An Empirical Study Of The Effects Of Reading Enhancement On Incidental English Vocabulary Acquisition Of Senior High School Students

There is no doubt that vocabulary plays a very important role in the learning of English,but it's a pity that most students have a low efficiency in vocabulary learning even if they spend a lot of time and effort on it,which is because they don't learn scientifically but only mechanically.To solve this problem,researchers at home and abroad have made continuous studies on incidental vocabulary acquisition since 1980 s.The results of most studies show that reading is good for vocabulary acquisition,which can solve the vocabulary problems of most English learners.Compared with reading only,reading enhancement is more efficient in promoting the incidental vocabulary acquisition and retention of English learners.The present study is carried out among Senior One students in Nanjing No.1 Middle School by the design of four tasks——looking for the meaning of the target words,choosing the meaning of target words,filling in the blanks with the target words and making sentences with the target words,trying to answer the following two questions: 1)Tasks with the same involvement load but different types,which can better promote the incidental vocabulary acquisition and retention of the students,the input one or the output one? 2)Tasks with different involvement load but of the same task type,can the higher load better promote the incidental vocabulary acquisition and retention of the students? The whole study lasts two weeks in total,including the assessment of the English level of the subjects,a pre-study,an immediate vocabulary test and a delayed vocabulary test one week later.The data collected are disposed by SPSS 17.0.By the analysis of the data collected,we find that the involvement load hypothesis applies to high school English learners.Tasks with higher involvement load can better promote the incidental vocabulary acquisition and retention of the students.But the three elements of involvement load hypothesis are not the only influential factors of incidental vocabulary acquisition.Task type plays a role not neglected.The output task can better promote the incidental vocabulary acquisition and retention than the input task.By paired sample t test of the immediate and delayed vocabulary test scores,we find that the effect of high school students' vocabulary acquisition and retention closely connects with time.The longer the time is,thelower acquisition.The present research findings have some pedagogical implications for the future vocabulary teaching and learning in high school.First,high school English teachers should attach great importance to the effect of reading on vocabulary acquisition and design appropriate tasks to enhance vocabulary acquisition.Second,the tasks designed should focus on the ones of higher involvement load and output.Finally,the teacher and students should pay attention to the effect of time and review the vocabulary regularly.