Research On The Effect Of The Language Of Gloss And The Position Of Gloss On Senior High School Students' Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition Through Reading In English

Vocabulary acquisition is a crucial part to be broken through in boosting the efficiency and proficiency in second language learning.National English Curriculum Standards for General High Schol(2018)has also presented concrete requirements on vocabulary learning.Apart from intentional learning,researchers have also focused on incidental vocabulary acquisition(IVA),but there is still room left to be investigated concerning the effect of the language of gloss and the position of gloss on incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading.The present study sets out to investigate the effect of the language of gloss and the position of gloss on senior high school students' incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading in English and the research questions are as follows:1.What are the main effects of the language of gloss and the position of gloss on senior high school students' IVA through reading in English?2.What is the interaction effect of the language of gloss and the position of gloss on senior high school students' IVA through reading in English?3.What are the retention effects of the language of gloss and the position of gloss on senior high school students'IVA through reading in English?To answer the questions above,Vocabulary Size Test was first conducted to select students with a vocabulary size between 2000 and 3000 from two science classes.Eighty-one students recruited from the two classes were divided into four groups and they were afterwards given a reading text with different types of glosses:Chinese marginal gloss,English marginal gloss,Chinese end-of-page gloss and English end-of-page gloss.Following two pilots experiments,a main experiment was conducted taking Vocabulary Knowledge Scale as the post-test instrument.After reading the texts in different glossed conditions,the subjects were given an immediate post-test without being informed,followed by an unexpected delayed post-test.Twelve subjects were also interviewed.The whole process lasted for four weeks.The scores of the post-tests were collected and afterwards analyzed and the results showed that:1.There was a significant main effect of the language of gloss and the Chinese gloss performed significantly better than the English gloss on senior high school students' IVA through reading in English.More than half of the interviewees were also in favor of the Chinese gloss,claiming it is more straightforward,impressive and time-saving.There was no significant main effect of the position of gloss on senior high school students' IVA through reading in English,but the marginal gloss performed relatively better than the end-of-page gloss.Most interviewees also showed their preference to the marginal gloss,claiming that it is more convenient to consult to the gloss in the margin and that it is more noticeable.2.The interaction effect of the language of gloss and the position of gloss on senior high school students' IVA through reading in English was not significant.This might result from the different effects of the language of gloss and the position of gloss.3.The scores of the subjects given reading texts with the Chinese gloss and the English gloss both declined sharply in the delayed post-test,but the Chinese gloss had a significantly better retention effect than the English gloss.The scores of the subjects referring to the marginal gloss and the end-of-page gloss both declined significantly in the delayed post-test,but the marginal gloss had a relatively better retention effect than the end-of-page gloss.Given those findings,when selecting and editing reading materials,teachers,students and editors or compilers should choose a more proper type of language of gloss and position of gloss to promote students' incidental acquisition of vocabulary through reading in English.