A Study Of Explicit And Implicit Instruction In Vocabulary Teaching In Junior High Schools

Vocabulary teaching is one focus of English teaching.Many scholars have conducted research on the use of explicit and implicit instruction to teaching vocabulary.In terms of explicit vocabulary teaching,teachers directly tell students the meaning and collocation of words,while in implicit vocabulary teaching,teachers guide students to guess the meaning in a context.In the practice of vocabulary teaching in junior high schools,there is much room for further research on the use of explicit and implicit instruction.Therefore,this study focuses on explicit and implicit instruction in junior high school English vocabulary teaching with the aim of answering the following questions:(1)What is the junior high school English teachers’ perception of the explicit and implicit vocabulary teaching?(2)How do junior high school English teachers use explicit and implicit vocabulary instruction? What are the characteristics?(3)What are the problems of junior high school English teachers in the process of explicit and implicit vocabulary teaching?This study conducted questionnaire,interview and classroom observation among English teachers in a junior high school in Hangzhou,Zhejiang Province,to investigate the use of explicit and implicit vocabulary teaching in a junior high school.The results of the study are as follows:(1)Junior high school English teachers do not have a systematic understanding of the concepts of explicit vocabulary teaching and implicit vocabulary teaching.(2)Both explicit and implicit vocabulary teaching methods are frequently used in English classes.In explicit vocabulary teaching,teachers tend to use more Chinese,pay more attention to the form of words,and adopt a whole-class interaction mode by means of direct explanation and presentation.In implicit vocabulary teaching,teachers use both Chinese and English and focus on the meaning and usage of words in terms of context and situation.In class,one-to-one interaction mode is more frequently used.(3)Teachers have positive attitudes toward both explicit and implicit teaching,but in practice there are some factors like the requirements of syllabus,students’ acceptance and job burnout that affect the choice of methods and teaching effectiveness.Based on the results,this study also makes some suggestions for teachers’ use of explicit and implicit vocabulary instruction in junior high school English classrooms.