| It is well acknowledged that the richness of language is measured by vocabulary.Vocabulary reflects the development of language,the richer of vocabulary,the more developed of language.Vocabulary,as one of the major elements in language,plays as a bridge which connects us with each other and plays as a media which transmits our thoughts about the whole world.Therefore,vocabulary teaching is the most important part in the language teaching and learning vocabulary well can facilitate the accuracy for students to use it.Some scholars from both at home and abroad have made many studies from different perspectives and many great achievements have been made in this field.However,the traditional vocabulary teaching method is not efficient enough,although teachers and students have made great efforts on vocabulary teaching and learning,few improvements have been achieved since traditional method emphasizes on literate meanings and ignores the cognitive factors.Students just remember words mechanically and no other efficient vocabulary learning methods or strategies.Therefore,vocabulary leaning has been a great challenge for students while vocabulary teaching has been a big headache for teachers.In 1980 s,Lakoff and Johnson published a book Metaphors We Live By,they put forward the conceptual metaphor theory for the first time which has been the pioneer in applying conceptual metaphor theory to vocabulary teaching.Metaphor is considered as not only a kind of rhetorical device,but also a cognitive tool for human beings which is pervasive in everyday life.The working mechanism of conceptual metaphor is a cross-domain mapping process by which people can understand one concept in terms of another.Understanding the working mechanism of conceptual metaphor will be a great improvement for students to learn and understand English vocabulary.The author takes her internship chance of teaching in senior school and testify the effectiveness of applying conceptual metaphor to English vocabulary teaching.Two research questions are put forward:1.Is the application of conceptual metaphor theory to English vocabulary teaching in senior high school more effective than the traditional teaching method in improving students’ vocabulary proficiency?2.Can the application of conceptual metaphor theory enhance students’ interest towards English vocabulary learning?Based on the previous scholars’ research,the author carries out an experimentalresearch in Grade One of Huludao Shiyan Senior High School.Two parallel classes with total 108 students are chosen randomly,in which,one class with 55 students are chosen as Experimental Class(EC)who are going to be taught with conceptual metaphor theory while another class with 53 students are chosen as Controlled Class(CC)who are going to be taught with traditional vocabulary teaching method.The students are taught by the same English teacher with the same material,total experiment duration lasts for 16 weeks.One questionnaire,pre-test,post-test and interview are used for collecting experimental data and the collected experimental data are put into SPSS22.0 to analyze.According to the results of analysis and comparison,it can be concluded that after the application of conceptual metaphor theory to English vocabulary teaching,students’ vocabulary proficiency has been largely improved and their vocabulary learning interest has been greatly enhanced.In conclusion,the application of conceptual metaphor theory to English vocabulary teaching in senior high school is effective and feasible.Hopefully,the results of this research will be available for offering constructional suggestions for the further research. |
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