The Effects Of Output Task Types On English Productive Vocabulary Acquisition

Vocabulary acquisition is the central task of second language acquisition. The learning of vocabulary is very important to connect the whole process of English learning. A linguist summarizes up the importance of vocabulary learning that without grammar very little can be conveyed; without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed. However many students are in a puzzle that they often feel no words to say or use when speaking or writing and the words they have mastered cannot be freely used. With the growing of the receptive vocabulary, the size of productive vocabulary does not increase simultaneously. Though teachers stress that students are the centre of the class, and the way they mainly used is still the vocabulary input. English learners do not have the situation and opportunities to use and practise vocabularies. How to promote the learners to turn the receptive vocabulary to productive vocabulary is the major problem that we need to solve. This study intends to set one idea on a sound basis of an experiment that the combination of different output tasks has positive effect on the productive vocabulary acquisition.The thesis starts with the definition of two vital terms"productive vocabulary"(PV) and"receptive vocabulary"(RV). It can be concluded that productive vocabulary is one's ability to compile and use in writing and speaking, while receptive vocabulary is one's ability to recognize when heard or seen but cannot remember when you need to produce it. Then the author introduces the relationship of the two terms and the ways of measuring productive vocabulary. Based on the theoretical basis"Output Hypothesis","The Theory of Depths Processing"and"The Involvement Load Hypothesis", the researcher puts forward the hypothesis: the combination of oral output and written output is better than the single oral output or single written output on the productive vocabulary acquisition.The subjects in the study are 90 non-English major freshmen of same proficiency level. They are from three parallel classes of Shandong Normal University. They are divided into one experimental group and two control groups. Control group one adopts the single oral output type, control group two adopts the single written output type and the experimental adopts the combination of oral output and written output type. There are 10 target words contained in the teaching material. To make sure the feasibility of the target words, the researcher chooses 100 words from the college English syllabus vocabulary list and puts them into questionnaires. They are given to the other freshmen except the subjects. According to the statistics of the 100 words, the researcher chooses 10 words of the lowest scores as the target words. Every target word has the collocation. The experiments include one pretest, one posttest and two delayed posttests. The pretest is adopted from 3000-word level vocabulary size test (Nation, 1983) (Appendix A). The researcher imposes Laufer and Nation's Vocabulary Levels Test (1999) to design two test papers for the posttest and delayed posttest 1. The research significant of this thesis intends to set one idea on a sound basis of an experiment that the combination of different output task has positive effect on the productive vocabulary acquisition. One week later after the delayed posttest 1, the author carries out the delayed posttest 2 to test the study purpose.The experimental outcomes show that with the two approaches students produce in significant difference in short-time memory and corresponding application but a striking one in long-time memory and corresponding application. No matter speaking or writing, students of experimental class are better than that of control class one and two. From it, we can surely conclude that practice output is an effective approach in productive vocabulary acquisition. Especially the use of different kinds of output methods can help English learners to improve productive vocabulary.So, in our teaching teachers should make clear target and choose the appropriate teaching method. And teachers must control the number of words and follow the principle of gradual improvement. Teachers must change the traditional input teaching method and use different kinds of output methods to help the learners.