A Study On The Game-based Approach To English Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High School

The Soviet Union educationist Sukhomlinskii has said, "If a teacher doesn’t try hard to keep students in high spirits and sharp in thinking, and he or she is eager to impart knowledge which will develop students’ indifferent attitudes towards knowledge. Halfhearted mental work will surely bring fatigue and learning will become a heavy burden for students without exultant moods." Arousing learning interests is of great importance for teaching. Game teaching method tries its best, in the teaching process, to turn the dull learning materials into a vivid and interesting game that students enjoy. Games can create abundant communicative language environment and make it possible that students can acquire knowledge when playing, which in essence is to replace the boring language rules and mechanical drills with all kinds of amusing learning activities. And then naturally teaching objectives are achieved.High school is the crucial time in students’ lives. In this period, they are occupied with all kinds of subjects and busy schedules, so they are overloaded under high pressure in a long time, weary in both bodies and spirits. Game teaching method is just the one that can bring fun to English learning and make learning process relaxing by attracting students’ attention and increasing learning interests, which can largely improve learning proficiency. What’s more, the New Curriculum Standard puts forward higher requirements for high school students who are supposed to have a vocabulary of 3300 words and 400-500 useful phrases or collocation. However, vocabulary is always deemed as the most difficult and challenging part in learning English for students. The usage of the words and repeatedly forgetting of the spelling and the meaning are the obstacles for the majority of them. Moreover, listening, speaking, reading and writing are all limited by the amount of vocabulary. Wilkinson (1972) once said," Without grammar, very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed."This paper tries to find out the development of game teaching method, vocabulary teaching approach and Model in designing games through literature review to come up with a teaching plan and then carry it out in the open class. Data are collected by Questionnaires and Interview in Class 3, Grade 2, High School Affiliated to Minzu University of China, with 57 students involved, to find out the following three questions.1. Whether game teaching method is accepted by all the participants?2. How to work out a successful game teaching plan by games?3. What kinds of problems and rules should we pay more attention to?The results show that Games are welcomed by all and can obviously raise students’learning interests and improve learning results. What’s more, ADDIE model is proved to be acceptable and useful in designing a game. But the training of the teachers and the scientific design of games need high attention.