Abstract
An updated Vocabulary Levels Test and an updated Word Associates Test are conducted to measure the breadth and depth of vocabulary Knowledge of Chinese EFL learners from junior middle school to senior middle school to college respectively in this research. The ANOVA analyses of the test results show that Chinese learners’ breadth knowledge at any learning stage is insufficient and does not meet the requirements of corresponding English teaching syllabus although there is significant development from junior middle school to senior middle school to college. With the rise of learning stages, the difference of the acquisition of lower level words gradually disappears and the difference of higher level words appears. Compared to breadth knowledge, Chinese learners perform worse in the test of depth of vocabulary knowledge. Although there is a significant rise from lower stages to higher stages, the development of depth of vocabulary knowledge is very slow and dissatisfied. The main reason for it is that Chinese students value the expansion of vocabulary size and neglect the establishment of semantic and collocational relationship among words. The results of the Pearson correlation analysis show that there is little correlation between Chinese learners’ breadth of vocabulary knowledge and depth of vocabulary knowledge.
Highlights
Since vocabulary is the basis of any language, vocabulary learning have always been the focus of second language acquisition
All researchers, on one hand, agree that vocabulary knowledge is central to second language acquisition and communicative competence development and plays a vital role in all language skills [1, 3], on the other hand, the evaluation on breadth knowledge refers to the calculation of the total words a learner knows, which is useful for comparative studies between different groups, cross-sectional studies of a certain learning level or longitudinal studies
The AVOVA analysis shows that there is significant difference between groups (F=25.59, P=0.00), which means that the depth of vocabulary knowledge is on the rise with the promotion of learning stages
Summary
Since vocabulary is the basis of any language, vocabulary learning have always been the focus of second language acquisition. One is to adopt vocabulary tests such as Vocabulary Levels Test, Vocabulary Size Test, Productive Levels Test and Vocabulary Knowledge Scale to evaluate learners’ breadth and depth knowledge, the other is to measure vocabulary knowledge by analyzing learners’ output such as writing, speaking and translation. All researchers, on one hand, agree that vocabulary knowledge is central to second language acquisition and communicative competence development and plays a vital role in all language skills (i.e. listening, speaking, reading, and writing) [1, 3], on the other hand, the evaluation on breadth knowledge refers to the calculation of the total words a learner knows, which is useful for comparative studies between different groups, cross-sectional studies of a certain learning level or longitudinal studies
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
