some limitations in this study and provides several practical suggestions for future studies.