A Probe Into The Teaching Model Of English Particle Verbs From A Cognitive Perspective

Particle verbs are generally defined as combinations of verbs with adverbial or prepositional particles. There are a great number of particle verbs which are pervasively used in English. They make up an essential part of everyday communication. Therefore, the understanding of them is very important for learners. However, learners often find that particle verbs are most difficult and troublesome in the lexical area, especially for learners of English as a foreign language. The main difficulties include the meaning, structure and application of particle verbs. The teacher is faced with the problem that is how to help students master the particle verbs more effectively, especially, to help students master the polysemous particle verbs and the similar particle verbs. Therefore, how to help students master the particle verbs, especially to master the polysemous paarticle verbs and the similar particle verbs, becomes the central problem of the present study.From the cognitive perspective, the thesis applies the prototype category theory and conceptual structure theory into particle verbs teaching. It combines the achievements of cognitive linguistics with the teaching to solve two problems: one is how to help students master polysemy of garticle verbs, and the other is to help learners master the rules of the structure and meaning for the similar particle verbs (particle verbs are constituted by the same particle). To solve these two problems, we propose a 'Four-Stage of Particle Verbs Teaching' model, that is: (1) analyzing and getting core image schema of the particle, (2) forming the semantic network of the particle, (3) forming the semantic network of the particle verb, (4) teaching the similar particle verbs based on particles.The present study is conducted both quantitatively and qualitatively. The self-report task, interview and experiment are adopted as the main instruments to collect the data to analyze and describe the whole study objectively and scientifically.By using SPSS (12.0) software package to analyze the statistics of the pre-test, the tests of four stages in the experiment, and the post-test, we draw a conclusion that all students of the experimental group perform significant differently compared with themselves and with the students of the control group. It also proved that the hypotheses before the experiment to be true:1. After accepting the training under the instruction of each stage of the new model, students of the experimental group have done better by comparing them with the students of the control group.2. Applying 'Four-Stage of Particle Verbs Teaching' model can effectively improve the students' proficiency of particle verbs. The necessity, feasibility and practicality of the 'Four-Stage of Particle Verbs Teaching' model have been turned out.3. Students hold positive attitudes towards the new model and they are willing to apply the new model into their future learning.It tells us the new teaching model is very useful. It is certain that the further constructive models and strategies should be put forward in the future studies on the particle verbs teaching.