Contextualized High School English Vocabulary Teaching

Vocabulary learning is an important part in language learning. However, senior high school students have difficulty in fully understanding and appropriately using English words even though they have learned English for years. Therefore, many students lose interest in vocabulary learning and even in learning English. This is due to the fact that while memorization of vocabulary itself is emphasized, the contexts and the functions of English words are neglected.Actually, contexts play a crucial role in interpreting and restricting the meanings of words. This thesis aims at finding out an effective and feasible ways to apply context theories to vocabulary teaching in senior high schools. The paper first overviews the development of vocabulary teaching both abroad and at home and various context theories. Then, a one-term experiment is conducted, applying context theories to vocabulary teaching. The data are collected through pre-test and post-test and an interview, and processed with SPSS statistical software. The analysis and comparison of the results show that the contextualized vocabulary teaching is more effective. The result of interviews also shows that students hold positive attitude to the contextualized vocabulary teaching, their interest in vocabulary learning is stimulated and their initiative to know more about the words increases. Therefore, the contextualized vocabulary teaching is feasible in vocabulary teaching in senior high schools.