A Study On Vocabulary Teaching In Primary Schools-based On Memory Psychology

With the development of society and economy, English has become an importanttool for communication in China now. There is a new trend in English education atyounger age throughout the whole nation. In 2001, the Ministry of Education in Chinaissued the Reform Outline of Compulsory Education Curriculum, which clearlyrequires that primary English education should begin in grade 3. It also required thatprimary school students must have at least four periods of English classes per week.On the one hand, the Chinese government has attached more importance to children’sEnglish education than ever before; and on the other hand, primary school Englishteaching is the foundation for a person’s English learning. Therefore, primary schoolEnglish teaching has increasingly become the focus and hot point in our society.Nowadays, many researchers, teachers and even linguists have placed moresignificance on vocabulary instruction like Chen Wenyan (2006), who paid attentionto vocabulary teaching in high schools. However, most of the researches are aboutjunior and senior schools, but pay little attention to the primary schools. Primaryschool students have their specific characteristics on learning English. They like toaccept new knowledge as well as teachers’instruction. Therefore; primary schoolteachers should combine their students’psychological characteristics with vocabularyteaching theories so as to strengthen the students’English learning and promote theirmemory capacity. By doing so, they can benefit a lot for their learning and work infuture.Based on the previous studies, this thesis has conducted a trial study onvocabulary teaching in primary schools. It aims to help the primary school teachersmake their vocabulary teaching more effective under the instruction of memorypsychology.This thesis includes six parts:The first part is an introduction part, which focuses on the significance ofvocabulary teaching in primary schools and the researching prospect of this study. The second part introduces the present research situation and trend ofdevelopment of vocabulary teaching at home and aboard.The third part is concerned with the fundamental concepts and theories related tovocabulary teaching and memory psychology and gives an analysis on the applicationof memory psychology theories on vocabulary teaching.The fourth part presents a research report on vocabulary teaching in the view ofmemory psychology, and proves the goal, the tools and the process of the research. Inthe end of this part, the author shows analysis of the experimental data which justifiesthat those memory psychology theories can help teachers make their English classesmore effective.The fifth part is a suggestion for effective lexical teaching for primary schoolteachers.The last part is the conclusion part, which reveals the main purpose of this study,the limititions of the thesis and the suggestions for further research.