The Application Of The Situational Language Teaching Method To English Vocabulary Teaching In Junior Middle School

Vocabulary is the basis of English learning and an important part of English teaching.Students’ capacity of vocabulary directly affects their oral,writing and reading abilities,since the accumulation of vocabulary is inseparable from any language acquisition.On this case,the famous linguist D.A.Wilkins(1972: 111)once pointed out that “Without grammar very little can be conveyed,without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed.” Therefore,enlarging students’ vocabulary is one of the important tasks in English teaching.However at present,rote learning is still adopted by students in English vocabulary learning,which is not conducive to students’ vocabulary learning,but makes students to gradually lose interest in learning English.To solve this problem,excellent scholars at home and abroad have been trying to find an effective way to teach English vocabulary.In recent years,situational language teaching method has been favored by many scholars.The purpose of this paper is to explore the application of situational language teaching method in English vocabulary teaching in middle school,focusing on the following two questions:1.What is the impact of situational language teaching method on junior middle school students’ English vocabulary learning?2.What kind of influence does situational language teaching method have on student’s ability to use English vocabulary?In order to answer the above two questions,the author conducted a four-month teaching experiment in Yongxing Town Middle School.Two parallel classes(Grade 2(4)and Grade 2(6))were selected as experimental subjects,totaling 108 students.Class(4)is the experimental class,and class(6)is the control class.There are 54 students in class(4)and 54 students in class(6).During the experiment,the experimental class adopts the situational language teaching method.In the process of teaching,teachers first create vivid situations in the form of pictures or videos through the materials in life to let students perceptual vocabulary.Then let students understand and analyze the vocabulary in the situation,so that students have a further understanding of the vocabulary.And then,the teacher helps students to create situations and let them have a practice.In the process of practice,it not only deepen the students’ understanding of vocabulary,but also consolidate the vocabulary they have learned.Finally,let the students create their own situation and learn to use the words in the actual situation.In this part,the feedback on students’ vocabulary mastery can be get.Accordingly,the control class adopts the traditional vocabulary teaching method.Before the experiment,in order to understand the current situations of English vocabulary in the two classes,a questionnaire and interview were conducted among the students in the two classes,and vocabulary tests were taken in both classes.After the experiment,the two classes were tested and the collected data was analyzed by SPSS22 software.The results of the questionnaire show that situational language teaching method can stimulate students’ interest in vocabulary learning and change their attitude towards vocabulary learning.What’s more,the results of word test show that situational language teaching method can enhance students’ vocabulary learning efficiency and ability of using vocabulary.