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

Vocabulary is the basis for every learner's language learning.Numerous researches indicate that learners can acquire a certain amount of vocabulary in the process of other activities besides English vocabulary learning.So incidental vocabulary acquisition(IVA)through reading has been the focus of researchers in the field of second language research.Among the theories concerning IVA,as a major theory to evaluate the cognitive processing degree of reading task,Involvement Load Hypothesis has laid a foundation in this research area,namely: the more involvement loads,the better vocabulary acquisition and retention.Based on the Involvement Load Hypothesis,the present research aims to explore the effects of different reading tasks with different involvement loads on senior high school students' incidental vocabulary acquisition.The research questions are expounded as follows:(1)Do reading tasks with higher involvement loads exert better retention results of incidental vocabulary acquisition than those with lower involvement loads in senior high school students' vocabulary learning?(2)Does incidental vocabulary acquisition based on different reading tasks make any difference to students' vocabulary learning attitude?In this study,60 students from 2 parallel classes in Grade One in Xinfeng Senior High School were selected as subjects and they were divided into four groups according to their vocabulary level to complete four reading tasks of different involvement loads: reading with glossary and answering questions,reading with glossary and filling in the blanks,determining the meanings and answering questions,reading without glossary and sentence translation.Before the main tests,a questionnaire was undertaken by the subjects to obtain the current vocabulary learning status of the subjects.Then the vocabulary level test was carried out and the result proves that no significant difference exists in vocabulary level among the selected subjects.After completing the four reading tasks,the subjects received theimmediate and the delayed vocabulary tests.The duration of this experiment is one month.The results show that different tasks with varying involvement loads have different effects on vocabulary acquisition and retention and the reading task with higher amount of involvement loads is more helpful to the acquisition of vocabulary knowledge.Through questionnaire and interview,it is found that the incidental vocabulary acquisition based on different reading tasks has a positive influence on students' vocabulary learning attitude and methods.Based on the above findings,this thesis discusses the pedagogical implications,limitations of the present study as well as some suggestions for future researches.