The Effect Of Contextual Richness And Explicit Learning And Implicit Learning On The Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition

Vocabulary learning plays an important role in the second language learning process.There are many factors that affect the acquisition of second language vocabulary,such as learning motivation,learning mode,context,learning attitude,etc.Among them,the influence of learning mode and context on second language vocabulary acquisition is particularly prominent.Learning mode includes explicit learning and implicit learning.Previous research on the relationship between explicit learning and implicit learning and second language vocabulary acquisition was too short,which was not conducive to observing the impact of implicit learning.Therefore,research on the relationship between explicit and implicit learning and second language vocabulary acquisition is urgently needed.Besides,context is also an important factor affecting vocabulary acquisition.Context is divided into two levels: the more informative context and the less informative context.The more informative contexts can enable learners to infer the meaning of new vocabularies in sentences with the help of clues,while the less informative contexts do not provide cues.Although many empirical experiments have investigated the effect of context on second language vocabulary acquisition,the conclusions are mixed.Considering this,the study regards learning mode(explicit learning and implicit learning)and context(the more informative context and the less informative context)as independent variables and views four aspects of L2 vocabulary(form,meaning,grammatical function and association)as dependent variables to conduct empirical research aiming to resolve the following three issues:1)Does learning mode(explicit learning and implicit learning)have a different influence on vocabulary acquisition and retention for Chinese EFL learners at the college level? 2)Does context(the more informative context and the less informative context)have a different effect on vocabulary acquisition and retention for Chinese EFL learners at the college level? 3)Is there an interaction between context and learning mode on vocabulary acquisition and retention?In this experiment,20 junior students with equivalent vocabulary levels were selected as the experimental participants.All the participants came from the English major of the Modern Science and Technology College of Taiyuan University of Technology.The researcher numbered 20 students and randomly divided them into the following four groups: the less informative context with implicit learning group,the less informative context with explicit learning group,the more informative context with implicit learning group,and the more informative context with explicit learning group.The learning materials consist of target words,target words’ definitions and example sentences.The four groups of participants learned the same vocabulary with the same definition.The example sentences learned by the more informative context with implicit learning group and the more informative context with explicit learning group contained clues to infer the meaning of the target vocabulary,while the less informative context with implicit learning group and the less informative context with explicit learning group did not contain clues.The four groups of participants studied strictly in accordance with the requirements of the researcher.The experiment was carried out once a week,with a total of 4 centralized learning sessions.Each learning time was from 30 to 40 minutes,and the testing time was 20 minutes.The testing phase is divided into immediate tests and delayed tests,with four tasks: form recognition,meaning recall,grammatical function choice,and association choice.After the experiment,the collected data were analyzed with paired sample T-test and variance analysis of SPSS.Origin was used to analyze samples’ score increments.The experimental results show that: 1)In view of horizontal comparison,there is no significant difference in the effects of explicit learning and implicit learning on vocabulary acquisition and retention.(2)There is no significant difference in the influence of the more informative context and the less informative context on vocabulary acquisition and retention.(3)The interaction between explicit learning and implicit learning and contextual richness does not affect vocabulary acquisition and retention.(4)Through incremental analysis,it is found that in terms of form and association,when the context is more informative,the explicit learning group makes greater progress;but when the context is less informative,the implicit learning group achieved a better learning effect.In terms of grammatical function,the explicit learning group made greater progress than the implicit learning group regardless of the level of the context.Regarding lexical meaning,implicit learning and explicit learning in the more informative context get basically the same increment,but when the context is less informative,the increment of vocabulary meaning obtained by implicit learning is much larger than that obtained by explicit learning.This study lasted for three months and investigated the influence of explicit learning and implicit learning and contextual richness on second language vocabulary acquisition.This study provides some sound advice for learners and teachers.We suggest that L2 learners can use explicit learning to acquire the aggregated features of the learning content in the early stage of learning,and in the middle and later stages of learning,they can use a combination of explicit learning and implicit learning to strengthen the sense of language and enhance the deep processing of vocabulary.Teachers should also try their best to provide learners with highinformative contextual content to deepen learners’ retention of vocabulary.