The Influence Of Breadth Of Vocabulary And Tolerance Of Ambiguity On English Learning

On the basis of modern education theories both home and abroad such as "Zone of Proximal Development theory","Memory Curve Theory" and "Schema Theory", and those related with former second language acquisition, this paper investigates and analyzes the present situation of English teaching in some rural less-advantaged senior secondary schools, in which vocabulary teaching is especially inefficient, and consequently many students are likely to reject English learning or even give up. With the approaches related with "breadth of vocabulary and tolerance of ambiguity developed simultaneously" as the starting point, the specific teaching methods are designed and put into experiment. In this article, a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods for the research on the subject is employed, including the questionnaire and interview surveys for some teachers and students, and students of two classes under randomized experiment.The experiment of this study proves that vocabulary breadth can be improved through testing words in circles, and that tolerance of ambiguity by the gradual penetration in the training of listening comprehension; both vocabulary breadth and ambiguity tolerance are positively correlated with students’ English scores with the effect of vocabulary breadth slightly larger; vocabulary breadth and ambiguity tolerance have interactive effect on English learning. To improve students’ English learning in rural less-advantaged senior secondary schools, unilaterally increasing vocabulary breadth or tolerance of ambiguity have certain effect but the effect is not so obvious, while improving the breadth of vocabulary and tolerance of ambiguity simultaneously has a significant effect on the scores of the students. This study has theoretical significance and practical value to enhance the innovation of English teaching methods in lower-level senior secondary schools in rural areas...