The Effect Of Different Glossing Type On Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition In L2 Reading For Senior High School Students

As the most important part of the language,vocabulary has a close relationship with language acquisition and application.Second language learners regard reading as the main way for students to acquire vocabularies and they put forward the concept of incidental vocabulary acquisition,that is,students can acquire vocabularies incidentally in the process of reading for comprehension.It has been found that providing glosses for the new words of the reading passage can significantly improve the effect of incidental vocabulary acquisition.Therefore,plenty research has been made at home and abroad in the aspect of the language of gloss,the positions of gloss and the way of gloss.Most of the focus of the study,however,is put on the gloss of the single word,and the gloss of word collocations is always ignored.Thus,based on the Noticing Hypothesis,Input Enhancement and Comprehensible Input,this paper tries to find out the answers of the following questions.First,what are the effects of L1 gloss of word collocations and L1 gloss of individual words on learners’ incidental vocabulary acquisition in L2 reading?Second,what are the effects of L1 gloss of word collocations and L1 gloss of individual words on learners’ incidental vocabulary retention in L2 reading?In this study,96 first year senior high school students of Weibin High School of Baoji were selected as the subjects and they were grouped into three teams with the same passage glossed in three different conditions:no gloss,L1 gloss of individual words and L1 gloss of word collocations.One week before the experiment,all subjects were asked to take part in the vocabulary test,including 11 target words and 19 interfering words,to ensure that all target words were unknown to the subjects.In the experiment,five multiple-choice questions were placed after reading and subjects were asked to complete the previously unannounced vocabulary test immediately in order to know about students’ acquisition of incidental vocabulary.A week later,the same vocabulary test was carried out without prior notification to students to test vocabulary retention and after that the questionnaires were followed to know of the students’attitude towards different glossing types.By the end of the experiment,all the data was analyzed by SPSS software and the conclusion was drawn:the students in glossed groups,whether gloss of individual words or collocations,achieved better results than their counterparts in the no gloss group both in reading comprehension,vocabulary acquisition and retention,which proved the benefit of gloss on students’ vocabulary acquisition.Additionally,although there was no significant difference between the two glossing types from the results of reading comprehension test,the results of the immediate test showed that the students under the conditions of glossed collocations achieved better results.The results of the delayed posttest also showed that students receiving the glossed collocations still got the highest scores although vocabulary retention was obviously in decline.Hence,adopting the gloss of word collocations in L2 reading has a positive effect on vocabulary acquisition and retention.This study also gives some pedagogical implications for teachers,students as well as the reading material designers.For students,the reading materials with gloss of collocations for the new words are more conducive to the incidental vocabulary acquisition.For teachers,they should introduce the concepts and usage of incidental vocabulary acquisition to call for the students’ attention.Besides,teachers should help second language learners to choose the suitable reading materials,and design the related activities and exercises to promote the consolidation of the words that students acquired incidentally.Finally,the book editors should change the traditional glossing method for reading passages and try to provide glossed collocations for the new words,thus helping students to understand the main idea of the written text better and maximize the effect of vocabulary acquisition and retention.