Effects Of Different Forms Of Glosses On Junior School Students' Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition Through English Reading

Incidental vocabulary acquisition is now widely accepted as an important way of vocabulary learning.Up to now,almost all the researchers at home and abroad have confirmed that glosses do help incidental vocabulary acquisition.However,the focus of the relevant studies has been shifted from whether glosses can facilitate incidental vocabulary acquisition to which form of glosses is the most helpful to incidental vocabulary acquisition over the past decade or so.So far,there is no consistent conclusion on the study of the effects of different glossing languages on incidental vocabulary acquisition.This study aims to compare the effects of three forms of glosses on junior school students‘ incidental vocabulary acquisition as well as vocabulary retention in terms of short-term and long-term memory,and to find out whether there is any difference among different forms of glosses.Specifically speaking,it includes three research questions:(1)Which form of glosses(Chinese glosses,English glosses,or Chinese plus English glosses)is the most effective to junior school students‘ incidental vocabulary acquisition through English reading?(2)Which form of glosses is the most effective to junior school students‘ vocabulary retention?(3)How are junior school students satisfied with their corresponding form of glosses?100 students in Grade Eight from one of the middle schools in Hangzhou participated in the experiment.The participants were divided into four groups,namely Chinese glossing group,English glossing group,Chinese plus English glossing group,and no gloss group.All subjects were asked to read the same English passage but with different forms of glosses and then finish the reading comprehension test.After that,they received an immediate vocabulary test and then one week later,they received a delayed vocabulary test,a questionnaire and some of them received an interview.SPSS 19.0 is adopted in this study for data analysis.Based on the results of the two vocabulary tests,the questionnaire as well as the interview,following conclusions can be drawn:(1)the Chinese plus English glosses are the most effective to vocabulary acquisition in terms of short-term memory,followed by the Chinese glosses,and then the English glosses,but there is no significant difference among them;(2)the Chinese glosses are the most effective to vocabulary retention in terms of long-term memory,followed by the Chinese plus English glosses,and then the English glosses,and there is significant difference between Chinese glosses and English glosses;(3)compared with the other groups,junior school students from Chinese plus English glossing group are the most satisfied with their glosses.There are both theoretical significance and practical significance of this study.First,this study proves the practicability of incidental vocabulary acquisition again.Besides,it offers some useful suggestions for both vocabulary teaching and vocabulary learning.As for the limitations of the subjects,the procedures,and the materials in this research,the author also offers some suggestions for the further studies in this area.