The Role Of Post-reading Word-focused Activities In L2 Vocabulary Acquisition

There has been a consensus that the efficiency of L2 learners’ communication and comprehension depend largely on their vocabulary knowledge,and the acceleration of vocabulary growth is a fundamental component of learning English as a foreign language(EFL).To improve the chance of vocabulary learning,word-focused exercises were developed and tested.It is considered that word-focused activities which involve the reoccurrence and usage of the texts’ new words would enhance the cognitive processing of the target words and therefore improve the efficiency of word learning.Therefore,there is clearly a need for research which can support instructors in identifying the types as well as the instructional conditions of word-focused task that provide optimal opportunities for L2 vocabulary acquisition.This study examined the effects of different post-reading word-focused activities on second language learners’ vocabulary acquisition.That is,the researcher wished to find out the impact of reading combined with vocabulary-focused activities on EFL secondary school learners’ vocabulary acquisition and long-term retention.To achieve the target of this study,the first research question was formulated: Do types of post-reading word-focused activities,namely a)a retelling activity that does not elicit the use of target words,b)a gap-fill activity and c)a sentence writing activity have differential effects on vocabulary acquisition? The second research question was that,among the three conditions in this study,which kind of post-reading word-focused task is the most efficient in facilitating vocabulary acquisition.Eighty-nine third-year students with beginning-level English proficiency,which came from a rural junior high school,were assigned to three experimental groups.The Retell group completed reading comprehension task plus a retelling task without receiving any post-reading word-focused instruction.The GF group completed gap-fill vocabulary exercises after reading comprehension.The SW were required to make new sentences using target word besides the reading comprehension task.All the participants had to complete the same reading comprehension task plus a type of post-reading activities within 35 minutes.A Chinese version of the modified Vocabulary Knowledge Scale was utilized to evaluate students’ knowledge of 10 vocabulary items and all the participants were required to receive three vocabulary tests altogether.A pretest on target word was conducted one week before the reading comprehension task.The score of the immediate post-test conducted after the reading comprehension task and the delayed post-test conducted two weeks later were considered as vocabulary acquisition scores and vocabulary retention scores separately.Furthermore,in order to control the mediate impact of working memory capacity on vocabulary acquisition,working memory capacity were considered as a control variable in this study.An operation span(Ospan)task was employed to measure the learners’ working memory capacities.One way ANOVA reveals no significant differences among the three groups in the reading comprehension scores as well as working memory test which indicate the performance of the three experimental groups on vocabulary development were under no influence of their reading ability and working memory capacity.The analysis results of three VKS tests reveal that a)the Sentence-writing group demonstrated significantly more vocabulary knowledge than the Retell group on the acquisition and retention tests,b)there were no significant difference between the Gap-fill group and the Retell group nor significant difference between the Gap-fill group and the Sentence writing group.In other words,the Sentence-writing group performed the best,followed by the Gapfill group and the Retell group.Based on the analysis result,the researcher concludes that reading plus focused vocabulary exercises are more effective and efficient on facilitating incidental vocabulary acquisition and retention than retell(comprehension only)task among EFL junior high school students.Furthermore,the results confirm Involvement Load hypothesis that the higher the level of the involvement load,the more effective the task is in promoting vocabulary acquisition.All in all,the results of the current research revealed that word-focused tasks in the form of post-reading activities benefits L2 learners’ ability to recall L2 vocabulary in the short-term period.Practical implications for EFL vocabulary instruction can be draw from these findings.The post-reading word-focused activities attached to reading comprehension text could enable students to focus their attention on specific vocabulary items after reading and help them to understand the word meanings and functions by additional encounters in different context that may enhance their vocabulary acquisition,which,in turn,facilitated subsequent reading comprehension in actual reading.From a pedagogical point of view,the result of this study proved that post-reading vocabularyfocused activities can be used beneficially in classroom setting to increase students’ retention of vocabulary encountered in reading comprehension task.