| Incidental vocabulary acquisition is considered as an essential part of vocabulary acquisition. It means that the acquisition of new words as a by-product of a meaning-focused communicative activity, such as reading, listening and interaction. In recent years, the effects of glosses on vocabulary incidental acquisition in reading have attracted much attention. Experiments have been carried out in the aspects of languages of glosses(first language and second language), the styles of glosses(single and multiple-choices), and the positions of glosses(footnote, margent and endnote). Because of the differences in subjects, reading materials, and some other conditions, not all the conclusions are always the same, which supplies spaces and chances to the following study.This study is an attempt to examine the effects of different gloss languages on the incidental vocabulary acquisition. It aims to answer the following questions:(1) What type of gloss do Chinese college students prefer?(2) Which gloss promotes the vocabulary acquisition best among the three kinds of glosses for non-English majors?(3) Which gloss promotes the retention of vocabulary best among the three kinds of glosses for non-English majors?96 non-English freshmen from three different classes which are taught by the same English teacher in Dalian Ocean University take part in the current experiment. Subjects are randomly divided into three groups and read the same reading material which has three types of gloss. After reading the passage, they need to finish an immediate vocabulary test and a delayed vocabulary test two weeks later. The data of the experiment are analyzed by the statistical software SPSS. In addition, a questionnaire and an interview are conducted to obtain the learners’ preference of different glosses.The result shows that most subjects like Chinese plus English gloss and also Chinese plus English gloss has the better impact on incidental vocabulary acquisition, and for vocabulary retention, Chinese gloss gains the best effect. The reason is possibly that Chinese is the subjects’ native language which can offer information directly, subjects can easily understand the meaning of target words. Then they have enough spare time to notice target words, such as pronunciation, spelling, meaning and so on, so the target words can be kept for a longer time.This study verifies the feasibility of incidental vocabulary acquisition once again, and provides reference for English teachers in providing appropriate English reading materials for learners in order to improve the efficiency of vocabulary learning. |
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