The Effects Of Typographical Input Enhancement, Glossing And Text Reconstruction On Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition In Reading

Incidental vocabulary acquisition refers to the learning of a new word as a by-product ofa meaning-focused activity, such as reading, listening and other interactive activities.Research on incidental vocabulary acquisition has gradually become a hot topic amongsecond language researchers.Many empirical studies have been conducted to confirm that second language learnerscan acquire vocabulary incidentally in reading, but the learning rate is relatively low. Giventhis situation, scholars have proposed to improve incidental vocabulary acquisition via variousinstructional interventions from the perspective of input and output. For example, somestudies have been conducted to show how to improve incidental vocabulary acquisition inreading through typographical input enhancement, glossing, dictionary and post-readingactivities or output tasks and so on. However, from the perspective of input, few studies havebeen done investigating the combined effect of typographical input enhancement and glossingin enhancing incidental vocabulary acquisition in reading. From the perspective of output,studies are only concerned with input and text reconstruction task, ignoring textreconstruction task based on noticed input and comprehended input.Therefore, based on the Bilingual Lexicon Model, Theories of Transfer from L1, Inputand Output Theories, Noticing Hypothesis and Depth of Processing Hypothesis, the currentstudy is intended to investigate different instructional interventions, that is, the combinedeffects of typographical input enhancement, glossing and text reconstruction on incidentalvocabulary acquisition in reading. Specially, the present study is aimed at three questions:(1) Which combination of typographical input enhancement and glossing as chosen inthe present study is most facilitative of immediate incidental vocabulary acquisition?(2) Which combination of typographical input enhancement, glossing and textreconstruction as chosen in the present study is most effective for immediate vocabularyacquisition?(3) Which instructional intervention as chosen in the present study is most effective forvocabulary retention?Two hundred and ten non-English major freshmen from Gansu Agriculture Universitywere chosen for the study. In the experiment, they were randomly divided into seven groupswith thirty in each group. One of groups among them was randomly assigned to the pilotgroup, while the rest groups took part in the main study. According to the English scores ofNational University Entrance Examination and Vocabulary Level Test, there was nosignificant difference of English proficiency and Vocabulary size among the seven groups.All the six groups in the main study are asked to read the same passage of334words with eight target words in it and finish reading comprehension. After testing papers were collected,all the participants were given an immediate vocabulary test in order to check the immediateincidental vocabulary acquisition of eight target words. A delayed vocabulary test with thesame content was carried out one week later.The results of data analyses points out to three major findings.Firstly, TL1led to the highest rate of immediate incidental vocabulary acquisition amongTL1, TL2and TL1L2groups and achieved the best effect of incidental vocabulary acquisitionamong those combined techniques.Secondly, TL2O was most effective for immediate incidental vocabulary acquisitionamong TL1O, TL2O and TL1L2O groups.Thirdly, in the delayed vocabulary test, TL1L2O performed best among all the mainstudy groups.From the present study, it is found that inventions with a variety of teaching skills didhave a positive effect on incidental vocabulary acquisition, that is, teacher can effectivelyimprove learning outcomes of learners through integration of some techniques in Class.Therefore, in English teaching, teachers should use a variety of teaching method, so as toachieve best teaching effect. For example, in addition to typographical input enhancement andglossing to target words in reading comprehension, teachers should also set up some outputtasks to help students better learn the words incidentally from reading. Besides, teachersshould pay attention to the effect of L1transfer on vocabulary learning. For English beginners,it is recommended that target words are set in typographical input enhancement and L1glossing in reading, while for L2learners at an advanced level, typographical inputenhancement and L2glossing for target words is strongly recommended.