The Application Of Conceptual Metaphor Theory In English Vocabulary Teaching In Senior Middle School

Vocabulary teaching plays an important role in English teaching. Nevertheless, there still exists many problems in the traditional methods of vocabulary teaching so that students have much pressure on vocabulary learning. Students usually spend a lot of time in remembering English words, but they are inefficient. Therefore, the reform of the traditional methods of vocabulary teaching is an urgent problem that must be solved in high school. In English vocabulary teaching, teachers should try to use some teaching methods that can facilitate students’ vocabulary learning.Conceptual metaphor was proposed by Lakoff and Johnson for the first time in the book of Metaphors We Live By, which caused the attention of more scholars and promoted further researches of conceptual metaphor in the industry. After a lot of theoretical research and experimental data analysis, many scholars have found that conceptual metaphor makes a difference to foreign language learning, especially to vocabulary teaching. Therefore, in English vocabulary teaching in senior high school, conceptual metaphor theory can help students understand the lexical meaning comprehensively and arouse their enthusiasm of learning English.The teaching method of vocabulary based on conceptual metaphor not only helps them understand the relationship between the different meanings of polysemy but also helps students develop the corresponding semantic network in their mind to understand and grasp words.The main purpose of this study is to discover and explore a new teaching method through the application of conceptual metaphor to English vocabulary teaching in high school. Teachers consciously provide students with some necessary knowledge about conceptual metaphor and help them to combine conceptual metaphor with vocabulary learning so as to gradually cultivate and improve students’ vocabulary ability of comprehension, memory and application. In this paper, during the teaching practice in Mengshan school in Jining, the author carried out teaching experiment in two classes and used different vocabulary teaching methods in the two classes. In experimental class, the author applied metaphor approach to vocabulary teaching and adopted the traditional teaching method in control class, then made comparison of teaching effect through test. According to the questionnaire and data analysis, the students in experimental class are superior to the control class in mastering vocabulary. Therefore, the results show that metaphor vocabulary teaching approach is feasible and has a positive role in the improvement of students’ vocabulary comprehension and application level. In view of the results of the teaching experiment, the author puts forward the enlightenment and suggestions on senior high school English teaching: English vocabulary teaching should be combined with the metaphor theory.English teachers should constantly enrich their metaphor knowledge and improve the skills and methods of metaphor vocabulary teaching, and teachers should pay attention to cultivate and strengthen students’ metaphor awareness and ability in the teaching.Due to the influence of various factors in the process of experimental teaching, this research has some shortcomings. Most words learned in the high school are basically vocabulary, so the author ensures the effectiveness of this theory in English teaching practice in order to give guiding significance to the study of English vocabulary teaching.