Different Vocabulary Presentation Modes On The Acquisition Of English Vocabulary Knowledge For Senior High School Students

As is well known, vocabulary is extremely important for language learning. And the most majority of the vocabulary learned in senior high school is the core vocabulary of English, Therefore, the study on how to present English vocabulary efficiently is of great practical significance.Based on the theories of Levels of Processing Model by Craik(1972) and Vanpatten’s(1990) Information Processing Model, the present research explores the effect of different vocabulary presentation modes on the acquisition of vocabulary knowledge for the senior high school students. With appropriate presentation modes, vocabulary acquisition could be facilitated significantly. Based on the review of related empirical studies at home and abroad, as well as the current situation of vocabulary teaching in senior high school, three specific vocabulary presentation modes(word list presentation mode, exemplar-based presentation mode and task-based presentation mode) arouse author’s interest. Therefore, two research questions are involved in this study: 1) what effect does each vocabulary presentation mode have on the breadth of vocabulary knowledge acquisition? 2) What effect does each vocabulary presentation mode have on the depth of vocabulary knowledge acquisition?To discuss the research questions, an experiment was conducted. 96 participants in this study are from three parallel classes in Grade 2 in Liuzhou TieYi High School. They all have the same language proficiency and vocabulary size before the experimental treatment. Participants in the three experimental group received word list presentation mode, exemplar-based presentation mode, and task-based presentation mode respectively. Before the treatment, a pretest was done. After the treatment, an immediate posttest, a delayed posttest, and an interview were carried out. 5 students in each experimental group were interviewed to know their attitude towards the three vocabulary presentation modes. The data from the experiment were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. By comparing the results of one pretest and two posttests from three different modes of vocabulary presentation, the following findings were obtained:1) For the breadth of vocabulary knowledge, learners in word list and exemplar-based vocabulary presentation groups performed better than learners in task-based vocabulary presentation group in the immediate dictation test. While the delayed posttest outcome suggests that task-based vocabulary presentation mode can better facilitate the long-term memory of the vocabulary knowledge in breadth.2) For the depth of vocabulary knowledge, the experimental data in both the immediate and delayed posttests proves that the exemplar-based and the task-based methods, especially the task-based vocabulary presentation mode can better improve the leaner’s vocabulary acquisition in depth. It is because students in the exemplar-based and task-based groups are encouraged to extract the vocabulary knowledge from the instances presented by teachers or themselves. In task-based vocabulary presentation group, the discussion between peer learners and the feedback from teachers can help learners internalize the vocabulary knowledge. In a word, the task-based vocabulary presentation mode is more helpful and beneficial for word learning and retention.