The Effects Of Role-play On Junior High School Students’ EFL Productive Vocabulary Acquisition

In the "Output Hypothesis", Merrill Swain found that the process of foreign language learning is to make assumptions on the target language, and then to revise the hypothesis constantly. This process is also called trial run, the output is a kind of means of target language test in the underlying assumptions. If we put the function of language output in China under the background of English learning, we can predict that reasonable and effective language output practice can improve students’ language application ability. According to the theory of Swain’s research, language output in second language acquisition plays an important role. Now, many scholars study from the students’ language input, which try to make the students absorb knowledge and information as much as possible. External behavior for students to acquire language which means the language output — how to improve the students’ productive vocabulary, still lack of in-depth exploration.Based on output theory and supported by cooperative learning theory and communicative teaching method, this paper is to explore the influence of the junior middle school students’ English productive vocabulary acquisition. By the means of experiment, that is, according to the VLTP Laufer and Nation, a test for productive vocabulary, to explore the influence of role-play teaching approach on students’ productive vocabulary acquisition. There are three research questions in this paper: What positive effects can role-play bring to students’ productive vocabulary acquisition? How does role-play influence students’ productive vocabulary? Compared with the traditional teaching approach, which is more effective for productive vocabulary acquisition? Why? Through the test and the questionnaire, the data showed that for the same language proficiency level of students, students receiving role-play teaching approach, their productive vocabulary acquisition is far better than those who accept traditional English teaching approach. And in the view of the students with different English levels, after they all accept role-play teaching approach, two levels of language proficiency of students, the productive vocabulary acquisition, there is no obvious difference. This shows that there is little relationship between role-play and different language proficiency levels.