A Study On The Application Of Association Strategies In English Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High School

As put forward by Wilkins,without grammar very little can be conveyed,but without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed.Apparently,vocabulary is extremely essential,and only by obtaining enough second language(L2)vocabulary can one meet fewer obstacles in L2 listening,speaking,reading and writing.As to vocabulary acquisition,it is generally agreed that vocabulary learning strategies are of great importance in facilitating vocabulary learning process and improving vocabulary learning effects.However,Chinese senior high school students have merely limited knowledge about learning strategies,which makes vocabulary learning become time-consuming and low-efficient.Just depending on mechanical memory,students cannot master vocabulary well.Therefore,it is of great significance to teach students some practical vocabulary learning strategies to reduce the burden of vocabulary learning.Plato believes that memory in nature is a kind of association,which is supposed to be the earliest view to indicate there is close correlation between association and memory.It also proves the possibility that L2 learners can learn by associative thinking.Many linguists and language educators believe that association strategies can make a difference to students' vocabulary learning.In view of this,this study tries to employ association strategies to vocabulary teaching,and it mainly answers the following two research questions:Question 1: Can association strategy teaching improve students' interest of vocabulary learning?Question 2: Is association strategy teaching more effective than the traditional method in improving students' vocabulary scores?Based on the cognitivism,a 16-week experiment was conducted to answer the two research questions.Ninety-three participants from the Jianchang Senior High School of Liaoning Province were involved in the experiment,in which association strategy teaching was carried out in the Experiment Class(EC),whereas the Control Class(CC)was still taught by the traditional approach.At the same time,some tests,questionnaires,and an interview were used to collect experiment data,which were analyzed by SPSS.The results showed that the students in the EC did better in vocabulary post-test and manifested stronger vocabulary learning interest than those in the CC,which proved that the association strategy teaching in the study was more effective than the traditional approach.A conclusion is thus made that association strategy teaching is feasible andeffective,and association strategies can not only enable students to learn words effectively,but improve their vocabulary learning interests.