The Effectiveness Of Incidental Learning Plus Explicit Instruction In Senior School English Vocabulary Acquisition

The present study, from the perspective of acquisition of the form-meaning link,aims to explore the effectiveness of combination of incidental learning from readingand explicit vocabulary instruction and seeks to answer three research questions:(1) Does incidental learning from reading plus explicit instruction (Read-Plus)have more positive effect on vocabulary learning than incidental learning alone(Read-Only)?(2) Are salient target words more effective in facilitating vocabulary learningthan non-salient ones in both Read-Only and Read-Plus conditions?(3) To what extent do Read-Only and Read-Plus input conditions promoteacquisition of mastery of the form-meaning link at levels of form recall, meaningrecall, and meaning recognition?In this study, a409-word passage was chosen as the reading material in terms ofthe text length, content and syntactic complexity. Sixteen words were selected as thetarget items, and then they were divided into Read-Only and Read-Plus groups, whichwere subdivided into salient and non-salient word groups in terms of the vocabularylength and part of speech. Subjects chosen for the experiment are35second yearstudents from Class Five in High School Attached to Shanghai Normal University, andthey all took part in the three vocabulary tests which were designed to assessmastery of the form-meaning link of target words immediately and after a two-weekdelay. After analyzing the collected data by SPSS, the following results are found:(1) The Read-Plus approach does have more positive effect on vocabularylearning from reading than Read-Only approach both in the immediate and delayedtest. Moreover, it is found that there is more attrition of meaning recognition in theRead-Plus condition, and thus calls for more participation of repetition and practicein meaning recognition knowledge.(2) Salient words are more effective in facilitating vocabulary learning in some ofthe three levels (form recall, meaning recall, and meaning recognition) thannon-salient ones in both Read-Only and Read-Plus conditions. In the Read-Only condition, salient words can promote vocabulary acquisition in knowledge ofmeaning recall and meaning recognition; while in the Read-Plus condition, salientwords can only facilitate learning of meaning recall knowledge.(3) The three levels of form-meaning mastery of the Read-Only and Read-Plusinput conditions do have different effect on vocabulary learning in both theimmediate and delayed test. In three out of four cases, the subjects perform betterwith knowledge of meaning recall and meaning recognition, while knowledge of formrecall is learned the poorest.According to the results and findings of the study, the pedagogical implicationstogether with some suggestions for further research are presented in the lastchapter.