The Effect Of High School Students’ English Dictionary Use On The Incidental Acquisition Of Second Language Vocabulary

Vocabulary incidental acquisition emphasizes the unintentional nature of vocabulary learning and can also refer to the process by which subjects learn the vocabulary knowledge through input reinforcement without knowing that a vocabulary test is available.The use of dictionaries not only facilitates the incidental acquisition of vocabulary knowledge,but also contributes to the development of learners’ independent learning ability and vocabulary learning strategies.However,most of the current studies investigate the current situation of dictionary use among college students and the effects of dictionary use or not,dictionary use and other vocabulary learning strategies on incidental acquisition of vocabulary knowledge.In this study,the use of dictionary information was used as the research perspective.The statistical analysis of 222 valid student questionnaires found that: the majority of students could realize the importance of English dictionaries for vocabulary learning;they all had a certain degree of dictionary searching skills;reading and writing activities were the two main occasions for dictionary searching;Chinese paraphrases were the most used information by the subjects when they looked up dictionaries.Chinese paraphrases were the most utilized information,followed by English paraphrases and collocations,and phonetic symbols were the least utilized information;most high school students were not familiar with the dictionary structure.Secondly,in the experimental study,the subjects were first tested for vocabulary,then randomly divided into three groups and used the dictionary information as required(group 1checked the Chinese and English meanings,group 2 checked collocation information,close synonyms and example sentences on the basis of group 1,and group 3 marked the corresponding notes on the basis of group 2),and the subjects completed the vocabulary test immediately after consulting the dictionary information.In addition,a vocabulary test with the same content but in a changed order was administered one week later.The experimental data showed that dictionary use facilitated incidental acquisition of dictionaries,and that the more input in the same time was not more beneficial for incidental acquisition of the target words,because of the limited attention span on the one hand,and the depth of cognition on the other hand,because of the quality rather than the quantity of their input,in addition to the type of their lexical knowledge.However,the higher the input load and the wider the attention span are more conducive to the retention of lexical knowledge.Therefore,in vocabulary teaching:(1)integrate dictionary teaching into daily teaching to familiarize students with lexical structure and at the same time develop their effective dictionary consult strategies and independent learning ability,(2)guide students to fully and appropriately use their knowledge of target words,so as to achieve students’ comprehensible input,high input load and attention to achieve the acquisition and retention of the target words,(3)teachers should combine linguistic and nonlinguistic interpretations to achieve comprehensible input,(4)set tasks with high input load to achieve deep cognitive processing.