Investigating The Impacts Of The Production-Oriented Approach On Productive Vocabulary Of Written English By University Students

Based on the Production-oriented Approach(POA)theory,this study conducts a 9-week teaching experiment,using mixed methods,to explore the impacts of the POA on lexical variety(LV),lexical complexity(LC),lexical density(LD)and use of target language items(TLIs)in the students' writing.The participants are 55 freshmen from two intact classes majoring in Marine Engineering in Dalian Maritime University.Altogether,214 English writings were collected during the experiment.Two classes are included,with one class being the experimental group(EG),which is taught by the POA,and the other being the control group(CG)that is taught in the traditional teaching method.The results are shown as follows.(1)In terms of LV,the EG is higher than the CG.The text analysis and interview show that the POA has positive impacts on enhancing LV of productive vocabulary in writing.(2)As to LC,the EG is better than the CG,and a significant difference exists between them.The EG use more academic words and low-frequency words in their English writings,and LC of the EG improves constantly during the experimental period.(3)With regard to LD,the EG is higher than the CG,and LD of the EG increases as the experiment continues.(4)By comparing the use of TLIs in the writing tasks by the the two groups,the students of the EG are able to use TLIs better,which makes their argumentation more convincing and well-organized.Theoretically,the study aims at providing the empirical data evidence for the classroom teaching research based on the POA and offering broader perspectives as well.Pedagogically,the research provides practical implications for vocabulary teaching.In the motivating phase,the teacher should set up the communicative scenario with potential communication value so that students' awareness could be aroused in the process of trying out the productive tasks.Then they are enabled with TLIs in the process of completing the enabling activities before completing the productive tasks.In the assessing phase,the teacher is supposed to make evaluation and provide scaffolding instruction for students' writing.In this way,the teacher can facilitate the students'use of productive vocabulary in writing by utilizing the POA.