A Study On The Application Of Schema Theory In High-frequency Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High School

It is well-known that vocabulary teaching plays an extremely important role in Englishteaching, because it is the basis of mastering English knowledge and improving learningabilities. With the rapid development of economy and new curriculum reform in our country,the New Issued English Curriculum Standard makes more demanding requirements onvocabulary teaching and learning. Therefore, there is no doubt that it is a great challenge forboth teachers and students. As a research output of cognitive linguistics, schema theoryfocuses on activating background knowledge and establishing appropriate connectionsbetween background knowledge and new knowledge to consolidate background knowledgeand memorize new knowledge in the long-term memory. Henceforth, many scholars at homeand abroad have made many researches about the application of schema theory in Englishteaching, such as reading, writing and translation, etc. However, there is relatively littleprogress in vocabulary teaching, especially high-frequency vocabulary. Therefore, based onprevious research essence, this thesis will focus on the application of schema theory inhigh-frequency vocabulary teaching in senior high school and the evaluation ofhigh-frequency vocabulary teaching in the long-term memory.According to schema theory, long-term memory and context theory, this thesis focuseson three research questions:1) Whether schema theory can enhance students’ learninginterests in high-frequency vocabulary in senior high school?2) Whether schema theory canimprove the feedbacks of high-frequency vocabulary teaching in the long-term memory?3)How to apply schema theory in practical high-frequency vocabulary teaching in senior highschool? In order to test the validity and reliability of this teaching method, the author chosetwo classes of students in Senior Grade Two at the same learning level in Xiongyue SeniorHigh School, Yingkou, Liaoning Province to do the research. The author made questionnairesfor teachers and students to understand the status quo of English vocabulary teaching andlearning, and the pre-test about high-frequency vocabularies was made in both classes. Afterthe pre-test, the author applied schema theory in high-frequency vocabulary teaching in theexperimental class, and through establishing affix schema, context schema and event scriptsschema, etc. to help students improve vocabulary learning methods. Four months later, boththe experimental class and the control class were made a post-test about high-frequencyvocabularies in order to examine obvious differences between two classes. Afterwards, theauthor designed an interview to have a better understanding of changes about students’ learning attitude, learning interests and learning methods, etc. Besides, the author also madefour quizzes in different periods with similar contents in order to evaluate long-term memoryfeedbacks of high-frequency vocabulary teaching.The experimental data shows that the feedbacks of the experimental class inhigh-frequency vocabulary learning are better in the control class. The interview results showthat new teaching method makes students improve learning attitude and learning interestsgreatly though they are still affected by traditional vocabulary learning methods, and theygradually strengthen long-term memory of high-frequency vocabularies, and moreimportantly, they enhance confidence in learning English. In the conclusion chapter, theauthor concludes major findings and limitations of this thesis, and comes up with somesuggestions for teachers and students. The author has made every effort to make a fewcontributions to vocabulary teaching and further researches sincerely.