Effects Of Lexical Elaboration On Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition By Junior High School Students

It is well known that vocabulary is an essential component of language learning and teaching,so vocabulary acquisition has been hotly discussed in the field of second language acquisition.Many researchers have demonstrated that second language learners can gain vocabulary knowledge incidentally through reading.Compared with traditional vocabulary teaching method,incidental vocabulary acquisition is more effective.And the studying of it enriches our understanding of vocabulary acquisition,and also brings fresh air to vocabulary teaching.A lot of researchers advocate that reading promotes incidental vocabulary acquisition,and they prove that there are many factors influencing incidental vocabulary acquisition such as word repetition,topic familiarity,English proficiency,different learning strategies and so on.As an important influencing factor,lexical modification(lexical simplification and lexical elaboration)has been examined by a lot of researchers.The results indicate that lexical simplification can not trigger vocabulary learning but that lexical elaboration has a positive influence.Another point worthy of note is that the majority of the studies focus on the acquisition of meaning,while a few studies try to investigate other aspects of word knowledge.As for the experimental subject,most of the subjects of the previous studies are advanced EFL learners.There are few studies to examine the effectiveness of incidental vocabulary acquisition among intermediate EFL learners.Based on previous studies and theories,this study aims at investigating the effects of lexical elaboration on incidental vocabulary acquisition when reading a passage for comprehension among 84 junior high school students who are native Chinese speakers and examining whether lexical elaboration enhanced knowledge of spelling,meaning and collocation of the target words.This study aims at testifying three questions:(1)Is lexical elaboration contribute to junior high school students’ incidental vocabulary acquisition?(2)What are the effects of lexical elaboration on three aspects of word knowledge:spelling,meaning and collocation?(3)What is the degree of students’vocabulary retention in the delayed test two weeks later?To do the study,an experiment was conducted in Shaanxi Tongchuan Number Five Middle School.Two versions of experimental texts containing 8 target words were created:the baseline and the elaborated versions.The experiment was conducted in two classes and lasted for about two weeks.The participants in the elaborated group read the lexically elaborated reading passage and the baseline group read the authentic reading passage.All of the participants were asked to do the same reading comprehension task,and after reading comprehension the reading material was withdrew.Right after the students finished the reading comprehension task,three vocabulary tests,i.e.,a form-recognition test,a meaning-recognition test and a collocation test,were used to measure incidental vocabulary acquisition.After two weeks,the same participants were asked to do the delayed incidental vocabulary acquisition test.The major findings can be summarized as follows:(1)junior high school students can learn vocabulary through reading incidentally,and lexical elaboration has a positive effect on incidental vocabulary acquisition;(2)compared with different aspects of word knowledge,spelling is strongly enhanced,and meaning and collocation knowledge are also enhanced,but not to the same extent;(3)the results of the delayed vocabulary test reveals that the vocabulary knowledge has been largely forgotten by the participants.However,compared with the baseline group,the participants reading the elaborated passage get a better result in retention of the words.Based on the results,some pedagogical implications are proposed.Finally,the author points out the limitations of the present study and also puts forward some suggestions for the future studies.