The Effect Of Reading Tasks On The Incidental Acquisition Of English Vocabulary Among Learners Of Different Levels

Vocabulary learning is an important aspect of language learning and its importance has aroused the concern of the foreign language teaching profession. In recent years, more and more researchers and language teachers have come to realize its importance, especially the role of incidental vocabulary acquisition in vocabulary learning.Laufer and Hulstijn (2001) proposed the Involvement Load Hypothesis, which maintained that the greater the involvement load in vocabulary, the better the vocabulary retention. The hypothesis was explained from the view of psychological cognition, i.e., need, search and evaluation.Based on the Involvement Load Hypothesis for L2 vocabulary learning, in the present study, students'performance on three reading tasks (reading + marginal glosses only; reading + multiple choice of the meaning of target words and reading + a word list + sentence making) was compared to examine the effect of reading tasks on the incidental learning of words among learners of three levels, i.e. advanced learners, intermediate learners and elementary learners respectively. The study also compares the results of the experimental study to see whether learners from a higher level will perform better than those from lower levels given the involvement load for the task is the same.Results show that reading tasks have significant effects on the incidental vocabulary acquisition. Participants in all the three groups acquired new words in the process. Generally the groups performing tasks with a higher involvement load did better than the groups doing tasks with a lower involvement load. However, the results in the study were mixed. There was no significant difference in any two subgroups of the three groups performing tasks with the same involvement load in the delayed vocabulary tests.