The Effects Of Different Reading Tasks On Vocabulary Acquisition

The current study is an experiment about the effect of reading tasks on vocabulary acquisition under the framework of the Involvement Load Hypothesis proposed by Laufer and Hulstijn (2001). The basic assumption of the hypothesis is that whether the words can be well remembered or not depends on the amount of involvement load learners allocate to them and this load is made of three factors they are:need, search, and evaluation. Generally the higher the involvement load is the better and more effective the learning will be. The involvement hypothesis can be formalized and operationalised by designing tasks with different degrees and it has immense significance for building the vocabulary learning model. Nevertheless until now, there are not enough empirical studies to testify the truth of the assumption and the results have not reached the agreement. Besides, the definitions and measurement of three involvement components need to be further modified.To test and enrich the involvement hypothesis,133non-English sophomores from four parallel classes in City College, Wuhan University of Science and Technology took part in the experiment. Four reading tasks (reading comprehension and answering questions, reading and filling-in blanks, reading and finding the meanings of target words and reading and making sentences containing the target words) were designed and randomly assigned to the participants during regular class time. The experiment was conducted over a period of three weeks including a pretest, an immediate test, and a delayed test one week later after the treatment. The data were analyzed by SPSS13.0. The present study intends to address the following three research questions:1) Do reading tasks with different involvement loads have any effect on vocabulary acquisition?2) Do reading tasks with different involvement loads have any effect on vocabulary retention?3) Do reading tasks with the same involvement load have any effect on vocabulary acquisition?The results show that:reading tasks with different involvement loads have an impact on vocabulary acquisition, but the tasks with higher involvement load do not necessarily produce better learning effect and participants get higher scores in the immediate test which indicates that as time elapses, part of students’ vocabulary knowledge may be worn down. Besides with the same involvement load, the output task provides significantly better effect than input task. As many previous researches, the conclusions drawn from this study also only gives partial support to the Involvement Load Hypothesis.Based on the results, some suggestions on the reassessment of the involvement hypothesis, the teaching of English vocabulary and further research on vocabulary acquisition are proposed.