An Experimental Study Of English Vocabulary Teaching In Primary Schools Based On Prototype Theory

British linguist D.A.Wilkins(1972: 111) stated that without grammar, one can not expresses many things, without words, one can not expresses anything in his book Linguistics in Language Teaching. What D.A.Wilkins said shows the great significance of vocabulary. Vocabulary as the basic part of language comprehensive application plays a significant role in English learning and teaching. According to the new curriculum standard issued in primary school in 2011, primary students are required to use 423 core words or phrases. Besides students will meet another about300 words which is not necessarily recited but is probably needed to understand in the text. As a result, how to expand primary students' vocabulary has been a major focus in language teaching.As one of the most significant theories in cognitive linguistics, prototype theory has been applied in language teaching and learning. And in recent years linguists begin to apply Prototype Theory in English teaching and make a great progress in this field. However, most of researches are related about polysemy teaching in university.Little researches focus on the application of Prototype Theory in primary school.This thesis aims to testify the influence of English vocabulary teaching in primary school based on Prototype Theory. And the thesis tried to answer the two questions as the following: Number 1. Can the vocabulary teaching based on Prototype Theory promote primary students' English vocabulary scores? 2. Can the vocabulary teaching based on Prototype Theory facilitate students' immediate and delayed retention of the words they have learned?Two classes of the Grade Six students in Zhaoqing Aoweisi Primary School are chosen as the subjects. Class 4 is chosen as the control class while Class 3 is the experiment class. In Class 4(the control class) the conventional vocabulary teaching is applied. In Class 3(the experiment class) the vocabulary teaching based on the perspective of Prototype Theory is conducted.To verify the credibility and validity of the research, the author adopted ways of experiment with 12 weeks of vocabulary teaching in the two classed respectively.The experiment also contained tests before and after vocabulary teaching based on Prototype Theory. The pre-test was used before the experiment, which conducted the vocabulary test at the end of the first term. However, the post-test was used after the experiment. It conducted the vocabulary test at the end of the second term. And all the data were analyzed by SPSS 19.0. Independent and Paired Sample T-test were conducted to testify whether there is significant difference in students' English vocabulary scores and retention of words before and after the experiment. Results showcase students have no significant difference in vocabulary scores and proficiency before the experiment, while there were conspicuous differences after the experiment.The experiment group had made great progress in learning vocabulary. And the experiment group's vocabulary scores were better than the control class' s. Besides,teaching vocabulary based on prototype theory has been proved to keep students' long-term retention of words.This thesis attempts to explore the implications that prototype theory indicates in English vocabulary teaching and learning, so as to find a suitable way that fits for language learners' cognitive rule to study English vocabulary. Teachers should focus on how to improve students' vocabulary scores effectively and facilitating students' retention of words so that the vocabulary teaching effect would be improved.