On The Correlation Between High School Students’ Dictionary Use Strategy And English Lexical Competence

English dictionary, as an effective English vocabulary learning tool, plays an important role in English vocabulary learning. Senior high school students’lexical competence directly influences their English level. Although many researchers have pointed out the importance of dictionary use in vocabulary learning, the number of the empirical studies of dictionary use in vocabulary learning is limited. Moreover, most studies focused on college students’dictionary use, neglecting the dictionary use in elementary education stage. Considering the importance of students’ lexical competence and their dictionary use strategies in vocabulary learning, the author studies the correlation between the dictionary use strategy and lexical competence.The research subjects are fifty third-grade students in high school in Wuhan. First the students are asked to finish the questionnaire about dictionary use strategy. The questionnaire includes:the time when students start to use dictionary, the number and type of dictionary students possess, the activities of consulting dictionary, the methods and content of consulting dictionary, the frequency of electronic dictionary use, students attitudes towards dictionary use and the note-taking situation after consulting dictionary. Next, the students are asked to do the vocabulary levels test. The test consists of test for receptive vocabulary and test for productive vocabulary. Finally, the author studies the correlation between the dictionary use strategy and lexical competence. After the correlation study, the following dictionary use strategies exist positive and significant correlations with lexical competence, such as using dictionary as early as possible, consulting English-Chinese dictionary and electronic dictionary, good consulting methods, consulting dictionary in various activities, the content of consulting dictionary (looking up meaning, pronunciation, example sentences and other usages), positive attitudes toward dictionary use, taking note and so on.After the correlation analysis, some pedagogical implications of dictionary use strategy and vocabulary learning are acquired. The pedagogical implications of dictionary use strategy are as followed:using the dictionary as early as possible, learning how to choose dictionary, learning how to consult dictionary effectively, forming the habit of consulting dictionary in kinds of activities, taking notes after consulting dictionary. The implications of vocabulary learning are:making full use of dictionary to memorize vocabulary, enlarging vocabulary by using dictionary, improving lexical competence by consulting dictionary.