A Study On The Application Of Productive Failure Method In English Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High Schools

Since the 1990 s,more and more scholars have begun to dabble in the field of vocabulary teaching,and the breadth and depth of vocabulary teaching research have been comprehensively improved.However,most of existing vocabulary teaching method is used to designing the teaching plan from the perspective of“success”,and there still exist some disadvantages.For example,monotonous teaching method makes students not interested in vocabulary learning,and the traditional teaching method of giving instructions directly is quite limited in improving learners’ vocabulary learning competence.Based on the teaching method of “productive failure”(or inspirational frustration),proposed by Kapur in 2008,this study attempts to apply the productive failure teaching method consisted of two phases,three principles and four mechanisms,to senior high school English vocabulary teaching to make up for the shortcomings of traditional vocabulary teaching method.In order to explore whether productive failure method can be employed in senior high school,the author studies the following two questions:1)What effects does the application of productive failure method in senior highschool English vocabulary teaching have on students’ interest and attitudetoward vocabulary learning?2)What are the effects of introducing productive failure method into senior highschool English vocabulary teaching on students’ vocabulary competence?To explore the research results,the researchers conducted a four-month application study based on the productive failure teaching method in a senior high school.Questionnaires were issued to the experimental class before and after the experiment respectively,in order to know whether there were some changes on students’ interest and attitude in vocabulary learning.Qualitative interviews were conducted to complement the accuracy of the questionnaire results.In addition,the researcher conducted three groups of vocabulary tests in two classes before and after the experiment,namely,the VLT,VKS and VUT.The data was processed and analyzed by SPSS 26.0 software: 1)Independent Sample T-test was used to detect whether students in the experimental class and the controlled class were at the same vocabulary competence level before the experiment.2)Paired Sample T-test was employed to test whether the vocabulary competence of the students in the experimental class and the controlled class were improved before and after the experiment.3)Independent sample T-test was carried out to detect the differences and similarities between the experimental class and the controlled class in vocabulary performance after the experiment.The results show that: 1)Using productive failure method in senior high school English vocabulary teaching can certainly improve students’ interest in vocabulary learning.Meanwhile,this teaching method is also conductive to strengthening students’ initiative in vocabulary learning,so as to change their attitude towards vocabulary learning.2)The application of productive failure method is of great help to improve students’ vocabulary competence,including vocabulary memorizing competence,vocabulary understanding competence and vocabulary using competence.This study demonstrates the important effects of productive failure teaching method on students’ vocabulary learning and suggests that teachers should try to design vocabulary teaching from different perspectives,such as failure experience,cognition,culture,and thinking and so on,so as to improve students’ interest and attitude as well as vocabulary competence in vocabulary learning.