English Attrition And Anti-attrition

English attrition refers to the loss of its knowledge after the stop or interruption of the language learning, and the gradually-reduced ability to use the language with less contact of the target language. Every learner, generally speaking, suffers from the inevitable attrition of his foreign language. Language attrition has been recognized as a less-explored linguistic field since The Conference on the Attrition of Language Skills has been hold in the University of Pennsylvania in 1980. Lots of researches have been conducted in the United States and other countries during the past three decades in such aspects as features, characteristics, and laws of language attrition and due achievements have been obtained.Compared with studies in other countries, however, a large part of the domestic researches in China focus mainly on the phenomenon descriptions and the research scale is relatively narrow. Empirical studies are few in number on language ability attrition among middle school English teachers, let alone researches about teachers working in suburban schools. Compared with their counterparts in the down town areas, teachers in the suburban middle schools have fewer opportunities to receive formal language training. Their ability abrasion of using English is even worse.In this context, this thesis aims at exploring English attrition existed among the in-service middle school English teachers in the suburban areas of Kunming, trying to answer the following three questions:(1) To what degree of English attrition, middle school English teachers in the suburban areas are suffered after they finish their college education?(2) What might be the relationship between the teachers’ attrition and their teaching experiences? Does the abrasion reveal the feature of mirror, i.e. is the order of attrition contrary to that of acquisition?(3) Can further in-service training slow down the process of English attrition? Suppose it can, how are trainings more reasonably offered?In this project both quantitative and qualitative methods are adopted. Altogether36 English teachers from three suburban schools on the suburb of Kunming are tested with an English test, with the purpose of checking their lexical, grammaticaland reading comprehensive skills. Then the data are analyzed from different perspectives concerning their working years and their experiences of in-job training courses. The following are revealed in our study:(1) English teachers in the suburban schools show different degrees of English attrition during their teaching. Due to lack of formal training or further-learning, their attrition degrees regularly match with their teaching years. Teachers with longer teaching experience have more serious attrition than those with shorter teaching experience.(2) In terms of the same teaching period, teachers with the experience of formal in-service training or learning indicate a stronger ability in vocabulary, grammar and reading than those who have never participated in any formal training. Besides, the more training the teachers took part in, the stronger their attrition resistance grows.(3) Specific language skills of the suburban teachers, such as lexical knowledge and reading comprehension skills are abased. Their grammar knowledge is better maintained than their reading comprehension skills, and their lexical knowledge is the most seriously challenged of the three.(4) In terms of the order of attrition, complex and difficult-to-acquired language skills are lost earlier and more quickly than the simple and easiest-to-acquired ones.Besides, the order of language attrition is contrary to that of language acquisition, that is, the initial acquired skills can be maintained longer than the newly acquired ones. it proves that the existence of the mirror feature in abrasion.This paper surveys of English attrition of middle school English teachers with varies teaching periods in the suburban areas, wishing to arouse attention and awareness from the administrators and the teachers alike. Based on the findings, the authority may offer more reasonable training courses and the teachers may look for,perhaps, more effective approaches to develop their ability against abrasion.