On Applying Frame Semantics To English Vocabulary Teaching In College

Vocabulary and vocabulary teaching are indispensible for language and language teaching. D.A.Wilkins(1972), McCarthy(1990) and Nation (1994) all ever pointed this out. So any language teacher cannot afford to ignore vocabulary and vocabulary teaching. And the present situation of English teaching in college of China needs to be perfected for most college students are still weak in speaking and writing although they have spent so much time on it.In order to solve this problem, this thesis aims to apply a linguistic theory, i.e. Frame Semantics to English vocabulary teaching in college of China. Trying to know if this theory is applicable, the author designed an experiment, in which she set up a new teaching approach to vocabulary instruction in college of China and tried to answer the following questions:1) Is the vocabulary teaching model based on the theory of Frame Semantics more effective than the traditional vocabulary teaching model in college students’retention of vocabulary?2) Is the vocabulary teaching model based on the theory of Frame Semantics more effective than the traditional vocabulary teaching model in promoting college students to output active vocabulary?3) Is the vocabulary teaching model based on the theory of Frame Semantics more effective than the traditional vocabulary teaching model in improving college students’reading ability?This experiment included three main parts:the pretest, the implementation of teaching, the post-test. The pretest was designed to see if Experiment Class and Control Class have the same language level and vocabulary level. In the experiment, the author designed teaching plans for the two classes respectively and then gave lesson to them. After the experiment, the achievements of the two classes in the post-test were compared through software SPSS18.0.From the experiment, we could get the following major findings:the vocabulary teaching method based on Frame Semantics was better than the traditional vocabulary teaching method; as for the retention of vocabulary and improvement of receptive ability, there was no significant difference between the two classes; compared with the traditional teaching method, the vocabulary teaching method based on Frame Semantics could improve students’ productive ability, i.e. help students use active words more automatically in writing.So from the major findings, we could draw a conclusion that the vocabulary teaching method based on Frame Semantics was more effective than the traditional teaching method in college vocabulary teaching, especially in teaching the productive aspects of active vocabulary. That’s to say, generally speaking, Frame Semantic could be applied to English vocabulary teaching in college of China, especially to active vocabulary teaching.At last, the pedagogical implications were listed for both teachers and students:teachers’ substantial study of Frame semantics theory helps to design better teaching plans; teachers had better choose active words as the target words of this vocabulary teaching; teachers should teach the frames of words in a simple and vivid way; teachers’summary of the teaching experience helps to perfect this vocabulary teaching model; students should have the basic knowledge of the Frame Semantics theory and reflect on it in order to make the learning of active vocabulary easier; students should enhance their motivation of learning English vocabulary with the help of Frame Semantics theory; students can learn active words by themselves with the help of the lexical database of the FrameNet project.This thesis also has its inevitable limitations:the number of participants was small and they were chosen randomly; the teaching plan based on the Frame Semantics theory in this study was far from perfect; this teaching method demanded teachers of high theoretical preparation. So much needs to be done to make this method more plausible and effective in the further study.