抄録
Laufer and Hulstijn (2001) indicated that incidental vocabulary learning would be effective in fostering higher vocabulary retention if the task induced higher involvement load that comprises of one motivational perspective (i.e., need) and two cognitive perspectives (i.e., search and evaluation). This hypothesis was examined empirically by Hulstijn and Laufer (2001) and Kim (2008). However, the extent to which the level of the involvement load should be adjusted to foster more effective vocabulary retention remains unknown. In addition, in the previous studies, participants were limited to university students. This study, thus, examines the effect of various levels of involvement load on Japanese high school EFL learners' vocabulary retention. In order to collect data, reading and sentence writing tasks with different levels of involvement load were created and implemented during class time. The learners' vocabulary retention was measured on a vocabulary knowledge scale (Paribakht & Wesche, 1996; 1997), immediately after the tasks were performed and again after 10 days. The results demonstrated that sentence writing task with a moderate level of involvement load (i.e., moderate need, no search, and moderate evaluation) seemed to more successfully promote vocabulary retention of the high school learners than the reading tasks. The study also argued that the evaluation component is more likely to contribute to effective vocabulary retention than the search component. In addition, it was suggested that for learners, higher involvement load may not always induce deeper processing of vocabulary, which in turn would lead to retention.
