Effects Of Visible And Invisible Hyperlinks On Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition

In recent years, second language vocabulary acquisition has became an increasingly interesting topic of discussion for researchers, teachers, curriculum designers, theoretists, and others involved in second language teaching and learning. Many second–language specialists see reading as a means of acquiring new vocabulary (Krasen, 1989). This kind of vocabulary learning is referred as"incidental"vocabulary learning. It is called"incidental"because the major purpose for the interaction with the particular environment or material is not to learn words, but to understand the message of the text and to build up a coherent text base.With regard to the question of how well vocabulary is learnt when the goal of reading a text is comprehension, Hulstiji (1992) found that retention of word meanings in incidental learning tasks was low. Coady (1993) reported that the research on learning words in the context found only a 5%-15% probability that a given word would be learnt at first exposure. Therefore several researchers have investigated which factors might promote incidental vocabulary acquisition. The use of a electronic gloss was one of the factors that can promote pick-up rates (Ellis,Tanaka,&Yamazaki,1994).