The Application Of Context Theory To English Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High School

The science and technology develops quickly and the national economy and culture exchanges quickly. English as a common language is becoming more and more important than before. Vocabulary plays an important role in English learning. Vocabulary is the foundation of language learning. It is very important for English learners. The vocabulary to English teaching is just as the bricks to the buildings. Vocabulary learning goes through the whole process of language learning. Just like Wells said: “Without grammar, we can express a little about ourselves. But without words, we can’t communicate with others”. The quantity of the English vocabulary that we know and the ability to master the words directly affects the effect of learning. Most students have problems in English learning in our country. Most of the time, they only know its meaning but don’t know the usage of the words. The reason is that the teacher’s explanation of vocabulary is out of the context, it is not in the language environment of the text. The teaching method is simple. The teacher reads the words then the students follow to read. They don’t pay attention to the way of learning in English. Aiming at these problems, scholars in our country begin to research them under the enlightenment of foreign scholars. They apply the context into the English teaching. It has improved that the context theory has a good effect on the vocabulary teaching. In this article, the author wants to improve this opinion from three aspects. They are as follows: 1. Does the context theory have an active effect on the students’ ability of remembering vocabulary? 2. Does the context theory have an active effect on the students’ ability of guessing the meaning of new or unfamiliar words? 3. Does the context theory improve the students’ reading comprehension score?The context and the language have a natural relationship. The context is applied into the English vocabulary teaching. The concept of the context is first put forward by England anthropologist Malinowski in 1923. Then Firth develops his opinion and divides the context into “situational context” and “language environment”. According to the home and abroad research, the teachers use the context theory into teaching. After collecting a large amount of data, a four-month experiment is carried out. The classes are Class Three and Class Four of Grade One in No.6 middle school in Shijiazhuang. There are 100 students. Experiment classes are divided into the control class and the experimental class. The Class Three is the control class and the Class Four is the experimental class. At the beginning, the two classes have the same level. In the experiment, the experimental class uses the theory of context in teaching. The control class uses the traditional method. After the experiment, the author organizes a test. Through the test the author find that the context theory has an active effect on English vocabulary teaching in three aspects. Using this theory can improve the students’ ability to memorize vocabulary and guess the meaning of the new and unfamiliar vocabulary and improve the reading comprehension score. Results show that the experimental class which is combined with context learning has improved significantly.