The Effects Of Dictation Tasks On Junior High School Students' Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition

Vocabulary is the cornerstone of language.Vocabulary acquisition is a vital part in the field of second language acquisition.A lot of studies have shown that vocabulary learning is one of the weakest aspects of English learning for Chinese junior high school students,and vocabulary size is an important factor affecting English learning.Besides,a great number of studies have shown that learners can incidentally acquire vocabulary in the process of listening,speaking,reading and writing.Nevertheless,few studies explore the effectiveness of combining listening input with dictation output on incidental vocabulary acquisition.This study intends to combine listening input with dictation output to find out the effects of dictation tasks on junior high school students' incidental vocabulary acquisition.There are three questions:(1)Do dictation tasks enable L2 learners to acquire new words?(2)Are there any different effects on incidental vocabulary acquisition between the individual dictation group and the cooperative dictation group?(3)Do the effects of dictation tasks on incidental vocabulary acquisition change over time? In this study,the research participants were 86 eighth-grade students from two equal-level classes in Fengcheng Second Middle School of Jiangxi province.They were divided into two groups: the individual dictation group and the cooperative dictation group.After finishing the dictation task,all the research participants were tested for the recall of the 15 target words in the immediate vocabulary test,and the retention of the 15 target words in the delayed vocabulary test one week later by modified Vocabulary Knowledge Scale.Finally,the collected data was analyzed by SPSS statistical software.The results of the study show that dictation tasks enable L2 learners to acquire new words,and concrete nouns are easier to acquire.Cooperative dictation group is superior to individual dictation group in vocabulary acquisition whether in the immediate vocabulary test or in the delayed vocabulary test.The effects of dictation tasks on incidental vocabulary acquisition have changed over time,and the participants in the cooperative dictation group perform better in vocabulary retention than the participants in the individual dictation group.