The Word Association Training In Non-English Major Students In College English Vocabulary Teaching

Vocabulary is a basic factor that influences English language proficiency,and it is also the basis of learning English well.However,it is still difficult for freshmen in college to master a number of vocabulary.The majority of students always have difficulties in remembering English words,and can not use words properly,which may cause English rejection and learning anxiety.Therefore,improving the efficiency of students’ vocabulary learning is the primary task of teachers.Based on this,many educational researchers are committed to finding effective learning strategies that can improve the efficiency of vocabulary learning.This thesis conducts an empirical research to verify that word association strategy training can improve the frequency of word association strategy use,enlarge students’ vocabulary size and enhance students’ vocabulary knowledge depth.Based on the Mental Lexicon Theory and Meaningful Learning Theory,the researcher randomly selected 83 non-English major students in two classes at Lanzhou City University to conduct a three-month empirical study.The study adopted word association strategy questionnaire,vocabulary size tests and vocabulary knowledge depth test as research instruments.The procedures of research consisted of before training,while training and after training.Before training,Vocabulary Size Test(Nation & Beglar)was used to ensure that subjects were at the same vocabulary level and the word association strategy training could be performed.While training,there are five training steps in experimental class.At the same time,the researcher adopted traditional vocabulary teaching in the control class.After training,the researcher analyzed data from the questionnaire,vocabulary size test made by the researcher and vocabulary knowledge depth test.All data from the questionnaire and tests were put into SPSS 21.0 for analysis.According to results,the researcher drew the following conclusion.First of all,word association strategy training can improve the non-English major students’ frequency of using word association strategy.Secondly,word association strategy training can enlarge non-English major students’ vocabulary size.Thirdly,word association strategy training can enhance non-English major students’ vocabulary knowledge depth.These findings further support previous studies on word association strategy training in vocabulary teaching.However,the small sample size of this study has certain limitations.The researcher also provides some suggestions for teachers on how to help students use word association strategies more effectively and improve the effect of vocabulary learning.