The Effect Of Involvement Load Induced By Different Listening Tasks On Non-English Majors' Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition

The present study mainly aims to test the effect of involvement load induced by different listening tasks on non-English majors? incidental vocabulary acquisition in China.Laufer and Hulstijn came up with Involvement Load Hypothesis in 2001 and proposed that when processed incidentally the effect of vocabulary acquisition depends on the involvement load induced by learning tasks which includes the following three factors: ?need?,?search? and ?evaluation?,and that the teacher/researcher-designed tasks which induce higher involvement load will be more effective in incidental vocabulary acquisition than tasks inducing lower involvement load.Though previous studies of the effect of involvement load on incidental vocabulary acquisition in reading set have been prosperous,few researchers have studied the Involvement Load Hypothesis in listening set.Besides,the present study further explores the effect of the same involvement load induced by different types of listening tasks on incidental vocabulary acquisition and explores the role of involvement components ?search? and ?evaluation? in incidental vocabulary acquisition.For the purpose of the present study,four listening tasks were designed with different involvement loads.The first year non-English majors of Shanxi Normal University who were from 4 natural English B classes were selected as subjects.Before the experiment,they were asked to take the Vocabulary Levels Test designed by Nation and to hand in final English exam scores of last semester in order to make sure there is no significant difference between them in English language proficiency and vocabulary size.They were randomly divided into four groups to complete four different listening tasks which induce different involvement loads and received unexpected immediate vocabulary test and delayed vocabulary test.All the data collected from pretest and posttest were stored and analyzed by SPSS 17.0 after the experiment.The major findings are presented as follows: 1)Higher involvement load induced by different listening tasks can lead to better incidental vocabulary acquisition than lower involvement load induced by different listening tasks in both immediate and delayed vocabulary tests.2)Other factors being equal,different types of tasks which induce the same involvement load and have the same distribution of involvement components have the different effect on incidental vocabulary acquisition.The involvement load is not the only factor that influences incidental vocabulary acquisition.3)Involvement components ?search? and ?evaluation? have positive effect on incidental vocabulary acquisition.The present study has great practical value as well as theoretical significance.Theoretically,the results of the present study indicate the validity of Involvement Load Hypothesis on incidental vocabulary acquisition and the possibility of incidental vocabulary acquisition in listening set.Pedagogically,teachers can introduce incidental vocabulary acquisition to students and helps students establish the awareness of acquiring words incidentally.Second,teachers can design different listening tasks with different involvement load to facilitate learners to achieve incidental vocabulary acquisition.Third,when designing learning tasks,factors like task type and the involvement components should be taken into consideration.