The Effects Of Glossing On Incidental Vocabulary Learning By Foreign Language Learners Of Different Proficiency Levels

Reading is considered an effective way to facilitate vocabulary learning during the process of foreign language acquisition. Vocabulary glosses can improve reading comprehension and incidental vocabulary learning. Most of researchers home and abroad on vocabulary glossing devoted their time to the relationship between the effect of incidental vocabulary learning and glossing types, without much consideration of learners' proficiency that may interact between glossing types and the learning effect. Based on the theories of Input Hypothesis (Krashen, 1985, 1989), Noticing Hypothesis (Schmidt, 1990), Depth of Processing Hypothesis (Craik & Lockhart, 1972) and Task-induced Involvement Hypothesis (Laufer & Hulstijn, 2001), the present study probes into the interaction between glossing types and learners' proficiency and the effect of incidental English vocabulary learning during the process of English acquisition with Chinese high school students as subjects.197 students of Senior Grade Three in Nanping No.1 High School participated in the experiment. They were assigned to three groups according to their classes and read the same passages with one of three different glossing conditions respectively: no gloss, single gloss, and multiple-choice gloss, during a period of a month. According to subjects' English proficiency, each group was divided into two levels--high and low levels. Thus the experiment formed a 2*3 between-subjects design with students' proficiency and glossing types as twobetween-subjects factors. The results of the experiment showed that the main effect of glossing types is significant on the vocabulary retention test. Multiple-choice gloss was significantly better to help students learn unfamiliar words than single gloss, and single gloss was better than no gloss. Though the main effect of proficiency level was not significant on vocabulary retention, the interaction between glossing and proficiency level was significant. Three types of glossing have different effects on learners of different proficiency levels. Students with high proficiency level can take significantly better advantage of multiple-choice gloss to learn more unfamiliar words than those with low proficiency level. A questionnaire revealed that most students preferred multiple-choice gloss to both single gloss and no gloss.