The Effective s of English Vocabulary Teaching.doc

0. Introduction Without vocabulary, there would be no language. Vocabulary is one of the indispensable components of language. Just as Wilkins (1976:86) holds, “Without grammar, very little could be conveyed, while without vocabulary, nothing could be conveyed.” Vocabulary deserves special attention in language teaching and learning because it plays a key role in the whole process of a second language acquisition. However, as the English vocabulary is huge in number, lacking in regularity and hard to master, it has always been a big headache for both teachers and learners. So how to carry out the English vocabulary teaching in senior schools effectively is always the top concern for teachers. At present, in the national college entrance examination, vocabulary quality and capacity is paid much attention to. Thus, how to improve English vocabulary teaching so as to achieve the vocabulary teaching task has become an urgent problem. Therefore, it is necessary and essential to make an investigation into the current situation of English vocabulary teaching and find out existing problems and efficient ways of teaching English vocabulary.1. Literature ReviewThe major components of part are researches on English vocabulary teaching abroad and at home, pointing out the importance of vocabulary teaching.1.1 Previous Studies on English Vocabulary Teaching Abroad Vocabulary is the basic material in a context, and the size of vocabulary is a major standard measuring the level of a foreign learner. Vocabulary teaching has abundant connotation. Vocabulary holds grammar and voice together, and is the construct headstone of language. In a situation where people do not speak English in daily life, it is hard to learn English naturally, and one must learn from language foundation. It is difficult to master language and train communication capacity without the efficient vocabulary learning. Allen & Vallete (1972) ever indicates: whichever target language, vocabulary is a significant factor in the whole language teaching. Second language learners also deem, a number of vocabularies are the foundation of developing language skill, and especially for the beginners, the size of vocabulary is more essential than veracity of structure. Lexicologist McCarthy considers, one who learns second language can not use language to communicate with each other without vocabulary to convey sense, no matter how well language and voice is. Nation (l990:31) indicates, completely mastering a word, one should master its spelling, pronunciation, meaning, collocation, the syntactic form, style, association and word frequency In English teaching and learning process, most students spend most time in learning vocabulary, but not satisfied with the result. Many foreign learners have summed up English teaching methods which are based on teaching the vocabulary, such as The Grammar Translation Method, The direct Method, The Audio-lingual Method and Situationa1Language Teaching. 1.2 Previous Studies on English Vocabulary Teaching at Home Compared with the research in the west, China involved in this field late. It was not until 1980s that Chinese figures began to research into language learning strategies. However, even so, more and more Chinese researchers have made striking contributions to the exploration of English vocabulary. Wen Qiufang (1996), in his book On English Learning Strategies, expounds learning strategy system, the innate factors of the system as well as how to coordinate and control other factors affecting strategies selection. Yao Meilin (2000) had a summary of current research trends in the teaching of foreign vocabulary learning strategies and divided them into three stages-it definition and classification, exploration of effective approaches to strategies teaching, and the establishment of models for teaching strategies. Lv Shuxiang points that habit is manly formed by proper imitation and repeating practice. Foreign teaching concentrates on simulating and repeating, meanwhile it attaches importance to cultivate students actual using capability in a new context or communicative environment. So she indicates “repeating”, means review what you have learned, and at the sane time, use knowledge in daily life again and again. There are so many linguists who make contributions to vocabulary teaching abroad and at home. However, most of the current researches emphasize on theory analysis and only some of them deal with empirical research. Besides, some principles are unpractical in real teaching. Therefore, we need to gather experience in daily teaching class in order to improve the methods of teaching vocabulary.2. Current Teaching and Learning Situation in Middle SchoolThis chapter states the requirement of Senior Middle School English Curriculum Standards, and then describes the difficulties in vocabulary teaching and learning2.1 The Requirement of Senior Middle School English Curriculum Standards (2003) In China, the newly-issued Senior Middle School English Curriculum Standards (2003) also clearly argues that vocabulary teaching is one of the important parts in English instruction and that teachers should teach students some vocabulary knowledge in a planned way. Senior students are required to master increasing from 2,000 to 3,500, which includes some words examined in GEM4 and GEM6.2.2 The Difficulties in Vocabulary Teaching and Learning Vocabulary learning is a kind of complex process. Though most students and teachers know vocabulary is one of the indispensable parts of language system, the current English teaching conditions in middle schools are far from satisfaction.2.2.1 Long Time, Low EfficiencyEnglish learning and teaching are considered as “consuming more time but achieving less efficiency”. Allen (2002: 1) claims that teachers gave little attention to techniques for helping students learn vocabularies. They just spend a vast amount of time defining and explaining new words in class. While students devote much time to learning English after class but achieve a little. They spend plenty of time on remembering words but they find them hard to remember and easy to forget. In view of students, learning vocabulary is a heavy burden for them, and complaints about difficulty of remembering English words are often heard. As a result of lack of vocabulary, they dont have enough words to express ideas, understand basic reading materials, misuse words, use words inappropriately, or make up words in their own way. Gradually, these students lose their interest in English because they find it hard to learn the words by heart. At last, students use up more time but achieve less efficiency. 2.2.2 Much Attention to GrammarIn English class, teachers pay much attention to grammar. When analyze a sentence, teacher often concentrates on sentence rather than vocabulary. Grammar teaching accounts for 50% in English class, and sometimes may be up to 80%. While, vocabulary teaching occupies 20%.Teachers read the new words and points out its meaning in some text. Furthermore, the national college entrance examination tests basal knowledge, including grammar, tense, and count and so on. As a result, teachers spend more time teaching grammar than vocabulary in class. And teachers maybe ignore the vocabulary teaching and just explain words meaning sterilely.2.2.3 Tedium Teaching MethodsAs for vocabulary teaching methods, some teachers use inflexible ways. For example, reading the new words three times, when teachers begin a new lesson. Then teachers are used to illustrating a lot of Chinese or English meanings, phrases or making some sentences to explain the words. Students are required to read or write the words again and again. In addition, dictation is widely used to check the conditions of vocabulary learning. However, effective and active classroom activities appear less in teaching vocabulary than explain the meaning directly.As a matter of fact, to most Chinese students, the first major problem they meet during English study is vocabulary learning. Wu Xia (2003) appeals to pay more attention to English vocabulary size, and make efforts to take effective methods to enlarge the size of vocabulary.3. The Effective Methods of English Vocabulary TeachingIn recent years, the English teaching is required to shift from “how to teach” to “how to learn”. The key to achieving this goal lies in the acquisition and application of vocabulary. As Twaddell (1973) indicates, “It is impossible to teach learners all the words they need to know, and so it is important to teach them strategies that will enable them to tackle unknown words and lose their reliance on dictionaries.” There are four ways of vocabulary teaching.3.1 The Direct Teaching Method The Direct teaching method means teachers give a class directly, often by a kind of auxiliary teaching equipment, such as pictures, material object, PPT and gestures, expressions and so on. It is a good method to teach some material object, action, expression or other words, especially for some English beginners and connect material object or action with English to make a direct expression. Now a teaching material has pictures and writings, and there are pictures related with teaching content in every unit, which are beneficial for the direct methods. Teachers should make effective use of pictures to teach words and text in order to make students study in a pleasant situation. 3.1.1 Applications of the Direct Teaching Method Harmer (2000:55)said, “The teacher can also ensure that the students understand the meaning of a word by showing pictures (photographs, cards .etc)”. For instance, when a teacher teaches a book, he can take an actual book, points out the book and says “book”. Then takes another book and says “book”. Students will understand “a book” is a book after teachers repeat “a book”. Teachers also can teach the other objects in the classroom, such as chair, door, window, curtain and so on in the same method. With the development of science and technology, the computer is a common teaching instrument, so teachers can use PPT to show pictures to teach what a park, tree, bank, plane is. In the compulsory education curriculum standard experiment textbook for grade 7 in English, Unit 5-When He Was Born, the vocabulary is connected with careers. Teachers can show some pictures like table 1, read them, and then students can learn the vocabulary according to the pictures. Table 1gymnast, golfer, violinist, pianist, athlete, scientist, engineer, pilot, artist, professor actor 3.1.3 Features of the Direct Teaching Method 3.1.2 Features of the Direct Teaching MethodIt is clear that direct method is a visual and vivid method, and easy for students it is a vivid method, and easy for students to understand and learn the knowledge. Besides, teachers use gestures and expressions to explain words, which is easy to be understood. In a conclusion, the indirect method not only build harmonious atmosphere, but also stimulate students interest in learning However, rejection of native language, it is difficult to understand some abstract and complicated concepts. Moreover, there is no clear grammar explanation, which causes grammar mistakes when students speak.3.2 Word-Formation StrategyThe expansion of vocabulary in modern English depends chiefly on word formation. There is a variety of meaning being a work. The most productive are affixation, compounding and conversion. According to Pyles and Algeo (1982), words produced through affixation constitute 30% to 40% of the total number of new words; compounding yields 28% to 30% of all the new words; conversion brings 26% of the new vocabulary into modern English. Now we take affixation as an example to explain Word-Formation Strategy.3.2.1 The Definition of Affixation How to Improve Your Word Power? ，published by American Reader Digest, regards root, prefixation and suffixation as “three keys of enlarging vocabulary size” (Wang Rongpei, Lu Xiaojuan 1997:25) . So it is essential for us to make full use of them to teach and learn vocabulary. Affixation is generally defined as the formation of words by adding word-forming or derivational affixes and bases. This process is also known as derivation, by which new words are derived from old or base forms. According to the positions affixes occupy in words, affixation falls into two subcategories: prefixation and suffixation.3.2.1 Applications of Affixation At first, we can introduce some common prefixation and suffixation, such as negative prefixes, “in-, dis-, non- .etc”, and noun suffixes, such as “-er, -ess .etc” If students learn the principle of word formation, they can guess the word meaning even though they have not met the words, and then they must enhance the number of vocabulary. We can take “anti-” as an example. “Anti-“ means “against, opposed to”, productive with nouns and adjectives, e.g. anti-government(反政府), anti-social(反社会); also meaning “preventing, destroying”, e.g. anti-inflation(反通货膨胀), anti-freeze(防冻的), anti-aging(抗衰老的); its newly developing meaning “against traditional characteristics” and “of or belonging to the hypothetical world consisting of antimatter” e.g. anti-hero(平凡的主角), anti-music(反音乐), anti-theater(反戏剧).Only if students master the word-formation principle, they have the ability of producing the new words. According to the tables 2&3, we can know some special English words meaning, and guess the meaning based on word-formation principle. Besides, teachers can give students different kinds of exercise to make students master this principle. For example, fill in the blanks using the proper form of the words.(freedom, friendship, happiness, hope, jealous, love )1. Jealousy is no more than feeling alone among smiling enemies.2. Happiness is like coke; something you get as the by-product of making something else.3. Hope is like the power of being cheerful in circumstances while we know to be desperate.4. Freedom is a indivisible thing; if you want to enjoy it, you must be prepared to extend it to others.5. Friendship is something that can keep us away from loneliness. Table 2SuffixesExampleVerb+erteachteacher+iondiscussdiscussion+antassistassistant+encepreferpreference+edamaze amazedNoun+ousdanger dangerous+ianmusicmusician+yhealthhealthyAdjective+istspecialspecialist+tysafesafety+nesskindkindness Table 3prefixmeaningexamplesunnotunfair, unhappy, unwillinglymiswrongly or badlymisunderstand, mistake, mistrust, misleadingredo againretell, rewrite, rebuild, reconsider, remarriagesupermore than, beyondsupermodel, supernatural, superhumanforebeforeforeword, forethought, forefather 3.2.4 Features of Affixation Word-Formation Strategy, concluding affixation, compounding, conversion .etc, is a common teaching method, which is more used in senior high school, and less used in elementary school. However, not every word can be taught in this way. There are some words are not formed by Word-Formation Strategy.3.3 Context Teaching MethodEven though you have known a lot of words, you can not read books or communicate with other people. The word is often affected and defined by the neighboring lexemes. Besides, there are so many synonyms and polysemy in English, so everyone should pay attention to the situation where a word is used and the words meaning in different context. As Brown. H.D (2001:365)said, “The best internalization of vocabulary comes from encounters with words within the context of surrounding discourse rather than isolating words and/or focusing on dictionary definitions”. “No context, no text”, which means we can not understand the word meaning without the context. As a result, teachers can teach the word in the context, and then students learn it the actual context.3.3.1 Applications of Context Teaching Method Take “glass” as an example. It is common meaning is “玻璃”, but in the sentence “she is looking in the glass,” it means “镜子”； in the sentence “look at it through your glass,” it means “望远镜”； in the sentence “Mary is a girl with glasses,” it means “眼镜”. It is concluded that the same word in various sentence or context, it shows different meaning. Maybe someone says “glass” is a common and simple word, but they do not know its actual meaning. As a teacher, it is essential to teach students to understand the word meaning, and gradually make use of the word correctly. For instance, “pick up” is a high frequency word in middle school, and teacher can use context teaching method to teach the phrase. For instance:(1) You will soon pick up health when you get to the seaside.(到了海滨,就会很快地恢复健康)(2)Where did you pick up with that queer fellow?(你在什么地方结识那个怪家伙的?)(3)He is beginning to pick up now. (他现在已开始康复了)(4)He stopped the car to pick up a young girl who was hitch-hiking across Europe.(他停下车来搭载一个乘便车旅行欧洲的年轻女郎) From the example above, if students only know its common meaning “捡起”, it is hard to understand the whole sentences meaning. From cognitive perspective, it is not a simple process where students use a word from distinguish, understand to use it, and it need a good deal of practice to identify and understand words At last, students can understand the words or phrase meaning wherever it occurs. 3.3.2 Features of Context Teaching Method Context teaching method can accelerate language contact with things, which helps learners to understand the language. Besides, attaching great importance to vocabulary teaching in specific situation, teachers make class lively, and students acquire language naturally. But completely excluding native languag