1 Introduction

As a comprehensive writing task, summary writing requires learners to summarize the content in their own language based on their understanding of the original text. Commonly used in professional course teaching and academic writing scenarios abroad. There is relatively little research on the evaluation and teaching of English in domestic universities, and there is insufficient understanding and research on summary writing. Exploring whether summary writing helps learners acquire vocabulary and has practical significance for improving the efficiency of college English teaching.

2 Literature Review

The literature review section points out that the vocabulary acquisition effect of summary writing as a reading strategy has not been fully studied. Existing studies often compare the vocabulary acquisition effects of summary writing with other learning tasks, and the results indicate heterogeneity among different tasks. In addition, the vocabulary acquisition effect of learning tasks is related to the amount of task engagement, but the assumption of engagement is not always confirmed. The complexity of tasks, including resource guidance and resource consumption, also deserves attention in terms of their impact on vocabulary acquisition. Although studies have explored the relationship between task complexity and second language production, further research is needed to investigate the relationship between task complexity and vocabulary acquisition. The relationship between input, task complexity, and vocabulary acquisition effects, especially the mediating effect of input, has not been quantitatively validated.

3 Research Design

This chapter elaborates on the research design in detail, including four aspects: research questions, data collection, coding, and data analysis. The research focuses on the comparison between summary writing and other learning tasks in terms of vocabulary acquisition effects, the moderating effect of learning tasks, and the mediating role of input in the relationship between resource guidance complexity and vocabulary acquisition effects. The data collection covers core journal articles and dissertations in both Chinese and English, with 32 valid papers selected through keyword search and specific criteria. The encoding process is independently completed by two coders, who negotiate for inconsistencies, and ultimately completed by the first author. Data analysis was conducted using CMA3.3 software for meta-analysis to evaluate the magnitude of vocabulary acquisition effects in summary writing, compare the differences in effects among different learning tasks, and explore the impact of input and resource guidance complexity on effect differences.

4 Results

Researchers conducted a meta-analysis on the vocabulary acquisition effects of different learning tasks in the immediate and delayed groups, and found that there was high heterogeneity in the data of each group, making it suitable for a random model. The input task effect of the immediate and delayed groups is relatively large, while the output task effect is negative, indicating that summary writing is superior to input tasks in immediate and delayed vocabulary acquisition, but weaker than other output tasks. The analysis of the moderating effect of learning tasks shows that summary writing has a significantly better effect on vocabulary acquisition in both the immediate and delayed groups than paraphrasing, reading, multiple-choice questions, and error judgment, but weaker than oral paraphrasing, reading continuation, and self questioning and answering. The analysis of the mediating effect of task input shows that the input ratio, resource guidance complexity ratio, and complexity ratio are negatively correlated with the effect size. Among them, the input ratio has the strongest explanatory power for inter group variance and has a mediating effect.

5 Discussions

This study reveals that summary writing has a significant learning promoting effect on vocabulary acquisition, which is superior to input tasks. In both real-time and delayed tests, although the effect of summary writing has decreased, it is still significant. This phenomenon can be explained by Swain's' output hypothesis', which suggests that the output process prompts learners to pay attention to differences in expression, thereby deepening their understanding and use of vocabulary. In addition, summary writing exhibits lower complexity in resource guidance, which may be related to its task design. Learners can rely on reading materials when writing, reducing their reliance on working memory. Meta regression analysis shows that there is a negative correlation between resource guidance complexity and vocabulary acquisition effect, meaning that the higher the resource guidance complexity of a task, the weaker its vocabulary acquisition effect. The amount of input plays a mediating role between the complexity of resource guidance and the amount of effect, and different amounts of input may lead to differences in vocabulary acquisition effects. These findings provide a new perspective for understanding the role of output tasks in vocabulary acquisition, and offer valuable references for future teaching practices and research.

6 Conclusion

This study suggests that summary writing has a significant effect on improving learners' ability to summarize, generalize, and organize language, while also helping to consolidate language foundations and improve teaching efficiency. Research proposes teaching suggestions: Teachers should retract materials to avoid plagiarism and increase task challenges; Require learners to write comments using target words after induction to simulate real academic writing. Future research needs to focus on the potential impact of variables such as educational level, original text genre, target word rate, and test content.