Effects Of Different Input Modes And Written Output Tasks On Senior High School Students’ Incidental English Vocabulary Acquisition

The researches of incidental vocabulary acquisition are attracting more and more attention in the field of second language teaching and research.Although a large number of studies have confirmed the feasibility and effectiveness of incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading and listening input,there are few studies on the effects of audio-visual input.Meanwhile,most researches have focused on the effects of tasks with different involvement load on incidental vocabulary acquisition,while there are few studies on the effects of different written output tasks.Thus,based on the theoretical bases of "input hypothesis","output hypothesis" and"noticing hypothesis",this study aims to explore students’ incidental vocabulary acquisition in different input modes and written output tasks.The research questions of this paper are as follows:1.When the input mode is identical,do text reconstruction task and free writing task have different effects on senior high school students’ incidental vocabulary acquisition?If yes,what are the differences?2.When the written output task is identical,do reading input mode and audio-visual input mode have different effects on senior high school students’ incidental vocabulary acquisition?If yes,what are the differences?3.Do these input modes and written output tasks have interactive effects on the incidental vocabulary acquisition of high school students?If yes,what are the effects?The subjects are 112 students from two parallel classes of a senior high school in Tianchang,Anhui Province.The students were divided into four groups,and each group completed different written output tasks in different input modes,including reading input-text reconstruction group,reading input-free writing group,audio-visual input-text reconstruction group,and audio-visual input-free writing group.This study consists of a pilot study and a formal experiment.The purpose of the pilot study is to select the appropriate input material and target words and to help optimize the design of the experiment.The pre-test in the formal experiment is a vocabulary size test to ensure that the students in both classes meet the minimum standard of 2000 words for incidental vocabulary acquisition.The post-tests in the formal experiment include immediate and delayed vocabulary acquisition tests to explore students’ vocabulary acquisition in different input modes after their completion of different written output tasks.The data collected in this experiment were statistically analyzed by SPSS 22.0.The findings of the study were summarized as follows:1.In the same input mode,in both immediate（p=.008<.05,p=.038<.05）and delayed post-tests（p=.043<.05,p=.023<.05）,the effect of the text reconstruction task on incidental English vocabulary acquisition is significantly better than that of the free writing task.2.Under the condition of completing the same output task,audio-visual input has a significantly better effect on immediate vocabulary post-test（p=.042<.05,p=.029<.05）than reading input.However,in terms of delayed vocabulary post-test（p=.080>.05,p=.113>.05）,there is no significant difference between audio-visual input and reading input.3.There is no interactive effect between input modes and written output tasks in the immediate English vocabulary acquisition（p=.834>.05）and delayed English vocabulary acquisition（p=.964>.05）.The findings of this study have the following pedagogical implications for vocabulary teaching:1)Teachers should pay attention to multimedia materials in vocabulary teaching.The audio-visual materials can be used as an important supplement to reading materials;2)In order to improve students’ vocabulary acquisition and retention,teachers should include appropriate written output tasks,such as the text reconstruction task,in their vocabulary teaching.At the same time,students themselves should try more written output tasks after class.