On Semantic Map Construction In English Vocabulary Presentation

A solid vocabulary is necessary in every stage of language learning and of criticalimportance to L2learners. Nevertheless, vocabulary learning is still a demanding task forsecondary vocational school students. Students encountered various difficulties trying to storeand retrieve words well. Apart from rote learning, they have no ideas for English vocabularylearning. Teaching methods in vocational schools are also traditional and lack of variety.Most of the teachers fail to present vocabulary in effective ways. Consequently, vocabularylearning is scarcely interesting and effective.Since there are these problems, the present research makes an attempt to show theeffectiveness of semantic mapping used as a vocabulary presentation technique to develop thestudents’ vocabulary competence and stimulate them to take responsibility for their ownlearning.The experiment of current research was carried out between two parallel classes (both ofthe class consisted of45students), in which one was taken as the experimental class and theother was the controlled class. At the beginning of the experiment, all the subjects of the twoclasses were required to answer a questionnaire about their vocabulary learning experiences.Two equivalent forms of a vocabulary level test adopted from I. S. P. Nation (1990) wereused as pretest and posttest respectively to examine whether there was an obvious increase instudents’ vocabulary level. Besides, a conversational interview was also accepted after theexperiment to find out the students’ perception for effectiveness of semantic mapping onvocabulary learning.Instruction of semantic mapping technique was adopted during the process ofpresentation step in the experimental class. In contrast, new words were introduced onlydepending on the vocabulary part of the textbook in the controlled class. After about fourmonths of training, a conclusion was drawn based on the result of the study. That is,construction of semantic maps performed better than traditional way in presentation step formost of the students. The students in the experimental class were more actively involved inthe vocabulary learning process. The activities of semantic mapping helped the studentsdiscover their own language learning potential and take responsibility for their own learning. The current thesis introduces the background, proposes the research questions anddiscusses significance of the research. In the literature review, theoretical and empiricalresearches on L2vocabulary learning and semantic mapping both at home and abroad areclarified. The thesis is based on the theories of Modal Memory Model, the mental lexicon andinformation process of memory. The research design includes the research hypotheses, thesubjects, instruments and procedure of the experiment. A sample lesson plan is also recorded.Data analysis of the study is conducted. After a relevant discussion, the findings show that thestudents in the experimental class with the help of semantic mapping perform better than thatof the controlled class. The conclusion of the whole research includes the limitation of thisstudy and suggestions for further relevant research.