The Effects Of The Continuation Task On English Vocabulary Learning In Senior High School

Vocabulary is an essential element in the process of learning a foreign language.The mastery of vocabulary is vital to learners’ development of listening,speaking,reading and writing skills.In 2012,Wang Chuming pioneered the concept of the continuation task,which closely combines reading and writing and requires students to use their imagination to create content.Since it was proposed,it soon has attracted the attention of researchers.Studies on the continuation task soon have been conducted widely.These studies have confirmed that the continuation task is effective to facilitate English learning in different aspects.However,most of the existing studies have focused on the alignment effects of the continuation task or its effects on writing and grammar,and a few studies have explored the effects of the continuation task on vocabulary learning,and even fewer studies have focused on its effects on English vocabulary learning of high school students.Therefore,based on the input hypothesis,the output hypothesis and the interactive alignment theory,this study applies the continuation task in high school English classrooms with the aim of exploring its effects on high school students’ English vocabulary learning.The research questions are as follows:1.What effects does the continuation task have on senior high students’ vocabulary learning in three dimensions: form,meaning and usage? 2.What effects does the continuation task have on senior high students’ motivation for English vocabulary learning? The subjects of this study were152 students in three parallel classes at Wu Xiang Senior High School in Shanxi Province.The students in these three classes were randomly divided into three groups:the experimental group,the control group,and the word selection group.Students in the experimental group were instructed through the continuation task,while students in the control group were instructed through summary writing.In addition,students in the word selection group only selected target words before the teaching experiment.The teaching experiment lasted 12 weeks in total.The test,questionnaire and interview were employed as the research instruments.The results showed that: 1.The continuation task could better facilitate high school students’ English vocabulary learning compared to summary writing,especially in the aspects of word meaning and usage;2.The continuation task could effectively enhance high school students’ motivation for English vocabulary learning,while summary writing has few effects on students’ motivation for learning English vocabulary.This study verifies the effectiveness of the continuation task in promoting high school students’ English vocabulary learning and provides useful insights for promoting English vocabulary learning in high school.