A Study On The Effects Of Different Collaborative Output Tasks On Field Independent/Field Dependent Learners' Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition

Many studies in the field of second language acquisition(shortened as SLA)have suggested that some appropriate output interventions in the process of second language learning could effectively promote second language incidental vocabulary acquisition.Collaborative output task is one important reading enhancement activity.Most studies on SLA discussed the influence of individual difference on vocabulary acquisition.As one important type of individual difference,cognitive style is a hot topic,but few studies verified the relationship between reading enhancement task types and cognitive styles.This paper aims to investigate the effects of collaborative oral output and collaborative written output on field independent and field dependent learners' incidental vocabulary acquisition.According to the research purpose,this paper mainly answers the following questions:1)What is the effect of collaborative oral or written output on field independent and field dependent learners' receptive vocabulary acquisition and retention?2)What is the effect of collaborative oral or written output on field independent and field dependent learners' productive vocabulary acquisition and retention?In this thesis,120 freshmen majoring in English from DLUFL participated in the study.Altogether 163 students had taken part in the cognitive style test before the main experiment and were classified into field dependent,field independent and field transitional learners.The field independent and field dependent students were respectively divided into collaborative oral output group and collaborative written output group randomly.Each group was asked to read a material and then to finish their respective collaborative output tasks.After the treatment,they took the receptive and productive vocabulary immediate posttest and two weeks later,the delayed posttest was arranged.The data were analyzed by SPSS 17.0.In addition,semi-structured interview was employed to collect data and both quantitative.Hence,qualitative research methods were involved in this paper.The major findings include: 1)There is no difference between the effect of collaborative oral output and collaborative written output on field independent learners' receptive acquisition and retention.Collaborative written output performs significantly better than collaborative oral output on field dependent learners' receptive vocabulary acquisition and retention.Meanwhile,field independent learners have significantly better performance in collaborative oral output task,but no significant difference exists between the two groups with different cognitive styles in collaborative written output task.2)Collaborative written output has a significant effect on field independent and field dependent learners' productive vocabulary acquisition.There's no significant difference between the effects of collaborative oral output and written output tasks on FI and FD learners' productive vocabulary retention.Moreover,field independent learners outperformed field dependent ones significantly on their productive vocabulary acquisition and retention.As discussed above,FI and FD learners may gain different language achievements in different collaborative output tasks.Therefore,teachers should adopt different teaching strategies for students with different cognitive styles in practical teaching.Students should employ collaborative output activities actively to learn vocabulary.Since collaborative written output task is more effective in terms of FD learners' vocabulary acquisition,more collaborative written output tasks could be assigned after reading so as to enhance the effect of incidental vocabulary acquisition.Moreover,field dependent students are less affected by collaborative output than field independent ones.Thus,teachers should provide extra help for them in order to create a teaching environment which is suitable for different students.