A Study On The Reasons And Countermeasures For English Lexical Attrition Of Senior High Students

Language attrition is an inverse procedure of language acquisition. Due to less orno use of language, language learners’ language skills and proficiency are oftengradually reduced, resulting in language attrition. It can’t be denied that theconference on the Attrition of Language Skill held at University of Pennsylvania in1980opened the prelude to language attrition research, which then has beendeveloped into a hot topic in the area of language research. Till now the research onlanguage attrition has become quite popular and mature, mainly appearing in America,Japan, and European countries, which has covered most domains of language research.However, the study on language attrition at home is still inadequate, and remains onthe surface level such as theories introduction and reviews. Studies on the reasons andcountermeasures for English lexical attrition are rare and scarce.The present research takes language attrition theory and language learningstrategies as its theoretical framework and aims to investigate the reasons andcountermeasures for English lexical attrition. Both qualitative and quantitativemethods are adopted, and119first-year senior high students in Jigang High Schoolare involved. The study includes two steps, vocabulary tests and learning strategiesquestionnaire, followed by research data analysis by SPSS20.0. Frequencydistribution and Paired-Samples T Test between two attrition results in two units areemployed to test the Regression Hypothesis. Then the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)is conducted to figure out the correlation between lexical proficiency prior to attritionand the attrition degree. Furthermore, the Pearson Test and Liner Regression arecarried out so as to find out the correlation between strategy use and attrition degree.The research findings are as follows: first,66%of the subjects suffer fromlexical attrition, and low lexical proficiency prior to the attrition and inappropriate useof lexical learning strategies are the reasons for lexical attrition. Lexical proficiencyprior to the attrition is reversely correlated with attrition degree, and the linearcorrelation coefficient is-0.224. That is, the higher learners’ lexical proficiency is, the lower they suffer from lexical attrition. What’s more, increasing the use of somelearning strategies helps slow down lexical attrition. Lexical learning strategy use isdirectly related with lexical attrition degree with the coefficient at-0.525level, whichmeans that the more learners employ lexical learning strategy, the less attritionhappens. Of all the30lexical learning strategies,18are significantly correlated withattrition degree at-0.05level. Memory strategy, compensation strategy and socialstrategy are more closely interwoven with attrition degree. Increasing the use ofstrategies that are significantly correlated with attrition can be of great help forslowing down lexical attrition.Some suggestions on English teaching can be put forward through research dataanalysis. First, we should strengthen students’ awareness of learning strategy use, andencourage them to apply more learning strategies to lexical learning. Then we shouldteach students to avoid rote learning and employ more strategies flexibly such asputting vocabulary into a context and associating the sound and meanings. Thirdly,questions-asking and interactions between students and teachers need to beencouraged. Fourthly, students should be guided to guess the meanings throughcontext in the reading process. Besides, students are encouraged to achieve smallgoals and then accomplish the goal and consolidate their vocabulary knowledge byfinding and analyzing past mistakes. Finally, we should help students keep a positivelearning attitude and build their learning confidence, so that they can be courageous toovercome obstacles in the learning process. It is sincerely hoped that these researchfindings can be of help for promoting English teaching and learning in senior highschools.