The Application Of Phonics To English Vocabulary Teaching For Higher-grade Primary School Students

Vocabulary teaching is of great significance in higher-grade primary school English teaching.According to the National English Curriculum Standard level 2,“primary school students should know that words are composed of letters,and they should be able to master about 600-700 words and 50 idioms,apply about 400 words freely,and spell out some simple words according to spelling rules.” However,there are many problems such as mechanical memory,word spelling and spelling difficulties in learning process.Phonics can effectively help students read and spell English words by establishing correspondence among letters,letter combinations and sound.Moreover,classroom teaching activities help students to learn actively in pleasant atmosphere,and can effectively improve their interest in learning English vocabulary.Based on the theory of Proximal Development Area and Learning Transfer,this study explores the effectiveness of phonics in English vocabulary teaching in primary schools.The subjects of the study were from the fifth-grade of Chengguan primary school in Fuxian.There are 58 students in each class.By using test,questionnaire survey and interview,the writer hopes to answer the following two questions:(1)Can phonics stimulate the interest of senior primary school students in learning English vocabulary?(2)What is the effect of phonics on spelling and spelling ability of English words in senior primary school? Before the experiment,the questionnaire was used to know the current situation of vocabulary learning and the students' attitude on it.At the same time,students were organized to take the pre-test of vocabulary spelling,mainly to find out whether there were significant differences in vocabulary between two classes.In the process of experiment implementation,the author carried out phonics in the experimental class,designed teaching activities according to students' interaction and after-class feedback,helped students to spell independently.In thecontrolled class,classes were conducted as usual to maintain its normal mode.After 16 weeks of experiment,the influence of phonics on students' interest in English vocabulary learning,spelling and spelling ability was analyzed by combining questionnaire,interview and test results.According to the analysis,the following two results were found.First,phonics is helpful to improve primary school students' interest in vocabulary learning,students are willing to learn words according to spelling rules.Second,through a semester study,both the experimental class and the control class have made great progress.However,the test results of the experimental class showed more significant improvement.Moreover,most students would try to spell new words according to the pronunciation rules of letters and letter combinations.Therefore,the conclusion of this study is that phonics can effectively improve primary school students' interest in learning English vocabulary and spelling abilities.