1。2 Significance and Aims of the Study

There are three main significances of the study。

In the first place, vocabulary is playing a more and more important role in second language learning。 Since 1980s, vocabulary has attained much attention by scholars。 And it became a hot topic among researchers, scholars, teachers, language learner and other people involved in second language teaching or learning。 Harmer (1991) held that language structures were treated as the bones of language, and then the vocabulary made up the necessary organs and flesh of language。 In the meanwhile, the New Course Standard has also put forward higher requirements of vocabulary that students should command。 Hence, it is urgent to find out a better way in place of traditional teaching method to teach vocabulary。

 Secondly, self-learning ability outweighs vocabulary itself。 It is universally acknowledged that give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime。 If second language learners are taught how to learn language rather than rote memorization in Chinese EFL classroom, then not only a much higher proficiency can be achieved, but also learning consciousness can be greatly enhanced。 The use of word-formation to create a mass of lit of new words is the main way contemporary English vocabulary develops。 Word-formation helps to analyze, summarize and identify the link between the word inside and the connection of different words。 Theoretically, once language learners master some knowledge of word formation, they can learn a great quantity of new words quickly by themselves。

Last but not least, interest is the best teacher。 A huge task list and strict control over a student do contribute to vocabulary acquisition to a great extent, but what really accounts lies in interest。 As the former works momentary, the latter functions as the perpetual impetus of learning。 And the words students are familiar with are definitely much more interesting than those are totally strange。 For example, students learned “war” before, but the word “antiwar” is a new word for them, if teachers teach students some knowledge of affixation and “anti” refers to opposition, “antiwar” is a derivate which is created by adding prefix “anti” before word “war”, students will find it much easier to remember a new word, which may arouse interest and enthusiasm for vocabulary learning。

So this study attempts to develop a lens to vocabulary teaching for senior high school students setting in China, more specifically, the research on teaching English vocabulary through word-formation strategy among senior high school students。 With the devotion to the idea, research aims to solve these three questions: 

1) Does word-formation strategy enhance overall learners’ receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge acquisition?

2) Does word-formation strategy stimulates students’ interest in learning English vocabulary?

3) What implications can be drawn for Chinese EFL classroom teaching vocabulary?

1。3 Structure of the Study

In response to the research questions, the present study develops in five chapters:

Chapter 1 begins with research background, significance and aims of the study and structure of the study will be briefly introduced。

Chapter 2 is an overview about vocabulary knowledge and word formation, aimed at laying a firm foundation to the implementation of empirical research。

Chapter 3 describes participants, procedures, instruments and methods adopted for data collection。文献综述

Chapter 4 focuses on the analysis of data collected from the experiment and questionnaire so that question one and two can be answered。

Chapter 5 summarizes the main founding, which testify the truth of hypotheses presented in previous chapter, in other words, that word formation strategies can facilitate EFL learners’ vocabulary acquisition。 In the meanwhile, some implications and the shortage of research would be come up with。