The Effects Of Image Schema Theory-Guided English Teaching On Senior High School Students’ Learning Of Phrasal Verbs V+OUT

Phrasal verbs(PVs),also called multi-word verbs,are a notoriously difficult part in language knowledge.English Curriculum Standards for Senior High Schools specifies that students should actively cultivate their awareness of lexical chunks and gradually improve their ability to accurately comprehend words and phrasal verbs.However,many senior high school students fail to meet what the curriculum have required and thus are far away from mastering phrasal verbs.Based on image schema theory,the research focuses on particle "out",whose meaning is divided into two major categories:literal meaning and metaphorical meaning and forms a semantic network of PVs v+out.The purpose of this research is to explore the effects of image schema theory-guided English teaching on senior high school students’ learning of literal meaning and metaphorical meaning of phrasal verbs v+out.The research questions are as follows:(1)What is the effect of image schema theory-guided English teaching on senior high school students’ learning of the literal meaning PVs v+out?(2)What is the effect of image schema theory-guided English teaching on senior high school students’ learning of the metaphorical meaning PVs v+out?The research is conducted quantitatively and qualitatively.In the quantitatiearch,Class 1 is the experimental class(EC)while Class 2 is the controlled class(CC),and both two classes have 35 students.EC is taught in image schema-based instruction,whereas CC is taught in translation-based instruction.Before the experiment,these two classes are pretested,showing that there are no significant difference between these two classes.Post-tests in the research are divided into immediate post-test and prolonged post-test.The former is implemented right after the teaching procedure finished and the latter is completed two weeks after the procedure.In the qualitative research,six students chosen from the experimental class are interviewed according to the advanced,intermediate,and primary English levels and their interviews are translated into English to support research findings in the quantitative research.After the research,the following conclusions are drawn:(1)In the study of literal meaning of PVs v+out,though statistics show there is no significant difference between the experimental class and the controlled class(p>0.05)which may due to students in both classes have acquired the basic meaning of "out" in the previous study.Besides,students in EC can perform better than those in CC.That is because the meaning of "out" in Chinese may interfere students’acquisition of PVs v+out in CC.(2)In the study of metaphorical meaning of PVs v+out,p value in the statistics shows that there exists a significant difference between the experimental class and the controlled class.That can be attributed to the instruction in EC which frees students from mechanical learning and focuses more on deep processing.Besides,students in EC can transfer and predict their newly-learned knowledge into unacquainted PVs v+out and their motivation and passion for learning can be cultivated as well.The teaching implications of this research are presented as follows:(1)During the teaching,teachers should guide students to investigate the basic or prototypical meaning of PVs.(2)Image schema-based instruction can be a desirable approach in teaching PVs.(3)Teachers should be student-centered in class.Finally,the research contains some limitations such as the limited number of the participants,and limited instruction and testing time,which can be ameliorated in future studies.