1

Input, Intake, and RetentionEffects of Increased Processing on Incidental Learning of Foreign Language Vocabulary

Presenter: Fanny Chang

May 26, 2011

2

Table of Contents

Introduction

Review of the Literature

Methodology

Results

Discussion

3

Introduction

The study investigated the effects of text modification and task on incidental learning of foreign language vocabulary by reading.

The focus of the study was on how different cue types (appositives and single and multiple-choice marginal glosses) and a task (translation) would affect processing of input, initial learning, and retention of the meaning of target words in a text.

4

Literature reviews

Input modification has been an important area in second language research. The motivation behind this has been the assumption that input must be comprehensible to become intake (Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991).

Studies have been conducted to examine the effects of input modification on increased comprehensibility in listening and reading (e.g., Parker & Chaudron, 1987; Yano, Long, & Ross, 1994).

Few studies have investigated whether the increased comprehensibility actually promotes learning of language.

5

Literature reviews

Some studies in L1 reading research have investigated ways to improve vocabulary learning through reading.

Konopak and Konopak (1988) extracted four major characteristics of helpful context: proximity of the illuminating context to the unknown word clarity of the connection between the context and the unknown

word explicitness of the contextual information completeness of the contextual information

6

Literature reviews

Use of vocabulary gloss is a common practice in L2 reading materials. Although the main purpose of glosses is to aid text comprehension, glosses are also used to promote vocabulary learning.

Jacob et al. (1994) tested both L1 glosses and L2 glosses.

Students who read versions with glosses of a passage, either in the L1 or L2, scored significantly better than those who read an unglossed version of the same passage in the glossed vocabulary items.

7

Literature reviews

As a compromise between guessing meaning from context and understanding them from glosses, Hulstijn (1992) proposes multiple-choice (MC) glossing.

Multiple-choice glossing: more than one synonym, definition, or translation is given for each target word and the reader has to choose the best alternative.

Hulstijn argues that, because the MC procedure gives learners a cue, it compensates for the limited information provided by the context as well as any learner deficiency in problem-solving skills.

8

Method

Research questions:

1. Do input modifications by way of adding vocabulary explanations enhance incidental learning of vocabulary by reading?

2. How do vocabulary explanations by appositives and marginal glosses differ in their effects on vocabulary learning?

3. Do multiple-choice glosses and a translation task promote the retention of newly learned vocabulary knowledge?

4. Does a translation task promote the retention of newly learned vocabulary knowledge?

9

Method The vocabulary explanations investigated were the following: appos

itives, marginal glosses, and multiple-choice marginal glosses.

Appositives Ex: Each year in the U.S. about 7000 infants die in their cribs, babies’ beds,

for no apparent reason.

Marginal glosses Ex: Each year in the U.S. about 7000 infants die in their cribs for no appare

nt reason.

MC glossing Ex: Each year in the U.S. about 7000 infants die in their cribs for no appare

nt reason. Crib = 1 babies’ beds

2 small beds

Cribs = babies’ beds

10

Method

The translation task was expected to induce the students to engage in more elaborate processing of the target words and their meanings by forcing them to…

(a). Understand the meaning of a target word

(b). Find an appropriate L1 word from the mental lexicon that represents the meaning, and

(c). Write it down

Purposes: to investigate how this task would enhance the retention of newly learne

d vocabulary knowledge

to see how much the students could understand the target vocabulary in the unmodified, appositive, gloss, and multiple-choice gloss conditions.

11

Appositive + translation task

Marginal glosses + translation task

MC glossing + translation task

Method

12

Method

Based on past findings on reading and vocabulary learning in L1, L2, and cognitive psychology research, it was hypothesized that …

(a). Appositive explanations would give potential clues to understanding unfamiliar words

(b). Marginal glosses would provide clues with more clarity of connections between a word and its explanation

(c). MC marginal glosses would provide both clues and clarity of connections with deeper processing of the word and its explanations, and

(d). The learning and retention of vocabulary would increase. The translation task was expected to enhance retention.

13

Method

control

Note: Text 1 = “Beware of Pillows” ; Text 2 = “How to Heal Our Inner Cities”

A pretest-posttest control group with a 5 x 2 factorial between-groups design was adopted in this study.

14

Method

Subjects 231 undergraduate students in four universities in Japan particip

ated in this study as subjects. They were all native speakers of Japanese.

Materials The passage for treatment group (Text 1), “Beware of Pillows” w

as adapted from the Time magazine. The text contained 500 words. 16 target words were selected from the text, based on two criteria: (a). Assumed unfamiliarity to the target students (b). Ease of supplying a synonym or a definition in English that w

ould be comprehensible to the target students and from which they could supply an appropriate translation in Japanese.

15

Method

Materials The passage for the first control condition (original) was the sam

e as for the treatment groups.

The passage for the other control condition (control; Text 2), “How to Heal Our Inner Cities” was adapted from an article in The Honolulu Advertiser.

16 target words for the control groups were selected and two versions were made: one with the 16 words underlined (without-translation-task) the other with the words not underlined (with-translation-task)

No explanations of the words were given for either of them.

16

Method

Comprehension Questions. Five open-ended comprehension questions in Japanese were cr

eated for each passage to measure students; level of text comprehension and also to make sure the students engaged in normal reading behavior.

The questions for the treatment passage were: 1. What is this passage about? 2. Which country’s situation does the passage describe? 3. What experiment did the two doctors in the passage conduct? 4. What did they learn from the experiment? 5. What do the doctors warn about?

17

Method Procedures

Time: two regular 90-minute class sessions.

20 minutes

A vocabulary pre-test &

questionnaires.

20 minutes

A vocabulary pre-test &

questionnaires.

Section 1:

25 minutes

treatment

25 minutes

treatment

Section 2:

20 minutes

A proficiency test

20 minutes

A proficiency test

Section 3:

10 minutes

A vocabulary posttest

10 minutes

A vocabulary posttest

Section 4:

A week later, the students took two unexpected delayed posttests on the target vocabulary. The time limit was 10 minutes for the first test (words in isolation) and 15 minutes for the second test (words in context).

21

Instrumentation

Delayed posttests.

One was (word in isolation) identical to the posttest given in the first session.

The other (word in context) was a test of the target words in context. Each year in the U.S. about 7000 infants die

in their cribs for no apparent reason. Crib =

22

Scoring

Vocabulary Tests 0-3 point scale

0: no response/incorrect meaning

1: a distant partial meaning

2: a very close partial meaning

3: a reasonably complete correct meaning

Comprehension Questions0-2 point scale

0: no response/ incorrect response

1: partially correct response

2: correct response

23

Analysis

A three-way analysis of variance (ANOVA)

It used a 5(text modification types) x 2 (with or without translation task during treatment) x 3(pretest, posttest, Delayed posttest design.

Another three-way ANOVA

It used a 5(Modification) x 2(Task) x 2(Delayed Posttest1, Delayed Posttest 2) design.

Three separate one-way analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs)

It was a design of immediate posttest, the first delayed posttest, and

the second delayed posttest.

24

Results

Preliminary Analysis

One-way ANOVA results on the cloze test scores (3rd session-a proficiency test) indicated that there were no significant differences among the 10 condition groups.

ANOVA results on pretest scores indicated that the 10 condition groups were equivalent in terms of their performance on the pretest on 16 target items.

25

Results

Vocabulary Test Scores

Effect for the text modification types was statistically significant.

Effect for the three tests was significant.

There was no effect for translation task.

26

Results

In the immediate posttest, there were significant differences between all the pairs except between control and original, original and appositive, and gloss and MC gloss.

A second three-way ANOVA looked at the two delayed posttests to examine the difference in recall between a condition with only a vocabulary list provided and a condition with the text in which the target words were embedded.

29

1. Results of a one way ANCOVA on during-reading translation task scores with the modification type (4) as an independent variable and pretest scores as a covariate indicated that there was a significant difference among the four conditions.

2. The gloss and the MC gloss conditions’ scores were significantly higher than either the original or the appositive condition’s scores.

3. The gloss condition’s scores were significantly higher than those of the MC gloss.

30

Discussion

The study provides positive evidence for the effect of adding marginal glosses to a passage as a way of enhancing vocabulary learning through reading.

Whether they were multiple-choice or single glosses, the passages with marginal glosses induced significantly more learning of unfamiliar words and their meanings than the passage without such enhancing devices.

In fact, contrary to expectations, the gloss condition generally yielded higher mean scores than the MC gloss condition on the posttests.

One possible reason is that students chose the wrong alternatives from the multiple choices in the text margin during the treatment.

31

Discussion

The performance of the control group indicated virtually no change from the pretest to the immediate posttest, followed by a slight increase in the first delayed posttest and a much larger increase in the second delayed posttest. Test effects Uncontrolled treatment

The performance of the four treatment groups on the first delayed posttest may not be regarded as the pure retention of what they learned during the treatment.

32

Conclusion

Implications

The failure of appositives to promote vocabulary learning illustrates the importance of clarity of connection between explanations and what is being explained.

Language acquisition cannot be expected unless students notice the form, understand its function, and establish form-function mapping between them.

33