The Application Of Transfer Theory To English Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High Schools

Vocabulary teaching is an important component in foreign language teaching and learning (FLTL) for senior high schools. Efficient vocabulary teaching is a precondition for students'master of language and gives powerful support to the cultivation of students'language communication ability. However, inefficient and time-consuming phenomena in vocabulary teaching are still relatively conspicuous in many senior high schools. With years of study, students still find vocabulary a big headache. The requirement of mastering at least 3,500 words in senior high period asked by English New Curriculum Criteria (2003) further embitters vocabulary teaching nowadays. How to conduct effective vocabulary teaching, getting students out of vocabulary embarrassment, is what the author cares about.Transfer theory, considered as an important guide in FLTL, dates back to the 1940s, the early behaviorism period. Lado (1957) figures that learners usually transfer the structure, meaning and word order of their native language to the target language. Ellis (2000) refers transfer to the influence that the learners'L1 exerts over the acquisition of L2. Odlin (2001) defines that transfer is the influence resulting from similarities and differences between the target language and any other language that has been previously (and perhaps imperfectly) acquired.Some scholars and researches in China have undertaken many discussions and studies on vocabulary teaching from many aspects, but few attend to vocabulary teaching from the transfer aspect. If any, most of them are directed mainly at university teaching and few researches focused on English vocabulary teaching in senior high schools. That provides the writer with great insights in applying the transfer theory to English vocabulary teaching in senior high schools. After reading relative literatures and research results about both vocabulary teaching and transfer theory, according to the practical experiment and practice, the author probes into how to apply transfer theory to vocabulary teaching with the hope of improving present vocabulary teaching in senior high schools.The experiment was carried out from September to December, 2008. Two intact classes were selected from Senior Two of Qingdao No. 11 Middle School. Transfer-theory-oriented method was applied in the experiment class (EC), while the tradition teaching method was used in the control class (CC). Data collection was involved pretest achievements and posttest achievements, as well as questionnaire surveys. The data was analyzed by SPSS. The results show that the vocabulary achievements in the experiment class get much more improved than those in the control class. At the same time the polarization got well controlled in the experiment class. The questionnaire results show that the application of transfer theory to vocabulary teaching helps increase students'confidence in vocabulary learning, and contributes to the vocabulary teaching in senior high schools.The study demonstrates that transfer-theory-oriented teaching method can effectively improve students'English vocabulary study in senior high schools. It's hoped to offer some enlightenment on vocabulary teaching in senior high schools.