An Empirical Study On The Influence Of Word Guessing Strategy On Senior High School Students’ Vocabulary Acquisition

In recent years, it is increasingly realized that vocabulary is an essential component oflanguage learning. Although most of the students memorize the vocabulary with much timeand energy, the results are a little unsatisfied. With the process of futrher study, students mustdeal with more and more new words. As a result, it is an urgent need for students to adopt thecorrect vocabulary learning strategies which are suitable to master the English vocabulary.Word guessing strategy is a method to inference the meanings of unknown words that youmight meet in the foreign language leanring process. It plays a crucial role whether in theleanrers’ vocabulary learning or reading comprehension. Scholars at home and abroad’regarded it as learners cognitive strategy and compensation strategy, and carired out relatedresearches, however, it was relatively rare to study its effect on vocabulary acquisition. Andthe relevant domestic researches took college students rather than high school students assubjects. Therefore, it was necessary to research senior high school students’ vocabularyacquisition. The thesis studied two classes of senior2from Expeirmental High School inXiangfen and answered four questions:1.What’s the current situation of Vocabulary Learning Strategies applied by senior highschool students?2’.What，s the effect of word guessing strategy on students vocabulary size?3.What’s the effect of students’ oirginal vocabulary sizes on the results of wordguessing strategy training?4.Which clues of word guessing strategy are easier for students to master to acquire thevocabulary? Based on the scores of the last final examination, the experiment selected72studentswhich were from two classes at the same level as the subjects, namely, the control class andthe experimental class. First of all, the author investigated high school students’ vocabularylearning strategies use through the questionnaire. With the purpose of ensuring theeffectiveness of data collected from the experiment, the participants were required toaccomplish pre-tests on vocabulary size and word guessing competence. With statisticalresults of SPSS, there was no remarkable distinction between the EC and the CC. Then,students in the experimental class received the word guessing strategy training that lastedeight weeks. And two classes’ students were required to do the post-tests. Finally, the authorinterviewed10students at random in the EC.In this study, the author used the SPSS statistical software to process and analyze thecollected data. The conclusions were showed in the following.1. From the perspective of attitude towards vocabulary learning, students preferred tolearn English vocabulary by using them instead of memorizing them mechanically. From theperspective of strategy use, firstly, it was found that high achievers had different learningbehaviors in strategy use compared with low achievers. They generally used VLS much morefrequently than low achievers. Secondly, word guessing strategy was not employed muchwell.2. On account of the comparative analysis of changes of tests on vocabulary size, themean of the vocabulary size increased from58.2750to66.6925in the EC that was aremarkable change. It could be described that word guessing strategy training did helplearners expand vocabulary sizes efficiently and effectively.3. Through the comparative analysis of students’ ranges of vocabulary size in the EC,the author found that the mean of vocabulary size had increased more than8points. Amongthese students, the biggest increase of the score was about15. In general, after word guessingstrategy training, the larger vocabulary size was; the greater range of vocabulary size was. Itwas concluded that word guessing strategy training had a greater impact on high achieversthan low achievers.4. From the percentages of guessing accuracy of six different clues in the post-test onword guessing competence in the EC, we could draw a conclusion: they could guessmeanings of unknown words easily with the clues of Contrast&Antonym (80.56%) andDefinition&Explanation (80.00%).Therefore, it was concluded that word guessing strategy could help students memorizeand employ vocabulary more effectively, and improve their learning abilities. Teachers should pay more attention to cultivating learners’ word guessing competence, giving them relatedguidance, and helping them be successful language masters in the future teaching.