A Study On The Effects Of Time Distribution Of Assisted Repeated Reading On Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition In Junior High School

In junior high school English learning,students always rely on teachers to master vocabulary,practice words intentionally or memorize vocabulary lists,which are boring and ineffective ways.Therefore,how to effectively acquire new vocabulary in reading and in context has been a pressing concern for researchers and teachers.Research shows that assisted repeated reading(ARR)can facilitate incidental vocabulary acquisition.Despite the growing interest in ARR,most studies mainly focus on college students and adults with large vocabulary and strong reading ability,and few studies focus on middle school students.In addition,few studies deals with the effects of time distribution-how to schedule ARR sessions has the greatest impact on incidental vocabulary acquisition.The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of the time distribution of ARR on incidental vocabulary acquisition and retention.This study will be presented to answer the following questions:Firstly,what effects do intensive assisted repeated reading and spaced assisted repeated reading have on incidental vocabulary acquisition?Secondly,what effects do intensive assisted repeated reading and spaced assisted repeated reading have on vocabulary retention?The participants of this study were 100 eight-grade students from a junior middle school in Shaanxi Province.They were divided into two classes: one class performed ARR once every day for5 consecutive days(intensive class,N=50);the other class performed the same ARR once every week for 5 consecutive weeks(spaced class,N=50).The present study employed the Vocabulary Knowledge Scale(VKS),which is designed by Paribakht and Wesche(1997)to assess participants’ vocabulary gains and vocabulary retention.The main findings were as follows.Firstly,the findings clearly indicated that both intensive and spaced ARR can be conductive for incidental vocabulary acquisition.Regarding vocabulary retention,even though forgetting occurred between immediate post-test and delayed post-test,students’ scores of the delayed post-test were still significantly higher than that in the pretest,indicating that the ARR have a positive effect on vocabulary retention.Secondly,the time distribution of ARR(intensive versus spaced)has different effects on vocabulary acquisition and vocabulary retention.Regarding acquisition,intensive practice helps to obtain better vocabulary acquisition outcome in the short term.In terms of vocabulary retention,findings suggested that learners can retain more words through intensive practice.However,there was no significant difference in the vocabulary gains of the two classes.This study has an enlightening effect on whether ARR is suitable for English learning in junior high school and encourage students to acquire vocabulary through repeated reading.Teachers can also use ARR to facilitate vocabulary acquisition and retention and to activate students’ L2 learning interest which may promote students’ listening and reading skills in the long term.Moreover,whether teachers want to pursue a short-term or a long-term teaching aim,the sessions can be concentrated to help students gain an optimal learning outcome.