The Effect Of Task And Time Spent On Each Task Upon Passive And Active Word Knowledge

Foreign and second language researchers and teachers have been trying for many years to develop effective tasks so that they can facilitate and enhance students’ vocabulary learning.Accordingly,many claims have been made in this regard.Laufer and Hulstijn(2001)propose the influential motivational-cognitive task-induced involvement to interpret the effect of different tasks on vocabulary acquisition.The study was an attempt to retest and substantiate this Hypothesis.The present study conceptually replicates their study to further investigate the effect of tasks with different involvement load and time spent on each task on passive and active knowledge of newly acquired words.Seventy-nine non-English major students participated in the study with Group 1 finishing Task 1(reading,1 involvement load index)within 8 minutes,Group 2 finishing Task 2(reading plus fill in,2 involvement load index)within 12 minutes and Group 3 finishing Task 3(sentence writing,3 involvement load index)within 18 minutes.Passive and active word recall posttests were conducted immediately after treatment and ten days later.The result of passive word recall posttest provided fully supportive evidence for involvement load hypothesis.The tasks with higher involvement load did produce better vocabulary learning and retention.However,the result of active word recall posttest only provided partial evidence for involvement load hypothesis.The task with the highest involvement load that brought the highest initial words learning also encountered the greatest decline in delayed posttest.At the same time,the words learned in active word recall were lower than passive word recall in both immediate and delayed posttests.However,with time spent on each task considered,the benefits of more involving tasks faded over time.