The Effect of Task-based Reading on English Vocabulary Acquisition by Middle School Students

The Effect of Task-based Reading on English Vocabulary Acquisition by Middle School StudentsChapter 1 Introduction1.1Necessity of the ResearchJust as Wilkins (1972) states that “while without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed”. McCarthy (1990) asserts that “no matter how well the students learns grammar, no matter how successfully the sounds of L2 are mastered, without words to express a wider range of meanings, communication in an L2 just cannot happen in any meaningful way”. Although vocabulary is unarguably central to language acquisition and use, vocabulary instruction has not been a priority in SLA research.V ocabulary plays an important role in English study for middle school students, but there‟s no conclusive way to the effective learning and teaching of L2 vocabulary. Some experts point out that there still remains an enormous amount of research to be down in the area. It is undeniable that students can acquire lots of mother tongue vocabulary during reading in L1 environment. But English is a foreign language for Chinese middle school students; they have little chance to use English vocabulary in their daily life. So the mechanical memorization of the words becomes a typical way of second language acquisition. Under the influence of the theory that most vocabulary should be acquired in the context, many researches have been made in different levels, among which the effect of task-based language teaching on English vocabulary acquisition arouses widely concern.1.2Feasibility of the ResearchThe relative neglect of studies on vocabulary acquisition in SLA has often been commented on within the fields of language teaching. Richards was one of the first scholars to alert us to the fact that vocabulary is typically neglected in secondlanguage instruction. Fortunately, since the mid-1980s, more researches are focused on vocabulary in second language learning. However some related researches have also showed the limitation of vocabulary acquisition through natural reading. For instances, the results of a study made by Hermanetal shows that the rate that learners can acquire vocabulary through context is as low as 5%. Swanbone and Glopper considered that the chance for getting vocabulary in natural reading is only 6%.In order to make up for all these limitations, lots of researches explore the effective way to improve vocabulary acquisition during reading. Inspired by the information-processing model for investing SLA, the researcher believes that instructional intervention in the form of input enhancement and output tasks in reading activities may facilitate the learning of vocabulary.And it is found that students can acquire much more vocabulary while they are doing some tasks while reading. Since task-based reading has become a popular way for English vocabulary acquisition among middle school students. The present paper attempts to explore the experimental research in school.1.3 Purpose of the ResearchThe purpose of this experimental study is to examine the effect of task-based reading on vocabulary acquisition by middle school students. According to the Senior English Curriculum Standard, students may need to learn 3300 words as well as 360 useful expressions during six years‟study in middle school. And how to enlarge middle school students‟vocabulary is becoming more and more urgent. Although reading can serve as comprehensible input for acquiring new words, studies have shown that reading alone does not adequately facilitate the vocabulary acquisition. Reading with related tasks proved more efficient for retention of vocabulary word than reading only.Considering the great pedagogical significance of the Involvement Load Hypothesis and the lack of experimental study on this issue, my study is based on the Involvement Load Hypothesis for L2 vocabulary learning proposed by Laufer & Hulstijn(2001), who argue that the greater the involvement load, the better theretention. Since task-based language teaching has already widely adopted in middle school classroom, it is necessary to find out whether it can help students acquire more vocabulary.In order to find out more information about how to improve students vocabulary through reading, and how can task-based reading have a greater influence on vocabulary acquisition. Since most learners pay attention to understanding the articles in reading, they often neglect the unfamiliar words occurring in the articles. In order to focus the learners‟ attention on these unknown words and to process these words from different levels, it is necessary to assign or select the task mentioning the unknown words. This research focuses on middle school students‟L2 vocabulary acquisition which may offer some advice in their daily learning.Chapter 2 Literature Review2.1 English Vocabulary AcquisitionBased on Nation‟s view, direct vocabulary acquisition means learners do exercises and activities that focus their attention on vocabulary; indirect vocabulary acquisition means learners‟attention is focused on some other features, usually the message that is conveyed by a speaker or writer. With regard to vocabulary acquisition, intentional acquisition refers to any activity aimed at deliberately committing lexical information to memory and keeping that information readily accessible. Incidental acquisition, in contrast, is generally defined as the …learning of vocabulary as by-product of reading and listening activities not explicitly geared to vocabulary learning‟ (Hulstijn 258). Traditional teaching methods lay an emphasis on direct, intentional acquisition, while modern communicative teaching methods put emphasis on indirect, incidental acquisition. However it is agreed there are more chances for indirect, incidental acquisition to occur than direct, intentional vocabulary acquisition and most words are acquired by L2 learners indirectly and incidentally. In the process of English leaning, vocabulary acquisition can be both incidental and intentional.V ocabulary acquisition can also be implicit as well as explicit. Ellis claims that the perceptual aspects of new words, i.e. their phonetic and phonological features, are learned implicitly as a result of frequent exposure. However, the meaning of words is learned explicitly, requiring the conscious processing at semantic and conceptual levels and the attention to the form-meaning connections. But implicit acquisition can be incidental only (i.e. without learner‟s awareness of an upcoming test, or without learner‟s deliberate decision to commit information to memory). And explicit acquisition can occur both intentionally and incidentally. Thus we have three kinds of combinations concerning these two pairs of constructs: implicit incidental vocabulary, explicit incidental vocabulary acquisition and explicit intentional vocabulary acquisition. Involvement Load Hypothesis to be tested and discussed in the present thesis belongs to the category of explicit incidental vocabulary acquisition andlearners‟ attention to the unfamiliar words is absolutely necessary.2.2 Task-based ReadingA reading task is a piece of work based on reading materials and reading comprehension. Students do different kinds of activities by using what they are learning. By doing so, students understand the text, learn and use the new expressions and try to improve their comprehensive ability to use English in real life. For a task, meaning is primary and in most cases there is a communicative problem to be solved. And the tasks are often related to the real life. Nunan suggests that tasks will have six components. They are goals, input, activities, teacher role, student role and settings. In contrast to natural reading, task-based reading is a type of reading which requires readers to achieve some language targets while reading. It is a kind of reading through which some tasks are designed in advance. The American linguist David Nunan is the represent of task-based language teaching. In his masterpiece “Designing Tasks for Communicative Classroom”Nunan gave a definition about task that is all kinds of learning activities used by students to understand dispose output and communicate in the target language. Nunan also classify tasks into two types: real-world tasks and pedagogic tasks.According to Krashen‟s Input Hypothesis, human beings acquire languages in only one way-by understanding messages, or by receiving “comprehensible input”. And reading can provide comprehensible input. Krashen & Terrell point out that comprehensible input achieved through reading provides language learners with repeated exposure to words. Krashen also states that massive reading alone can serve as sufficient comprehensible input for acquiring new words. Based on his input hypothesis, he claims that vocabulary can be learned as a by-product of reading. Therefore, it is recommended that second language learners should be exposed to meaningful and interesting reading materials. In middle school English class, task-based reading is becoming a major teaching method used by teachers. Varies kinds of tasks are designed to improve students‟reading ability as well as second language learning.Reading with related tasks proved more efficient for vocabulary acquisition than reading only. Since vocabulary and reading comprehension interact with each other. V ocabulary is regarded as the most influential factors in reading comprehension; meanwhile students‟ vocabulary will increase during reading process. Reading is the most common approach in learning vocabulary. Many researchers have studied the relationship between task-based reading and L2 vocabulary acquisition. For example, N.Ellis (238) discussed the way in which learners‟process material influences incidental learning. They suggested that incidental acquisition can result from task demands which cause learners focus attention on specific features of input which are crucial for learning. Joe examined the effects of text-based tasks and background knowledge on incidental vocabulary acquisition. She found that the task demands led to a significantly higher level of incidental vocabulary learning. Since task-based reading requires readers to finish some tasks after reading, they must pay more attention to the reading material and focus on the certain information. It differs from the natural reading when they only need to know the main idea of the passage.2.3 Involvement Load HypothesisThe Involvement Load Hypothesis proposed by Laufer & Hulstijn (2001) has provided an integrated framework for investing the effects of task features on incidental vocabulary learning. It focuses on two models: depth of processing hypothesis and motivation. According to the studies of Laufer & Hulstijn the greater the involvement load, the better the retention, they hold the view that we could compare vocabulary retention along two dimensions: varying task involvement loads and the number of exposures to the investigated words.In ILH, there are three basic components: need, search and evaluation, Need is the motivational dimension of involvement components. Search is the cognitive dimension of involvement components; it refers to the attempt to find the meaning of an unfamiliar L2 word. Evaluation is also the cognitive dimension of involvement components; it refers to comparing a specific meaning of some word with its other meaning. According to Laufer & Hulstijn (2001), these three components may bepresent or absent in some task. The combination of the presence or absence of the involvement components is defined as involvement load.Krashen‟s Input Hypothesis explains how people acquire a second language. He holds that “Humans acquire language in only one way: by understanding messages or by receiving comprehensible input” (Krashen, 1985). Swain‟s Output Hypothesis holds that through producing language, either spoken or written, language acquisition or learning may occur. This study will focus on the following two questions: The effect of task-based reading with different reading requirements on middle school students‟ vocabulary acquisition. The effect of simplified input, enhanced input, and modified output on middle school students‟ vocabulary acquisition while reading.Chapter 3 Research Design3.1 Hypothesis of the ResearchThe research questions of the study are as follows:1. Comparison of the Effects on Simplified Input and Enhanced Input.2. Comparison of the Effects of Enhanced Input and Modified Output.The two research hypotheses are derived from the two research questions.Hypothesis 1 Other factors being equal, subjects in the higher involvement load groups (enhanced input) will perform significantly better in the immediate and delayed vocabulary tests than those in the lower involvement load group ( simplified input)Hypothesis 2 Other factors being equal, subjects in group with enhanced output task will perform better in delayed vocabulary test than those in group with enhanced input.3.2 ParticipantsThe participants of this study are 60 middle school students. The students are from Hanshan NO.1 middle school, Anhui province of China. The students are from the same class. The same teacher taught all students during the school year in which the study was conducted. It is to make sure that there are no significant differences in English proficiency and previous knowledge about the target knowledge between the subjects. These students are divided into three groups randomly. Each group has 20 members. Group 1 will do task 1 while reading, group will do task 2 while reading and group 3 will do task 3 while reading.3.3InstrumentsThe instruments in my study consist of a reading material, a set of comprehensive questions for task1, another format of the same reading material with10 blanks for close task and a paper with ten target words for sentence writing. The materials and two tests used to examine the situation of acquiring vocabulary. Since the selection of the treatment passage and target words is crucial and topic familiarity has proved to be an important factor affecting L2 reading comprehension, I carefully choose a passage from senior middle school textbook. The topic is “A matter of taste”. Since the purpose of the study is to investigate the effects of task-based reading on vocabulary acquisition, the target words must be unknown or least knows to the subjects. These 10 words were finally chosen as target words, they were: shade, artist, painter, painting, exhibition, gallery, detail, emphasis, elegant, expensive.3.4 Procedure3.4.1 Administration of the TestsThere are three tasks designed in the current study. They are simplified input task, modified input task and modified output task, which inducing different involvement loads are distributed respectively into three groups.Task 1: reading with general comprehension questions; target words not glossed Subjects in this task are to read the text A Matter of Taste and then finish a set of 10 comprehensive questions. The questions are designed in a manner that they can be answered without any reference to the target words. For example, questions as: The following three pictures, which one do you like best?They are based on a single sentence or the main idea of the passage, not in any way related to the messages introduced by any of the target words. In this task, the subjects would focus their attention on understanding the message instead of learning the vocabulary in the text. Therefore there is no need or no evaluation in this task. As to the target words, although they are not glossed, the subjects will be informed that the questions are not related to the target words. Nor is the acquisition of any target words acquired. But they must look them up in dictionaries before answering the questions. According to Involvement Load Hypothesis, this task contains no need, since the questions are irrelevant to the target words; a moderate search since thewords are not glossed and no evaluation, since subjects do not need to compare the words against each other or evaluate them in sentences for the correct answers. Thus the involvement index of Task 1 is 1(-n, +s,-e).Task 2: reading; target words glossed; closeSubjects in task 2 are presented with the same article as in task 1. This time the 10 target words are glossed in the text while they are reading. Then the 10 target words are deleted from the text, leaving 10 blanks in the close exercise. The ten target words are provided in a random order in the list below. Subjects are expected to process the target words and choose the exact word for each blank from the list of 10 words. In order to fill in the blanks with appropriate words, students must read through the text and made comparisons with other words including context words and the words given in the list. Thus, according to Involvement Load Hypothesis, this task induces a moderate need, since they have to fill in the blanks, which are relevant to the target words, no search, since the words are glosses and a moderate evaluation, since they have to evaluate the words against each other. The involvement index of Task 4 is 2 (+n,-s, +e).Task 3: reading; target words glossed; sentence making with target wordsThis task requires the subjects to write an original sentence with each target word after reading the passage. All the target words are presented in the same glossary. To be more specific, this task requires students to retrieve the lexical information from the memory and put it to use. In terms of involvement load, the involvement load in this task consists of a moderate need, because the message conveyed by the target words are needed to complete the writing task, no search, because the target words are glossed, and a strong evaluation, because the subjects have to use the target words in an original context and the involvement index of Task 3 is 3(+n,-s, ++e).3.4.2 Time and Roles for TestingResearcher arranged reading time according to different reading tasks, the last two tasks could be extended to twenty minutes and the first task was fifteen minutes. Before the experiment, researcher told the subjects that dictionary, reference booksand discussion were not allowed in the whole process and did not tell subjects that they would have vocabulary test next. When the subjects completed their reading assignment, told them recover the paper, write down the detail of the reading as possible as they can, and did the following exercises after reading, so that the subjects did not focus on the target words entirely. And then researcher delivered the immediate test paper. After one week, without telling subjects they would do some test, we do delayed test. The content of this paper was the same as what we had done.3.4.3 Scoring Vocabulary Test PapersTen targeted words were tested in immediate post-test and delayed posttest. The total possible score of each test was ten. One point was assigned to each correct answer and the scale of the points is zero to ten. 0 represents no response or an incorrect meaning, 0.5 represents a distant partial meaning, such as remoted related words and 1 represents a close meaning or corrected meaning. Each paper was scored strictly according to the criteria.Chapter 4 Discussion4.1 Results and Data AnalysisIn this study, an immediate test and a delayed test were employed. The purposes of the two tests were to collect data for analysis. The study has two analyses: quantitative and qualitative analyses. Firstly, the Wesche & Paribakht‟s V ocabulary Knowledge Scale was adopted to provide the data for quantitative analysis between groups and in each group. Secondly, One-Way ANOV A was adopted to compare the differences among three groups respectively in the immediate and delayed vocabulary tests.In qualitative analysis, the data of feedbacks were analyzed to find out how the subjects deal with unknown words and some ways of learning vocabulary. Therefore, the quantitative analysis was mainly applied and the qualitative analysis was carefully used to assists the quantitative analysis in order to explore the effects of Task-based reading on L2 vocabulary acquisition. Comparison of Task Effect in Immediate Post-test and Delayed Post-test.The following table is the results.Table 4.1.1 Descriptive Statistics for Scores of the Three Treatments in Immediate Test and Delayed TestTable 4.1.1 reveals that reading with task can help students acquire new words in immediate post-test. However, different task has different effect on vocabulary acquisition. In immediate post-test, task 2 reading with close exercise had the highest mean number of words learned, followed by task 3 reading with sentence-making exercise, and then task 1 reading with irreverent questions. In delayed post-test, Task 3 reading with sentence-making exercise had the highest mean number of words learned, followed by Task 2, and the last is Task 1.4.2 Major FindingsAt first, the present study demonstrated that under different task involvement load condition, Chinese English learners were likely to acquire vocabulary incidentally. In the immediately test and delayed test, the mean scores of the three tasks showed that students could acquire new words by incidental learning when doing reading task, and the reading could facilitate learners‟word retention. According to the Involvement Load Hypothesis proposed by Laufer and Hulstijn (2001), tasks with a higher involvement load will yield higher retention of vocabularythan those with a lower involvement load. The results in the immediate test fully supported their hypothesis.As to the long term retention of words, it involves in the depth of processing hypothesis. Craik and Lockhart (1972) proposed a level of processing framework, and threw an entirely new perspective on the questions of how we retain some things better than others. They claims that our retentive abilities were a function of the levels, depth, of degrees of processing imposed on the input materials. Craik and Lackhart (1972) proposed a cognitive theory is the depth-of-processing theory, it states that “the memory trace can be understood as a by-product of perceptual analysis and that trace persistence is a positive function of the depth to which the stimulus has been analyzed” (Craik and Lackhart 671). The central idea of the depth of the processing theory is that “deeper” analysis of a stimulus leads to a more persistent memory trace, with “depth” referring to a greater degree of semantic involvement.4.3 Comparison of the Effects on Simplified Input and Enhanced InputThe results of the research suggest that reading only to comprehend the meaning of the passage have little chance to acquire vocabulary. Without the enhanced input, students can do the comprehension reading by guessing the meaning of the new words in the context or just ignore some unfamiliar words. While the enhanced input can highlight the new words which attract readers‟ attention.In task 1 student only need to find out the main idea of the text, so they pay little or no attention to the target words. As a result, they acquire fewer words during reading. Task 1 is meaning-oriented which focus less attention on individual word, and it demonstrates that vocabulary acquisition through meaning-focused reading is not efficient.In task 2, the target words are glossed and students must figure out the meaning of these words in order to finish the task. The two tasks have different requirements for students while they are reading, so they have different influence on students‟vocabulary acquisition. It shows that enhanced input affect more on students‟vocabulary acquisition. Task 2 also requires students to use these target words tofinish the close which lead students to study these words further.The Involvement Load Hypothesis predicts that tasks with different amount of involvement load should have different effects on L2 vocabulary learning. Tasks with higher involvement load should produce higher acquisition rate than tasks with lower involvement load. Since enhanced input has higher involvement load than simplified input, it proved to be more effective on students‟ vocabulary acquisition.4.4 Comparison of the Effects of Enhanced Input and Modified OutputIn the immediate test, enhanced input proved to have greater effect on vocabulary acquisition than modified output. However, during the delayed test modified output is more efficient. To complete the task, students in task 2 must know the meaning of the target words. While in task 3, students must grasp the usage as well as the meaning of the words. Just as Craik and Lockhart said that “the chance that some piece of new information will be stored in long-term memory is not determined by the length of time that it is held in short-term memory but rather by the shallowness or depth with which it is initially processed” (Laufer & Hulstijn 5) The productive tasks produce the best effect on vocabulary retention and acquiring vocabulary knowledge at a deeper level.Output tasks like sentence-writing with target words are more effective for vocabulary learning not only because they require the creation of original contexts and induce greater amount of involvement ( Laufer & Hulstijn 2001)，but also because they make a greater demand on syntactic analysis and may promote the development of other aspects of word knowledge than meaning for productive use. Output tasks were proved to be more facilitative than input ones in promoting task-based vocabulary learning. Output tasks require students to deal with the words deeper and more thoroughly, they must pay more efforts to the task. As a result, they can grasp the new words better.Enhanced input also has a deep dispose of the vocabulary, but it lacks some real application. Therefore students may have a short memory about the information in input task. On the other hand, modified output needs students to process the taskdeeply and will have a deep effect on them. Therefore it has a lasting influence for them.Chapter 5 Conclusion5.1 The Limitations of the ResearchThis thesis is only a personal effort, undoubtedly there are limitations need to be explored. Owing to the limitations of time, space and resources as well as the author‟s knowledge. There are some limitations as followed in this study; we have seen how certain task-based reading can contribute to vocabulary acquisition. However, this study has some limitations.First of all, no questionnaire was used to investigate whether some students had extra exposure to the target words during the task procession. Secondly, there is no pretest to find out the word size and the general English reading ability of the subjects. What‟s more, the size of the subjects is small with only 60 students. They were divided into groups casually without carefully design. Lastly because of the limits of the research‟s academic ability and financial aid, the researcher only does the study on one reading material; the results can not totally represents the task-based reading on vocabulary learning by middle school students.Therefore, the present study needs to be perfected in the future. More theories need to be applied to the thesis. More examples should be collected from different authoritative books.5.2 Suggestions to the Future StudyThe current study has obvious evidence that reading with enhanced tasks can promote students‟English vocabulary acquisition. Here are some suggestions for middle school students in their second language study.Firstly, teachers in practical teaching may use task-based language teaching method and design more tasks in the class. Students should seize every opportunity to make themselves exposure in English language environment by means of reading and so on. Secondly, since task-based reading is an efficient way to improve students‟English vocabulary, more study should be focus on it. From the delayed test we can。