Action Research On Using Narrow Reading To Improve Junior High School Students’ English Vocabulary Acquisition

Many studies have shown that narrow reading has been proved to be effective in helping students acquire vocabulary better for the combination of the understanding of context and the accumulation of relevant background knowledge as well as the repetition of vocabulary acquisition.However,many previous researches paid attention to the improvement of students’ vocabulary acquisition by applying narrow reading in high school reading teaching and writing teaching.This action research aims to investigate how to effectively apply the narrow reading to improve junior high school students’ English vocabulary acquisition.To be specific,the study tries to answer the following two questions.(1)In what aspects does narrow reading affect junior high school students’ productive and receptive vocabulary acquisition?(2)What problems would be encountered in the application of narrow reading to English vocabulary acquisition? And how can the problems be solved to make narrow reading more effective?With 42 students from Grade 8 of a junior high school in Guangzhou,Guangdong Province,this two-round action research lasted for 12 weeks.Before the experiment,Students’ vocabulary learning was investigated and the first round of action was designed according to the students’ performance in the pre-questionnaire,the pre-test and the pre-interview.In the first round of action research,narrow reading training was carried out after the reading teaching of each unit.Then,based on the data analysis of the mid-test,the mid-interview,reflection was made on the first round of action research,and some weak points were pointed out,mainly including 1)the students’ improvement in vocabulary acquisition was not obvious;2)the students’ mastery of the receptive knowledge in isolation of the target words was insufficient;3)students with weak foundation were poor at grasping the main ideas of the articles;4)students tended to pay more attention to reading and neglected vocabulary acquisition because of the limited time.Accordingly,the following adjustments were made in the second round: 1)to make the narrow reading articles simpler and easier to understand;2)to give students more time to complete narrow reading and tasks;3)to add corresponding vocabulary practice to promote students’ mastery of the productive and receptive vocabulary knowledge;4)to get the students work in groups to stimulate their interest in vocabulary acquisition.The results of the research show that 1)narrow reading has a positive effect on improving students’ interest and confidence in vocabulary learning;2)students have made some progress in the receptive vocabulary knowledge and productive vocabulary knowledge in context,but the productive vocabulary knowledge in isolation still needs to be improved;3)students were more active and energetic in vocabulary learning and narrow reading.