A Study Of Application Of Association Strategy To English Vocabulary Teaching In Middle School From The Perspective Of Constructivism

As one of the three components of language,vocabulary plays an important role in the process of English learning.As Wilkins once proposed that without grammar very less can be conveyed and without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed.Therefore,vocabulary is very crucial in language acquisition.Scholars abroad and at home have accomplished great achievements on the study of English vocabulary learning strategies.However,the previous studies focused mainly on senior high school students and college students,while less on middle school students.Therefore,there is room to do a research.Besides,most English learners have difficulties in remembering English vocabulary.Especially,students in middle school have many courses to take and suffer from heavy learning stress.Therefore,it is very important and urgent for language learners to master some vocabulary memorization strategies.In this research,an investigation of application of association strategy in English vocabulary teaching in middle school from the perspective of Constructivism was conducted.And the study was carried out in Grade Seven in the Affiliated Middle School of Guangxi University for Nationalities.According to the scores of entrance examination and pretest of vocabulary,the mean scores of the students in Class 3 and Class 5 were nearly the same.Therefore,Class 3 and Class 5 were selected as the control class and the experimental class.Two classes’ English vocabulary course was taught by the same teacher.And the traditional model was used in the control class,while association strategy was used in the experimental class.And questionnaires,tests and SPSS were used as the research instruments.After the experiment,data were collected and analyzed to find out the answers to the following questions:(1)Can association strategy consolidate students’ vocabulary memory for longer time ?(2)Can association strategy broaden the size of vocabulary of students?(3)Can association strategy motivate students’ interests in vocabulary memorization?Data analysis indicated that students’ scores of post-test of vocabulary in the experimental class rose greatly.Apart from that,nearly 80% of the students in the experimental class were satisfied with the training and would like to use association strategy in course of study.The research found that association strategy is efficient for students to learn and remember vocabulary than the traditional methods.That is to say,it is helpful to broaden the size of vocabulary and to prolong the time of vocabulary memorization.Association strategy successfully motivates students’ interest in vocabulary memorization.