英语本科毕业论文-基于情境的小学英语词汇.doc

1. Introduction1.1 The background of the present researchThe Ministry of Education (MOE) claims that primary schools in cities and towns start introducing and learning English gradually from 2001. There are several requirements of the National English Curriculum. During the process of learning English in nine-year compulsory education, students should be encouraged to discover rules of the language, master knowledge and skills, and develop effective learning strategies and culture awareness by means of experiencing, practice, exploring, and cooperating under the teachers guidance. English Curriculum requires the teachers make use of various resources, such as videos, television programs, books, magazines, and the Internet so as to expand the opportunities for students to learn and use the language. To achieve the requirements of the curriculum innovation, the vocabulary teaching in primary school should adapt to the curriculum innovation, make use of various strategies, and create true situation. Thus students are able to understand and practice language based on situation.1.2 Importance of research There are more studies about situational English teaching but paying less attention to the specific English vocabulary teaching in primary school based on situation. Also, these studies ignore the reasons why the teachers teach English vocabulary based on situation. We put the follow theories into this paper: Theory of Situated Cognition, Information Processing Theory, Childrens Cognitive Development Theory, and Second Language Acquisition Theory. According to these theories, we discuss the characters of English vocabulary teaching in primary school and the situation-based vocabulary teaching design. Such analysis can provide valuable references and measures for primary vocabulary teaching efficiency and improve vocabulary teaching as well as perfect the objectives of English teaching practice.1.3 General research questionsThere are many problems on English vocabulary teaching in primary school. The most common way for primary English learners to learn vocabulary is through memorization of a list of words and their Chinese equivalents with a lot of oral repetitions of each word (Wang Yan, 2010). Many students may have found this kind of vocabulary learning is very ineffective. Some teachers point out students should recite vocabulary by repetition. So this idea mechanizes the teaching strategies and simplifies the creating of situation, also teachers ignore effective guidance and lead to depressing class environment.2. Literature review2.1 Related concepts2.1.1 SituationWe need to master the classification of situation to understand this concept. According to the Word-Ocean Dictionary the situation can be classified as true situation, imaginary situation and implied situation. True situation means the existence of people or group around the reality. Imaginary situation means the consciousness of people or group. Implied situation means symbolic meaning contained in the others and their behavior. According to Li Jilin, Situation can be divided into physical situation, simulated situation, and imaginary situation (Li Jilin, 1900: 85). Based on the above definition and classification, the situation that exists in the classroom or out the classroom means teachers create true situation or simulated situation which enable students to actively participate in the English teaching activities.2.1.2 Teaching DesignSome learners argue that teaching design is essential for both novice and experienced teacher. It is a framework of a lesson in which teachers make advance decisions about what they hope to achieve and how they would like to achieve it (Li Boli, 1993: 297). In other words, teachers need to think about the aims to be achieved, materials to be covered, activities to be organized, and techniques and resources to be used in order to achieve the aims of the lesson. Other foreign learners, such as, Leslie J. Briggs (2008: 14) argued that teaching design is a whole process which analyzes the learning needs and goals to form a delivery system and meet the learners needs.Although the above definitions of teaching design are not exactly equal, they contain the essential meaning of teaching design which is a process containing background analysis, objective design, content design, strategy design, process design and reflection.2.2 Theoretical basis2.2.1 Information Processing Theory Information processing theory suggests that the environment plays an important role in learning. It argues that learning through a series of internal mental activities is to continuously process the external information (Zhang Hong, 2010). This process includes input, processing, output and feedback and so on. In fact, the environment is the teaching situation. Learners receive information from the situation, then convert, store and use information.2.2.2 Theory of Situated Cognition Although the information processing theory suggests that the situation plays an important role in learning, situation plays a more central and important part in situational cognitive theory. Theory of situated cognition extremely focuses on the significance of real activities in the study and stresses that the real activity can be simply defined as practice of culture (Lemke, 1997). Theory of situated cognition connects knowledge with real task and opposes the separation between situation and learning.2.2.3 Childrens Cognitive Development TheoryThe basic characteristics of the childrens thinking are the specific thinking and gradually become the abstract. The primary stage of children is lack of self-control and their emotion influences the cognitive activities so their activities have a significant emotional color. Piaget is the representative of the childrens cognitive development theory. He believes that “ The environment and childrens interaction are assimilation and accommodation” (Piaget, 1930: 89). Childs cognitive structure is a process which is gradually built up through the assimilation and accommodation.2.2.4 Second Language Acquisition Theory It is difficult to learn a second language in the native environment. Second language acquisition theory is the result of the interaction of the human brain thinking and the environment. Krashen who is the American famous linguistics argued that learning environment is important to language acquisition (Krashen, 1981). In our country, pupils should learn English by activities which can create a relaxed learning environment. The class activities of situation-based English vocabulary teaching for primary school students provides a good language learning environment which is similar to the native language learning environment to develop language communication ability through practice.2.3 Research on teaching design of vocabulary teaching in primary school at home and abroadThe Communicative Approach (Wang Yan, 2010), which focuses on the authenticity of language materials, comes from real life and has connect with peoples practice. Also, it stresses that communication is learned in the situation and used in the situation. The Situational Language Teaching claims that learning and practicing vocabulary in situation not only mobilize the enthusiasm of students, also provide a real communicative situation.Cennamo and Debby Kalk write the Real World Instructional Design (2007: 14), which focuses on the basic theory of teaching design and insists on creating teaching situation to finish the specific tasks about definition, design, present, development, and teaching. R. Mager argues that teaching design consists of three questions (R. Mage, 1978). The first one is where you are going to. It means the formulation of teaching objectives. The second one is how I get there. It means the analysis of learning tasks, determination of teaching contents, and selection of teaching strategies and teaching media. The third one is how to measure I have got there. It means teaching reflection. From the theoretical basic point of view, foreign research in ID is based on the teaching and learning-centered teaching design theory. Through the analysis of teaching design, we can conclude that the foreign teaching design contains rational design which is systematic and logical, and creative design which is an intuitive, artistic and creative process (C. M. Reigeluth F. S. Stein, 1983). In the design process, designers intuitively find the factors which affect the design in the background and determine teaching strategies.According to the characteristics of situation-based teaching design, Jin Yuefang discusses situation-based teaching objectives, situation-based teaching arrangement, and situation-based teaching strategies (Jin Yuefang, 2005). She stresses that teachers should create good environment which benefits students to bring forth new ideas and development. According to meaning and characteristics of situation-based learning, Ren Zhijuan points out that the steps of teaching design in English class are creating situation, group-work, communication and summary (Ren Zhijuan, 2005). She argues that activities and cooperation produce the process of learning. In China, there was teaching design theory in the 1980s. In the classroom teaching, Li Jilin focuses on the situational teaching. He claims that the true aim is not the situational teaching itself but promotion of childrens development (Li Jilin, 2002: 9). According to a number of journals, situation-based primary school English vocabulary teaching focuses on the teaching strategies, such as games teaching strategies, task-based teaching strategies and sensuous stimuli. According to the research at home and aboard, there are more studies about situational English teaching but paying less attention to the specific English vocabulary teaching in primary school based on situation. Also, these studies ignore the reasons why the teachers teach English vocabulary based on situation. We put the follow theories into this paper: Theory of Situated Cognition, Information Processing Theory, Childrens Cognitive Development Theory, and Second Language Acquisition Theory. According to these theories, we discuss the characters of English vocabulary teaching in primary school and the situation-based vocabulary teaching design. 3. Analysis of the Characteristics of the Situation-based English Vocabulary Teaching in Primary SchoolThe main task of English teaching in primary school is to stimulate and cultivate students interest and their confidence in learning. As for language teaching, students have to master the number of vocabulary so vocabulary teaching is an important stage in learning the language. The flexible use of the word in the communicative situation, the meaningful sentences and paragraphs can realize the meaning and value of the vocabulary teaching. So English vocabulary teaching based on situation has four characteristics: Interesting characteristic, Activity-based characteristic, Task-based characteristic and Actively-involved characteristic (Wang Yang, 2011: 15).3.1 Interesting characteristicAs for learners, interest is the motivation and the best teacher. Primary English puts inspiring and cultivating students interest into the first place. The whole design of primary English can meet the aesthetic needs of the child and the picture, figure and color can stimulate students interest. The content of textbook with the childrens favorite themes and activities stimulate students interest and improves skills of participation by listening, speaking, singing, playing and other forms. Learning English enable students to establish self-confidence, to cultivate good study habits and form effective learning strategies to develop self-learning ability and spirit of cooperation.3.2 Activity-based characteristicPrimary English transforms teaching content into the real life, and the teaching and learning activities into classroom communication so that students of all ranks can exchange their ideas. The activities of primary school English class can be divided into mechanical activities and developed ones. Mechanical activity means teachers allow students to play different roles to perform in accordance with the content of the text. Developed activity is to give some of the topics and key sentence based on the text which guides students to create situation. Such activity enables students to put their own thoughts and feelings into the activity to improve their self-expression capacity.3.3 Task-based characteristic Primary English stands for combination of study and use. It designs specific tasks according to this principle, regards the process of completing the task as the teaching process, and reflects the teaching achievement through displaying results. The students who have learning motivation will be able to study by themselves and to use the language actively. The design of the task has a clear purpose, situation and context. The classroom activities are designed as close as possible to the lives and experiences of the students, and can be applied in real life.3.4 Actively-involved characteristic All activities of the primary English are designed according to the students autonomous learning, self-involved and independent activities to achieve the interaction of the teaching and learning. As for selection of the content and design of topics and activities, it should take full consideration of the actual students life, interests, hobbies which can highlight the student-centered principle. During English teaching in primary schools, every student has great potential to learn and teachers should respect the individual, cannot discriminate against poor learning students, and should give them encouragement so that they can get great progress.4. Analysis of Primary Students The primary students in three to six grades are 9-12 years old. This stage is a critical period for learning language. The situation-based teaching designs promote the development of children. The teaching environment is an important factor for promoting childs development.4.1 General characteristics of childrens language learning processChildren master a foreign language through learning, which means children learn English in a situation of foreign language. This kind of learning needs the teachers conscious guidance, and the children need to imitate and memorize in order to understand and master the basic phone, semantic and grammatical structure of the language (Wang Yang, 2011: 19). Children learn English vocabulary in a short period of time and they have established a speaking system. Children need a situation-based training which enables children to learn accurate pronunciation and fluent tone of English words.According to the process of childrens language acquisition, Allport (1924) suggested that childrens learning language is to imitate adults and their language is a simplification of the adult language. On this basis, Chomsky (1955) stressed the initiative and creativity of the children in the process of language acquisition. Therefore, for the English language teaching in primary school, teachers need to create and design an authentic language environment so that children master English vocabulary in practical use.4.2 Cognition development of children4.2.1 Development of memoryChild has the conscious memory and unconscious memory which developed with the childs age. In the late of primary schools, conscious memory begins to exceed the unconscious memory. In this stage, primary students with the enhancement of understanding, the increasing of knowledge, and improvement of organizational skills, they acquire knowledge through using conscious memory gradually. At the same time, the proportion of mechanical memory is declining. Some students still keep the method of mechanical memory because of not well understanding the learning strategies (Wang Wenjing, 2002: 23). Therefore, on the English vocabulary teaching in primary schools the teaching design should base on the characteristics the childs memory to classify and select the correct memory strategies. 4.2.2 Development of thoughtChildrens mind has developed rapidly during childhood. Its basic characteristic is that logical thinking is developed rapidly, and the main thinking is thinking in image. During the development, process completes the transition from the image of thinking to abstract thinking (Piaget 1930: 115). In primary and secondary school, students way of thinking is very specific and the ability of abstract thinking is still relatively weak. Therefore, in the English vocabulary teaching process, teachers should create situation, and take full advantage of pictures, objects, video, and games based on the characteristics of the primary students thinking to enhance students understanding and awareness of things.5. Requirement of the Design of Teaching Plan in English Vocabulary Teaching in Primary SchoolThe primary English textbooks adopt the theme of childrens life and the content is close to the life of primary student, also in line with their age and psychological characteristics. Creation of situation in the classroom should be consistent with the students concept of cognition which benefits the construction of their teaching content. This situation-based teaching design puts forward higher requirements. There are two parts: student-focused rule and creating the situation according to the students interests (Chen Xiaohui, 2009: 62).5.1 Student-focused ruleStudent-centered means students and their performance are the focus of all teaching activities. Teaching should take full consideration of students individual differences in the process of learning and their styles