An Empirical Study Of The Effect Of English Paraphrase-based Teaching On English Vocabulary Acquisition

Foreign language learning has a close relationship with vocabulary learning. Insecond language teaching, learners’ correct understanding of words’ meaning is thepremise of mastering and utilizing it; therefore the explanation of words is and shouldbe the focus of the teaching.However, it is generally found that some students, though learn by heart lots ofvocabulary, cannot use them flexibly in listening, speaking, reading and writing. Inthis case, the vocabulary study stops at the initial stage of learning by rote. They studythe words by constructing a one-to-one corresponsive relationship between Englishsymbols and Chinese symbols. As a result, they only remember words rather thanreally master them. This phenomenon rises because students only focus on Chinesetranslation of a word’s meaning and totally neglect its paraphrase in English.Therefore, the study of vocabulary is severely disturbed by the Chinese way ofthinking which is also known as the negative effect of first-language transfer. To turnthis situation around, the author attempted to apply English paraphrase intovocabulary teaching.Compared with Chinese explanation, the research aims to examine whetherEnglish paraphrase is better to improve students’ vocabulary acquisition. The subjectsin two groups are all from Guangzhou University of Textile College majoring ininternational trade. One class was randomly selected as the control group in whichvocabulary teaching is conducted via Chinese explanation, while the other wasselected as the experimental group where English paraphrase is applied. The wholeexperiment lasted14weeks, which consisted of four stages: pretest, teachinginstruction, posttest and interview after the experiment. SPSS was employed toprocess and analyze all the data in the experiment.The results of the experiment were: the data analysis showed that the two groupswere at the same level in vocabulary achievement in pretest before the experiment.But after14weeks’ teaching treatment, the experimental group did much better inposttest than the control group. That is to say, the application of English paraphrase into English vocabulary teaching at the university level can improve students’ interestin vocabulary learning and help them master the vocabulary and applicationcapabilities, and is conducive to improve their English scores. The writer hopes thatthe findings of the investigation will contribute to the implication of Englishparaphrase-based teaching approach of English vocabulary teaching and learning.