The Study Of English Affix Acquisition Order Of Chinese High School Students

Affix knowledge is considered as an important aspect of vocabulary knowledge.It contributes to how well learners understand new words and expands their vocabulary,especially their knowledge of derivatives,which are large in number and wide in application.However,previous studies have shown that teachers and students don't pay enough attention to the affix knowledge.This study is aimed to investigate not only the features and orders of affix acquisition of Chinese EFL learners,but also the effect of instruction on affix knowledge from both receptive and productive affix knowledge.More specifically,it addresses the following questions:(1)Do learners learn English affixes in a fixed order? If so,what is the exact order?(2)Does instruction promote acquisition of affix knowledge which is beyond learners' present level?105 senior high school students participated in the study.They were from two parallel classes in Grade Three from a senior high school in Tianshui,Gansu province.One class is the control group consisting of 55 students and the other class is the experimental group consisting of 50 students.The subjects,first of all,took vocabulary size test,productive affix knowledge test and receptive affix knowledge test.Then an order of affix acquisition was delineated on the basis of their scores on affix tests.This was followed by a two-month affix instruction for the experimental group to test whether instruction had significant impact upon learners' affix knowledge.The data collected was analyzed by PASW Statistics 18.The results show that 1)there is no fixed affix acquisition order for learners of different L1 background;2)affix instruction effectively promoted the learners' acquisition of the target affixes to be taught;3)the acquisition of the target affixes enhanced the acquisition of non-target affixes.