Research On The Effect Of Activating Students' Knowledge On The Growth Of Their Vocabulary

This research attempts to improve the vocabulary teaching in senior high schools and help with the vocabulary growth and English learning of the students.Vocabulary is an important and essential part in language learning. The effect and efficiency of the present vocabulary teaching in senior high schools are not satisfactory. After introducing the basic knowledge of language and vocabulary, this essay gives a brief review of the related studies both at home and abroad.The theoretical guides of this research are Anderson's ACT theory and the Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. According to ACT theory, the declarative knowledge can be conversed into procedural knowledge, based upon practice and the activation of learner's existing knowledge. The revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives divides knowledge into four types:factual, conceptual, procedural and metacognitive. There are six levels in the taxonomy, moving from the lowest order processes to the highest:remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate and create. Judging our present vocabulary teaching, we have only reached the first three levels. Therefore, in our practical teaching we have to activate the students'knowledge to cover the six levels of teaching objectives.The research focuses on experimental class activities to fulfill the six teaching objectives and to prove the effect of activation by comparing with another class, where traditional vocabulary teaching method is adopted. A detailed analysis is made to demonstrate its effectiveness.We can draw the conclusion that the activity of vocabulary teaching described in this essay can improve the teaching of English vocabulary in classroom and develop the students' skills as well as interest in English learning.