A Study On The Effect Of The Length Approach To Writing On Vocabulary Acquisition

The biggest problem most Chinese EFL learners would confront is vocabulary,so the purpose of this study is to explore an effective and efficient way to expandthe lexicon and enhance the vocabulary power of the Chinese EFL learners.This thesis mainly includes the following aspects: a) What are thecharacteristics of vocabulary acquisition of non-English majors in college? b) Howdo the teachers design the students’ writing task and what kind of writing task isappropriate? c) During the experiment of the Length Approach of Writing, how todeal with the students’ emotional anxiety caused by a large number of regularexercises?In order to find answers to these questions,5research instruments—writtentask, tests, portfolio, questionnaire and retrospective interview—were administeredto the subjects (85first-year undergraduates of non-English majors at major fromaccounting and statistics in Liaoning Vocational School of Business and Trade).Data were collected over a span of ten weeks; after given two English passages, theexperimental group were required to write an English composition as long aspossible outside class. Two tests were carried out in classroom settings to seewhether there was any difference in memorizing the new words between the twogroups. A questionnaire and retrospective interview were conducted in order to findout the activities of the subjects before and after the process of experiment andwriting compositions, and their attitudes towards the length approach to writing andvocabulary learning.The major findings of this study are:1) The characteristics of vocabularyacquisition of the students of non-English Majors in High Vocational School arelow narrow vocabulary, and they have fear for vocabulary learning and some evenresist it; the vast majority are not up to the third level of China’s requirements of college English learning. Students have no vocabulary learning strategies besidesrote learning. But they hold positive attitude toward the importance of vocabularyacquisition in learning English.2) Teachers should consider the students’ anxiety inthe design of the writing task to adopt some teaching strategies, not only to matchwith the textbook content, but to consider students’ vocabulary level to design somewriting task which students can successfully complete.3) The students wouldaccept to the length approach to writing through questionnaires and interview. Onthe one hand, it is from student’s trust to teachers teaching approach; on the otherhand, it is from the students’ wishes wanting to learn English well and the initiativeis the maximum power to implement the length approach to writing. Therefore, theteacher should make good use of the initiative to make this approach successful.