| Vocabulary is the essential component of language learning and the basis on which all the language activities can be conducted. How to improve vocabulary ability and acquire words effectively is significant for Chinese learners of English. After Nagy, Herman and Anderson (1985) put forward their incidental vocabulary acquisition hypothesis, more and more researchers began to show a great interest in this field. Previous studies claim that incidental vocabulary acquisition is an effective way to help build vocabulary, but few studies explore the influence of gloss types on the incidental vocabulary acquisition of high school students. This paper focuses on the effect of gloss types on the incidental vocabulary acquisition of the students in Senior Grade Two from Bing Tuan No.2 Middle School. The English text annotated with multiple-choice gloss and single gloss is adopted to investigate which gloss type is more effective. This paper takes depth of processing theory and task-induced involvement hypothesis as the theoretical explanations. The results from data analysis show that multiple-choice gloss has a better effect on incidental vocabulary acquisition than single gloss. The paper further takes subjects'vocabulary levels into consideration and finds that in the immediate vocabulary posttest, both the students with higher vocabulary level and lower vocabulary level have significantly higher rates of English vocabulary acquisition when they use multiple-choice gloss than using single gloss. The results of the delayed posttests show us that the means of the students with higher vocabulary level are still significantly different between these two gloss types. But there is no statistically significant difference between these two gloss types for the students with lower vocabulary level. This study proves the effectiveness of multiple-choice gloss on incidental vocabulary acquisition and provides practical guidance for students, English teachers and book editors.
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