| Narrow reading was firstly proposed by Krashen in 1981,and it referred to reading a series of articles sharing the same topic or the same author.Previous studies on incidental vocabulary acquisition and retention focused mainly on the acquisition and retention of single words rather than lexical chunks.The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of narrow reading on incidental acquisition and retention of lexical chunks for senior high school students.The significance of this study lies in:enriching and expanding the theory of narrow reading and incidental vocabulary acquisition;improving the learning interests and motivation of learners;and providing teachers with effective vocabulary teaching methods to assist teaching.This study addresses the following questions:(1)What effects does narrow reading have on senior high school students’ incidental acquisition of lexical chunks?(2)what effects does narrow reading have on senior high school students’ retention of lexical chunks?In this study,106 fresh students enrolled in a senior high school were selected as research participants.The participants were from two intact classes.The class of 50 students was assigned to be the narrow reading group and that of 56 students was assigned to be the control group.Before the experiment,the researchers selected six target lexical chunks and the main text,and then examined whether participants were familiar with the target lexical chunks in the pretest.The participants of the narrow reading group were required to do narrow reading and they had to read 4 texts with the same topic,including the main text.On the other hand,the participants of the control group were asked to do extensive reading and they had to read 4 texts with different topics,including the main text.This study conducted three vocabulary post-tests,including an immediate post-test and two delayed post-tests.The immediate post-test was performed right after the treatment,the first delayed post-test was performed one week after the end of the treatment,and the second delayed post-test was performed two weeks after the treatment.The three post-tests shared the same examination questions but the order of questions was different.The question types of tests included:C-E translation,sentence production,E-C translation,and gap-filling.After all the tests,the researchers collected and analyzed the data by SPSS 19.0.The major findings retrieved from the present study are as follows:To begin with,narrow reading could be more beneficial to both receptive and productive lexical chunk acquisition for senior high school students than extensive reading.In the receptive and productive tests,the narrow reading group got higher mean scores and performed better in comparison with the extensive reading group in both isolation and context;there existed statistical differences between the two groups in both tests.The reason can be that narrow reading provided similar background knowledge and recurrent lexical chunks for students,which conquered the barriers in reading and promote students’confidence and motivation.Besides,narrow reading could also be more favorable to both receptive and productive lexical chunk retention for senior high school students than extensive reading.In four receptive and productive lexical chunk retention tests,on the one hand,compared with the acquisition tests,both the narrow reading group and the extensive reading group gained lower mean scores in isolation and context.However,on the other hand,students of the narrow reading group got higher mean scores and performed better comparing with those of the extensive reading group in isolation and context.There also existed statistical differences between the two groups in the tests.That is to say,regardless of memory loss,narrow reading still had a positive effect not only on acquiring the meaning and usage of target lexical chunks,but also on keeping and reserving these lexical chunks. |
