Effects Of Teaching Approach Based On Three-dimensional Grammar On Grade Eight Students’ Acquisition Of English Phrasal Verbs

Phrasal verbs,an essential but complex aspect of English vocabulary,are difficult for Chinese EFL learners to acquire,whose first language lacks phrasal verbs.The cramming method of teaching can no longer meet the intrinsic needs of phrasal verb acquisition,so it is necessary to explore a more effective approach to acquire phrasal verbs.In the past years,many studies on phrasal verbs and teaching methods have been done by researchers from home and abroad,which own the following features: First of all,instead of students’ textbooks,the target particles and phrasal verbs in previous studies are taken from dictionaries and corpus,which are not connected with actual teaching.Secondly,previous studies show that it may not be guaranteed if learners do not apply usage,reinforcement and output driven after acquiring particles and phrasal verbs through the teaching approach based on conceptual metaphor theory.Lastly,three-dimensional-grammar based teaching is used to teach English grammar before,for example,subjunctive mood,attributive clause,etc.But there are few studies focusing on other aspects such as English phrasal verbs.Since three-dimensional-grammar based teaching has a significant effect on students’ acquisition of grammar,and conceptual metaphor theory based teaching is beneficial for acquiring phrasal verbs,then between these two teaching approaches,which approach is more effective for Chinese EFL learners to acquire English phrasal verbs? The target phrasal verbs of this study are adopted from students’ textbook,and this study aims at exploring another teaching approach,which can help Chinese middle school students acquire English phrasal verbs in a more effective way.To be more specific,four relevant questions are put forward as below:1.Compared with conceptual metaphor theory based teaching,what effect does three-dimensional-grammar based teaching have on Grade Eight students’ acquisition of receptive vocabulary knowledge of English phrasal verbs?2.Compared with conceptual metaphor theory based teaching,what effect does three-dimensional-grammar based teaching have on Grade Eight students’ acquisition of productive vocabulary knowledge of English phrasal verbs?3.Compared with conceptual metaphor theory based teaching,what effect does three-dimensional-grammar based teaching have on Grade Eight students’ retention of English phrasal verbs?4.What are the students’ attitudes towards three-dimensional-grammar based teaching?The participants of this study were the students from two intact classes of Grade Eight in Jiaozuo No.17 Middle School.There were altogether 99 students who participated in the experiment: the experimental group(EG)was instructed to learn English phrasal verbs with three-dimensional-grammar based teaching,while the control group(CG)received conceptual metaphor theory based teaching.By analyzing the data through SPSS 22.0,several major findings of this study are drawn as follows:1.With the results showing statistical significance(p<0.05)of the first part of the immediate posttest,students in EG outperformed those in CG,which can be seen that three-dimensional-grammar based teaching is more conducive than conceptual metaphor theory based teaching to students’ acquisition of receptive vocabulary knowledge of English phrasal verbs.2.Based on the results of the second part of the immediate posttest,there is statistical significance(p<0.05),and it can be seen that three-dimensional-grammar based teaching is more of benefit than conceptual metaphor theory based teaching for students’ acquisition of productive vocabulary knowledge of English phrasal verbs.3.As for the results of the delayed posttest,compared with the students in CG,students in EG had better performances and there is also a significant difference(p<0.05).Three-dimensional-grammar based teaching is more conducive than conceptual metaphor theory based teaching to students’ retention of English phrasal verbs.4.From the results of the questionnaires,it can be found that students enjoyed learning English phrasal verbs with three-dimensional-grammar based teaching,which can motivate them in learning English phrasal verbs.This study reflects that compared with conceptual metaphor theory based teaching,three-dimensional-grammar based teaching is more effective for Grade Eight students to acquire receptive vocabulary knowledge and productive vocabulary knowledge of English phrasal verbs.Three-dimensional-grammar based teaching can also help them to remember English phrasal.This study provides another more effective approach for students’ acquisition of English phrasal verbs.