Research On The Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition Through Extensive Reading With Different Strategies

Learner's incidental vocabulary acquisition (IVA) in various language learning activities, especially through reading, has become a new focus of interest in s(?)cond language vocabulary acquisition (SLVA) research. Abundant studies concerning the influence of reading on IVA have been made, as the author observed, in natural reading, different strategies may work differently due to a number of factors, In the author's opinion, glosses or dictionary use can better help English learners acquire vocabulary incidentally in reading practice, yet research in this aspect is relatively insufficient. So he decided to conduct a study to compare the effects of two different learning approaches on IVA in L2 extensive reading: referring to glosses and inferring word meaning from context. The objectives of the study are: 1) to see whether the former results in better gains of vocabulary knowledge than the latter; 2) to do the data research in the process of IVA through extensive reading; 3) to find its pedagogic implication to the English reading and vocabulary teaching practice.The 9-week-long study was composed of one questionnaire, a reading program, a few tests, and the final data analyses. It was conducted on two parallel classes of non-English-major college students. One class served as the experiment group, who could refer to glosses when the 20 target words were encountered in the reading practice, and the other served as the control group, in whose reading passages no glosses were provided for the same target words and who therefore could only infer their meanings from context.From the data analyses, the findings revealed: 1) Most subjects held a positive view towards the role of different strategies in reading practice, they thought the two strategies are both helpful for IVA and glosses is much better comparing to inferring from context.2) The experiment group outperformed the control group by a plain edge whether in overall vocabulary gain or gain of individual target words. On average, the subjects in the experiment group learned more word knowledge in the reading practice, and the learned word meaning is more precise.The findings prove that it is a good option to choose different strategies in extensive reading practice, given their positive effects on IVA. Designers of extensive reading course may consider employing lots of forms of strategies to facilitate learners' vocabulary development and reading comprehension. Meanwhile, teachers should play a more active role in reading class to provide the chance of a word's being acquired incidentally.