A Study On Effective Strategies For Improving English Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High Schools

Vocabulary is the base of each language, so is English vocabulary, the master of which to some extent means the learner’s competence of English learning.It’s easy to find out that College Entrance English Examination tends to put more and more emphasis on students’ handle of vocabulary in contexts. However, for most English learners, especially high school students, to master English vocabulary is a bitter experience. To make matters worse, some teachers still stick to the traditional, usually boring teaching method, which costs students as well as teachers much time and energy but has little effect.What causes the dilemma in both English vocabulary teaching and learning? How to untie the knot? In the paper, whether effective teaching strategies can improve English vocabulary teaching in senior high schools is studied, which is based on the cases of current English vocabulary teaching in senior high schools combined with the author’s teaching practice and experience. Meanwhile, with the guidance of Communicative Approach, certain vocabulary teaching strategies mainly on Context Strategy and Word Formation Strategy are introduced and recommended in the paper.After the survey on the current situation of vocabulary teaching in senior high schools and the study of the research findings both at home and abroad, interviews and a relevant experiment are adopted. In the interview, the current situation and certain problems are discovered and put forward. During the experiment, both a pre-test and a post-test are conducted to assess the effectiveness of teaching vocabulary by strategies. Meanwhile, the students in the experimental class are interviewed.The findings of the study indicate that the students in the experimental class have made greater progress in English vocabulary learning, which proves teaching strategies really can improve the effectiveness of both vocabulary teaching and learning.Besides, two teaching cases about the application of Context Strategy and Word Formation Strategy to English vocabulary teaching in senior high schools are presented and certain suggestions are given. All in all, it is expected that the findings of the study can provide a practical guidance for English vocabulary teaching in senior high schools and be helpful to both the teachers and learners.