A Comparative Study Of L2 Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition Under Different Input Modes

Vocabulary, as the essence of a language, plays an importance role in language acquisition. Scholars at home and abroad have conducted both theoretical and practical research on the topic of vocabulary and lots of research fruits have been achieved. Incidental vocabulary acquisition(IVA) is one branch which has gained lots of concerns devoting to find effective approaches to facilitate vocabulary learning. The feasibility and effectiveness of IVA through visual reading input have been found in many cases of the experimental research, while studies on incidental vocabulary acquisition through listening, speaking and writing are very limited. Even fewer studies can be found on the comparison study of incidental vocabulary acquisition effects under different input modes.The present study took different input modes as the variables to investigate incidental vocabulary acquisition effects under the conditions of reading,listening, reading while listening for 103 college non-English major freshmen in China. Subjects were divided into three input mode groups and are required to take immediate IVA test and delayed IVA test after their respective input tasks. Then Statistical Package was employed for the analysis of the data and for the generation of statistical information. It was found that: firstly, in immediate IVA test, listening input mode group outperformed to the other two input mode groups. While reading input mode group and reading while listening input mode group were proved to have similar immediate incidental word gain effects. Secondly, word retention effects for different input mode groups did not show significant differences two weeks later as signified in the delayed IVA test. Thirdly, significant differences existed in scores of immediate IVA test and delayed IVA test, in which listening input mode group displayed the biggest drop followed by reading input mode group and then the reading while listening input group. These findings may enrich the incidental vocabulary acquisition study; contribute to teachers‘ vocabulary instruction, extracurricular and test design; and provide assistance to language learners‘ in and out of class learning.