A Study On The Effect Of Morphological Awareness Training On Students’ English Vocabulary Acquisition In Senior High School

It is widely acknowledged that English vocabulary is one of the most importantparts in English teaching. Just as D.A.Wilkins（1972） once pointed out that withoutgrammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed.However, the current situation of our English teaching in China is that vocabularyteaching is often a big headache to both teachers and students. In the experience andreflection of the English teachings, the writer has found the strategy of morphologicalawareness training is largely ignored in senior high school. Therefore, this researchexplores the effect of morphological awareness training on learners’ Englishvocabulary acquisition in senior high school.With the theoretical guidance of noticing hypothesis and input hypothesis, thisresearch conducted a three-month experimental study of morphological awarenesstraining on students’ English vocabulary acquisition in a senior high school. Theexplorer has found the training of morphological awareness is very helpful to thesenior-high-school students’ learning of vocabulary. Firstly, it is helpful to arousestudents’ interest and build up their confidence in English vocabulary acquisition.Secondly, the application of morphological awareness training can not only helpstudents master the spelling of vocabulary but also promote students to grasp themeaning of words. Thirdly, the mastery of morphological awareness contributes a lotto students’ improvements of reading and comprehension as they can try to work outthe proper meaning of a new word in their reading. Finally, the training ofmorphological awareness is not difficult as teachers have expected in senor highschool. It is well worth doing in senior-high-school English teaching.This dissertation presents the research in five chapters. Chapter One states themotivation of the study and the structure of the thesis. Chapter two is a literaturereview, which includes some basic concepts on lexicology, previous studies onsecond language vocabulary acquisition and morphological awareness training. Alsothe theories of noticing hypothesis and input hypothesis are discussed in the chapter.The third chapter demonstrates the methodology of the research, including research subjects, instruments, procedures, and the process of experimental study. ChapterFour is the particular analysis and discussion the data and results gained in theinvestigation. Chapter Five is the conclusion part of the dissertation which somefindings and implications of the research, and it also points out the limitation of theresearch and some suggestions for further enquiry of this area.