An Empirical Study Of The Application Of Context Theory To English Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High Schools

This paper is aimed at studying the application of context theory to English vocabulary teaching in senior high schools.Vocabulary plays an important role in English teaching.Only in the specific context can the meaning of vocabulary be fully reflected.There are a large number of studies about applying the context theory in vocabulary teaching at home and abroad,but most of them are theoretical studies.They talk about pedagogical implications or the principles and methods of contextual English vocabulary teaching.Few researches are conducted on the basis of empirical study.Based on context theory and the input hypothesis,the study tries to investigate the following two questions:1)What are the effects of the application of context theory to English vocabulary teaching in senior high schools on students' use of vocabulary learning strategies?2)What are the effects of the application of context theory to English vocabulary teaching in senior high schools on students' short-term memory and long-term memory of vocabulary?The experimental subjects are from two parallel classes in grade two of a senior high school in Changsha.One class is the control class,and the other class is the experimental class.The context theory was applied in the experimental class,while in the control class,the vocabulary was taught mainly through word lists.During the three-month experiment,two questionnaires,two vocabulary tests and an interview were carried out and the results were analyzed by SPSS 21.The study found:1)The application of context theory to vocabulary teaching can improve students' use of vocabulary learning strategies.After the experiment,in terms of the word-solving strategies,the students in the EC still use Dictionary Strategy frequently.However,their use frequency of Dictionary Strategy has decreased and that of Guessing Strategies has increased evidently.As for the Memory Strategies,the students' use frequency of Contextual Associating Strategies has increased and that of Rote Learning Strategies has decreased a little.2)The effect of the application of context theory to vocabulary teaching on students' short-term memory of vocabulary is not significant.However,the application of context theory to vocabulary teaching has a positive effect on students' long-term memory of vocabulary.Among the five contexts,situational context,lexical context and cultural context contribute noticeably to students' long-term memory of words.The author hopes the study can help improve the vocabulary teaching in senior high schools,let more English teachers realize the importance and the necessity of teaching vocabulary in context,and provide guidance for them on how to apply context theory to vocabulary teaching.