limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are discussed in section

Chapter Five Conclusion

This chapter is composed of there major sections. A summary about the major

findings of the present study is presented in section 5.1. Some pedagogical

implications elicited from the outcome are discussed in section 5.2. Finally, the

limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are discussed in section

5.3 and 5.4 respectively.

5.1 Summary of the Findings

The current study mainly investigated the effects of meaning-inferred gloss and

meaning-given gloss on learners’ incidental vocabulary learning and explored whether

learners’ proficiency level affects the efficacy of meaning-inferred gloss and

meaning-given gloss. Some major findings are summarized as follows.

1. Learners can learn vocabulary incidentally from either meaning-inferred gloss or

meaning-given gloss when they are engaged in reading mainly for comprehension

of the text. The bold-faced gloss can arouse learners’ noticing of the new words

and thus lead them to pay additional attention to the new words, which in turn,

facilitates their vocabulary learning.

2. Overall, meaning-inferred gloss is more effective than meaning-given gloss in

eliciting vocabulary gain and retention because of more mental processing of

words and more involvement load triggered by the decision-making process in

doing the meaning-inferred gloss.

3. When learners’ proficiency level is taken into consideration, the effects of

meaning-inferred gloss is more salient on learners of high proficiency level. To be

specific, while meaning-inferred gloss is more productive in vocabulary gain for

learners of both high proficiency level and low proficiency level, the greater

effects on word retention are not seen in learners of low proficiency level.

4. When learners are reading materials enhanced with meaning-inferred gloss, their

proficiency level does not affect their vocabulary gain, but affects word retention.

To put it more specifically, learners of high proficiency level tend to have better

retention of words than learners of low proficiency level. On the other hand, when

learners are engaged in reading materials with meaning-given gloss, their

proficiency level neither affects their vocabulary gain nor word retention.

5. On the whole, when learners are reading gloss-enhanced materials, it is gloss

types, n ot l e a r ne r s ’ pr of i c i e nc y l e ve l , t ha t de t e r mi ne how muc h voc a bul a r y t he y

can gain or retain incidentally from reading.

6. The r e i s no s i gni f i c a nt i nt e r a c t i on be t we e n gl os s t ype s a nd l e a r ne r s ’ pr of i c i e nc y level in vocabulary gain, but in terms of word retention, the significant

interrelationship between gloss types and proficiency level does exist.

5.2 Pedagogical Implication

The study aims to investigate whether Taiwanese senior high students can benefit

from meaning-inferred gloss and meaning-given gloss. It is expected that the findings

in the study can shed light on vocabulary learning. The following is the pedagogical

implication of the study.

To begin with, the study shows that reading materials, enhanced with

meaning-given gloss, can be assigned to students for independent reading. Although it

is undeniable that extensive reading can lead to the incremental process of vocabulary

learning, there is still concern that learners’text comprehension may not always lead

to the kind of word processing, which is an indispensable element in vocabulary

learning. The presence of gloss, however, can solve the above problem.

Glosses are beneficial in several aspects. As learners are engaged in reading,

their attention to new words is drawn by the gloss and their knowledge of the

unknown words is enriched by the rich context in the reading material. Besides, the

presence of gloss can ease students’burden of dictionary consultation, minimize the

interruption of reading process and prevent students from making wrong inference or

assigning a meaning not appropriate for the unknown words in the particular context.

Thus, gloss can ensure students’exact understanding of the text as well as the

meaning of the unknown words.

Despite the advantages of glosses, some teachers are worried that students are

deprived of the opportunities to develop their inferential skills when the meaning is

given directly in the gloss. Such being the case, teachers can occasionally implement

meaning-inferred gloss to elicit their mental processing of the words in class, so that

correct feedback can be presented immediately after learners finish the

meaning-inferred multiple-choice gloss. In this way, the influence of wrong inference

can be minimized; at the same time, learners can exert more mental efforts on the new

words, from which their vocabulary learning can be consolidated.

On the whole, no matter what kind of text enhancement teachers employ, one

thing to keep in mind is that students should not abandon their inferring ability to

learn words incidentally while they are engaged in reading. The study suggests that

word processing via inferring the meaning tends to facilitate students’vocabulary

acquisition better than when the meaning is given directly or explicitly. In other words,

giving students word definition directly may deprive them of the opportunities to have

deep processing of the words and lead to their ignorance or inattentive browse of the

target words. In view of such risk, teachers should always encourage students to infer

the word meaning from context before consulting the meaning of the new words in

the glosses or dictionary.

Last but not the least, although the current study supports the effects of incidental

vocabulary learning, effective vocabulary learning does not just occur in one learning

condition (Horst, Cobb, & Meara, 1998; Nation, 2001; Oxford & Scarcella, 1994;

Paribakht & Wesche, 1997; Prince, 1996; Tran, 2006). In addition to having students

pick up the words incidentally from reading, teachers should still keep in mind that

vocabulary learning is an incremental process, in which several encounters of the new

words are crucial for vocabulary to take place. Thus, teachers should encourage

students to have more exposure to vocabulary and enhance their mental processing of

the words by reading extensively and inferring the word meaning from context. To

build up l e a r ner s ’confidence in reading, teachers should also devote some time in

class to instructions of the necessary skills, which will help students to handle

unknown words from context (Fraser, 1999; Georss, Beck, & McKeown, 1999;

Swanborn & de Glopper, 1999).

Besides, the importance of intentional learning should not be ignored. Students

should be encouraged to verify the meaning of the unknown words and invest efforts

in memorizations of words encountered in reading.

5.3 Limitation of the Study

Though the study showed meaning-inferred gloss had greater effects than

meaning-given gloss on incidental vocabulary learning and that learners’ proficiency

level did not affect vocabulary learning in reading materials enhanced with either

gloss type, there were still some limitations of this study.

To begin with, the participants in the present study were confined in the same

senior high school in central Taiwan, and the participants were exclusively male

students majoring in science, which suggest less interest in study English. Therefore,

the generalization of the results to other populations with different educational

background may be limited.

The second limitation is the definition of the proficiency level in the current

study. Since the participants were all in the same senior high school, it was difficult to

ensure that the participants did have discrepancy in their proficiency level just based

on the grade they were in. To be specific, the participants classified as high

proficiency group and the participants classified as low proficiency group might

actually both had intermediate level. Because of the minor discrepancy between their

proficiency levels, the influence of proficiency level did not reach significance.

Different results concerning the effect of proficiency level could have come out with

participants who showed greater discrepancy in their proficiency level, such as the

comparison between college students and high school students.

The last limitation in current study was the amount of time allocated in the

experimental reading task. Participants in the meaning-inferred group and

meaning-inferred group had the same amount of time to finish the reading, but

actually participants in the meaning-inferred group should have been allocated more

amount of time because of the additional task of multiple-choice gloss. Different

results might have been obtained if participants in meaning-inferred group had more

time to finish the reading task than learners of meaning-given group.

5.4 Suggestion for Future Study

The results indicate that both meaning-inferred gloss and meaning-given gloss

facilitate incidental vocabulary learning, with meaning-inferred gloss outperforming

meaning-given gloss. However, many variables might have influenced the result, such a s pa r t i c i pa nt s ’ ba c kgr ound, t he e xpe r i me nt a l t i me , t he me a s ur e me nt of voc a bul a r y knowledge, etc.

The stud y onl y mea s ur e s l e a r ne r s ’ r e ce pt i ve knowl e dge of t he t ar ge t wor ds , s o i f f ut ur e s t udy ca n i nc or por a t e bot h t he me a s ur e ment of l e a r ne r s ’ r ec e pt i ve knowl e dge and their productive knowledge, there will be more significant findings. Also, since

the current study investigated the retention of the target words only two weeks after

the immediate test, future study can investigate the longer delayed effects to find out

if the positive effects on retention that meaning-inferred gloss generates may be

absent because of time attrition.

Although the study showed no interaction between proficiency level and gloss

type, there may be some limitation in the design of the study. Thus, it is suggested that

future study can incorporate participants with more discrepancy in their proficiency

level based on the results of proficiency tests, to find out whether proficiency level

affects their incidental vocabulary learning in reading materials enhanced with

different gloss.

Besides, it is suggested that future study can employ interview or questionnaire

to investigate learners’inferring process in doing multiple-choice gloss and their

response to the use of meaning-inferred gloss in reading.

Finally, the current study put gloss subsequent after the target words with a view

to minimize the interruption of reading process. However, it is also suggested that

marginal gloss, by having learners read back and forth between the target words in the

context and the gloss, can consolidate the form-meaning connection better (Rott, 2003)

Thus, future study can explore the effects of meaning-inferred and meaning-given

gloss in the margin, at the foot of the page and at the end of the text to see whether

where gloss occurs has impacts on learners’ vocabulary learning.