On Correlation Between High School Students' English Vocabulary Range And Dictionary Use

In the recent two decades, dictionary use has become a hot topic in lexicology and received close attention by foreign language teaching researchers. Moreover, dictionary use has become an important topic in English vocabulary learning. For foreign language learners, one of the most effective strategies to learn and consolidate vocabulary is to use dictionary which is also the requirement raised by New English Curriculum as a kind of learning strategy. Though a lot of research programs have pointed out the importance of dictionary use in vocabulary learning, most of these apply to university or college students who are mature or advanced language learners. In fact, dictionary use should be put into practice in fundamental education. It can bring up benign language learning habits and is good for students'overall development.This paper aims to research on the correlation between high school students'English vocabulary range and dictionary use in order to dig out the rules and problems in English vocabulary teaching and learning, and ameliorate the current situation.The research subject is 100 high school students. They have been researched on by a dictionary use strategy questionnaire and a vocabulary range test. The Microsoft Office tools, such as Excel and Word, are used to collect and analyze data. The research results point out there is a correlation between high school students'range of English vocabulary and use of English dictionary which include some direct proportion relationships. At the same time, it shows that different vocabulary-range students have different strategies to use dictionary in details. This paper has made a detailed induction and sum-up.Based on the current situation of dictionary use among high school students, this paper has raised some suggestions for high school English vocabulary teaching and learning. For students, it includes proper choice of English dictionary style, getting rid of lazy learning habits and looking up the dictionary by oneself, proper use of dictionary to increase efficiency in learning, proper use of electronic dictionaries; for teachers it includes increasing the consciousness of dictionary use in vocabulary teaching, bringing up students'interests and habits of using dictionary, teaching dictionary use style, methods and strategies in different fields of language learning.