An Empirical Study Of The Effects Of Reading Tasks On The Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition Based On Involvement Load Hypothesis

The researches on vocabulary study have been highlighted by many experts again since1970's.And more and more scholars and teachers have put the achievements of the vocabulary study into the practice of their daily teaching.Particularly,incidental vocabulary acquisition(IVA)has been paid more attention.IVA means that learners acquire vocabulary knowledge through the process of listening and reading.While they are listening to or reading some foreign language materials,the learners attach more importance to the contents instead of the vocabulary itself only.And incidental vocabulary learning is the byproduct of learners' reading and listening.The most noted theory on incidental vocabulary acquisition is the Involvement Load Hypothesis proposed by Laufer and J.H.Hulstijn in 2001.According to their hypothesis,there are three elements contained in a whole process of learners' reading.They are need,search and evaluation.Different reading tasks have different involvement loads,which leads to a fact that different involvement loads have obviously different effects on the efficiency of learners' vocabulary acquisition and retention.So far,most of the studies on incidental vocabulary acquisition in China have paid more attention to English majors or non-majors in universities and colleges.Few studies have been executed in senior high schools in China.Based on the Involvement Load Hypothesis proposed by Laufer and J.H.Hulstijn in 2001,the present study carried on an empirical study in a Chinese senior high school with the aim to find the answers to the following questions:1.Do the different reading tasks with different involvement loads have different influences on students' incidental vocabulary acquisition? If they do,do the reading tasks with high involvement loads have more efficient influence on students' incidental vocabulary acquisition?2.Do the reading tasks with high involvement loads have more efficient influence on students' incidental vocabulary retention? Are the results in accord with Involvement Load Hypothesis?3.Which one has better influence on students' incidental vocabulary acquisition and retention,the reading tasks with high involvement loads while less exposure orthe reading tasks with low involvement loads while more exposure in second language acquisition?The present study are expected to find whether incidental vocabulary acquisition is available among senior high school students in China and how it affect their vocabulary acquisition.What's more,the present study also aims to enrich the Involvement Load Hypothesis proposed by Laufer and J.H.Hulstijn.The students coming from three different parallel classes in Sichuan Province Guanghan High School participated in the study.A passage with 10 target words was chosen as the reading material for the test.The whole experiment consists of three steps.In the first step a pretest was executed in order to be sure that the number of the target words that the subjects are familiar with is lower than 5%.In the second step all the students of three groups took part in a reading task.They read the same passage but with different reading tasks: Group One,True or false judgment;Group Two,reading and filling the blanks with appropriate words;Group Three,reading and making sentences with the target words.Having finished the reading tasks,all the participants were demanded to finish the immediate test that had been designed previously.Then the papers were collected by the teachers.One week later,a post-test was executed.The results of the present study can be concluded as follows:1.It is true that different reading tasks have different effects on learners' incidental vocabulary acquisition.And it is also true that the reading tasks with high involvement loads have more efficient influence on students' incidental vocabulary acquisition2.The reading task with higher involvement load has more efficient effect on the retention of learners than the reading task with lower involvement load.And the results are in accord with Involvement Load Hypothesis and Depth of Processing to a large extent.3.Compared with the result of reading tasks with lower loads while higher exposure,the reading tasks with higher loads while lower exposure have better efficient on learners' incidental vocabulary retention.The findings are instructive for the English teaching in senior high schools.Firstly,English teachers are supposed to encourage the students to read English reading materials after school or in their spare time as many as possible.Secondly,teachers can design some reading activities of higher involvement with the aim to help students acquire vocabulary more efficiently.Lastly,some more methods shouldbe offered to students to enrich their vocabulary.