A Study on the Effect of Metaphor Awareness Raising on Chinese EFL Learners’ Vocabulary Acquisition and Retention

The research investigates the vocabulary acquisition and retention effect of raising learners’ metaphor awareness on EFL learners (non-English majors) of intermediate-low English proficiency level. The subjects are first-year non-English college students in a vocational college. The pre-test, immediate posttest and delayed posttest experiment lasted for a whole semester and the data collected at the tests were processed with SPSS Windows 13.0. The result shows that in EFL class, organizing metaphorical expressions along their metaphorical theme is more effective in enhancing EFL learners’ vocabulary retention. Accordingly, efforts to raise learners’ metaphor awareness should be made in classroom-based EFL teaching and the considerations should be given in teaching treatment to achieve a better effect in EFL vocabulary teaching and learning.