An Investigation On Vocabulary Teaching In Junior High School From The Perspective Of Context Theory

Wilkins once argued that without grammar,very little can be conveyed;without vocabulary,nothing can be conveyed.The importance of vocabulary is self-evident,and mastering vocabulary is also an essential part of learning English well.Traditional vocabulary teaching relies on the translation method and students’ rote memorization,making vocabulary learning tedious and inefficient.The emergence and development of context theory provide an excellent way for enriching vocabulary teaching and improving students’ vocabulary learning efficiency.In order to understand the current situation of junior high school English teachers’ vocabulary teaching based on context theory,the author conducted the research.Based on the relevant concepts of vocabulary teaching and context theory,the research investigates the following two questions through questionnaires,interviews and classroom observation:（1）How do teachers understand context and context-based vocabulary teaching?（2）What is the current situation of vocabulary teaching based on context theory?The author distributed questionnaires to 16 English teachers in Dongguan Zhongjian Experimental School.After analyzing the questionnaire results,four teachers were selected for interviews,and three English classes of each teacher were observed.By analyzing the results of classroom observation and interviews,the author summarizes teachers’ understanding of context and the current situation of vocabulary teaching through context.It is found that the interviewees have some understanding of context,but their understanding is not comprehensive.However,they all recognize the importance of context in vocabulary learning and have experiences in applying it to teaching.At the same time,the interviewees also point out the difficulties faced by using context in teaching vocabulary.As for the present situation,the author notes that teachers use lexical context most frequently and pay less attention to cultural context.At the same time,teachers attach importance to using verbal context to make students guess the meaning of strange words.In addition,the author also notices that some situational contexts set by teachers lack authenticity.Given the problems found in the research,the author puts forward some suggestions for front-line teachers to make better use of context in vocabulary teaching from the perspectives of linguistic context and non-linguistic context to make more efficient use of context teaching.