英语专业毕业论文The Application of Communicative Approach in Vocabulary Teaching in Senior High Schools.pdf

毕业论文(设计) 1 the application of communicative approach in vocabulary teaching in senior high schools 交际法在高中英语词汇教学中的应用交际法在高中英语词汇教学中的应用 1. introduction.1 2.aspects of vocabulary teaching.3 2.1 the importance of vocabulary teaching and learning in senior high schools.3 2.2 major problems of vocabulary teaching in senior high schools.4 2.2.1 the drawbacks of several traditional vocabulary teaching methods.5 2.2.1.1 teach words in isolation. 5 2.2.1.2 teach english words in chinese.6 2.2.1.3 harmful methods of punishment.7 2.3 problems in studentsvocabulary instruction.7 2.3.1 lexical knowledge and lexical competence.7 2.3.2 without enough contact with real contexts.8 3. communicative approach.9 3.1 background.9 3.2 theoretical basis of ca.10 3.3 the main features of ca.11 3.4assessments.12 4. communicative language teaching in vocabulary class.13 4.1 the application of language in real life vs. traditional pedagogy. 13 4.2 principle of clt.14 4.2.1 the task-based principle.14 4.2.2 the information gap principle. 14 4.3 teaching vocabulary. 15 4.3.1 the roles of teachers and students.15 4.3.2 teaching vocabulary by communication.16 4.3.3 teaching vocabulary in contexts.17 4.4asuccessful vocabulary class with ca.17 comments:.22 5. conclusion.23 references.24 1. introduction with the globalization of the world, english has become a universal language, and it acts as a medium for people of different nations. english is often necessary for official business, education, international trade and other activities in many countries. 毕业论文(设计) 2 thus, to have a good understanding of the world, it is necessary for us to learn english. english consists of speech sound, grammatical structure and vocabulary. to have a good command of english, it is indispensable for us to have better acquisition of vocabulary. to learn english is to build a new network which is expressed by vocabulary. all of these lead to the fact that vocabulary forms the very backbone to english learners. grammar provides the overall patterns, and vocabulary is the material to put in the patterns. as david wilkins said, “without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed.” (cited in thornbury scott, 2003: 13) in spite of this, it seems to students that it is very difficult to master vocabulary, because the grammar-translation method has a great impact on the formation of students study habit. students act according to what the teacher wants them to accomplish but not what they themselves want to accomplish, so the scope of their knowledge is narrow and their command of vocabulary is limited. besides, the long-term practice of teacher-centeredness in education has actually lessened the opportunities for students to analyze things for themselves, has harmed students initiative and has reduced their enthusiasm for learning vocabulary. as a result, the students who have learnt more than six years of english are often remain deficient in using the language in real communicative situations. enable students to have a good mastery of vocabulary and forester their communicative competence in senior high schools, communicative approach may be a 毕业论文(设计) 3 better substitute. vocabulary teaching through this method can train and develop students linguistic competence and their communicative competence, and more opportunities are provided for learners to practice using new words. however, some problems have arisen in the practical teaching and learning. teachers have ignored the importance of vocabulary teaching, the traditional teaching methods have tended to inhibit the development of communicative abilities and students have learned vocabulary without enough contact with contexts. so this thesis is written to make a great effort to solve these problems. in this thesis, at first, the essentiality of vocabulary learning and teaching is offered, which enables students to realize the power of vocabulary. then, main problems of present english teaching are listed in senior high schools. furthermore, several aspects of ca are presented. they are background, theories, and features, all of these are beneficial to help students and teachers to have a better understanding of ca. finally, the application of ca in vocabulary class is illustrated, which involves how to teach vocabulary, and what roles teachers and students should play. meanwhile, to draw the attention of students and teachers on the benefit of ca in vocabulary class, a successful vocabulary class is demonstrated. 2.aspects of vocabulary teaching 2.1 the importance of vocabulary teaching and learning in senior high schools in senior high schools, the textbooks are more frequently changed than before, the most evident sign of which is that vocabulary in the new series of textbooks is much richer than before. it used to be enough for students to master about 2000 words 毕业论文(设计) 4 but now it is necessary for students to be familiar with 3000 words. besides, it is not easy for students to have a good control and command of vocabulary, so the situation calls for more emphasis on vocabulary teaching and learning. the mid-1980s saw a renewed interest in the role of vocabulary in second language learning as a central factor in language teaching; and professional journals and teachers meetings often reflect the current concern for more effective vocabulary teaching today. therefore, teaching vocabulary is an indispensable part of english lesson in senior high schools. it has been called upon to provide students with the basic ability to use the language, to receive, and to convey information associated with their spoken english. whether teachers can follow effective methods to teach vocabulary or not will exert great influence on students. if their applications of methods meet students demands, they will arouse students interest in english and help students to have a good understanding of vocabulary, then the students vocabulary acquisition ability will be improved. if teachers fail to do so, they will be often asked by students, “how to remember vocabulary efficiently?” moreover, students may complain about too much vocabulary in the textbook. as a result, learners become less confident in learning vocabulary and show little enthusiasm for english. thus, in the course of teaching, teachers should take advantage of every feasible technique to teach vocabulary. 2.2 major problems of vocabulary teaching in senior high schools most of chinese students have been exposed to english since in elementary schools, but few of them have a good acquisition of vocabulary knowledge. its frustrating for students when they discover they dont know many of the words they 毕业论文(设计) 5 need. in fact, the traditional english language teaching hinders from their application of vocabulary and fewer opportunities are offered for them to analyze and apply vocabulary for themselves, and have possibly encouraged their laziness in thinking. giving up their natural instincts for active thinking，they spend lots of their time copying from the blackboard, following teachers talk and rote memorization. so the vocabulary class is dominated by the teaching method of “the jugs and mugs”, (the teacher is seen as having a large jug of knowledge, which is poured into the learner “mug”) and which in turn can only accept a certain amount of that knowledge. in other words, students are used to being fed with knowledge rather than their contribution through independent learning. 2.2.1 the drawbacks of several traditional vocabulary teaching methods 2.2.1.1 teach words in isolation senior high schools english teachers in china usually ask students to learn vocabulary list in which words are isolated from the context. on one hand, they ask students to pick out the new words in the textbook, to list them on a paper, and to consult the dictionary for the chinese or english meanings; on the other hand, they try to get the students to associate each word with an object; for example, they may hold up a picture of a bus and say “this is a bus.” both of these teaching techniques imply that learning vocabulary means learning individual word, and the students might not understand fully about the meaning of the word in isolation: how “car” 毕业论文(设计) 6 contrasts with “taxi”? neglecting the study of the relationships in english vocabulary system might result in students slowness in comprehension and inappropriateness in exploiting the english words. being taught in these ways, students might have difficulty in working out the polysemous words, such as “man” in the following three sentences: man must change a changing world. (the human race) they are man and wife. (husband) man is the language laboratory. (supply with a person or persons for service) 2.2.1.2 teach english words in chinese manyenglishteacherstendtoteachenglishwordsinone-to-one correspondence to chinese words. for instance, english “article” is “文章” in chinese, english “celebrate” is “庆祝” in chinese. to some extent, this traditional translation teaching method that has been adopted for years isnt considered to be helpful, and in the long run it will be harmful to the development of students language competence. especially in primary schools, this method should be cancelled as soon as it can be. when students say that they know the meaning of an english word, it usually means that they have found an equivalent word in chinese language, but this word may be misunderstood. lets take the word “milk” for example. in the sentence of “i have milk for breakfast”, the word “milk” in chinese culture refers to hot milk, because chinese people get used to drinking milk hot; while the word “milk” in the american culture refers to cold milk, because americans never drink boiled milk as 毕业论文(设计) 7 we chinese do. this example shows us that the same word “milk” has different social meanings in different cultures. 2.2.1.3 harmful methods of punishment as is known to all, the worst method of vocabulary teaching is the adoption of harmful method of punishment-copying new words for 50 even 100 times, but there are still some teachers in favor of the method, and often ask their students to copy many times of new words where they made mistakes. as a result, students have a bad attitude towards english lessons and show little interest in english. it is no doubt that most of the senior high schools students show much enthusiasm for learning english at first, because it is a subject that is full of novelty and fun. with the traditional teaching methods by teachers, they might begin to lose heart in learning english and even dislike their english teacher. 2.3 problems in studentsvocabulary instruction in learning english as a second language, it is very necessary for students to have good vocabulary instruction. however, under the influence of traditional teaching methods, teachers have overlooked some problems in studentsvocabulary instruction, including lexical knowledge and lexical competence, and they often teach vocabulary away from the real contexts of language acquisition. 2.3.1 lexical knowledge and lexical competence lexical knowledge is concerned with two aspects, quality which refers to the depth of vocabulary and quantity which is about the width of vocabulary (wu xia and 毕业论文(设计) 8 wang qiang, 1998: 13). the lexical knowledge, also called word knowledge, vocabulary knowledge (hatch another reason for this dissatisfaction was that the increasing possibilities for international communication, professional cooperation and travel became more popular than before. all these were reflected in some proposals to reconstruct the language syllabus so that learning communicative conventions would become as important as learning grammatical conventions. d.a. wilkins (1972), who proposed a functional or communicative definition of language that could serve as a basis for developing communicative syllabuses for 毕业论文(设计) 10 language teaching (cited in wu yiwei, 2007). wilkinss contribution was an analysis of the communicative meanings that a language learner needs to understand and express, rather than describes the core of language through traditional concepts of grammar and vocabulary. wilkins (1976) later revised and expanded his 1972 document into a book called notional syllabuses (cited in wu yiwei, 2007), which has a significant impact on the development of communicative language teaching. since the mid-1970s, the scope of communicative language teaching has expanded. both american and british proponents now see it as an approach that aims to make communicative competence the goal of language teaching. 3.2 theoretical basis of ca as an approach of language teaching and learning, it is based on two theories, one is the theory of language, and the other is the theory of learning. to begin with, language is for communication. when we communicate, we use the language to accomplish some functions, such as arguing, persuading, or promising. effective language learning will take place if the emphasis is on communication. yalden thinks that more effective foreign language learning will take place if the emphasis is on getting ones meaning across or understanding the speaker rather than on formal accuracy (cited in han xinmin, 2004: 181). in addition, language is used in topic, context and setting. the ca has a theory of language originated from the functional linguistics, and is concerned with language as a tool of communication instead of as a system that is viewed in isolation. apart from talking about language function and language form, there are still other dimensions of communication to be considered, they are topics, context and setting; and roles of people involved. thus we carry out 毕业论文(设计) 11 the communicative functions within a context. language is best learned through use in context. john firth, a linguist, stressed that language needs to be studied in the broader context of its use, which includes participants, their behavior and beliefs, the object of linguistic discussion, and word choice (cited in han xinmin, 2004: 181). finally, ca should follow the natural acquisition process. the ca is in an effort to follow the natural acquisition process in the classroom. according to krashen, s. d. (1981),languagelearningcomesaboutthroughusingtargetlanguage communicatively. some contemporary researchers and language educators believe that fully successful language acquisition is a by-product of communication, of negotiating meaning. 3.3 the main features of ca as the theoretical basis of ca guide language teaching and learning, the communicative approach has many features. firstly, emphasis is laid on fostering communicative competence. the goal of ca is to develop students communicative competence, which includes both the knowledge about language and the knowledge about the application of language in communicative situations. (net. 1) in other words, communicative competence entails learners to know not only the form of language, but also what to say to whom and how to say it appropriately in given situations. secondly, learners not only focus on language but also on the learning process itself, and then they make good use of their own experiences to communicate with vocabulary. it will not only strengthen the knowledge students have learned, but also can raise their communicative ability and creatively exert the language they have learned in the textbook. most importantly, students experience themselves the 毕业论文(设计) 12 successes and pleasure of communication in english, and they show great enthusiasm for learning english. thirdly, the classroom activities are learner-centered, because learning is more effective when learners are ac