The Causes Of English Vocabulary Learning Difficulties Of Senior High School Students And Solutions

Vocabulary, as one of the basic components of language, plays an important role in the process of second language acquisition. It is also the basis of keeping our communication smooth. What's more, the National English Curriculum Standards for Senior High Schools(2003), which was issued by Ministry of Education, has proposed new challenges and requires that senior high school students should master 3,300 words and 300 to 400 phrases. However, vocabulary learning is considered to be the biggest obstacle in students' English learning. Many students have different degrees of difficulties in learning English vocabulary. The purpose of this paper is to find out the causes of English vocabulary learning difficulties of senior high school students and suggest effective solutions.The author chose 90 senior high students from two classes in grade one of the No.2 Renqiu Senior high school in Hebei province as the research subjects, and investigated the present situation of senior students in English vocabulary learning by a questionnaire. The collected data was analyzed by SPSS19.0. Through investigation and analysis, the author found out students' difficulties in English vocabulary learning. At the same time, the author, under the guidance of Wiener's attribution theory, found out the causes of English vocabulary learning difficulties of senior high school students as follows:a) Students had low English vocabulary learning motivation.b) Students lacked interests in learning English vocabulary and did not make great efforts.c) Students did not have strong willpower and perseverance to learn English vocabulary.d) Students did not have good learning habits and knew little about English vocabulary learning strategies.With regard to these causes the author adjusted the teaching techniques. Before the teaching experiment, a pre-test of vocabulary was given to the two classes at the same time to see whether the two classes were at the same level in English vocabulary. In the experimental class the author adopted a variety of vocabulary teaching techniques such as making up stories, wooden stakes, visual aid, word formation, association, classification, lexical chunk and so on which are based on the theory of depths of processing and the affective filter hypothesis. They can fully mobilize students' five sense organs. And in the control class, the author still used the traditional vocabulary teaching method. That is to say, the author taught new words by explaining some words' meanings and language points, and then asked students to take notes. Then the teacher asked students to memorize the new words and phrases by rote. Over 3 months later, a post-test was given to the two classes and the results and data of the post-test were collected and analyzed by SPSS19.0. Meanwhile, an interview which was to test the effect of the teacher's vocabulary teaching was carried out to some students in the experimental class. Through the interview, students in the experimental class reflected that the teacher's teaching techniques were effective. It did improve the students learning efficiency.At last, the data analysis and comparison of the pre-test and the post-test were conducted by SPSS19.0. The results showed that the scores of the experimental class rose higher than that of the control class. According to the results of data analysis, conclusions have been obtained: The teaching techniques based on the theory of depths of processing and the affective filter hypothesis did have a great effect and contribute to the improvement of the students' vocabulary learning. They increased students' learning interests and confidence. They were helpful to cultivate students' good habits of vocabulary learning, enhanced the students' vocabulary learning achievement, and eventually improved the students' vocabulary learning effectively.