A Teaching Experiment Of English Vocabulary In Senior High School With Information Processing Theory

As we all know, vocabulary is the foundation of language learning. Mastering a certain volume of vocabulary is the prerequisite of implementation of listening, speaking, reading and writing. Therefore, the accumulation of vocabulary is thoroughly conducted in the process of English learning, since vocabulary plays an important role. Thus, vocabulary teaching is the important research topic for English teaching and learning. A lot of researches have been done on it and many results have already been obtained. But, as for many senior high school students in our country, vocabulary learning is still one of the major difficulties they have in English learning. Thus, vocabulary teaching requires innovation which should be taken as an important task for the New Curriculum Reform. In this sense, the research has a certain realistic significance.Information processing theory takes the human cognitive activities process as the course of information processing. It also regards the learning process as the process of inputting, processing, storing, retrieving and outputting information to the human brain. At the same time, information processing theory concentrates on how human choose and process information and make appropriate response in the form of cognitive mode. This theory also emphasizes the choice of information, memorization, operation and the cognitive process of human being. Therefore, information processing theories can offer inspirations and guidance for English vocabulary learning.According to information processing theory which is put forward by Gagne, the thesis tries to see how the information processing theory affects vocabulary learning by adopting the methods of comparative experimental teaching and questionnaire. The subjects taking part in this experiment are the students of two classes in Senior three from Laibin No.4Middle School, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Before experiment, the students of the two classes will have a pre-test of vocabulary for indicating their basic status of English vocabulary. During the experiment, information processing theory was applied to the vocabulary teaching in the experimental class, and the procedure of vocabulary learning was divided into five steps according to nine events of Gagne:the step of attention, the step of presenting stimulus, the step of deep processing, the step of output processing and the step of enhancing retention. However, the control class was taught in the traditional way. The experimental teaching lasted four months (a semester). After four months, a post-test of vocabulary was conducted for the two classes to testify the effectiveness of experimental teaching.The results of the experiment show that the scores of vocabulary learning of the experimental class are much higher than those in the control class; the students of the experimental class have gained more effective learning strategies, so, their ability of vocabulary learning is further improved. The experiment has also proved that the senior high is the best period for the application of theories in English teaching, for the students in this period are more active in thinking, and they are easy to accept strategy guidance.At last, some suggestions are proposed according to the research as follows:(1) Teachers should attach importance to the guidance of theories in senior high school English teaching.(2) Teachers should stress the function of attention while teaching English vocabulary.(3) Teachers should creating conditions and space for students to use English vocabulary. The author expected those suggestions will be significant in vocabulary teaching.