Survey on the Acquisition of Chinese Vocabulary by International Students—A Case Study of Southwest Petroleum University

Vocabulary is the basic unit that constitutes a language, and is an important carrier for conveying information and constructing meaning. The study of Chinese vocabulary acquisition in China is mostly on the analysis of bias. The study adopts questionnaire survey method which take foreign students from Southwest Petroleum University as an example to study the vocabulary acquisition of the Chinese everyday language. The phenomenon of investigation was analyzed from Atkinson’s social cognitive perspective. The results of the study indicate that vocabulary of everyday terms has not been fully learned by international students even they got certificates. And everyday language vocabulary should receive attention from teachers to international students. In teaching process, it’s vital to give full play to the alignment between the social environment, social activities and learners, which could help international students improve their language competence.