The Effects Of Vocabulary Breadth Level And Grammar Level On English Reading Scores Of Senior High School Students

This research investigates the proficiency of vocabulary,grammar and reading skills of grade one students of senior high school,hoping to explore a new model of TEFL of high schools in the aspects concerned.Proceeding from the schema theory,a VLT2000 test,a Grammar Test and a reading comprehension test have been given to 153 examinees to collect data for analyses in terms of vocabulary breadth,grammar knowledge and reading comprehension.This research explores the following two questions :(1)what is the status quo of vocabulary breadth,grammar knowledge of the examinees?(2)Does vocabulary breadth and grammar level of senior high school students have an effect on reading comprehension? Do these two factors have a combined effect on reading performance? Data analyses,descriptive analysis,the two-way analysis of variance,have been done to reach the following two conclusions:(1)the gaps of tests scores of examinees on vocabulary and grammar turn out to be wide.(the vocabulary breadth test(mean=1880.96,max=2440,mini=1230),and grammar test(mean=62.90,max=78,mini=36),so the status quo of vocabulary breadth and grammar level of high school students is not optimistic.(2)Vocabulary breadth and grammar level of senior high school students have an effect on reading comprehension,and these two factors affect reading scores together,and the effect is significant(sig=0.004).The following suggestions have been put forward to TEFL teachers on vocabulary,grammar and reading instructions.In the aspect of vocabulary teaching,for students' demands,vocabulary learning strategies have to be instructed,helping students activate the existing verbal schema to acquire new vocabulary by creating contexts of vocabulary learning,while emphasizing the importance of extracurricular reading.In terms of grammar teaching,students' grammar schema should be activated in their minds through situational teaching method,thus promoting students to learn grammar effectively.In the aspect of readinginstruction,teachers should apply schema theory to the three stages of reading comprehension,namely,pre-reading,while-reading and post-reading,so as to cultivate students' interests in reading.The instruction of background knowledge and appropriate reading techniques and strategies should be given to students,with a combination of top-down and bottom-up interactive reading modes to achieve an efficient reading.