The Application Of Corpus In Junior College English Synonyms Teaching

The rich and colorful English synonyms are symbolic of English development. They add the diversity and selectivity of vocabulary, but at same time they bring trouble to English learners. Synonym discrimination based on dictionary and the traditional introspective strategy only help students to understand the surface meaning of the word, which results in the fact that students often confuse one thing with another. In view of this, this study intends to break the traditional way of synonyms teaching, exploring the application of corpus in junior college English synonym teaching. It aims to explore:1) in comparison with the traditional teaching method, whether the corpus-based approach works better in synonyms discrimination; 2) how teachers can help learners to discriminate English synonyms effectively by using corpus -based approach; 3) the present situation of English synonym acquisition of non-English major students in the junior college; 4) which method, the traditional method or the corpus-based approach, the students prefer.To achieve the purpose of this study, the author chose 88 non-English-major sophomores from Fujian Chuanzheng Communication College as subjects. The class of Purchasing and Supply Management major consisting of 45 students, was assigned as the experimental class, and the class of International Shipping Operation Management major, consisting of 43 students, as the control one. The traditional approach was used in the controlled class, while in the experimental class, three corpus-based approaches were used. At the beginning of the experiment, the author carried out a pre-test to examine whether or not the students in the two classes are at the same level concerning learning and comprehending synonyms. The results manifested that there existed no significant difference between the two classes. At the same time, a questionnaire was conducted in both of them. Over two months later, the students were required to take a post-test. And the results showed that there existed significant difference between the two classes. The experimental class outperformed the controlled one in the acquisition of English synonyms. In addition, a questionnaire and an interview were conducted in the experimental class.During the experiment, the author used Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS17.0) to analyze the raw data collected from the two tests, and used Excel to analyze the data collected from the two questionnaires.The study shows that, compared with the traditional English synonyms teaching method, the corpus-based approach is more effective in the acquisition of English synonyms. What’s more, the questionnaire manifested that the vast majority of the students in the junior college are poor at mastering the stylistic meaning, the conceptual meaning, the emotional coloring and the collocation application of words, especially the former two. In defining the meaning of the word most of the students prefer to use dictionaries or references, followed by the method of asking the teachers, but both the two traditional methods make little sense in discriminating the stylistic and conceptual meaning of English synonyms. Fortunately the corpus-based approach can make it up. But the best way is to combine the traditional English synonyms teaching method with the corpus- based approach. Hence, the author tends to think that this study features the value of the practical significance of optimizing English synonyms teaching.