Effects Of Different Input Modes On Senior High School Students’ Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition

The present study aims to investigate the effects of written input mode and audiovisual input mode upon senior high school students’ incidental vocabulary acquisition(hereafter IVA).In order to achieve the purpose,three research questions were answered:(1)Are there differences resulted from written and audiovisual input modes in senior high school students’ IVA?(2)How do written and audiovisual input modes influence senior high school students’ acquisition of word form? To what extent is the acquisition of word form retained one week later?(3)How do written and audiovisual input modes influence senior high school students’ acquisition of word meaning? To what extent is the acquisition of word meaning retained one week later?To answer the research questions,an experiment was conducted.The experiment lasted three weeks.The participants were 70 senior high school students in Shijiazhuang,Hebei Province.They were divided into the written group and the audiovisual group.In the first week,the study tested their English vocabulary level.In the second week,the participants in the written group read the captions in paper-and-pencil format,and subjects in the audiovisual group watched the video.After that,they needed to complete the immediate posttest.In the third week,a delayed posttest was asked to accomplish by the participants.The study adapted the methods of independent samples t-test and paired samples t-test to analyze the data.The major findings of the experiment are as follows:(1)The audiovisual input mode facilitates the participants’ IVA better than the written input mode.(2)There is no significant difference between the written and audiovisual input modes in the acquisition of word form.A significant difference is found between immediate and delayed posttests in the acquisition of word form.(3)The audiovisual input mode yields higher gains in the acquisition of word meaning than the written input mode.A significant difference is found between immediate and delayed posttests in the acquisition of word meaning.