Effect Of Narrow Reading On The Junior High School Students' Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition

Although vocabulary learning plays a significant role in any kind of language learning,students generally regard vocabulary learning as a burden in English learning.In view of the importance of vocabulary learning,it is necessary to explore effective teaching methods.Narrow reading refers to reading on the same topic,books by the same author,and in the same genre.This study applies the narrow reading strategy to English teaching in junior high school and the purpose of this study is to explore the effects of narrow reading strategy on incidental vocabulary acquisition in junior high school students.The study is based on the input hypothesis and the schema theory.The researcher hopes to provide some useful suggestions for junior high school students in English vocabulary acquisition.The study aims at exploring the two questions:(1)Does narrow reading have effect on junior high school students' incidental vocabulary acquisition in English learning? If yes,in which aspects(meaning recognition,usage,spelling and word form)does such effect mainly reflects?(2)Can narrow reading enhance junior high school students' interest in vocabulary learning ? In this experiment,40 students from a junior high school were selected as subjects.The 40 students were divided into two groups: the experimental group and the control group,with 20 students in each group.The two groups used different reading methods for ten weeks of teaching experiments.A questionnaire survey on vocabulary learning strategies was conducted before the experiment to learn about their studies and then a pre-test was implemented to determine the target words.The post-test was carried out in the eighth week,and the delayed test was done one week later.The aim was to test the effects of vocabulary memory and retention,and then to research by comparing with four aspects of meaning recognition,usage,spelling and word form.All the data collected from the experiment were analyzed by SPSS 17.0,and the results were shown as following:1.Narrow reading strategy has a significant effect on improving the English vocabulary learning of junior high school students,especially on the meaning recognition,usage and spelling.However,in terms of vocabulary form test,there was little difference between the two methods,and the effect of narrow reading was not obvious.2.Junior high school students have enhanced their interest in vocabulary learning and are willing to try this method to some extent through narrow reading.In view of the above research,narrow reading has a positive effect on junior high school students' incidental vocabulary acquisition,and learners are more likely to master the meaning,usage and spelling of words through narrow reading.In the future English teaching,teachers may try to assist junior high school students to learn English vocabulary through narrow reading.Students can choose narrow reading materials according to their interest.Textbook editors should design narrow reading materials as optional reading according to the topic of each unit and enhance the repetition rate of key words.