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

As we all know,vocabulary is an indispensable part of language learning.Accordingly,vocabulary teaching has become a very important section in English teaching.However,the current situation of vocabulary teaching and learning is not optimistic.Many teachers encourage students to learn by rote and repeated mechanical practice as well as explain vocabulary completely separated from the text.Both result in students' limited knowledge and failure to use the words learned to communicate effectively.Furthermore,National English Curriculum Standards for General High School in 2017 also put forward new requirements for senior high school students to master vocabulary.It includes requiring students to accurately understand others and express themselves appropriately in a specific context,and to be able to accurately comprehend the basic meaning and deep meaning of the text,as well as to express their views according to the specific context of communication.Therefore,in order to improve the current situation of vocabulary teaching and meet the requirements of the new curriculum standard,we urgently need to adopt appropriate vocabulary teaching methods and develop specific operational steps.Hence,on the basis of the context theory,the researcher conducts a study on vocabulary teaching in senior high school to explore the specific changes after accepting vocabulary teaching guided by the context theory.Based on the research results of domestic and foreign scholars on context theory in English vocabulary teaching,this thesis mainly uses the methods of questionnaire for students,interview for teachers,classroom observation and vocabulary test to study the following two questions:1.What are the changes in students' lexical competence after students accepting the vocabulary teaching under the guidance of context theory?2.What are the changes in students' interest and attitude towards vocabulary learning after students accepting the vocabulary teaching under the guidance of context theory?In order to study these two questions,the researcher conducted the teaching experiment for three months in two parallel classes of Grade 2 in certain senior high school.Before the experiment,the researcher required the students in the experimental class and the control class to take part in the vocabulary test and analyzed the test results with SPSS software,so as to test the vocabulary learning ability of the students in the two classes.At the same time,the researcher sent out and received questionnaires to investigate students' interest,attitude and learning methods in vocabulary learning.In the experiment,the teacher in the control class chose the previous teaching method for vocabulary.However,the teachers in the experimental class used context theory to teach vocabulary.Through classroom observation,the researcher analyzed and compared the vocabulary teaching process and achievements of the two teachers.Then,the researcher interviewed the English teachers in the second year of senior high school in order to understand their attitudes and methods towards context-based vocabulary teaching.After the experiment,the researcher conducted a vocabulary posttest to test the effectiveness of context theory and compared and analyzed the collected data with SPSS software to test the changes of students' vocabulary learning ability.Finally,the results of the questionnaire,the answers of teachers' interviews,the scores of the two vocabulary tests and the researcher's analysis of the classroom teaching process all show that proper context should be introduced into vocabulary teaching.The cultivation of students' contextual awareness is helpful to change students' learning attitude and improve students' interest and ability in vocabulary learning,so as to help students form efficient vocabulary learning strategies.