Linguistic Analysis And Evaluation Of Vocabulary Exercises Design In A New English Course By Li Guanyi

Vocabulary exercise is a good way of strengthening and testing the vocabularypower as well as improving the vocabulary learning competence. It has both theoreticaland practical significance to analyze and evaluate the scientificity of the design ofvocabulary exercises using linguistic theories. This study attempts to evaluate thevocabulary exercises in the workbook5and6of A New English Course edited by Li,Guanyi using vocabulary teaching theories and theory of cognitive semantics. This studyfirst investigates the feedbacks of teachers and students who use the workbooks. Itanalyzes the advantages and disadvantages of the vocabulary exercises and studies theway to improve them, and to help students improve the learning efficiency.This study attempts to evaluate the design of the vocabulary exercises under theguidance of Paul Nation's vocabulary teaching theory, cognitive semantics and Schmitt'svocabulary consolidation strategies. Paul Nation put forward some principles onvocabulary teaching which have great influence on the design of the vocabulary exercises.With respect to cognitive semantics, prototypical categorical theory is used in the study,emphasizing that during the learning process, the relation between language expressionand mental presentation should be perceived. Schmitt's vocabulary consolidationstrategies have great influence on the evaluation of the design of the vocabularyexercises.Qualitative analysis and inductive inference are the main methods which are used inthis study. The investigation through questionnaires and interviews is carried out amongthe junior students and their teachers in Yanshan University to get their feedbacks,attitudes and suggestions of the vocabulary exercises. And then, on the basis of theinvestigation results, six criteria of evaluation are concluded on the basis of vocabularyteaching theory, prototypical categorical theory and vocabulary consolidation strategies,and then all the vocabulary exercises are analyzed and statisticized according to eachcriterion. Some disadvantages are found: most of the vocabulary exercises are often irrelevant to the topics of the original text; many important and key words do not receiverecycling; the vocabulary exercises can not help students develop their autonomouslearning strategies; there are not corresponding contexts provided for the vocabularyexercises and some exercises are in need of practical value. Generally speaking, there islittle sign of the application of the achievements of linguistic studies reflected in thecompilation of the vocabulary exercises. This thesis provides specific improvementmeasures and the suggestions under the guidance of relevant theories as well as students'and teachers' feedbacks.Through the linguistic analysis and evaluation of the vocabulary exercises, thisstudy has proved the effectiveness of the achievements of linguistic study on the designof vocabulary exercises. It sheds light on the importance of making better use of thetheories of linguistic research timely. Both teachers and students can make better use ofthe vocabulary exercises in the workbooks. The findings of the research have practicalimplications in improving the way of designing more effective vocabulary exercises andhelping students improve their autonomous learning strategy. The suggestions havesignificant reference value on the revision of the vocabulary exercises in the abovementioned textbooks.