Schema Guided English Vocabulary Teaching In Secondary Vocational And Technical School

Schema Theory has now become one of the major concerns in TESOL researches.It emphasizes that the cognition of new things depends on the schema already existing in the brain,which actively associates the new with the old through schemata,so as to understand new information and realize its long-term memory.This theory has been applied to second language teaching in all aspects.However,the conventional vocabulary teaching mode still dominates secondary vocational and technical schools(SVTS).Schema guided English vocabulary teaching in SVTS anticipates an empirical inquiry.Based upon Schema Theory,this study has made an investigation at Wuxi Jiangyin China State Shipbuilding Corporation Senior Technical School,with an attempt to optimize English vocabulary teaching.Of the author's two classes,Class 151 with 45 students was chosen as the experimental class and Class 152 with 42 students as the control class.The experiment lasted one semester(from March--June,2018),during which Integrative English Book 2(2013 Revised Edition)published by Nanjing Normal University was used as textbook,and its vocabularies were chosen as experiment object.Three schema guided vocabulary teaching methods(word formation schema,theme clustering schema and lexical cohesion schema)were tried in the experimental class,while the control class continued the conventional method.Employed in the research were the tools of one questionnaire and two tests.The former,"English Vocabulary Learning Strategies of Secondary Vocational School Students," was derived from Gu and Johnson(1996),Gu and Hu(2003),Wen(2003),etc.,with considerable adjustments to suit this experiment;the latter,the pre-test and the post-test(2017-2018 two final exams)in the two classes,were used to compare whether the schema guided teaching has affected the English score.The data from the tests and questionnaire were analyzed via SPSS 21.0 and Excel 2010.The results reveal that the application of Schema Theory to English vocabulary teaching can effectively increase students' enthusiasm and participation in vocabulary learning,optimize their vocabulary learning strategies with various kinds of schemata,and help gain a sense of achievement.In addition,schema-based vocabulary teaching can significantly improve students' English performance:The two classes show striking differences in the post-test results,with the experimental class displaying not only its apparent progress in average score but also the narrowed gap of polarization.The process and frndings of this inquiry may deserve reference for English teachers of all levels to transform their vocabulary teaching mode,so as to break loose of the current predicaments.