2.4.1 Definition of Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition
2.4.1 definition of incidental vocabulary acquisition
it is generally accepted that a considerable percentage of the l2 vocabulary is acquired incidentally, i. e. as a “by-product”of reading (nagy, anderson, & hermann, 1985; nation & coady, 1988; nation, 2001). incidental vocabulary acquisition has been identified with either acquisition (krashen, 1981) or implicit learning (ellis, 2008). in the literature, incidental vocabulary acquisition has been defined as “learning without an intent to learn, or as the learning of one thing, for example vocabulary, when the student's primary objective is to do something else” (laufer & hulstijn, 2001, p.10), and “the learning of new words as a by-product of a meaning-focused communicative activity, such as reading, listening, and interaction, which occurs through multiple exposure to a word in different contexts”(huckin & coady, 1999, p.185). this study uses the definition of incidental vocabulary acquisition given by ellis (2008), i. e., “learning of some specific feature that takes place without any conscious intention to learn it” (p.966).
it is not difficult to list out the advantages of incidental vocabulary acquisition over direct instruction: (a) it is pedagogically efficient because it allows two activities, such as vocabulary acquisition and reading/listening, to occur at the same time, (b) it is more individualized and learner-based because the vocabulary being acquired is dependent on the learner's own selection of learning materials, and (c) because incidental vocabulary acquisition usually occurs in the process of reading, vocabulary is contextualized, which gives the learner a richer sense of the word's use and meaning than that from traditional exercises.
however, as for an exact definition and characterization of the processes and mechanisms involved in incidental vocabulary acquisition, many questions remain unanswered. a very general problem with the operational definition of incidental vocabulary acquisition given above is that it seems to suggest that incidental learning occurs unconsciously. as gass (1999) noted, however, defining incidental vocabulary acquisition as the “side-effect”of another activity neglects the active role of the learner in this process. the fact that learning occurs as a by-product of reading does not automatically imply that it does not involve any conscious processes. the seeming equation of “incidental”with “unconscious”is also criticized by ellis (1994a, p.38), who believed that incidental vocabulary acquisition is non-explicit in so far as it does not involve an explicit learning intention (the overall goal of the learner is text comprehension), but that neither the process nor the product of such learning is necessarily implicit in the sense of non-conscious.
in typical experiments investigating incidental vocabulary learning, learners are required to perform a task involving the processing of some information without being told that they will be afterwards tested on their recall of that information. one method is to expose learners to the relevant material without an instruction to learn, which generally means that learners must perform some task that leads them to experience the to-be-tested material but does not lead them to expect a later retention test. for example, learners are required to complete a listening task with some vocabulary items embedded in the listening text, and are later tested on the recall of the vocabulary items, as in the study reported in this thesis.
another way of investigating incidental learning is to ask learners to learn something, but not the information targeted for subsequent testing. for example, learners are told to listen to a text and then recall the contents of it. however, they are not told in advance that they will be tested afterwards on their recall of the unfamiliar words in the listening text.
it is generally accepted that a considerable percentage of the l2 vocabulary is acquired incidentally, i. e. as a “by-product”of reading (nagy, anderson, & hermann, 1985; nation & coady, 1988; nation, 2001). incidental vocabulary acquisition has been identified with either acquisition (krashen, 1981) or implicit learning (ellis, 2008). in the literature, incidental vocabulary acquisition has been defined as “learning without an intent to learn, or as the learning of one thing, for example vocabulary, when the student's primary objective is to do something else” (laufer & hulstijn, 2001, p.10), and “the learning of new words as a by-product of a meaning-focused communicative activity, such as reading, listening, and interaction, which occurs through multiple exposure to a word in different contexts”(huckin & coady, 1999, p.185). this study uses the definition of incidental vocabulary acquisition given by ellis (2008), i. e., “learning of some specific feature that takes place without any conscious intention to learn it” (p.966).
it is not difficult to list out the advantages of incidental vocabulary acquisition over direct instruction: (a) it is pedagogically efficient because it allows two activities, such as vocabulary acquisition and reading/listening, to occur at the same time, (b) it is more individualized and learner-based because the vocabulary being acquired is dependent on the learner's own selection of learning materials, and (c) because incidental vocabulary acquisition usually occurs in the process of reading, vocabulary is contextualized, which gives the learner a richer sense of the word's use and meaning than that from traditional exercises.
however, as for an exact definition and characterization of the processes and mechanisms involved in incidental vocabulary acquisition, many questions remain unanswered. a very general problem with the operational definition of incidental vocabulary acquisition given above is that it seems to suggest that incidental learning occurs unconsciously. as gass (1999) noted, however, defining incidental vocabulary acquisition as the “side-effect”of another activity neglects the active role of the learner in this process. the fact that learning occurs as a by-product of reading does not automatically imply that it does not involve any conscious processes. the seeming equation of “incidental”with “unconscious”is also criticized by ellis (1994a, p.38), who believed that incidental vocabulary acquisition is non-explicit in so far as it does not involve an explicit learning intention (the overall goal of the learner is text comprehension), but that neither the process nor the product of such learning is necessarily implicit in the sense of non-conscious.
in typical experiments investigating incidental vocabulary learning, learners are required to perform a task involving the processing of some information without being told that they will be afterwards tested on their recall of that information. one method is to expose learners to the relevant material without an instruction to learn, which generally means that learners must perform some task that leads them to experience the to-be-tested material but does not lead them to expect a later retention test. for example, learners are required to complete a listening task with some vocabulary items embedded in the listening text, and are later tested on the recall of the vocabulary items, as in the study reported in this thesis.
another way of investigating incidental learning is to ask learners to learn something, but not the information targeted for subsequent testing. for example, learners are told to listen to a text and then recall the contents of it. however, they are not told in advance that they will be tested afterwards on their recall of the unfamiliar words in the listening text.