Adding glosses to a reading text is expected to be helpful for second (L2) language learners, especially when inferring the meaning of words or expressions is challenging. This project examines the use of glosses to foster comprehension and retention of L2 idioms (e.g., go against the grain and stick to your guns). More specifically, it compares the benefits of different types of information in glosses: simply clarifying the idiomatic meaning, clarifying the literal meaning from which the idiomatic meaning is derived, or clarifying both. The participants were 37 Chinese ESL learners who read texts with one of the three types of glosses, and then sat immediate and one-week delayed post-tests. Fifteen of them also participated in a stimulated recall interview with the researcher. The post-tests showed no significant difference in the overall effectiveness of the three gloss types for idiom learning. The interview data, however, revealed substantial variation in the ways participants approached the glossed texts, regardless of the reading condition they had been assigned to. The interview data also suggested that the effectiveness of providing information about the literal underpinning of an idiom depends on how easy it is for the individual learner to appreciate the connection between this literal use and the idiomatic meaning.
Keywords: Second language acquisition; idioms; reading with glosses; incidental vocabulary acquisition; mixed-methods research
