The Theory Of Lexical/semantic Fields And Its Pplication To Middle School Vocabulary Teaching

Vocabulary is the basic unit of language. Without vocabulary, there will be no languagematerials and grammar. Vocabulary acquisition is the key point in middle school Englishstudying and it is advisable for the teacher to attach importance to vocabulary teaching. Butmany middle school students in China find it difficult to learn vocabulary efficiently,vocabulary teaching become a significant and strenuous task through the whole process ofEnglish teaching. The traditional vocabulary teaching mainly focuses on the new words listedin the textbook, which leads to students learning new words in an isolated way. In Englishclass teacher explains the pronunciation, formation, and meaning of words in the order of theword list while the students adopt the rote memorization method to cram them into theirminds. Based on these ways students always make, the paper advocates the application ofsemantic theory to vocabulary teaching. Aiming at the proper way to enlarge students’vocabulary, this teaching approach can help students gain an insight into the implicationallexical and collocational relations of the vocabulary system.Semantic field theory is one of the most important theories in semantics, in particularly,playing a vital role in English learning and providing important theoretical foundations forvocabulary learning. Vocabulary teaching with semantic field theory is a new way to helpstudents memorize English vocabularies. The concept of semantic field shows the systematicnature of language and reflects the paradigmatic relationship between lexemes. In terms of thelexical study, semantic field can be classified into hyponymy, synonymy, antonyms,meronomy, and homonymy. The author carries out an experiment in Lushan No.21Junior High School, which lastsfor15weeks. The author selects two parallel classes’ students from Grade Seven as subjects,Class one was the experimental class and Class Two was the control class.This paper aims to provide effective strategies and information about the middle schoolvocabulary teaching with the semantic field theories. There are three questions for discussionin the experiment:(1) what strategies of semantic field theory could be used in middle schoolvocabulary teaching?(2) Are there any improvements in subjects’ by the vocabulary teachingwith semantic field theory in Lushan No.21Junior High School?(3) Which part ofexamination can be improved by the semantic field theory in vocabulary teaching?In experimental class, the author combines Semantic Field Theory and Englishvocabulary learning, in order to use effective learning strategies and methods and improve theefficiency of English vocabulary learning. In control class, the author uses the traditionalvocabulary teaching approach, the teacher just explains the pronunciation, formation, andmeaning of words.The results show that the application of semantic field theory in vocabulary teaching canimprove students’ vocabulary acquisition ability. To most of the students, the semantic fieldcould help them improve their reading ability, basic knowledge, and writing ability.At the end of this paper the author lists the findings of this experiment, and then theauthor also points out the limitation and suggestion for the further research. This paperinvestigates into the definition, classification of semantic field and its application in Englishvocabulary teaching in order to understand it better and apply this theory into Englishteaching. The paper provides reliable and available data for semantic field and its applicationin middle school vocabulary teaching.