Testing Involvement Load Hypothesis

This study aims at testing and modifying an incidental vocabulary learning model ---Involvement Load Hypothesis proposed by Laufer and Hulstijn in 2001. The authors hypothesized that the word retention was conditional upon the amount of involvement while processing these words. The greater the involvement load, the more effective the learning. To test the Involvement Load Hypothesis, three commonly used reading-based tasks, which are different in amount of involvement load in terms of word processing, are designed. To modify the hypothesis, the effect of frequency exposure on incidental vocabulary learning is also investigated through two target words with quite different amount of exposure. Results indicate that the Involvement Load Hypothesis can only be partially proved. Higher involvement tasks, in general, lead to better words retention than low involvement tasks, but it does not necessarily mean the greater the involvement, the more effective the learning. The mixed results show that other factors, such as "time", task type (input task or output task), or frequency of word repetition play an important and intricate role in vocabulary retention. In our study, we find that frequency of exposure promotes vocabulary retention. In particular, when the amount of exposures reaches a certain degree, the effect it brings is even stronger than the effect of higher involvement on one-exposure words. Though the results of our study only partially support the Involvement Load Hypothesis, it shows us the tendency that tasks with higher involvement load lead to better word retention than tasks with lower involvement load. It also offers our language teachers with some reasonable criteria to operationalize the elaboration or processing depth when we incidentally learn the words in some reading-based tasks. Language teachers can design after-reading tasks to direct learners'attention to the new words and process them with different degrees of involvement. Moreover, because of the memory leakage as time passes by, teachers should find ways to ensure the reoccurrence of the L2 words so that learners can have better retention of the targeted words.