A Comparative Study Of Semantic And Thematic Clustering On Multidimensional Vocabulary Knowledge Learning Of Junior Middle School Students

As a fundamental element of language learning and communication,vocabulary is used throughout the whole process of learning.The requirements of vocabulary learning not only concern its pronunciation,spelling,and meaning but also focus on its grammatical functions,semantic associations,and lexical collocations.As the primary link of students’ vocabulary learning,vocabulary presentation is all-important to students’ multidimensional knowledge learning.Efficient presentation of vocabulary is a productive way for students to improve the depth and breadth of vocabulary and make a leap in both receptive and productive knowledge.Words are clustered by categories.Vocabulary clustering presentation includes semantic clustering and thematic clustering vocabulary presentation has attracted much attention in the academic community.Most scholars have focused on its effect on vocabulary memory and less on vocabulary knowledge acquisition.Secondly,most of the research subjects are college students,and less attention is paid to junior high school students in the compulsory education stage.To compensate for the shortcomings,this study uses thematic and semantic clustering vocabulary presentation as the research method.It conducts a three-month teaching practice with junior high school students as the research subjects to investigate the influence of these two vocabulary presentation methods on the acquisition of multidimensional knowledge of vocabulary by junior high school students.This study aimed to explore the following three research questions based on semantic field theory and schema theory.(1)What are the effects of the semantic and thematic clustering model on the forms of junior middle school students’ vocabulary learning?(2)What are the effects of the semantic and thematic clustering model on the meanings of junior middle school students’ vocabulary learning?(3)What are the effects of the semantic and thematic clustering model on the usage of junior middle school students’ vocabulary learning?In order to explore the above three questions,based on semantic field theory,schema theory and interference hypothesis,this study takes 96 students in grade eight of a middle school in Chengdu as research objects,and adopts questionnaires,multidimensional knowledge test papers and interviews as research tools to explore the influence of semantic clustering and thematic clustering lexical presentation on students’ multidimensional vocabulary knowledge learning.In the pre-test stage,multidimensional vocabulary knowledge test,Vocabulary Size Test is used to test students’ English level.On the premise that there is no significant difference in English level between the two classes,semantic clustering classes and thematic clustering classes are set respectively,and corresponding presentation methods are adopted for vocabulary teaching.Meanwhile,based on the multidimensional knowledge framework of Nation,a multidimensional vocabulary knowledge test volume is designed from the three dimensions of vocabulary form,meaning and usage,as well as two aspects of receptive knowledge and productive knowledge.After the end of the experiment,the multidimensional vocabulary knowledge test paper was used to conduct the instant test and the delayed test respectively.By comparing the scores of the pre-test and post-test students,the learning status of multidimensional vocabulary knowledge was explored.The students’ interest and attitude changes in the presentation of the two methods were explored through the comparison before and after the questionnaire and the interview.The results show that for lexical forms,semantic clustering can effectively reduce students’ memory burden through affixes,but thematic clustering has significant advantages in spelling and discrimination of similar words and synonyms.For meaning,there is no significant difference in word form and meaning collocation between the two groups,and both the quantity and quality of word association are improved.However,thematic clustering classes present diverse and high frequency words.In terms of vocabulary usage,semantic clustering is beneficial to students’ acquisition of grammar knowledge,while thematic clustering has significant advantages in contextual retelling and production.Therefore,in the process of teaching,teachers should choose the right way to present vocabulary according to the characteristics of vocabulary itself and students’ cognitive ability level.