The Effect Of The Combinations Of Incidental And Intentional Learning On Junior High School Students' Vocabulary Learning

Vocabulary is the cornerstone of language.As Wilkins(1972)said,“Without grammar,little can be conveyed;without vocabulary,nothing can be conveyed.” In the field of second language acquisition,vocabulary acquisition occupies a significant position.However,the survey shows that vocabulary learning is one of the weakest aspects in English learning for Chinese middle school students,and vocabulary size has become the most important factor restricting English learning.Enlarging the vocabulary size is the basis for improving their English proficiency.Therefore,effective vocabulary acquisition is particularly important for junior high school students.In recent years,incidental vocabulary acquisition and intentional learning have attracted much attention.A large number of studies have shown that incidental vocabulary acquisition is an effective way of vocabulary acquisition.And intentional learning as a supplementary way can improve the attention and understanding of the target words,then promoting vocabulary acquisition.Thus,the appeal for combining incidental and intentional learning came into existence.The present study explored the effectiveness of the combinations of incidental and intentional learning on improving junior high school students' vocabulary learning and further investigated the comparative superiority between the two combined patterns.It mainly includes the following two questions:(1)Is the combination of incidental and intentional learning more effective than incidental learning alone in improving junior high school students' vocabulary achievement? If the answer is yes,which pattern of the combinations is better?(2)Do the combinations of incidental and intentional learning bring better vocabulary retention after a week? If the answer is yes,which pattern of the combinations is better?In the present study,participants were 103 students from three parallel classes with similar English proficiency in a middle school in Guiyang.They were divided into three groups,and after reading the same passage,each group carried out a different reading task.Then,all the participants were tested the recall of 10 target words in immediate test and delayed test one-week later by modified Vocabulary Knowledge Scale.Finally,the collected data were analyzed by SPSS statisticalsoftware.The results of the study showed that:(1)students who received the combined learning modes significantly outperformed those who received incidental learning alone in terms of immediate vocabulary gains.Furthermore,among the two patterns of the combined learning modes,reading plus sentence making is superior to reading plus vocabulary exercises,which has a better effect on vocabulary acquisition.(2)In delayed test,the combined learning modes were still more effective.Compared with reading plus vocabulary exercises,reading plus sentence making achieved better vocabulary retention.The conclusions of this study provide some pedagogical implications for junior high school students' vocabulary learning teaching.The teachers can adopt combined learning modes in vocabulary teaching.Teachers can also encourage students to read English books to expand their vocabulary,and consciously design vocabulary exercises to help students improve their vocabulary learning efficiency.