Effects Of Teaching Based On Conceptual Metaphor Theory On Senior High School Students’ Acquisition Of English Phrasal Verbs

Phrasal verbs play a vital role in the acquisition of English Vocabulary.Influenced by mother tongue and conventional teaching approaches,Chinese students have much difficulty in acquiring English phrasal verbs.In order to better promote the acquisition of English phrasal verbs,it is necessary to explore a more effective teaching approach.Some studies show that teaching based on conceptual metaphor theory(CMT)has a positive effect on students’ acquisition of English phrasal verbs,however,the target phrasal verbs in these studies involve fewer particles(in,up,etc).To further exemplify the effects that the teaching based on conceptual metaphor theory has on students’ acquisition of English phrasal verbs,this study takes conceptual metaphor theory and dual coding theory as theoretical perspective,chooses grade 10 students as participants and targets 112 phrasal verbs which are chosen from grade 10 textbooks and involve as many as 14 prepositions and adverbials.The experiment in this study lasts for 18 weeks,and the research questions are listed below:1.What effect does the teaching based on conceptual metaphor theory have on the acquisition of receptive vocabulary knowledge of English phrasal verbs?2.What effect does the teaching based on conceptual metaphor theory have on the acquisition of productive vocabulary knowledge of English phrasal verbs?3.What effect does the teaching based on conceptual metaphor theory have on the retention of English phrasal verbs?4.What are the students’ attitudes towards the teaching based on conceptual metaphor theory?The research participants are from two intact classed of Grade ten in Xinhua Zijiang Middle School.Class 2006,the experimental group(EG),consists of 65 students while Class 2005,the control group(CG),is made up of 61 students.Students in EG were taught target English phrasal verbs explicitly with instruction based on conceptual metaphor theory while students in CG were taught by such conventional ways as translating,making sentences and reciting.The experiment data were analyzed by SPSS.26.According to the analysis results of independent-samples T test and repeated-measure analysis of variance(ANOVA),the following conclusions have been reached in this study:1.Students in the experiment group performed better on items testing receptive vocabulary knowledge than those in the control group with a significant difference.2.Students in the experiment group performed better on items testing productive vocabulary knowledge than those in the control group with a significant difference.3.In comparison between the delayed post-test and the immediate post-test,scores of both groups have decreased,but the gap of EG is smaller than that of CG with statistical significance.4.According to the results of the questionnaire,students from EG have positive attitudes towards teaching based on conceptual metaphor theory.This research further reconfirms that the teaching based on conceptual metaphor theory has a positive effect on the students’ acquisition of English phrasal verbs,broadening the application of conceptual metaphor theory in phrasal verb teaching.