Effects of Graded Texts on EFL College Students' Incidental ...

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simplified texts from Voice <strong>of</strong> America were chosen for a test-run in Ghardirians’ study. After comparing the texts with a newly constructed word list comprised <strong>of</strong> GSL, UWL, and frequent words in Voice <strong>of</strong> America, 253 texts made the 95% cut-<strong>of</strong>f. They were then sorted so that each text had a figure <strong>of</strong> the amount <strong>of</strong> new target vocabulary which appeared in it. To reiterate, the purposes <strong>of</strong> TextLadder were to ensure first, each text was able to provide incremental vocabulary learning thus containing a small number <strong>of</strong> new words; second, words in the word list would be encountered by readers for more than five times in the selected texts for better word learning quality. Therefore, to better achieve these two purposes, some adjustment was made after the first test-run. For example, the word list coverage point was raised to 96%, and the sequence order was reversed after unfamiliar words <strong>of</strong> each text dropped to below 5%. With these adjustments, 1817 target words appeared in about 230 texts, with 1567 <strong>of</strong> the target words (86%) occurring more than five times. Ghadirian (2003) mentioned five limitations <strong>of</strong> TextLadder. First, vocabulary learning or justifying vocabulary learning sequence was TextLadder’s main function, and grammar usage and difficulty <strong>of</strong> grammatical aspects in reading texts were not considered. Second, TextLadder could only detect single word units, multi-word units such as “blow up”, “home run”, or “kick <strong>of</strong>f” could not be located. Third, TextLadder’s function has not yet able to distinguish different meanings <strong>of</strong> homographs. Fourth, proper nouns in texts were all considered as familiar words in TextLadder. Last, low frequency words in the selected reading texts may only appear fewer than five times after learners have finished reading all 200 or so texts. Furthermore, the study was only concerned with creating a reading program for dealing with the problems <strong>of</strong> the high number <strong>of</strong> unfamiliar words in authentic texts; whether this sequencing way will result in measurable learning was not the focus and therefore unexplored. 17
Besides the above potential limitations, we suspect the following additional constraints after closer scrutiny <strong>of</strong> text sequence in TextLadder. First, from the quantitative results <strong>of</strong> Ghardirian’s study, learners may have to learn 2 to 25 new words for each new text depending on the length <strong>of</strong> the text. The percentages <strong>of</strong> new words are particularly high in the first 10 to 20 texts, ranging from 8% to 16%. In other words, if a text is about 300 words long, a learner has to learn about 25 new words after reading them in such a short text for the first time. Nation (2001) pointed out that “extensive reading should contain no more than 5% unknown running words “ (p. 150). Compared to Nation’s position, the new word percentages in the first few texts in TextLadder are still higher. Second, though TextLadder tried to ensure that target words in word list could appear in reading for at least five times within about 300 reading texts, there is no control on when or how <strong>of</strong>ten learners will encounter those new words again. This therefore leads to another problem, the low frequency <strong>of</strong> appearance for target words will degrade incidental vocabulary learning. It may be in the tenth or twentieth text that learners finally once again encounter the target words read in the first text. Whether words could be acquired with such interval is questionable. Moreover, the amount <strong>of</strong> exposure necessary for word acquisition has remained a controversial issue with some researchers suggesting a much higher exposure amount than five times (Horst, Cobb, & Meara, 1998; Herman, Anderson, Pearson, & Nagy, 1987). Therefore, the five-time word acquisition threshold determined by Textladder awaits further research verification. Lastly, as was admitted by Ghadirian (2002), Textladder was not tested out on real learners, hence, the actual effect <strong>of</strong> sequenced text on vocabulary learning is left to explore. In sum, Ghadirian’s (2002) sequencing program, TextLadder, had successfully 18
Page 1 and 2: 國立清華大學碩士論文英
Page 3 and 4: Abstract Incidental vocabulary lear
Page 5 and 6: implicit learning for learners’ q
Page 7 and 8: 4.3. Discussion 70 4.3.1. The Feasi
Page 9 and 10: List of Figure Fig
Page 11 and 12: competence (Elley, 1991; Hafiz & Tu
Page 13 and 14: EFL classes, and determining the am
Page 15 and 16: consultation for second language le
Page 17 and 18: vastly reinforced with the ease and
Page 19 and 20: learning to occur. 2. Word meaning
Page 21 and 22: inging learners who are competent <
Page 23 and 24: (1993) suggested a required 5,000 w
Page 25: words in this set of</stron
Page 29 and 30: immediately after reading, one week
Page 31 and 32: 2.6. Measuring Incidental Vocabular
Page 33 and 34: 2.7. Summary We incorporated the em
Page 35 and 36: 3.1. Overview Chapter Three METHODO
Page 37 and 38: The Sinorama magazine is dedicated
Page 39 and 40: Word List (鄭恆雄, 2002; 2003),
Page 41 and 42: for the cut off po
Page 43 and 44: TextLadder; instead, our program pu
Page 45 and 46: target words within each text. Afte
Page 47 and 48: Table 3.2 Target word rate and targ
Page 49 and 50: 7. into the Exposed Word List Selec
Page 51 and 52: Table 3. 5. A comparison between Gh
Page 53 and 54: 3.3.4 Glossing of
Page 55 and 56: participants were required put a ch
Page 57 and 58: score of 2. If a t
Page 59 and 60: Table 3.9 Instruments used in the s
Page 61 and 62: had finished all sixteen texts. The
Page 63 and 64: technical feasibility of</s
Page 65 and 66: a result, valid subjects dropped fr
Page 67 and 68: Table 4.2 Learners’ perspectives
Page 69 and 70: estimation of lear
Page 71 and 72: words from known words. The provisi
Page 73 and 74: vocabulary level, on the other hand
Page 75 and 76: 4.2.4 The results of</stron
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Table 4.11 shows learners’ respon
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4.3 Discussion 4.3.1. The feasibili
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direct phonetic translations <stron
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on gloss suggested that they still
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measurement tool for its function <
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learners’ processing of</
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not be untangled without considerin
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5.1. Overview Chapter Five Conclusi
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with the same group of</str
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also accelerate sequencing time wit
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esponsible for connecting the two b
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REFERENCES Berman, R.A. (1984 ). Sy
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Hulstijn, J. H., Hollander, M., & G
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Rationale for Pedagogy (pp. 174-200
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第 1-6 題電腦方面 Appendix A
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Student Post□ 其他□__________
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26. optimistic 27. consumption 28.
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1. entrepreneur: VI. 我對這個
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21.calligraphy: I. 我對這個字
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41.insufficient: I. 我對這個字
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3 points entrepreneur: (item three
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Appendix F The In-class Evaluation
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Appendix H The Introductory Page on
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Appendix J A Search Example <strong
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Appendix L Student Reading Process
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第 1-6 題電腦方面 Appendix N
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13(2). 英文雜誌 41.7% (28/67) (
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Appendix P Results of</stro
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