A Study On The Effect Of Continuation Task On English Vocabulary Learning Of Junior High School Students

In recent years,Wang Churning,a Chinese scholar,has creatively put forward a new teaching method of foreign language writing,the continuation task.Unlike the summary writing exercise that relies on the content created by others,the continuation task needs to create content independently,which can fully stimulate students'imagination.As a result,this new writing mode is being studied by an increasing number of scholars,and its effects on promoting learning have been confirmed in some aspects,including students'improvements in English writing ability,vocabulary and grammar learning,etc.However,the author finds that there is a lack of exploration on the reasons for the promotion of the continuation task.Several scholars suggest that the researchers should carry out studies from the perspective of English learning motivation in future.On the basis of previous research,the present study will continue to investigate the effect of the continuation task on English vocabulary learning,and try to explore the reasons behind it so as to come up with reasonable suggestions for English vocabulary teaching and learning in junior high school.This thesis is going to answer the following research questions:1.Does the continuation task improve students'English vocabulary learning more effectively compared with other writing task(summary writing)?Are there any significant differences between two classes?2.Why does the continuation task improve students'English vocabulary learning and is it related to English learning motivation?3.What are students' attitudes towards the continuation task?The subjects are 149 students from three parallel classes in a middle school in Shenzhen City,Guangdong Province including 50 students in the experimental class and 49 students in the control class and 50 students in the word-selection class.The first two classes participate in the formal teaching experiment.The experimental class adopts the method of the continuation task,while the control class adopts the method of summary writing;word-selection class is only used to select target words before the implementation of formal teaching.The whole experiment lasts for one semester,about 18 weeks.In this study,both quantitative and qualitative research instruments are employed.The former includes a vocabulary test and a learning motivation questionnaire,and the latter is mainly reflected by a semi-structured interview.The vocabulary test paper adopts Duan Shiping and Yan Chensong's Vocabulary Knowledge Scale(VKS)adapted in 2004,and the learning motivation questionnaire adopts Zhang Sumin's Learning Motivation Scale(LMS)adapted in 2014.At the end of the quantitative study,12 subjects from the experimental class are selected to take part in the semi-structured interview.The data of quantitative and qualitative research are processed and analyzed respectively.The following are the main findings:1.Compared with summary writing,the continuation task improves students'English vocabulary learning more effectively,mainly in terms of word form,word meaning and word usage.As for word meaning and usage,the scores of the experimental class are significantly higher than those of the control class;while for word form,there is no significant difference between these two classes.2.According to the results of questionnaire surveys in the control class and the experimental class,the author finds that summary writing has few effects on English learning motivation;the continuation task can effectively improve students'English learning motivation.More specifically,intrinsic learning motivation has a significant difference,while the extrinsic learning motivation doesn't change greatly.Based on the data of the interview,it is further found that the subjects have strong intrinsic motivation and pay close attention to the target words,thus promoting the learning of English vocabulary.Additionally,the results of the interview indicate that rich context and close combination of learning and using are also the main reasons for the improvements of vocabulary learning affected by the continuation task.3.The interviewees generally believe that the advantages of the new teaching method of the continuation task outweigh the disadvantages and can be properly carried out in English class.It is undeniable that there are still many problems to be solved provided that this method is implemented smoothly.For this reason,students put forward a number of suggestions:setting up English special training course for the continuation task;designing various teaching activities in class of the continuation task;choosing interesting reading materials and so on.