Primary Lexical Teaching Designation Basing On The Prototype Theory

Teaching new words plays an important role in teaching Chinese because it concerns with all the teaching processes. The proficiency in using new words is one of the bases to judge the foreign language qualification of the students. If the learner has a good vocabulary in the initial stage, he will be able to learn the new words in the advanced level easily.During my study and internship in Vietnam, I realized an unchanged process of teaching vocabulary like this:reading the new words-translating into Vietnamese-making questions or doing exercises. Most of the content of the examples or exercises is boring and out-of-context. Due to the importance of teaching vocabulary and the limitation of the elementary learners, I suggest that the teachers should apply the visual and reasonable methods so that they could suit to the learners'ability. Prototype theory can solve the above matters because it has a permanent effect on the learning vocabulary of students and a beneficial influence on the learning Chinese later.According to the prototype theory, prototype, the cognitive reference-point of al things, is the central member of a category, while other members are extended around it. They are all constructed by family resemblances. So the prototype theory emphasizes the relationship between central members and peripheral members. Therefore, we can use the theory to guide our vocabulary teaching. Students should first acquire basic words and their basic meaning, upon which they further pick up other non-basic words and their extended meanings. This can efficiently activate students'vocabulary hierarchical structure and vocabulary semantic net map, getting them to learn vocabulary through association in a most economic way.Being an important part in teaching Chinese in elementary level, the method improvement shows that the renewal of teaching vocabulary has a great significance in Vietnam. As a result, I decided to choose this thesis topic:"Primary lexical teaching designation basing on the prototype theory-taking the students of Hanoi Foreign Language University, Chinese Specialty as an example."...