“案例教学”插入任务和“自然阅读”任务给商务英语词语附带习得的作用

关键词：案例教学,插入任务,自然阅读,商务英语词语,附带习得,有效教学方法论文

Chapter OneIntroduction

Vocabulary is regarded as the most important basis of acquisition of alanguage for it is relevant to mastery of all the other language skills. The deepdevelopment of global communication and cooperation and rapid progress of modemtechnique offer widely varying and advantageous platform for the English learners.Meanwhile, traditional concepts, strategies and patterns of vocabulary have beeninfluenced and changed. With the advanced requirement of the practical modeminternational situation in all fields and subjects, English for Specific Purposesemerged and has rapidly developed.Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition is a method of acquiring the vocabularywhich is relative to the intentional learning. In the intentional learning, learnersmemorize the vocabulary through intentionally reciting the vocabulary lists orcompleting certain vocabulary exercises to acquire the vocabulary knowledge.Meanwhile, in the incidental vocabulary acquisition, learners acquire the vocabularyincidentally through the process of completing other tasks, such as reading，communication，listening to English songs or watching movies. One unique factor ofincidental acquisition is the learners' attention which is not intentionally on thememorizing of the words (Laufer & Hulstijn，2001). In the incidental vocabularyacquisition, the learners' attention is mainly paid to the information which is deliveredby the words. Learners acquire certain relevant lexical knowledge although the learning process does not involve the intentional learning activity (Nation，1990).Learning of the words is not the purpose of incidental vocabulary acquisition，but themethod of completing the tasks. The acquisition of vocabulary is just one kind ofby-product in the learning process. Learners constantly pay their main attention tovarying factors and characteristics of the lexical formation through intentionalacquisition. However，the practical usage of the specific words in communication isfrequently ignored. On the other side，learners may emphasize the specific meaning oftarget words in the context. Numerous researches investigated the incidentalvocabulary acquisition from the perspective which discussed the enhancing effect oftext-reading activity (Nagy, Anderson & Herman, 1985; Knight，1994; Mondria &Boer, 1991,1993; Laufer & Hulstijn，2001; Saragi，Nation & Meister，1978).In the area of second language acquisition，numerous theoretical and empiricalresearches have studied the different factors in the learning and teaching process.Based on the Depth of Processing Hypothesis, Involvement Load Hypothesis wasproposed and developed by Hulstijn & Laufer (2001) as a construct to integrate theresults of numerous researches of the depth of motivation，processing，attention andnoticing.As a major branch of ESP，Business English involves specific linguisticknowledge which is aimed at dealing with the different cases in trading fields，such asfinance, logistics andinternational trade. In the process of acquiring Business English,learners are supposed to master the language as a practical tool to be applied in thebusiness situations. Due to the specific background of the emergency and applicationof BE，its vocabulary has a variety of characteristics which may cause differenthindrances for the second language learners. Its vocabulary has a strong professionalrequirement, a wide coverage and is relatively complex.
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Chapter TwoTheoretical Foundation

Background and Terms of Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition
In the process of learning and acquisition of a language，learners constantlyexperience two different types which are two distinctive terms in researches of secondlanguage learning: implicit learning and explicit learning. These two terms aregenerated from psychological studies and are in accordance with N. Ellis'sterminology;Implicit learning is acquisition of knowledge about the underlying structure ofa complex stimulus environment by a process which takes place naturally,simply and without conscious operations. Explicit learning is a more consciousoperation where the individual makes and tests hypotheses in a search forstructure (as cited in Laufer & Hulstijn, 2001a，p.4)These two distinct definitions have to be distinguished for it is necessary topropose and check a theory to advocate proper application and guidance of explicitand implicit learning of second language. As we all know, learners encounter little difficulty or hindrance through the process of mastering their first language. However，the case of acquiring their second language is constantly different. Several differenttheories and studies were put forward and displayed to explain the different cases inacquisition of first and second language. Some of them are supportable and tenable,such as the Critical Period Hypothesis, the Universal Grammar and implicit learningand explicit learning. Most of the researchers have come up with a consensus thatacquisition of first language mainly relies on the implicit learning process，whereasthe acquisition of second language depends on one special combination of implicitand explicit learning ( Hulstijn，2005).From the perspective of vocabulary acquisition, explicit learning ofvocabulary is a necessary involvement through a complex cooperation of learners,teachers, researchers and material writers. In this cooperative process，learners shouldpossess the motivation and interests，teachers should provide pedagogical guidance,and researchers should elaborate the content and method of the learning and teachingactivities to the teachers and material writers. In the relative combination of thosedifferent factors，it may appear a mixture of implicit learning and explicit learning,incidental vocabulary acquisition and intentional vocabulary acquisition.We should make relatively clear distractions among those specific terms.Essentially, implicit learning was defined a type of learning which involved theleafoing process without teaching and without conscious inductions. On the contrary,explicit learning required learner's conscious attention and specific pedagogicguidance. In terms of vocabulary acquisition, incidental acquisition was defined aslearning of vocabulary without any intention. It is hard to clearly elaborate theessential difference between implicit and explicit learning，between intentional andincidental vocabulary acquisition，since researchers and learners encounter hindrance in defining the essence of the term "consciousness", Angelika (2003，p.26) suggestedthat "the terminology confusion largely seems to be caused by ambiguities ininterpretation of the term 'consciousness' itself.With the stress on the term "consciousness" itself，Schmidt (1990) studiedthe notion and essence of this key concept in implicit and explicit learning. In hisstudies, the notion of "consciousness" was generally equated with the term"awareness". Implicit learning is regarded as an automatic process without awarenessof the process and results and the acquisition，while explicit learning is involved withthe learners' online awareness (Angelika, 2003), Angelika (2003) briefly concludedthat:The term implicit will be equated with 'non-consciousness，in the sense ofunaware, while incidental will be equated with ‘un-intentional’. Thisterminological clarification finally enables us to relate the terms implicit andincidental by viewing incidental vocabulary acquisition as being composed ofimplicit learning processes (which happen without the learner's awareness)and/or of explicit learning processes (which take place without learningintention due nevertheless involve online awareness and hypothesis formation).(Angelika, 2003，p.28)On the otiier side，the definitions of incidental learning and intentionallearning originate in experimental psychology. Generally, incidental ? learning isdefined as the "learning of vocabulary as the by-product of any activity not explicitlygeared to vocabulary learning" and is contrasted with the intentional vocabularylearning. And intentional learning is defined as "any activity geared at committinglexical information to memory" (Hulstijn & Laufer，2001，p.271).

Receptive and Productive Vocabulary Acquisition
Most language learning activities follow the rule in which the acquisition ofvocabulary is a rapidly progressive process from receptive acquisition to productiveacquisition. If a learner uses a word skillfully and properly, it means that he or she hasalready defined it and figured out the sense of it，but not vice versa. Relevantpsychological researches find that a learner needs a larger amount of information toacquire the productive vocabulary than to acquire the receptive vocabulary (Norman,1976). According to the previously mentioned theoretical researches on the incidentalvocabulary acquisition and implicit learning，the participants' acquisition of target BEwords in presentstudy is incidental for two perspectives:First，both in the case-based-teaching-involved task and self-reading task，thelearners were not informed in advance to intentionally acquire or master the targetwords in the material. That means during the whole learning process，their attentionwas not specifically paid to the words themselves. Respectively, on one side，in theself-reading task，the learners were required to retell the main points of the textmaterial on completing the learning process. They tried to understand the central meaning of the text and to organize their ideas，but not acquired the words. On theother side, in the case-based-teaching-involved task, the learners were organized andguided to participate in the case-based teaching activities. They discussed the concreteissues and situations of the given business case and analyzed the main content of it-Through the discussion and analysis, they made efforts to explore the business context，and also not intentionally mastered the target words. This provides the possibility ofparalleled comparison of these two different involvements of the tasks.

Chapter Three Literature Review ............32

Empirical Researches on IVA ......32

Empirical researches on Involvement Load Hypothesis   .......36

Chapter Four Experimental Design........... 46

Research Questions and Hypotheses.............46

Chapter Five Methodology......... 54

Participants ...........54

Instruments .........56

Chapter SixResults and Discussion

Results and Discussion of Research Question 1
In the immediate test, which task shows more obvious enhancing effect on thereceptive acquisition of target BE words, the self-reading task or thecase-based-teaching-involved task?Both of the case-based-teaching-involved group and self-reading group werearranged to a specific task and then required to take part in the immediate test forinvestigating their receptive and productive acquisition of the target BE words. According to the analysis of total scores of immediate test (see Table 6.1),both of the two groups acquired mean scores in immediate test which investigatedparticipants' incidental vocabulary acquisition. The total score of immediate test is 38points and the mean scores of the two groups are both beyond the cut-off score whichis 22.8. That means that in Group 1，those Chinese Business English learnersimproved incidental vocabulary acquisition with the involvement of case-basedteaching. Table 6.2 shows the results of receptive acquisition of the target words inimmediate test. It indicates that the effect of involvement of case-based teachingshows no significant difference to the effect of involvement of self-reading. Results in Table 6.1 shows that in involvement of the case-based teaching，theteaching method indeed enhances the participant's acquisition.Business English is an essential branch and practical development of Englishfor Specific Purposes, and its acquisition.and application both need the existence of arelatively real context. The case-based teaching method provides such true-to-lifesituations as the contexts. It provides relevant and concrete cases as the interactionbetween teachers and learners in the teaching and learning processes. And thecase-based teaching is related to the types of varying knowledge for their differentfimctions and value. When a participant focused on the analysis and topic which theywere talking about’ his attention was not intentionally on the form or the meaning of the words. In this way，his vocabulary acquisition was assured to be incidental. Moreimportantly, in the language communicative activities，learners pay more attention tothe context meaning and specific usage of the words，but not just the formation orlinguistic knowledge. In this case, the vocabulary knowledge of the learner isconstantly systematic and easily to be conveyed in the real situations. The presentstudy is just an example of this case. By the case-based teaching，learners are offereda chance to connect their vocabulary knowledge with the real business world and thendevelop a systematic or integrated set of vocabulary knowledge, that is，the incidentalvocabulary acquisition of BE has been enhanced.However，from the specific data in the Table 6.2: Sig.=.326〉.05，thisindicates that there is no significant difference between the effects of the two types oftask on the receptive acquisition of the target words. So Hypothesis 1: In theimmediate test, the case-based-teaching-involved task shows more obvious enhancingeffect on the receptive acquisition of target BE words than the self-reading task is notsupported.On one hand, for acquiring the receptive acquisition of the target BE words，inother words，for identifying and recognizing the form and meaning of the words, bothof the self-reading and case-based-teaching-involved tasks offer adequate amount oflexical and contextual information, especially for the immediate effect. On the otherhand, in terms of the depth of processing，the two tasks might involve the same depthof processing to acquire the receptive knowledge of the target words. So in terms ofthe immediate effect, there exists no significant difference between the effects of thetwo types of task on the receptive acquisition of the target words.

Results and Discussion of Research Question 2
The total score of productive acquisition in immediate test is 20 points and thegroups of case-based-teaching-involved task and self-reading task both acquired meanscores which were beyond the cut-off score 12 points in the tests. That means that inboth of the groups, learners all improved productive vocabulary acquisition. There is aneed to know whether one type of involvement is better than the other in the way theyinfluence the productive vocabulary acquisition. From the specific data in the Table 6.3: Sig.= 225>.05, we can clearly seethat in the immediate test，there is no significant difference between the effects of twotasks on the productive acquisition of the target BE words. Specifically speaking, inthe short-term acquisition，the case-based-teaching-involved task indeed enhances theproductive acquisition of target words. However，this effect is not more obvious thanthe effect of involvement of the self-reading task. So Hypothesis 2: In the immediate test, the case-based'teaching-involved task shows more obvious enhancing effect onthe productive acquisition of target BE words than the self-reading task was notsupported by statistical evidence.Experimentally, Involvement Load Hypothesis which was proposed anddeveloped by Hulstijn & Laufer (2001) may provide some guideline to explain thepractical statistical results. As we studied in previous chapters, the three key elementsor components of ILH may be absent or present with different degrees. From theinitial hypothesis，case-based teaching activity calls for more needs and total load ofinvolvement would increase for the inner mechanism pushes the efficient incidentalvocabulary acquisition. However, the reality is out of the initial hypothesis. Onereason of the result might be the familiarity of the topic or close connection betweenthe words and meaning of the given passage for they cause the rise of more or deeperneed and result in the unobvious significant difference between the two tasks inimmediate test. More specially, according to our hypothesis of the different needs oflearners in the two tasks, the participants in Group 1 may have a strong or“self-imposed” need to take active part in the discussions and analysis of the givenbusiness case. But in reality，the other participants in Group 2 might also be aroused astrong need to complete the retelling task which was assigned to them. This fact mightexplain the unobviousness of the difference between the involvements of two tasks inimmediate test.
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Chapter SevenConclusion and Implication

Conclusion
The present study investigated the effect of self-reading task andcase-based-teaching-involved task, examining whether involvement of the case-basedteaching can effectively enhance incidental acquisition of ESP vocabulary, especiallythe BE vocabulary. In this study，an experiment was conducted and was introduced indetails in former chapters. SPSS 20.0 was used as analytic tool and the data resultswere discussed in Chapter Five and Chapter Six.The results of the present study can be concluded as follows:(1) It is possible for Chinese Business English learners to improve incidentalvocabulary acquisition with the involvement of case-based teaching method.(2) On the basis of incidental vocabulary acquisition, the Involvement LoadHypothesis, studies on Business English and also the pedagogical review of thecase-based teaching, the case-based-teaching-involved task does not show moreobvious enhancing effect than the self-reading task in the immediate test of incidentalacquisition of target words, both on receptive and productive vocabulary acquisition,than the self-reading task.(3) With the two different types of the vocabulary acquisition, the presentstudy finds that the involvement of case-based-teaching method more obviouslyenhances the long-term productive acquisition of target words than the self-readingtask.

Pedagogical Implications
Since one of the central viewpoints of the present study is the perspective fromthe case-based teaching, together with the review of a basic foundation of language,incidental vocabulary acquisition and the content of Involvement Load Hypothesis.There are some suggestions in pedagogical way:(1) The review of previous investigations and the experimental resultsindicated that it is possible for Chinese Business English students to improveincidental vocabulary acquisition with the involvement of case-based teachingmethod.(2) In the curriculum and course of BE，teachers should pay more attention tothe vocabulary of ESP. and try to apply the case-based teaching method or introducemore real situations as the context. When a teacher organizes a case-based classroomactivity, he should not only provide the material or cases, but also some indispensibleguidance to the procedures. As for the incidental vocabulary acquisition, appropriateand efficient strategies and tasks should be applied in the learning and teachingprocesses. More specifically, in addition to the reading task with varying involvement,different tasks which might be connected with the social or cultural or communicativeneeds of the real world.(3) Successftil vocabulary acquisition is not only performed in the receptiveaspect, that is，the form and meaning of a given word，but also the productiveacquisition. By knowing clearly about the lexical meaning，，grammatical orformational rules, the most important goal should be acquiring the frequent utteranceor writing.
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