The Effects Of Different Tasks On English Vocabulary Incidental Acquisition Through Listening

In recent years, studies on incidental vocabulary acquisition have been prosperous. Most of the studies have focused on vocabulary acquisition through reading. Few empirical studies were conducted through listening. Laufer and Hulstijn (2001) once have proposed the Involvement Load Hypothesis which based on the depth-of-processing Hypothesis, and claimed that Involvement load involved in each task might bring about positive effect on vocabulary incidental acquisition. The Involvement Load Hypothesis stated that word learning and retention were conditional upon a task's involvement load (the mount of need, search and evaluation). Thus, the study needs participants to finish three kinds of tasks with different involvement load and tries to find out the effects of different tasks on English incidental vocabulary acquisition as well as the relationship between vocabulary size and vocabulary incidental acquisition through listening.Three parallel classes of 100 English majors from a University in Jiangxi province participated in the experiment. Each class was assigned to perform one of three tasks through listening (listening plus true/false questions, listening plus compound dictation practice, listening plus sentence translation). All subjects were required to take a vocabulary test as the immediate posttest after finishing their tasks. Ten words as well as their Chinese equivalence should be written down after they heard the words. One week later, subjects were demanded to do the same vocabulary test but in different word order as in the immediate posttest. All the data were collected and analyzed after the treatment.The major findings in this study can be summarized as the following points: (1) the group with higher involvement load task usually produces better vocabulary incidental acquisition than that with lower involvement load. However, the differences are not significant. Thus, the results in the study just partially support the Involvement Load Hypothesis proposed by Laufer and Hulstijn (2001). (2) There are significant differences between large vocabulary size group and small vocabulary size on learners'vocabulary incidental acquisition. Information processing theory indicates that the capacity of human's brain is limited. If learners met many new words in the listening passage, they might have more difficulties to understand the passages and pay less attention to new words acquisition.The results of the study show some theoretical significance as well as pedagogical implication for vocabulary learning and teaching. The study provides empirical evidence for the Involvement Load Hypothesis proposed by Laufer and Hulstijn (2001). In addition, the study also shed some light for vocabulary learning and teaching. Firstly, teachers should explore appropriate listening tasks for different words. Secondly, enlarging learners'vocabulary size especially listening vocabulary helps learners acquire more new words through listening. Thirdly, fostering learners'positive attitude towards English learning especially listening is very important. Finally, word rehearsal practice is needed to consolidate the knowledge because of time effect.