This study investigates the effects of task-induced involvement load in an extensive reading on a change of the lexical relationship that EFL learners perceive. We pick up fifteen words from the reading material, a short article about Yoga, and investigate how learners’ perceived relationship among these words change during the task. Data is collected from 60 Japanese EFL learners who are divided into three groups. The first group read the article and answer multiple-choice questions. The second group do the same task as the first with referring to a co-occurrence network diagram of words, which is generated by KH Coder. The diagram has five blank word-nodes which have to be filled by a participant with proper words from shown answer-list. The third group do the same task as the second but the filling-in task without answer-list. In the experiment, all participants answer the degree of lexical relationship between target words. This test is administered three times, a week before, immediately after, and four weeks after the task. The results are to be analyzed and visualized by Gephi, a data-visualization platform, to show how participants’ lexical network changes. We hypothesize that the task with higher degree of involvement load will bring about more significant change of learner’s lexical network; that is, the third group will show greater change than other groups. Any results will contribute to the elaboration of the Involvement Load Hypothesis proposed by Laufer & Hulstijn (2001) through applying it to a deepening of understanding of already known words.

Authors:
Noriko Aotani, Tokai Gakuen University, Japan
Shin'ya Takahashi, Tokai Gakuen University, Japan

---

Conference Comments & Feedback

Place a comment using your LinkedIn profile

Comments

Share on activity feed

Post with LinkedIn

Powered by WP LinkPress

Share this Presentation

Share this...

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Linkedin

Posted by Clive Staples Lewis

Last updated: 2023-02-23 23:45:00

All Posts