Effects of Involvement Load of the Task on Japanese EFL Learners’ Lexical Network Changes

Conference: The Southeast Asian Conference on Education (SEACE2023)
Title: Effects of Involvement Load of the Task on Japanese EFL Learners’ Lexical Network Changes
Stream: Foreign Languages Education & Applied Linguistics (including ESL/TESL/TEFL)
Presentation Type: Poster Presentation
Authors:
Noriko Aotani, Tokai Gakuen University, Japan
Shin'ya Takahashi, Tokai Gakuen University, Japan

Abstract:

This study investigates the effects of task-induced involvement load, evaluation and search in particular, in an extensive reading task on a change of the lexical relationship that EFL learners perceive. We pick up fifteen words from the reading material (word types 152, word tokens 306) and investigate how learners’ perceived relationship among these words change during the task. Data is collected from 96 Japanese EFL learners who are divided into four groups resulted from a multiplication of high/low evaluation and high/low search. High evaluation group is assigned partial translation task of the passage. Low evaluation group is assigned multiple-choice questions about its contents. High search group is allowed to use dictionary, whereas low search group is not. In the experiment, all participants answer whether he/she thinks one target word has a lexical relationship with another or not. This test is administered three times, a week before the task, immediately after the task, and three weeks after the task. The results are to be analyzed and visualized by Gephi, a data-visualization platform, to show how participants’ lexical network among target words changes in each group. Our hypothesis is that the task with higher degree of involvement load will bring about more significant change of learner’s lexical network; that is, more in the high evaluation/search group than the low evaluation/search group. 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.

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