The Effects Of Types Of Glossing On Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition Through Reading

After being regarded as a Cinderella of second language teaching and learning for a long time, the teaching of vocabulary has assumed its rightful place as a fundamentally important aspect of language development. And much research has been done on vocabulary. However, among the numerous studies on vocabulary, only a limited number of studies have taken into consideration the depth of vocabulary knowledge. What is more, most of the studies which involved the depth of vocabulary knowledge investigated this aspect of vocabulary knowledge from a static perspective instead of a dynamic one. Nevertheless, in this study, the dynamic development of the depth of vocabulary knowledge will be explored.On the other hand, a large number of studies have been conducted to find out how to improve incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading, including increasing the reoccurrence of the target words, making use of dictionaries, providing glosses or annotations. But few have investigated the effects of different types of glossing on incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading. The present study has been intended to find out the question of how the three different types of glossing, i.e. glossing in both Chinese and English, glossing in Chinese, glossing in English, exert effects on the incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading. The aspects of the breadth and the depth of vocabulary knowledge have been taken into consideration in this present experimental study. In addition, two testing sections are involved in this study, including the immediate retention testing section and the delayed retention testing section.Two classes of non-English-major freshmen took part in the whole process of experimenting, including a reading comprehension test, a breadth test of word knowledge, a depth test of word knowledge and an interview in the immediate testing section and a breadth, a depth test of word knowledge and an interview in the delayed testing section. 18 nonsense words were introduced in this study as target words.The results from data analysis have indicated that the type of glossing in both Chinese and English is the most effective in enhancing the depth of vocabulary knowledge in incidental vocabulary learning through reading in both the immediate and the delayed retention testing sections and it is also the most effective in delayed retention of the breadth of word knowledge. On the other hand, glossing in Chinese is the most effective in enhancing the immediate retention of the breadth of word knowledge. Based on this finding, implications for the publishing field and for the field of foreign language teaching and suggestions have been put forward.