An Empirical Study On The Application Ofsituational Approach To English Vocabulary Teaching In Junior Middle School

With the development of economy and society, English teaching has been paid more and more attention to. However, as one of the three basic elements of language, vocabulary has not got deserved attention in the field of language learning. During the process of English teaching in junior middle school, teachers taught vocabulary with the mechanical method and the students spent plenty of time on the vocabulary learning, leading to the result that large numbers of students lost their interests in learning vocabulary and couldn’t master the meanings and usages of vocabulary. With the implementation of New Curriculum Standard, there has been a shift which shows greater emphasis on learners than on teachers. In order to improve the effectiveness of English vocabulary teaching, many junior middle schools have come up with many vocabulary teaching methods. Among those methods, situational approach has been paid attention to. But there were not many researches on whether this method is suitable for English vocabulary teaching in junior middle school. So the author of this thesis has carried on the seventeen-week research on the effect of situational approach in English vocabulary teaching in junior middle school.In order to explore the feasibility and validity of situational approach in vocabulary teaching in junior middle school, the author conducted this experiment. This experiment lasted for seventeen weeks, from September of 2014 to January of 2015. 116 students come from two classes of Grade two of No.2 Junior Middle School in Diaobingshan of Liaoning Province as subjects. Class 3 is assigned as experimental class, and Class 4 is as control class. The research instruments used in this study were two questionnaires and two vocabulary tests. The study surrounds two questions: 1) Can the situational approach motivate the students’ interest in learning English vocabulary? 2) Can the situational approach help to improve the students’ proficiency of vocabulary learning?Before the experiment, in the first week, the two classes were given the pre-test and prequestionnaire. The purpose of the pre-questionnaire was to find out the students’ attitude to vocabulary teaching and the situation of vocabulary learning. After that, the students were given the pre-test, and then the scores of the pre-test were analyzed to test whether the two classes were on the similar level. From the second week to the seventeenth week, the students in experimental class received situational approach, while students in control class received traditional method. In the final week, both of the two classes received post-test and post-questionnaire, and then the data was analyzed with software SPSS17.0. We can reach the following findings:1. The situational approach can motivate the students’ interest in learning English vocabulary.2. The situational approach can improve the students’ proficiency of vocabulary learning.The findings suggest that creating a series of situational activities in vocabulary teaching and making students think and communicate in real English environment would improve the effect of remembering words and motivate the students’ interest of learning vocabulary. This study has a positive significance for reasonable design for junior vocabulary teaching models, as well as improving teachers’ teaching pattern and changing students’ learning pattern. Language situation in vocabulary teaching is an issue worthy of further exploration. It is hoped that this thesis will provide its recommendations for further research and help teachers to find a more effective way of teaching English vocabulary.