The Effects Of Reading Task Types On Incidental English Vocabulary Acquisition For Junior Middle School Students

The importance of vocabulary learning is paid much attention in the process of language learning. Many teachers and researchers believe that vocabulary is the basis of language learning and vocabulary acquisition has a great effect on language learning. But learners benefit less and less from the intentional learning, such as memorizing words, or reciting word lists. Many researchers maintain that most of the language learners acquire vocabulary incidentally. Researchers have carried out many researches on incidental acquisition, which explicitly showed various factors might affect incidental acquisition and some of them proved that reading based on tasks could enhance vocabulary acquisition. Laufer and Hulstijin(2001) put forward the “Involvement Load Hypothesis”, with the theory from the perspective of cognitive psychology to explain the vocabulary acquisition with three kinds of psychological state explained and quantified by Involvement Load: need,search and evaluation. The basic assumption is that the more Involvement Load, the more incidental vocabulary acquisition.On the basis of the above research, this study used empirical research method to further verify effects of reading tasks as well as effects of internal factors of involvement load on incidental vocabulary acquisition based on the same involvement load.Research questions can be summarized as follow: 1 Do different reading task types(input task, input and output task or output task) under the identical involvement load exert different effects on junior middle school students’ incidental English vocabulary retention in the immediate test? 2 Do different reading task types under the identical involvement load exert different effects on junior middle school student’incidental English vocabulary retention in the delayed test? 3: Which task among three tasks with the identical involvement load has the best effect on junior middle school students’ retention of incidental English vocabulary acquisition? One hundred and twenty students coming from three intact classes of Grade 2 in Dunhuang Huangqu Junior Middle School are chosen as subjects.They were divided into three groups, with each group consisting of 40 participants, and did three different tasks at the same time: Task 1. Read materials and cloze(input task). In this task, index of need is 1(the task is assigned by one of the teachers), search is 1( target word for multiple Chinese notes), and evaluation is 1( fill in blanks with target words). The index of involvement load in the first task is 3. Task 2. Read materials and answer the questions(input and output task). In this task, the index of need is 1(the task is assigned by one of the teachers), search is 1( target word for multiple Chinese notes),and evaluation is 1(the question are linked to the target words) The index of involvement load in the second task is 3. Task 3, Read materials and make sentences with the target words(output task) In this task, the index of need is 1(the task is assigned by one of the teachers), search is 0(target words noted by Chinese),evaluation 2(make sentences with the target words).The index of involvement load in the second task is 3. After the completion of the task, participants are asked to take immediate test. A week later, a delay test is carried out.The order of target words in the delayed test is adjusted so as not to be influenced by the immediate test.This experiment adopts SPSS16.0 software to analyze data, its results are presented as follows: 1 Three task types with the same involvement load do not have the influence on incidental vocabulary acquisition in the immediate test. 2 Different reading task types under the identical involvement load exert different effects on incidental English vocabulary acquisition in the delayed test though the mean scores of each task decline. The effects of the input task on incidental English vocabulary acquisition are more favorable than that of the input and output task, with the output task performing best. 3 With the same involvement load, the words in the output task remain the best among the three tasks from the immediate test to the delayed test, with the retention of target words in the input task better than that in the input and output task.Through empirical method, this research gives a lot of enlightenment to English vocabulary learning and teaching practically and theoretically, teachers should attach importance to students’ English reading process in reading, elaborate design of reading tasks, and especially focus on evaluation factor with the same involvement load so that they can master vocabulary effectively. Additionally, teachers should teach students some reading strategies by combining intentional and incidental learning together to help them accumulate vocabulary.