Based On The Assumption Of High School Students In Volume English Vocabulary The Incidental Acquisition Research

Incidental acquisition is one of the top issues in vocabulary acquisition these days. Language learners can learn new words more or less incidentally while cultivating the different basic language skills. However high school students still mainly learn a language in reading. Then which task is the most efficient means in incidental vocabulary acquisition deserves our further study.To further verify the Involvement Load Hypothesis proposed by Laufer & Hulstijin(2001), this study adopts four reading tasks, namely, copying sentences with target words, blank filling, translation and making sentences, and gives 154 first year students in high school the immediate posttest and delayed posttest. Based on former empirical study of Involvement Load Hypothesis, we cancelled the multiple-choice, and added the copying sentences and translation tasks. After the quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis, we find the result of Independent Sample T test, Paired Sample T test and One-way ANOVA analysis doesn't follow the Involvement Load Hypothesis completely. Some refinements should be made on the involvement load index. The four reading tasks just have significant differences in the delayed posttest. Making sentences is the most efficient means in incidental vocabulary acquisition for high school students, followed by blank filling. And compared to translation, copying is another way for high school students to learn English vocabulary incidentally. Finally, some suggestions are given to vocabulary teaching in high school.