Effects Of Gloss Modes And Task Types On English Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition Of Self-taught Students

Vocabulary is an essential component of language without which all the language activities are unlikely to be conducted. Thus, vocabulary teaching is seen as an integral part of language teaching and reading is considered as an efficient way to facilitate vocabulary learning by means of incidental vocabulary acquisition. In recent years, the issue of vocabulary acquisition has attracted increasing attention of researchers at home and abroad. Some of the researches focus on acquiring new words through reading. Other researches try to explore factors that may affect incidental vocabulary acquisition. However, the impact of reading situations (for example, reading with marginal glosses, reading with dictionary use, etc.) on incidental vocabulary acquisition has not been fully investigated. In addition, the relationship between vocabulary size and incidental vocabulary acquisition needs to be further explored.This study mainly explores the effects of different gloss modes and task types on English incidental vocabulary acquisition of self-taught students (2+2mode). Besides, the impact of vocabulary size on their incidental vocabulary acquisition is also investigated. The following research questions are addressed:1. What kind of glossing is conducive to incidental vocabulary acquisition, multiple-choice glossing or single glossing?1) In the immediate vocabulary test, which group of students gets higher scores, the multiple--choice glossing group or the single glossing group?2) In the delayed vocabulary test, which group of students gets higher scores, the multiple-choice glossing group or the single glossing group?2. What kind of task is more efficient in promoting incidental vocabulary acquisition, the blank-filling task or the multiple-choice task?1) In the immediate vocabulary test, which group of students gets higher scores, the blank-filling task group or the multiple-choice task group? 2) In the delayed vocabulary test, which group of students gets higher scores, the blank-filling task group or the multiple-choice task group?3. What is the effect of gloss modes on the performance of participants of different vocabulary size?4. What is the effect of task types on the performance of participants of different vocabulary size?This study is mainly based on the theories of Krashen’s input hypothesis, Craik and Lockhart’s depth of processing hypothesis, Mclaughlin’s information processing mode, Laufer and Hulstijn’s involvement load hypothesis and Schmidt’s noticing hypothesis.The study consists of two parts:quantitative and qualitative research.The quantitative research includes a three-week experiment. The participants are53self-taught juniors (2+2mode) in College of Business in Yangzhou University. Before the experiment, a pre-test is conducted to exclude the students who have already known the target words. As a result,44students are qualified to participate in the following two experiments, one experiment concerning gloss modes and the other involving task types. In the first experiment, the44students are randomly divided into two groups:22students in multiple-choice gloss group and the other22students in single gloss group. In the second experiment, the44students are also randomly classified into another two groups:22students in the blank-filling task group and the other22students in the multiple-choice group. Each experiment includes an immediate test conducted immediately after they finish the reading materials and a delayed test containing the same content as that of the immediate test but with different word order. One week after the delayed test, a vocabulary size level test based on Nation’s Vocabulary Levels Test is administrated to assess the participants’ vocabulary size. The data from all the subjects are analyzed quantitatively by SPSS13.0.The qualitative research is an interview with eight students. Four students from larger vocabulary group and the other four from smaller vocabulary group are selected as interviewers. The interviews are tape-recorded and transcribed later. The transcriptions of the interviews are synthesized and categorized.Detailed analysis of quantitative and qualitative research yields the final findings as follows:1. Multiple-choice glossing proves to be more effective than single glossing in improving students" incidental vocabulary acquisition. In both of the immediate and delayed test, the multiple-choice gloss group gets higher scores than the single gloss group, as students with multiple-choice glossing need to compare the alternatives of glossing to choose the most appropriate meaning based on different contexts, resulting in more complex cognitive process, which is more effective in vocabulary acquisition and retention. According to the interview, most students prefer multiple-choice glossing to single glossing, which further affirms its positive effect.2. The blank-filling task can yield significantly better incidental vocabulary acquisition than the multiple-choice task. In both of the immediate and delayed test, the blanking-filling task group gets higher scores than the multiple-choice group because the blanking-filling task concerns higher involvement load, more complicated information processing mode and more devotion of noticing, which may better facilitate students’incidental vocabulary acquisition and retention. Based on students’ interview, most students favor the blank-filling task, which offers a solid support of the second finding.3. Thirdly, gloss modes play distinctive roles in the performance of learners of different vocabulary size. Learners of larger vocabulary size take better advantage of multiple-choice glossing to retain more words than those of smaller vocabulary size in terms of both annotations.4. Fourthly, task types exert various influences on the performance of learners of different vocabulary size. Learners of larger vocabulary size can make better use of the blank-filling task to facilitate vocabulary acquisition than those of smaller vocabulary size concerning task types.The implications from the findings of the study are as follows:1) Students’ vocabulary can be expanded by extensive reading and the reading materials should be provided in the form of accessible multiple-choice glossing to improve the efficiency in vocabulary gains and retentions.2) The current textbook is in great need of adaptation in respect of gloss forms which are conductive to assisting readers in their comprehension and retention.3) Teachers should choose appropriate reading materials with suitable annotations for their students considering their vocabulary size.4) Tasks with higher involvement load should be frequently implemented to produce better vocabulary gains. Besides, tasks with different involvement load should be devised according to the difficult level of new words.Finally, the present study has its own limitations and calls for improvement in future related studies. Due to both subjective and objective constraints, limitations such as small samples, inadequate design of reading materials and short intervals between the immediate and delayed tests seem to be unavoidable, which may decrease the validity of the present research.