A Case Study On The Vocabulary Acquisition Of Local British Intermediate Chinese Learners

Vocabulary is the cornerstone of language learning.Without vocabulary,language learning is impossible.The importance of vocabulary research is beyond doubt.British scholar Wilkins believes: "If there is no grammar,it is difficult for people to express things;but if there is no vocabulary,people may not be able to express anything." According to current researches,objects of most of them are foreign students coming to China,there are few studies on local learners;vocabulary acquisition research focuses on isolated studies of vocabulary learning strategies,and there are few studies on the correlation between vocabulary learning strategies and vocabulary breadth;vocabulary acquisition focuses on large sample sizes,less attention is paid to individual differences in small samples.Take the United Kingdom as an example,these years there have been more and more local Chinese learners in the UK,an increasing number of British students have been learning Chinese since they were quite young.Facing such a huge group of local Chinese learners,there are still relatively few researches on vocabulary acquisition academically.This article is a study based on the vocabulary acquisition of intermediate Chinese learners in the UK.The research framework is based on the Chinese learning motivation and Chinese vocabulary learning strategy SILL scale.It mainly describes the local learner's receptive vocabulary breadth,productive vocabulary breadth and productive vocabulary depth.This study aims to solve the following three questions.1)What are the Chinese learning motivations and vocabulary learning strategies that British Chinese learners have when studying in the UK? Are these motivations and vocabulary learning strategies affecting the development of receptive vocabulary breadth? 2)In the process of vocabulary acquisition,what are the developments ofChinese learner's receptive vocabulary and productive vocabulary? 3)How to take effective and targeted teaching measures in order to improve the vocabulary acquisition of local Chinese learners,and enhance the awareness of vocabulary acquisition and Chinese teaching as a second language?The research mainly adopts a case study method combining qualitative and quantitative analysis.The test subjects were six high school students from Christ Hospital School,West Sussex,England.It mainly adopts the following four test tools: Chinese Learning Motivation Questionnaire,Vocabulary Learning Strategy SILL Scale,Receptive Vocabulary Test Questions and Productive Vocabulary Test Question Outline.And use SPSS25.0 to organize and analyze the obtained data,so as to understand the vocabulary acquisition situation of the intermediate Chinese learners in the UK.Firstly,qualitatively and quantitatively analyze the Chinese learning motivation of the subjects.Secondly,the Oxford Vocabulary Learning Strategy Scale was used to measure and analyze the subjects.Thirdly,based on the Cambridge Examination Board high school vocabulary outline,the sample vocabulary was selected by equidistant sampling,then the subject's receptive vocabulary breadth was studied and analyzed.Then test whether the receptive vocabulary breadth has a normal correlation with gender factors,Chinese learning motivation factors and vocabulary learning strategy factors.Finally,collect local learner's corpora through productive vocabulary measurement question outlines to build real text corpora,and examine the breadth and depth of productive vocabulary.Based on the above research,the following conclusions are drawn: 1)The learning motivation of local Chinese learners in the UK is mainly instrumental motivation.The learning motivation is relatively strong,but the self-efficacy is not high.The frequency of vocabulary learning strategies is of medium frequency.The frequently-used vocabulary learning strategies in proper order are Social Strategy> Cognitive Strategy> Compensation Strategy> Meta-cognitive Strategy> Memory Strategy> Affective Strategy.The most frequently-used learning method is Quizlet vocabulary memory method.2)Based on the high school vocabulary outline,the receptive vocabulary breadth of Chinese learners in the UK is over 1000 words,the acquisition rate is over 80%,hence the vocabulary acquisition is in good condition.There are not enoughsamples to prove that there is a normal correlation between receptive vocabulary breadth and gender factors,but there is a low normal correlation between receptive vocabulary breadth and learning motivation,and a significant normal correlation with vocabulary learning strategies.3)There is a total of 1022 productive vocabulary breadth based on the learner's real text corpus.The research results of vocabulary distribution,vocabulary diversity,vocabulary complexity and vocabulary density show that: this learner comprehensively uses the lexical categories,vocabulary diversity,advanced vocabulary and her productive vocabs are quite Information-intensive.The results of vocabulary correctness,collocation knowledge and lexical meaning knowledge of productive vocabulary depth indicate that the learner's vocabulary depth at the Chinese character level,vocabulary level and pragmatic level still needs to be improved.The research results have a certain enlightening effect on the acquisition and teaching of Chinese vocabulary.It can reveal the receptive vocabulary breadth,productive vocabulary breadth and productive vocabulary depth of local Chinese learners,and provide a basis for the development of language skills of intermediate Chinese learners;it can provide case supplements for vocabulary acquisition of local Chinese learners,provide reference for vocabulary teaching of Chinese as a second language.