A Study On The Effect Of Vocabulary Knowledge In English Listening Comprehension Of Senior High School Students

Learners develop other language skills through the inputs of listening.A great number of researches have found many sorts of obstacles in learners' listening comprehension and vocabulary knowledge remains to be one of them.Vocabulary as the basic component of language plays an important part in language input and output.Vocabulary knowledge has an inseparable connection with listening comprehension.It promotes learners' listening comprehension and also relate closely to learners' listening process.On the basis of previous studies,this study focuses on listening comprehension obstacles in vocabulary knowledge of senior high school students.Based on the vocabulary framework developed by processor Ma Guanghui,the study then analyzes students' listening comprehension obstacles in vocabulary knowledge.To have a general understanding of students' present listening comprehension level as well as the obstacles in vocabulary knowledge,the study then applies a questionnaire of meta-vocabulary knowledge and two tests of vocabulary to measure students' obstacles in vocabulary knowledge.The author uses the One-Way ANOVA to analyze the difference on listening comprehension among different levels of vocabulary knowledge obstacles.Multiple Regressions are chosen to analyze the relation between vocabulary knowledge and listening comprehension as well as to how vocabulary knowledge affects listening comprehension.Combined with the information gathered from interview,the major findings of the study are as follows: 1.Students have only mastered 81.90% of the words they have learned.As for the depth of vocabulary knowledge,they seem to have difficulties in learning polysemy and words collocation.Students' attention on the acquisition of pronunciation,formation,meaning and use of the vocabulary are proved uneven.More attention is paid in the learning of formation and meaning.2.The difference on listening comprehension among different levels of vocabulary knowledge obstacles is very significant.The author finds a negative correlation between Vocabulary knowledge obstacles and listening comprehension.3.Vocabulary knowledge correlates with listening comprehension.The breadth of vocabulary knowledge is highly correlated with listeningcomprehension.The multiple regressions reveal that the breadth of vocabulary knowledge alone accounts for 56.10% of the variance in listening comprehension,while the depth of vocabulary knowledge and the meta-vocabulary knowledge could explain 4.1% and 2.5%respectively of the variance.For students of good listening comprehension,the depth of vocabulary knowledge is the main obstacle when listening,while for students of poor listening comprehension,the lack of the breadth of vocabulary knowledge is the biggest obstacle for them;the breadth of vocabulary knowledge as well as the meta-vocabulary knowledge are another two aspects that they should improve.According to the findings of the study,the author believes that in order to enhance students listening comprehension ability,both teachers and students should attach great importance to vocabulary knowledge.Then the author provides some practical suggestions based on the relevant theories.Students should set up correct vocabulary knowledge learning concept.Teachers should change the vocabulary teaching method and adjust their teaching of listening strategies.With the joint efforts of teachers and students,not only the listening comprehension obstacles in vocabulary knowledge would be eliminated,but also the students' listening comprehension ability would be enhanced.