Guessing Strategies In English Vocabulary Learning

"For many years vocabulary was the poor relation of language teaching. Its neglect has been in part due to a specialization in linguistic research on syntax and phonology which may have fostered a climate in which vocabulary was felt to be a less important element in learning a second language" (Carter, 1998: 184). But nowadays, vocabulary learning is becoming the focus of linguistic research, for linguists have shifted their focus from grammar to vocabulary. The research of vocabulary acquisition has often been studied within the fields of language teaching and applied linguistics in recent years. The problem of vocabulary acquisition is attracting more and more academic concern. Some scholars believe that vocabulary acquisition is the center of second language acquisition. All the language skills, such as listening, speaking, reading, writing and translation, etc, must be related to vocabulary. Therefore, vocabulary acquisition is an indispensable part in language acquisition, and it is undoubtedly necessary for us to make efforts on studying how individual English words are acquired by EFL learners. On the other hand, "learners feel that many of their difficulties in both receptive and productive language use result from an inadequate vocabulary" (Nation, 1990: 2). And in the field of language education, more and more people who study language acquisition, especially the L2 acquisition, have noticed that vocabulary learning is the basic and indispensable step in foreign language learning. A great deal literature and information indicate that referring meanings of unknown words through contextual clues and word structure can enlarge learners' vocabulary size. Based on the relevant theories and studies, the research was undertaken to examine two questions:â‘ Can the guessing strategy effectively enhance college students' vocabulary?â‘¡Does the original vocabulary size influence the training result? Which group of students achieves more, the advanced or the poor? The research was conducted through the following procedures:Firstly students took a pre-test on vocabulary size, in order to know their original vocabulary size.Then the students in the experimental class (EC) were trained to derive meaning from the context clues for 10 weeks.After that, a post-test on students' vocabulary size was given to see if there was an obvious increase.Finally, the conclusion was arrived:â‘ The guessing strategy can effectively enhance college students' vocabulary although their vocabulary was limited at the beginning. The students' average vocabulary size is 1035 (EC) to 1073 (CC) in the pre-test, but it is 1398 (EC) to 1170 (CC) in the post-test. There is a large gap between the two classes.â‘¡The original vocabulary size does influence the training result. The advanced students achieve more than the poor ones.In short, both theory and practice show that guessing strategy is an effective teaching approach. As long as it is utilized properly, much better learning effects can be obtained.