The Productive Vocabulary Limited Composition Of The High School Seniors

In recent years, driven by the curriculum reform, the high standard for vocabulary coming with the Oxford English high school textbook series and the college entrance examination, at no time have English teachers who work with senior three students attached so much importance to students'vocabulary. In everyday teaching, they devote a great deal of time and energy to vocabulary teaching and learning and actually most teaching activities are intended to expand students'vocabulary or help students acquire more words. Much to teachers'disappointment, however, teachers' constant efforts don't pay off. It seems that students'vocabulary never increases, which can be obviously seen in their writing completed in administrated tests. They always choose words from a very limited range and still, they make mistakes in spelling, grammar, diction and so on. Thus, the hard-working teachers can't help wondering whether their teaching have brought about any good effects on students' acquisition of words. And what on earth is the productive vocabulary of students in Senior Grade 3, who will soon leave high school for higher education?My research, based on 198 compositions by 25 students in eight tests, is trying to remove the doubts mentioned above and answer the following questions:1. How well do senior three students use English vocabulary? 2. How well do they use English vocabulary taught in textbooks?Finally I have got the findings below:1. Senior three students mainly use vocabulary in Word List 1 when writing in administrated tests; 2. Senior three students mainly rely on words taught in junior high school textbooks with the proportion accounting for 90.19% on average and among them words taught in the first year of junior high school make up 81.07% on average.However, my research indicates a good trend that with the writing training going on, the number of the word families used in students'compositions is gradually increasing. What's more, more complicated words are used.Looking into the causes of the results, I finally come to the conclusion that effective vocabulary teaching doesn't take place unless it is done in situations that strike students and at the same time repeated practice is a must.