Effects Of Text-based Tasks With Varying Involvement Loads On Chinese College Students' Incidental Acquisition Of Idioms

Acquiring meaning and form of idioms is regarded as one of the most challengeable activities in mastery of a language, since meaning and form of idioms seem to be unfamiliar to second language learners. Due to idioms' special semantic and lexical formations, different historical backgrounds and cultural characteristics, learners constantly encounter hindrance in mastering idioms. To enhance acquisition of idioms, the present study attempts to investigate whether and how idioms can be acquired incidentally through text-based tasks with varying involvement loads. Considering cultural backgrounds of idioms, one task in the present study involved tracing back origins of idioms, examining whether task carrying cultural characteristics of idioms can enhance incidental acquisition of idioms.An experiment was conducted, which involved 290 non-English-major freshmen of Lanzhou University who had the same English proficiency level and vocabulary size. They came from 5 intact classes and were randomly divided into 5 groups. Participants of these five groups were required to read the reading passage first which contained 15 target idioms and then finish the assigned tasks. Based on Involvement Load Hypothesis (Laufer and Hulstijn,2001a), five different tasks with varying involvement loads were designed in the present study:(1) reading and answering comprehension questions irrelevant to target idioms which were glossed in the margins of the reading passage; (2) reading and answering comprehension questions relevant to target idioms which were not glossed in the reading text; (3) reading and answering comprehension questions relevant to target idioms which can be looked up in dictionary; (4) reading and filling gaps which induced participants to trace back origin of each target idiom; (5) reading and writing original sentences with target idioms which can be looked up in dictionary. According to Involvement Load Hypothesis (Laufer and Hulstijn,2001a), five tasks had different involvement loads:task 1 had the lowest involvement load, whereas task 5 had the highest involvement load. These five tasks were randomly assigned to the five groups. On completion of the assigned tasks, participants received unexpected immediate posttests for 15 target idioms, which consisted of two separate parts: immediate meaning test and immediate form test (30 minutes after immediate meaning test). A week later, delayed posttests which had the same format and content as immediate posttests were conducted.Results showed that it was possible for Chinese college students to acquire idioms incidentally through text-based tasks with varying involvement loads. However, the main theory of Involvement Load Hypothesis was partially supported:tasks with higher involvement loads do not necessarily yield better all the time in vocabulary retention (idioms in the present study). Moreover, task carrying cultural characteristics of idioms can foster incidental acquisition of idioms. Acquiring meaning and form of idioms is regarded as one of the most challengeable activities in mastery of a language, since meaning and form of idioms seem to be unfamiliar to second language learners. Due to idioms' special semantic and lexical formations, different historical backgrounds and cultural characteristics, learners constantly encounter hindrance to mastering idioms. To enhance acquisition of idioms, the present study attempts to investigate whether and how idioms can be acquired incidentally through text-based tasks with varying involvement loads. Considering cultural backgrounds of idioms, one task in the present study required participants to trace back origins of idioms, examining whether task carrying cultural characteristics of idioms can enhance incidental acquisition of idioms.An experiment was conducted, which involved 290 non-English-major freshmen of Lanzhou University who had the same English proficiency level and vocabulary size. They came from 5 intact classes and were randomly divided into 5 groups. Participants of these five groups were required to read the reading passage first which contained 15 target idioms and then finish the assigned tasks. Based on Involvement Load Hypothesis (Laufer and Hulstijn,2001a,2001b), the author designed five different tasks with varying involvement loads in the present study:(1) reading and answering comprehension questions irrelevant to target idioms which were glossed in the margins of the reading passage; (2) reading and answering comprehension questions relevant to target idioms which were not glossed in the reading text; (3) reading and answering comprehension questions relevant to target idioms which can be looked up in dictionary; (4) reading and filling gaps which induced participants to trace back origin of each target idiom; (5) reading and writing original sentences with target idioms which can be looked up in dictionary. According to Involvement Load Hypothesis (Laufer and Hulstijn,2001a), five tasks had different involvement loads:task 1 had the lowest involvement load, whereas task 5 had the highest involvement load. These five tasks were randomly assigned to the five groups. On completing of the assigned tasks, participants received unexpected immediate posttests for 15 target idioms, which consisted of two separate parts:immediate meaning test and immediate form test (30 minutes after immediate meaning test). A week later, delayed posttests which had the same format and content as immediate posttests were conducted.The results showed that it is possible for Chinese college students to acquire idioms incidentally through text-based tasks with varying involvement loads. However, the main theory of Involvement Load Hypothesis was partially supported:tasks with higher involvement loads do not necessarily yield better all the time in idiom retention. Moreover, task carrying cultural characteristics of idioms can foster incidental acquisition of idioms.