A Study On The Breadth And Depth Of Vocabulary Knowledge Of Senior High School Students

As a basis for language learning, vocabulary knowledge plays an important role in many language skills. The skills of oral English, listening comprehension, reading comprehension and writing are directly influenced by vocabulary level. Early researchers both at home and abroad have done a lot of related research on vocabulary knowledge for different subjects:mainly on the inter-relationship between vocabulary knowledge and various language skills. However, little research has been done on the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and comprehensive language competence. In terms of research subjects, much more research has been done on English major or non-English major undergraduates, vocational college students, common junior or senior high school students. Few focus on foreign language school students. Based on Nation (1990):s Vocabulary Levels Test and Read (1993)’s Word Association Test, this study will focus on two basic dimensions:breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge and explore the status quo of vocabulary breadth and depth of high school students in a foreign language school, as well as its connection with the language comprehensive ability.150 students from senior grade two at Nanchang Foreign Language School participated in the test. The valid test papers are 137. To make a close estimation of the subjects’vocabulary knowledge and their L2 level, the study has taken their recent monthly examination into the statistics analysis. The scores from these three tests were put into computer as the first hand data and then processed through SPSS 13.0.The results were as it follows:1) the reliability coefficients of vocabulary breadth and depth are very high, being.867 and.911 respectively.2) This study finds out that the overall present level of all the participants have met the vocabulary requirements of new curriculum criteria. There are no significant differences between males and females in the performance of high frequency words level:2000 words level and moderate frequency words:3000 words level and academic words level, but at low frequency words level:5000 words, there exist significant difference between them. Science students and arts students have no difference at 2000 words level,3000 words level but have significant differences at academic words and 5,000 words level. It also reveals that females have a better mastery of the breadth, depth of vocabulary knowledge and language proficiency (monthly test scores) than those of the males, as well as the science students performed better than arts students on the three variables. 3) Vocabulary breadth test, vocabulary depth test and monthly test outcomes were significantly correlated, among which the vocabulary depth and monthly test correlates highest; vocabulary breadth and monthly test are correlated next; the correlation of vocabulary breadth and depth is relatively lower. That means the inseparable relationship exists among the three tests, however, the result of monthly test was more affected by the depth of vocabulary knowledge. For the overall investigation subjects, if the level of their vocabulary breadth is high, their monthly test scores will be high, and if their vocabulary collocation and association ability are stronger, their monthly test scores will be higher.The findings from this empirical study call for more attention to the importance of improving the breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge in English learning in middle schools. Both breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge should not be neglected any longer. It suggests that it is necessary for high school English teachers to enlarge students’ vocabulary size and take proper teaching methods for different levels of the students and provide students with a well-balanced English teaching by incorporating various aspects of vocabulary knowledge.