A Study On Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition Through Reading For Non English Major Students

Vocabulary learning is a key part of the language learning. Incidental VocabularyAcquisition means that when engaging in some language activities, learners pay attention to theunderstanding of meanings and the information of speech, as a result, they accidentally acquirethe vocabulary in this process. In recent years, Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition has become afield of research which scholars at home and abroad are very concerned about. However, thereis still not a comprehensive study of influence of different teaching methods on incidentalvocabulary acquisition, especially for the effect of Form-Focused Instruction (FFI) onincidental vocabulary acquisition. And so far, the domestic researches of the effect of FFI onincidental vocabulary acquisition are still not clear and complete. Therefore, the paper, based onInvolvement Load Hypothesis, Noticing Theory, Depth of Processing Hypothesis, Architectureof Cognition Theory and Output Hypothesis, gives an empirical research on incidentalvocabulary acquisition through English reading for non-English major students.FFI includes two major types: Focus on Form (FonF) and Focus on Forms (FonFs). FonFwas defined by Long(1991) as “drawing students attention to linguistic elements as they ariseincidentally in lessons whose overriding focus is on meaning or communication”; According toEllis (2001), in a FonFs approach, students regard the language as the goal of study to learn andexercise discrete vocabulary in non-communicative, non-authentic language tasks.This paper aims to answer the following questions：1. Do FonF and FonFs in FFI have effects on incidental vocabulary acquisition throughreading?2. For FonF or FonFs in FFI, which type can improve the retention of the target words?In the experiment, seventy non-English majors of freshmen from Arts and Science Collegeof Bohai University in Jinzhou are selected as subjects. The70subjects from two classes arerandomly assigned to read in two conditions: in FonF，students are required to finish readingtask with the help of dictionary and teacher; in FonFs, students need to finish reading task withthe help of dictionary, and finally target words exercises should be finished. Time on two taskswas kept identical in the two conditions. Then the two classes were required to take testsrespectively----an immediate test, as well as two delayed tests one week and two later on toexamine the acquisition and retention rate of target words. The data in the experiment wereanalyzed through SPSS19.0. The major findings are summarized as follows:Both two classes can acquire vocabulary incidentally, therefore, FonF and FonFs in FFIhave effects on incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading; FonFs type can improve retention of the target words much better than FonF type.The result shows a certain theoretical and practical significance in college Englishvocabulary teaching.