An Experimental Study Of English Vocabulary Teaching Based On Self-reference Effect In Senior High Schools

Vocabulary, the foundation part of English teaching, cannot be ignored. However, there are many problems existing in vocabulary teaching in senior high schools. Under the guidance of traditional teaching methods, many students still remember words by rote, causing inefficiency in classroom teaching, difficulty in memorizing and high incidence of forgetting. All these problems bother teachers and students. Besides, the motivation of the students’ is not very high and the vocabulary they learnt cannot be able to be well applied in real contexts, which are also the problems in vocabulary teaching in senior high schools. In recent years, many scholars conduct researches on self-reference effect and vocabulary teaching in universities and vocational schools. What’s more, they gain some achievement in this area.The goal of this paper is to find approaches to solve the existing problems and improve the efficiency of vocabulary teaching through combination of self-reference effect and English vocabulary teaching in senior high schools. This paper first presents the research background and significance, including the importance of vocabulary teaching and high demands required by New Curriculum. In the literature review, the author illustrates vocabulary and self-reference effect, concludes domestic and foreign research on self-reference effect and vocabulary. Besides, the key role self-reference effect plays in vocabulary teaching in senior high schools is also introduced. In the research, the author attempts to answer the following three research questions through quantitative and qualitative research:(1) Can the vocabulary teaching based on self-reference effect improve students’ motivation of learning vocabulary?(2) Is the vocabulary teaching based on self-reference effect helpful in students’ mastery of English vocabulary?(3) Can the vocabulary teaching based on self-reference effect help students with their English writing in lexical density?During the three months’ experiment, two questionnaires and two tests are conducted in the experimental class and control class. After the research, the author adopts interview to further explore students’ vocabulary learning. Based on the data analysis, it can be concluded that self-reference effect can improve students’ motivation to learn vocabulary, enhance students’ mastery of vocabulary, and increase their lexical density in writing.Considering this, self-reference effect is more effective than traditional teaching methods. Teachers in senior high schools are advised to guide the students to use people and things related to them in daily life to remember and learn vocabulary. The author also points out some limitations and deficiencies to provide new orientations for future research.