The Application Of Retelling In Vocabulary Teaching In Junior High English Class

As we known,vocabulary is an important part in English teaching.Vocabulary,as the foundation of English learning,is also a key component in the process of teaching.Without vocabulary,none of the four skills of a language(listening,speaking,reading and writing)can be made possible.However,English teaching mainly depends on traditional teaching methods so most junior high school students are unable to memorize English words well.Students have read and written word many times but they still can not memorize words.And then they forget words quickly.How memorize vocabularies effectively? Nowadays there are many vocabulary teaching methods such as compounding,affixation,conversion,derivation and so on.More and more vocabulary studies have been developed,but which one is effective? Under the circumstance of teaching reform and in view of the English teaching situation in our country,retelling method as a new and good teaching technique and an alternative to the traditional ways has been thought highly of.This thesis attempts to experiment on retelling method based on Krashen’s input hypothesis,Swain’s output hypothesis and the context theory to improve students’ vocabulary.Students can gain some related input by reading.Moreover,retelling not only help students consolidates comprehension of the text but also express the main idea of the text fluently and clearly.At the same time,their memory and understanding of words are improved.It is helpful for students to develop their vocabulary.And thesis aims to explore the impact on vocabulary by using the retelling method and tries to find a useful way to improve English vocabulary teaching.It also aims at examining the effectiveness of retelling method in English vocabulary teaching,with three questions will be proposed as below.1.Can retelling improve the students’ score of English vocabulary test?2.What attitude do students have about retelling method?3.What kinds of retelling materials and ways do students prefer to use?Quantitative and qualitative methods are used in this thesis.The author adopted an almost 3-month study between the experimental class 4and control class 3 in NO.21 Middle School of Hohhot.Before and after the experiment,there are two tests which aims at exploring whether retelling has an effective impact on vocabulary.In addition,a questionnaire and an interview were designed to supplement in experimental class in this study.At last,all the collected data were analyzed either quantitatively or qualitatively.The result proves that students in experimental class have made progress in many aspects especially in vocabulary.Meanwhile,most students hold a positive attitude on retelling method.They prefer to use the pictures and key words to retell interesting stories.