The Effects Of Different Reading Task Types And Word Occurrence On The Incidental L2Vocabulary Acquisition

Vocabulary learning has always been one of the most difficult parts in Chinese students" English learning. So second language incidental vocabulary acquisition is the area of interest home and abroad in recent years. In the past two decades, a great number of researches have been conducted to look into the factors that may influence incidental vocabulary acquisition during L2reading. One of the questions researchers arguing is how many exposures are needed for a word to ensure its acquisition. However, there is no agreement on this issue.Besides, Studies have shown that different task types have different effect on incidental vocabulary acquisition. The more involvement load, the better vocabulary acquisition.The present study is to examine how long-term retention of new words was affected by task type, number of word occurrences in the reading materials and the combination of the two factors. The study aims to solve the next three research questions:1) Is there a significant difference in the number of retained words between two task conditions, reading a text followed by a target-word blank-filling activity and summary-writing, and reading a text with a summary-writing activity, when the number of encounters with the words is identical in the two task conditions?2) Is there a significant difference among the three’number of encounters’conditions:2-3.4-5.6-7in the number of the retained words in each task?3) How do the different combinations of number of encounters and task type compare to each other regarding word retention?The tasks were:reading a text with target words blank-filling and writing a summary (task1) and reading a text and writing a summary (task2). The words occurred2-3.4-5, and6-7times. Subjects were exposed to18target words.6words in each condition during a6-week course of study. Two classes, i.e. Class A and Class B. were involved in the experiment, with a population of36and43respectively. Class A read the text with task1and Class B with task2.From the experimental data, we can draw the following conclusions:Firstly, the subjects do have gained vocabulary after reading; Secondly, different task types can yield different effects on immediate vocabulary acquisition and word retention. On the whole, tasks that require more efforts result in better vocabulary acquisition. In addition, tasks concerning blank-filling after reading text with marginal glosses are much more productive than those concerning reading the same text with a permission to dictionary use but without marginal glosses.Thirdly, word exposure frequency exerts an impact on the acquisition of words. In the same task type, the more frequent the learner encounters a word, the more likely he or she is to acquire it.Last but not least, considering the first two findings, it is not difficult for us to come to a conclusion that6-7times’encounter and task concerning blank-filling after reading text with marginal glosses is a best combination as for the retention of retained words.Based on the above conclusions, some pedagogical implications have been made as follows:Firstly, since words can be acquired during reading, as an instructor and guidance, the teacher should guide and encourage students to do extensive reading in their spare time so as to expand their vocabulary, which is proved to be an effective way to remember words. At the same time, the difficulty of the texts and the number of words should also be taken into consideration in the selection or recommendation of reading materials.The second and the third point are meant for the book compilers. In the design of workbooks for the students, more definition-supplying exercises can be provided at the end of a reading text in order that the students can check themselves whether they have grasped the word or not.Thirdly, the results and conclusions may also provide some implications to the compiling of reading materials. As the results from the present study show that word exposure frequency has a substantial influence on vocabulary acquisition. Therefore, the compilers can mediate the exposure frequency of novel words in a text so as to enable students to learn as many words as possible. And the reoccurrence of words will reinforce the knowledge of those words they met before.Last but not least, as the first task type outperforms the second task type, the workbook compilers had better design more activities that entail more involvement load for learners to review and to consolidate the new words and thus yield better vocabulary learning results.