A Study Of CFL Learners’ Receptive And Productive Vocabulary Knowledge

Vocabulary is an integral part of the language. So vocabulary acquisition is of crucial importance to second language acquisition, along with second language learners’whole acquisition process. Nation (1990) firstly divided vocabularies into receptive vocabularies and productive vocabularies. The two types of vocabularies are vitally important for the development of the second language learners’ language proficiency and cultivation of their communication skills. At present, there are a lot of theses and monographs on the research of second language learners’receptive vocabulary and productive vocabulary at home and abroad, which plays an important role in providing guidance to foreign language teaching theory and methods. Nevertheless, the research findings on Chinese as a second language are not quite rich. Domestic scholars have mostly concentrated in receptive and productive vocabulary size test, the acquisition mode and’Fossilization’ phenomenon of productive vocabularies. There are rare empirical researches conducted on receptive vocabularies and productive vocabularies of overseas Chinese learners at different levels.Based on a foundation set by previous studies, this thesis conducted researches on 40 foreign students who come from western countries, using vocabulary test questionnaire and class writing. The first study chose 120 words as the sample of the receptive vocabulary test, using multiple choice and interpretation; The second study chose 60 words as the sample of the controlled productive vocabulary test, asking students to fill in blanks according to the partial phonetic information of the target words. The free productive vocabulary test required students to independently complete a composition around 300 words in class. The studies aim to find out these points:(1) their receptive and controlled productive vocabulary on each vocabulary grade; (2) the gap between the two vocabulary types and the gap between the two groups; (3) the free productive vocabulary they use.This study collected 40 effective questionnaires and 40 essays. The data collected is analyzed by SPSS20.0 through the methods of descriptive statistics (mean value, standard deviation) and spearman correlation. The results show that:(1) For intermediate and advanced level international students from western countries, their controlled productive vocabularies are far behind the receptive vocabularies; Along with the improving of the vocabulary grades, the proportion of receptive vocabulary and controlled productive vocabulary the students owned in syllabus is trending downward for both intermediate and high level.(2) The higher the vocabulary grade, the wider the gap between their controlled productive vocabulary knowledge and receptive vocabulary knowledge; For intermediate level international students,the gap between the two vocabulary types is wider on each vocabulary grade than advanced students. (3) The gap of vocabulary knowledge between intermediate level students and advanced level students is most notable on the third grade of receptive vocabulary and the second grade of productive vocabulary.(4) The free productive vocabulary of the two groups use are mainly the first grade of vocabulary, and the proportions of the other three grades of vocabulary are quite lower; The proportion of the first grade of vocabulary in high level students’written expression has been reduced compared to intermediate level students, and the proportions of the other three grades of vocabulary have been improved.Understanding vocabularies and using vocabularies are two fundamental processes in second language acquisition, and should be given great attention from students and teachers. The results show that:(1) The arrangement of curriculum should be based on the comprehensive course, supplemented by listening, speaking, reading classes and others. It can increase reproduction of some basic vocabularies and promote the memory effect of vocabularies. Reading class can provide a good platform for students’growing demand for vocabulary size, promoting incidental acquisition. (2) Choose teaching materials which are close to reality and life, for example use different kinds of articles from newspapers and journals as supplementary reading materials. Teachers can also use some multimedia materials such as chat show and documentary on CCTV, improving students’vocabulary receptive and productive capacity via watching them. (3)Teachers should organize more communicative activities in class, using vocabulary-centered communicative strategy; Besides, teachers should organize review regularly, to consolidate vocabulary knowledge.