Effects Of Gloss Types On Chinese EFL Learners' Vocabulary Acquisition

Based on the Involvement Load Hypothesis and the Noticing Hypothesis,this paper investigates the immediate and delayed effects of four types of glosses(single L1 gloss,single L2 gloss,multiple-choice L1 gloss and multiple-choice L2 gloss)on Chinese EFL learners' vocabulary acquisition.Five groups of senior high grade 2 students(single L1 gloss,single L2 gloss,multiple-choice L1 gloss and multiple-choice L2 gloss and no gloss group)were chosen as participants in this study.They were asked to read an English material which contained ten target pseudo-words with four different types of glosses and to complete a reading comprehension task with five multiple-choice questions within 15 minutes.Immediately after the reading task,they were required to do a vocabulary posttest containing recall and recognition tasks within 25 minutes and fill in a questionnaire.The questionnaire was aimed to investigate the participants' opinions on the effectiveness of the four types of glosses.Two weeks later,the participants took a delayed vocabulary posttest which had the same tasks as the immediate one.The data yielded from the tests and the questionnaire were input into SPSS for analysis.Data analyses yielded the following results.Firstly,SL1 glosses were the most effective in students' vocabulary acquisition in both immediate and delayed effects,and the MCL2 glosses were the least effective in both immediate and delayed effects.SL2 glosses and MCL1 glosses were in between,and SL2 glosses were more effective than MCL1 glosses in both immediate and delayed effects.Secondly,as for the interaction between task types and gloss types in terms of the effects on vocabulary acquisition,the four gloss types had better effects on vocabulary acquisition in the recognition task than in the recall task regardless of immediate or delayed effects.Besides,the effects of SL1 glosses and MCL2 glosses were not affected by task types.No matter in recall task or in recognition task,and immediate or delayed effects,SL1 glosses were the most effective and MCL2 glosses were the least effective.However,the effects of SL2 glosses and MCL1 glosses were affected by task types.In recognition task,the delayed effects of MCL1 glosses were more effective than those of SL2 glosses,while in other conditions,SL2 glosses were more effective than MCL1 glosses.Thirdly,participants liked SL1 glosses the most and the MCL2 glosses the least.SL2 glosses and MCL1 glosses were in between,and MCL1 glosses were more preferred than SL2 glosses.These findings have both theoretical and pedagogical implications.Theoretically,the findings add to the literature of Involvement Load Hypothesis and the Noticing Hypothesis by revealing that students' language proficiency needs to be taken into account in the process of designing glosses.For low proficiency level learners,L1 glosses may be more effective.Multiple-choice form of glosses should also be employed in long-term vocabulary acquisition.The working mechanism of need,search and evaluation was also enriched by more empirical evidence.Pedagogically,the study sheds light on English language teaching and learning and helps teachers design suitable glosses to aid students in vocabulary learning and material comprehension.