Is It "the Earlier, The Better" For EFL Vocabulary Knowledge Learning In China?

This dissertation makes a tentative research on the relation between the vocabulary knowledge and the age at which the formal instruction was introduced in order to examine whether the notion"the earlier, the better"is applicable for the EFL vocabulary knowledge learning in different regions with different learning environment. The teaching environment involved in the study mainly concerns teacher quality.The study was carried out in two middle schools: Yucai Middle School in Chongqing and Pingchang Middle School in a small county of Sichuan; the participants were all Grade Three junior high school students with half of them started learning English formally in primary schools (early starters) and the others started learning English formally in middle schools (late starters). A vocabulary knowledge test was adopted in the study and the following findings were obtained: the early starters in Yucai Middle School got higher scores in the vocabulary knowledge test and the difference of vocabulary knowledge between the early starters and late starters was significant, while the difference between the early starters and late starters in Pingchang Middle School was not significant. That is to say, the early starters in Yucai Middle School showed an advantage, while the early starters in Pingchang Middle School showed no advantage over late starters in vocabulary knowledge.In view of the results of the vocabulary knowledge test, the dissertation further studied the influence of teacher quality upon students'vocabulary knowledge. A set of questionnaires were developed for the investigation of teacher quality in the two places. The participants included not only the English teachers of the two middle schools but also those of primary schools of the two places in which the early starters ever studied in. Through the investigation and analysis, it was found that the teacher quality of the schools investigated in Chongqing was much better than that of the schools in the small county of Sichuan, which could be explainable for the results of the vocabulary knowledge test.Based on the research findings, the author suggests the program of introducing formal English vocabulary instruction should be carried out in the regions which are relatively economically developed, in the schools which have enough English teachers with good teacher quality, but not the whole country.