| The English Curriculum Standards for High Schools has set high requirements for English vocabulary learning. In terms of Level 8, the students are required to learn about 3,300 words and 400 to 500 expressions. This situation makes both teachers and students feel a great pressure. Therefore the traditional way of teaching and learning vocabulary must be changed and new methods should be explored to meet the challenge. Thus, the present author conducted an action research aiming at developing students'ability of incidental vocabulary learning, which means learning vocabulary while completing other tasks (eg. reading, singing English songs) without intentional study of words, yet learning them.The research is designed within the theoretical frameworks such as Comprehensible Input Hypothesis; Comprehensible Output Hypothesis; Lewis's chunk theory; the memory theory and theory of metacognitive strategies. The action researcher designed and carried out a number of actions which helped the students to use incidental word-learning strategies in reading. Meanwhile the researcher used qualitative methods such as interview, questionnaires and journal writing to collect information. The analysis of the collected information resulted in the following major findings:first, incidental vocabulary learning (indirect learning), if combined with the intentional vocabulary learning(direct learning), can achieve better results; second, strategies used to improve incidental vocabulary learning through reading have increased the students'perceived efficiency of vocabulary learning and reading as well; and third, development of incidental vocabulary learning ability has improved the students'English learning attitude and behavior, particularly in terms of vocabulary learning. Based on the results of the present study, the author makes some suggestions about vocabulary teaching and further study on application of incidental vocabulary learning in teaching practice.
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