The Effect Of Lexical Patterns Instruction On Chinese EFL Learners' Vocabulary Learning

The current research tackles the effect of lexical patterns instruction on Chinese EFL learners'vocabulary learning from a cognitive perspective. To be more specific, it examines the short-term and long-term effect of the instruction respectively.The introduction of lexical patterns by Hoey (1991) sheds light on vocabulary learning. It has generated an enthusiastic interest among the linguistic teachers and researchers at home and abroad. Great deals of researches have been done regarding the lexical patterns in vocabulary teaching and learning. However, all the researches linger around the theoretical level. To date, no research has given the convincing empirical evidence for the application of the lexical pattern. Yamada (2005) is the only empirical one that investigates the difference of the lexical pattern between Hoey's and those recognized by Japanese learners, but not pertaining to the application of it in vocabulary either.A one and a half months'training program was set up to deal with the research. The participants who received the instruction of lexical patterns served as the experimental group whereas the participants who received no instruction were considered as the control group. Prior to the experiment, comparisons were made on the average score of both groups to make sure that they were on a par in terms of language proficiency. In order to assess the effect of the instruction, a battery of tests was administered to the participants:a pre-test, a post-test, a delayed retention test and a resemblance test with a follow-up questionnaire. The pre-test was held to test the participants'knowledge about the target words before the instruction. The post-test aimed to address the short-term effect of the instruction on the vocabulary learning. The delayed retention test was designed to evaluate the long-term effect of the instruction on the vocabulary learning. The purpose of the resemblance test was to investigate the difference of the lexical pattern perceived by the Chinese learners and Hoey. The response of the questionnaire depicted a detailed picture of the participants'attitudes towards the application of the lexical pattern.Through the experiment, the following conclusions could be drawn.(1) The instruction of lexical patterns only had the short-term effect of vocabulary immediate gains but not the long-term effect of the vocabulary delayed retention. (2) Differences existed between Hoey's lexical patterns and those recognized by Chinese students. For Chinese learners, it was not as simple as Hoey once claimed. The difference existed as follows.1) Chinese students were able to recognize repetition patterns more easily than paraphrase patterns.2) Chinese students were unable to identify the less-well-known meaning of the frequent words, thus failing to identify some paraphrase patterns.3) Chinese students tended to ignore them when encountering the unfamiliar words, which also rendered them the failure in identifying some paraphrase links.(3) From questionnaire, we can delineate a clearer picture of the theory.1) For the theory itself,92% of the students responded that simple repetitions were easy to identify and the simple paraphrase and complex paraphrases were of the two types that were the most difficult to perceive. Only 9.1% of the participants answered that the hyponymic type was hard to recognize.2) With regard to the helpfulness of the theory towards the lexical immediate gains and retention,81.9% of students responded that the lexical pattern helped them learn the new words in a short time.10% of them said that it did help them in remembering the new words over time.8.1% of them said that it did not help them in vocabulary learning any way.3) As for the extent of theory in affecting the lexical learning,95.9% of the participants answered that the instruction would not exert an influence on their lexical learning method. They will not exploit the method of lexical pattern finding to learn the new words in the future.Two cognitive views were introduced to serve as a theoretical basis for the instruction of the lexical pattern:the memory theory and the implicit and explicit instruction theory. In addition, the language proficiency and the contextual inferring also played a role in the instruction of the lexical pattern.The research provides insightful implications for the L2 vocabulary teaching and the application of the lexical pattern. Teachers should teach the multiple meanings of a word in rich contexts to ensure the learners' depth of vocabulary knowledge. The explicit word-oriented exercises can enhance the learners' awareness towards the target words and improve the retention of them. The relearning of the old vocabulary can consolidate them in the learners' mind. In addition, teachers should also select the strategy and reading materials with caution.