A Comparative Study Of The Effects Of Word-repetition On The Acquisition Of Vocabulary Between Texts And Sentences Contexts By Senior High School Students

Vocabulary learning has long been an important part of exploration in human language acquisition.Because word learning is a determinant for individual language development,it has garnered much attention from educational.It had been discussed that the inference of unfamiliar words could actively promote acquisition in early studies and further researches also specified that learners could infer unfamiliar words from sentence level better than discourse level.In actual situation of words teaching,one or three example sentences are usually provided,so in view of these,the present study aims to compare the effects of word-repetition on the acquisition between texts and sentences contexts.This paper studied on the following aspects:(ⅰ)the effects of word-repetition on the acquisition of vocabulary form between texts and sentences contexts,(ⅱ)the effects of word-repetition on the acquisition of vocabulary meaning between texts and sentences contexts,and(ⅲ)the effects of word-repetition on the acquisition of vocabulary grammatical function between texts and sentences contexts.188 students from Senior Grade 1 in Shenyang No.11 High School participated in this study.There were five parallel classes,one was selected as pilot group for choosing the target words.The other four classes were experiment classes which read materials in the form of texts or sentences with the target words in different repetition.Immediate vocabulary posttests were conducted immediately after treatment,and delayed vocabulary posttests were conducted one week later.The quantitative methods to analyze the data by SPSS were implemented.The results indicated that every experimental class had acquired vocabulary incidentally in both texts and sentences contexts.The word repetition of three times showed significant effects on the learners’ incidental vocabulary acquisition than that of word repetition of once.The reading context of text showed significant effects on the learners’ incidental vocabulary acquisition than that of sentences contexts only when the words were repeated for three times on the form.In sum,meaning was the most difficult aspect which could be acquired incidentally comparing with form and grammatical function.Vocabulary retention was accelerable and unassailable although it wasn’t as good as immediate gain.