Special Vocabulary Learning Difficulties for EFL Students with Chinese Backgrounds

Abstract

This paper discussed three important factors related to the special difficulties of EFL learners: coursebooks, language distance, and teachers. EFL students' vocabulary input sources lack real context and socio-cultural context of target language. At this point, efforts cannot be focused on creating a real context for them, which is unrealistic, but to find special methods based on the special difficulties of EFL. For EFL learners, coursebooks, as one of the numerous learning resources, have become the most important way for them to input language. This should be the starting point for finding EFL learners' difficulties and solving them. In addition, the large language distance between Chinese and English causes students to encounter certain difficulties in learning the target language. For the issue of contrasting the differences between NEST and non-NEST, which has been extensively studied, this paper proposed that the focus of researchers should be on providing effective vocabulary learning strategies for EFL students, rather than contrasting the two of them. According to the "Learning Burden of a Word " proposed by Nation, this paper lastly stated the strengths and weaknesses of EFL coursebooks. After analysis, the strengths of the textbook are that most textbooks provide pronunciation, all textbooks provide written form, but provide contextual meaning. The primary stage textbooks provide explanations of grammatical functions. The main weaknesses are the lack of explanation modules for word parts, related means, concepts and references, settlements and constraints on use.