Abstract
Incidental vocabulary learning while extensive reading has been regarded as common for adults’ life-long learning of a foreign language. Extensive reading is therefore encouraged to L2 learners for enhancing vocabulary ability. However, while reading, L2 learners often struggle with their lack of sufficient word knowledge necessary for precise guessing of word meanings and the ample opportunities to encounter words repeatedly within various contexts required for more complicated word development. Preparing texts reaching adequate familiar word coverage for specific groups of learners and at the same time ensuring sufficient repetition for target words is often challenging. With the help of word lists research and the advances of quantitative corpus analyses using word frequency computer programs, texts with i+1 (comprehensible input) are easier to obtain. By incorporating various online tools, an effectiveness research study of using an online extensive reading program with careful control of vocabulary difficulty and repetitive target word exposure was conducted. This study originated from an exploratory issue of what happens to the English teaching process when we incorporate an online extensive reading syllabus with graded texts for vocabulary acquisition purposes. The online extensive reading syllabus was developed by graded texts, gloss, a bilingual concordancer, and highlights of target words. With four word lists, the General Service Word List, the Senior High Student’s Word List in Taiwan, the University Word List, and a high frequent word list, a text grader program filtered articles based on vocabulary difficulty out of the original 5008 articles of a parallel corpus, Sinorama. Easier texts were sequenced first to provide texts with i+1 and repetitive exposure of target words was ensured to induce quality incidental vocabulary acquisition. The online reading program was furthermore enhanced with gloss, a bilingual concordancer, and highlights of target words. Thirty-eight English-as-a-foreign-language college freshmen learners were recruited to read 16 sequenced texts using the online extensive reading syllabus within a period of 12 weeks. A pretest, a posttest, a background questionnaire, an online evaluation questionnaire, and an in-class evaluation questionnaire were used as instruments for data collection. In addition to feasibility, our second concern is to which extent learners liked the online extensive reading syllabus. Finally, the study takes an interest in exploring the issue of the amount of exposure required for successful receptive and productive incidental vocabulary acquisition while reading extensively. Through data analyses, the following findings were obtained. First, technically, though manual efforts were laborious during certain steps in the selection and sequencing processes, texts with comprehensible vocabulary were successfully chosen and arranged with various online tools. Second, pedagogically, learners’ word gains were found and their attitudes towards the online extensive reading syllabus were mostly positive after reading online. Yet, learners’ inexperience in extensive reading was observed to somewhat impede the meaning making process during reading. Third, no definite answer was found with regards to the amount of exposure necessary for receptive and productive vocabulary acquisition. It is estimated that, with texts of such difficult level in the study, in order for learners to recall meanings of target words, an exposure amount of at least 15 times are needed in an online extensive reading environment. The results of the study showed that the online extensive reading syllabus could foster incidental vocabulary learning while reading. Moreover, it is suggested that accompanied with in-class explicit instruction, the online extensive reading syllabus with implicit learning material, could serve as a bridge linking explicit teaching and implicit learning for learners’ quality vocabulary acquisition.Finally, teaching implications recommended teachers’ input on reading strategy training, word instruction, and evaluation for better incorporation of explicit teaching and implicit learning using the online extensive reading syllabus. With regards to directions for future refinements on developing an online extensive reading syllabus, tools which foster learner interaction were encouraged for effective incidental vocabulary learning.