A Case Study Of Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition Based On Information Processing Model

The issue of vocabulary learning has been attracting the attention of most teachers and scholars. Incidental vocabulary acquisition, a method designed to help students acquire vocabulary, has been tested by previous studies which prove its effectiveness but also discover its deficiency. The theory of information processing model (IPM) sheds new light on vocabulary teaching and learning, and is expected to make up for the deficiency of the incidental vocabulary acquisition. The application of IPM in SLA can be identified as the process of helping the input, storage and output of the information. In the incidental vocabulary acquisition based on IPM, the input enhancement and output tasks are two commonly used forms to trigger the noticing of input and further processing of the noticed input.The purpose of the case study, which was conducted on four senior high school students and which lasted for9weeks, is to examine the effectiveness of incidental vocabulary acquisition based on the information processing model. The first seven weeks constitute learning session. According to the IPM, every week the four students were provided with some reading materials with target words textually enhanced and glossed with the purpose to attract the students’ attention to the target words, thus promoting the processing of the input and the further conversion of input into intake. After they finished reading the materials, the students were asked to do some reading comprehension tasks and blank-filling and translation tasks with the target words, tasks designed to help the students focus on the comprehension of the reading materials, and gain deep processing of the target words. The output tasks can facilitate the transition of the short-term memory to the long-term memory of the target words and thus the acquisition of the incidental vocabulary was achieved. Retention of the target words was tested during the7th week and in a delayed post-test during the9th week.The results demonstrated the positive impact of the incidental vocabulary acquisition based on IPM on the noticing and retention of the target words. Quantitative and Qualitative analyses of the VKS tests showed that this kind of vocabulary instruction was quite effective in terms of the short term memory of the target words, and the effectiveness lasted to a great extent for two weeks. A questionnaire and an interview investigated the students’ attitudes towards this teaching method. The findings discovered that students thought that this teaching method was facilitative in the noticing and comprehension of the target words, and thus helpful in students’ short-term memory of them. The interview also focused on the students’ direct memorizing strategy use during the learning session. The findings of the interview ruled out the impact of the students’ memorizing strategy use on the result of the experiment, and thus proved the effectiveness of the teaching method based on the IPM. The findings offer some guidance for vocabulary teaching.