On Vocabulary Teaching Processes In Intensive Reading Classes-a Case Study

Vocabulary is very important for any language learning, because it is the basisfor writing, listening, reading and speaking. For Chinese students who take English asa foreign language, vocabulary learning is quite essential and significant. However, itis found that students‘vocabulary size and depth are far from being desirable. InChina, most of students‘English learning occurs in the classroom, so classroomteaching plays a critical role in their English improvement. Teachers usually bringtheir own beliefs into classroom teaching, which has a direct effect on the teachingeffectiveness. So far, researchers and teachers have explored vocabulary teachingmethods from different perspectives. However, few of them have investigatedvocabulary teaching processes in classroom settings.Therefore, this thesis employs classroom recording and teachers interview so asto analyze college English teachers‘vocabulary teaching in classroom settings as wellas their beliefs of vocabulary teaching. Four college English teachers who teachsimilar intensive reading were chosen. These four teachers‘vocabulary instructions inone unit were recorded. After the recording, the teachers were interviewed in order toobtain a deeper understanding of their beliefs about vocabulary teaching. In the end,the data collected were analyzed, which revealed the following findings:1. The classroom vocabulary teaching processes examined are stereotyped.New trends and some popular methods in vocabulary teaching are not foundin the classroom. As a result, the vocabulary teaching is still taught in atraditional way.2. Teachers‘beliefs of classroom vocabulary teaching are rather ambiguous.The four teachers interviewed have never taken any teachers‘trainingprograms and thus some of their beliefs are not positive, which to someextent has a bad effect on their decisions made in the classroom.3. Teachers‘beliefs and their classroom teaching practice are not consistent, which is always the case. Though some of their beliefs are positive andwell-intentioned, yet their classroom teaching practices do not reflect any ofthem at all.This thesis aims to contribute to classroom investigation of vocabulary teaching.Meanwhile, it is intended to bring some implications to vocabulary teaching andcontribute to the improvement of classroom teaching effectiveness.