A Comparative Study On The Effect Of Explicit Teaching Method And Incidental Teaching Method On Fifth Grade Students’ Vocabulary Retention Through Picture-Book Reading

Picture-book reading is an important way to promote vocabulary retention,especially for L2 learners at the early stage.The teaching methods for vocabulary retention mainly include explicit teaching method(ETM)and incidental teaching method(ITM),but the current research on vocabulary retention of the two teaching methods mainly focuses on middle school and college English teaching.There are few comparative studies combining picture book reading with the two teaching methods at the elementary school level.In view of this,the purpose of this study is to investigate and compare the effects of explicit and incidental teaching methods on vocabulary retention for fifth grade students through picture book reading.This study is divided into three stages,Teaching one small story comprises a stage,each stage lasting four weeks.After each stage of intervention,three post-tests were delivered immediately and then the Vocabulary Knowledge Scale was used to test vocabulary reservation.This study employed both quantitative method and qualitative method.The quantitative data was conducted through the pre-tests and post-tests of students’vocabulary retention.Qualitative research was implemented through the author’s teaching journals and sentences,short stories,poems and written discussions created by the students.The results of the quantitative data through SPSS indicate that students in ETM group yield higher scores than those in the ITM group.In terms of qualitative data interpretation,the main data sources were the sentences and short stories written by students in the ETM group and the poems,written discussions,and the author’s teaching journals written by the students in the ITM group.This study uses the "line-by-line" and "a coding method".The results of the qualitative data show that,compared with the incidental teaching method,the explicit teaching method is more beneficial for students’ vocabulary retention.The explicit teaching method is also influential on what they have learned in activities such as writing stories and writing short poems,and their ability to apply them to different learning activities.From the results of quantitative and qualitative data analyses,it can be seen that explicit teaching method is more effective for fifth Grade students’ vocabulary retention through picture book reading.The teaching method combining picture book reading and explicit teaching method is more conducive for students to understand and memorize vocabulary.The results of this study have significant impacts on vocabulary teaching in basic foreign language teaching.In practical teaching,teachers can utilize explicit teaching methods and picture book reading to help students remember and maintain vocabulary,and help students use new vocabulary through corresponding teaching activities.