A Study Of The Application Of Context Theory To English Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High School

Among all the three elements in language learning,vocabulary plays a vital important role in English learning,which has a great impact on students' listening,speaking,reading and writing.However,vocabulary has been becoming a huge obstacle for students while learning English.The application of context theory to vocabulary teaching,which is becoming increasingly popular for teachers and scholars and teachers,is an effective method for vocabulary learning.Nevertheless,related researches about the application of context to vocabulary in senior high school is not enough.The thesis aims to explore how to better conduct vocabulary teaching under the guidance of context theory with the three research questions:(1)Can context-based vocabulary teaching method enhance students' efficiency of vocabulary memorization?(2)To what extent does context-based teaching method promote students' ability of using words?(3)To what extent does context-based teaching method improve students' reading ability in terms of guessing words?In order to find out the answers of the questions listed above,the research methods include experimental methods and documentary analysis are applied.In addition,the research instruments are also adopted,that is,the use of questionnaire,the interview and the class observation.Firstly,a great deal of information about context-based vocabulary teaching method is collected from the database CNKI,which lays the foundation for the further research.Then the author spent three months doing the experiments to 120 Grade Three students in Dejiang No.1 Senior High School.During the experiments,the 120 students' questionnaire were handed out to students from Class 3 and class 10 in Grade Three and 5 interviews are administered to the English teachers of Grade Three in this school.Besides,five students and five English teachers from Grade Three are interviewed as the complement for the questionnaires,then analyses the data in Chapter five.What's more,30 vocabulary classes conducted by context-based teaching method are observed and analyzed and the test data are collected to confirm the influence that the application of context theory has the vocabulary teaching on.The major findings are,both teachers and students in senior high school take the positive attitude to the application of context theory in vocabulary teaching.What's more,conducting vocabulary in context has a positive effect in arousing students' interest and confidence in learning English,especially for those students who are in medium level of proficiency.But in actual class teaching,not all the words in the textbook can be taught in context.Secondly,the teacher would spend a large amount of time designing contexts for vocabulary learning,which is impracticable for some teachers whose time and ability are limited.Thirdly,it is still difficult for the students who are not so good at English to learn words in the contexts.Fourthly,the teacher must take students' interest,knowledge level and daily life into account when creating contexts.Lastly,context-based teaching method can improve students' reading ability,especially in guessing words.after over three months' experiment,the average scores of the students from the experimental classes have been more improved compared with that in the controlled class.In consideration of the above problems,corresponding suggestions were put forward.Firstly,the author will continue to learn English,study related theoretical knowledge and teaching practice and update my teaching ideas and methods.Secondly,students' knowledge level,interest and daily life and other factors should be taken into account when creating context for vocabulary learning.In addition,the context created by teachers should be interesting.At last,teacher should consider students' needs when creating context.