The Schema-based SEFC Vocabulary Teaching

The schema Theory was originally for psychological reading. It has been used for reading and context guessing by activating the reader's previous knowledge. It's also applied in listening comprehension and cloze test. However, schema on vocabulary teaching is sparse, especially on SEFC vocabulary teaching. This study incorporates schema in Senior Three vocabulary teaching and by doing 12 weeks' experiment to test whether the schematically organized oral vocabulary presentation was prior to rote repetition in the following three aspects: 1) new words (in senior Book 3B) learned during the 12 weeks; 2) extra new words (not included in JEFC &SEFC) presented together with the schematically grouped words; 3) old words learnt before the experiment.There are seven parts in this thesis. Part One puts forward the importance of processing vocabulary schematically by providing previous researchers' relevant study and by investigating students' difficulties in vocabulary learning and teachers' vocabulary teaching strategies. This part also includes the purposes and significance of this study. Also, schematic association is defined in this part. Part two contains schema, the Schema Theory and schemata with one's vocabulary memory concerned: 1) the inference of schema in one's memory; 2)the typical and atypical members of a category; 3) role concepts and props; 4) event scripts; 5) the associative character of schema. Part Three contains different previous vocabulary processing and classification with semantic or schematic way concerned. It also analyzes the direct and indirect way and points out the priority of vocabulary learning of the both incorporated.Part Four and Part Five are the key parts of this study. Firstly, it stresses the differences of this study from the previous ones. This study is featured with communication and interaction between the teacher and the students. Secondly, it presents five ways of the schematic vocabulary processing: 1) typical member presentation; 2) activation of the lexical items for the concepts; 3) formulaic series of activities in event scripts; 4) stereotypic word association; 5) roles and props. It introduces how to operate the five ways. Thirdly, it contains detailed descriptions of the experiment and data analysis, which includes three parts: 1) vocabulary testcomparison for the experimental class and the control class; 2) comparison of investigation intoschematic association before and after the experiment for the two classes; 3) comparison of high and low score students with their investigation scores before and after the experiment.Part Six reports the conclusion: 1) compared with classroom rote repetition, the classroom schematic word presentation is significantly different in textbook new word retention, extra new word increase and old word consolidation; 2) the difference of the post investigation on schematic association for the experimental class is reported much greater than for the control class; 3) the more schematic the subjects associate words, the higher they score in post word test.Part Seven is the implications and limitations of this study. Also some suggestions for further study is given. Suggestions for vocabulary teaching and the role of word study should be played in textbook writing.