The Effects Of Tasks With Different Involvement Loads On Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition Through Reading

Learning words incidentally through extensive reading is an important way for language learners to expand their vocabulary acquisition, but the process by which incidental vocabulary acquisition happens is slow and complex. The Involvement Load Hypothesis proposed by Laufer and Hulstijn (2001) has handled these problems to some extent. 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. Taken together, these elements form the'involvement load'of a task. It is expected that a task which elicits a higher involvement load is more effective than a task which elicits a lower involvement load (Laufer and Hulstijn, 2001).The present study examines the effects of task involvement load on incidental vocabulary acquisition. Within the framework of the Involvement Load Hypothesis, we explore how tasks with different involvement loads affect incidental vocabulary acquisition of English of Chinese learners. More specifically, the aim of this thesis is to investigate the relationship between tasks and incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading, and to broaden and deepen our knowledge about task and to outline the implications of our study for educational settings.Four research questions are examined in the present study:(1) Does Involvement Load Hypothesis really work in Chinese learners of English?(2) Can tasks contribute to vocabulary acquisition by Chinese learners of English through reading?(3) Do tasks with different involvement loads have different effects on IVA?(4) With'need'and'search'controlled, does evaluation hold significant correlation with retention of the target words?In order to solve the problems mentioned above, four language learning tasks with different levels of task involvement load are designed to test the effects of these various tasks. One hundred and forty-three college students whose major is English from Guilin Normal College are the subjects of the experiment. After the pre-test, they were assumed to be equal in English proficiency. In the experiment, they were randomly assigned to do one of the following four tasks: (1) reading and finishing the comprehension questions with the target words glossed; (2) reading and writing a composition and incorporating the target words with the target words glossed; (3) reading and guessing the meaning of the target words with no glossary; and (4) reading and blank-filling with the target words glossed. The materials used in the present study were 632 words altogether. The thirty target words were selected and were replaced by corresponding non-words made by Gathercole and Papagno (1991) (quoted from Ke and Dong, 2003), to ensure that all the target words are new to every participant. The experiment was conducted in a period of 2 weeks. An immediate test and one delayed test were performed. To assess the incidental gain and retention of the target words, we used SPSS 10.0 to analyze the data.The result shows that:1. All tasks in the present study can promote word retention through reading. But as time passes, the retention rate deduces in the delayed test.2. Involvement load hypothesis is partially right. According to the research, tasks with a higher involvement load generally but not necessarily lead to a better retention.3. The effect of evaluation on word retention has been proved. Tasks with strong evaluation will yield a better result in word retention.Based on the above conclusions, some pedagogical implications are put forward in the last chapter. In the end of the thesis, the author points out the limitations of the study and then makes some suggestions for future research.