"Task-Induced Involvement Load in Korean EFL Adult Learners’ Incidental Vocabulary Learning"

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to testify the Involvement Load Hypothesis (Hulstijn & Laufer, 2001) especially focusing on Korean adult learners. A total of 55 adult learners of two proficiency levels completed one of the three vocabulary tasks which are different in terms of involvement load index established by Hulstijn and Laufer (2001): reading comprehension (1), gap-filling (2) and unscrambling sentences (3). To measure the effectiveness of different task-induced involvement, a pre-test was administered to check both the participants` pre-knowledge regarding the 10 target words and to prove homogeneity of three assigned subgroups. Then, two post-tests were implemented, one immediately after the treatment and one two weeks after, to measure their short-term learning and long-term retention on the target words. For the adult learners, the difference of involvement load was a significant factor in short-term learning, whereas it was partially supported for long-term retention, because Task 2 was more influential than Task 3. Therefore, the present study suggests that a more effective task should be considered for adult learners in both low and high English proficiencies, who have different amount of time to prepare tests or study English, in teaching environments.