An Experimental Study On Factors Related To SLVA Of Non-English Majors At Different Levels

The second language vocabulary acquisition (SLVA) is an important segment of the second language acquisition (SLA). The SLVA-related factors restrict the SLVA performance to a large extent. Therefore many linguists(such as, Bassano(1996), Stevick(1998), Tremblay (1995), Ellis(1999), Glopper(1999), Joe(1998), Krashen(1981), Fraser(1999) etc.) who have studied the factors in this field. However, most researches on SLVA before have only inquired into the factors and ignored the various levels of the learners. This dissertation choose the college non-English majors as subjects and studied the factors from a new perspective by considering the different levels of the non-English majors. By studying the existed problems from the new perspective, the author deepened our comprehension for the SLVA-related factors and got the valuable conclusion, which was significative for instructing the pedagogy.Through reviewing the relevant theories of SLVA, the dissertation chose the non-English majors as the study subjects and conducted an experimental study. The author explored the relationships between the SLVA-related factors and the different levels of the non-English majors. He answered the question "How do the SLVA-related factors affect the non-English majors of different levels". The significance of the research for the pedagogy of the non-English majors was proved by experiments.In the process of the research, the author conducted two experiments.In the first experiment, through tests and questionnaires the author had an experimental study with 162 non-English majors from ChangChun University as the subjects. 144 pieces of valid data were collected after the tests and questionnaires. In using of SPSS 13 software package, the author carried on an exploring analysis.The first experiment indicated that psychological factors, memory rules, study methods and pedagogic strategies restricted the SLVA performance of different levels of non-English majors. For the under average, the psychological factors are prominent; For the average, memory rules, study methods and pedagogic strategies are much more important; For the above average, all these factors play little role in the process of SLVA. So the correlation between SLVA factors and the subjects varies a great deal in the light of the different levels of the non-English majors. This conclusion can be utilized by pedagogy to instruct the SLVA of the non-English majors to pay more attention to the different factors according to the different levels of the students. To check out if the conclusion drawn from the experimental study on SLVA-related factors of non-English majors at different levels was valid and effective, the author conducted the second experiment.In the second experiment, the author selected 78 non-English majors from the above mentioned 162 subjects. For one of the two classes the author conducted an experimental tuition by following the conclusion of the first experiment as directions. For the other class, the author just conducted common tuition without considering the different levels of the subjects. After the two-semester experiment, the students in the two classes participated in the CET-4 in December 2008. The scores of the CET-4 test were collected to have a comparison. The second experiment indicated that 19 out of 39 students passed the CET-4 in the experiment class. The pass rate is forty-nine percent. However, only 6 out of 39 students passed it in the contrast class. The pass rate is fifteen percent. The pass rate of the experiment class was higher than that of the non-experiment class by 34%. The result proved that it has significant implication for pedagogy to study the SLVA-related factors from the new perspective. In the process of SLVA, psychological factors, memory rules, study methods and pedagogic strategies restricted the non-English majors at different levels to different extend. To pay more attention to different factors in light of the different levels of the learners, then better pedagogic performance can be achieved.Therefore, it deepens our comprehension on these different factors from new perspective to research the SLVA-related factors of the non-English majors at different levels. The dissertation has pedagogical implications and would to some extent facilitate the EFL pedagogy for college non-English majors.