The Effects Of Different Tasks On Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition Through Reading

The prominent role of vocabulary in foreign language learning has been widely recognized by learners. Furthermore, the issue of vocabulary acquisition is currently receiving more attention in second language pedagogy and research. But there is general consensus among L2 vocabulary experts that a large amount of vocabulary was acquired incidentally through extensive reading because direct vocabulary instruction cannot account for a significant proportion of the words learners acquire. So some researchers have indicated that L2 reading plus related learning activities might be one effective way to enhance the incidental vocabulary acquisition and the more effective task required a deeper level of processing of the new words than the other task. Thus, there has been considerable empirical research on tasks and incidental vocabulary acquisition.In terms of L2 vocabulary learning tasks, Hulstijn and Laufer (2001) proposed the Involvement Load Hypothesis. This hypothesis explains incidental vocabulary acquisition from task. It predicts that the effectiveness of incidental vocabulary tasks depends on the factors need, search, and evaluation. It is expected that a task with a higher involvement load is more effective than a task with a lower involvement load. Hulstijn and Laufer conducted two parallel experiments to investigate the validity of the hypothesis. The results of the first experiment fully supported the hypothesis while those of the second experiment partially supported it. Therefore, the first aim of this study was to explore the efficacy of the involvement load on the effectiveness of different vocabulary learning tasks, and thus provide further empirical evidence to the Involvement Load Hypothesis. At the same time, B. Laufer and Hulstijn(2001) regarded time-on-task as an inherent property of a task not as a separate variable. Therefore, the second aim of this study is to investigate whether the retention of the target words was not only subject to the different involvement load but also sensitive to the factor of time-on-task.Based on the Involvement Load Hypothesis, the empirical study in the thesis investigate the effect of different tasks on incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading. In this study,180 Yantai university freshmen participated in two experiments and were divided into two classes evenly in which 90 participants in each class. In the first experiment three groups of students in one class were assigned three tasks with different involvement loads respectively(reading, reading plus filling-in and writing).They were not informed of any posttests on the target words and spent 15,25 and 30 minutes finishing their assigned task respectively. In the second experiment another three groups of students were assigned the same tasks but the time to finish them was controlled at 35 minutes. After the tasks, students in these two experiments both received an immediate posttest on the target words and a week later a delayed posttest with the order of the target words changed randomly.The data in the first experiment showed that words that were processed with higher involvement load were retained better than words that were processed with lower involvement load. And the results of the second experiment indicated that the factor of time-on-task does have effect on vocabulary retention.Therefore, Tasks inducing high involvement load will be suitable for words that are particularly important and difficult for learners, such as academic words, idioms and so on. Tasks with a lower involvement load, on the other hand, may be sufficient for easy words, which do not require much learning effort. Teachers can design tasks with different involvement loads to facilitate vocabulary acquisition and subsequently improve the learners'vocabulary efficiency and learning ability.