A Contrastive Study Of Word List And Context Presentation Modes In Vocational College English Vocabulary Teaching

At the present time, vocabulary teaching in vocational colleges has been focused onteaching modes, teaching strategies. Rarely has research been launched on vocabularypresentation modes, especially on a comparison between different presentation modes. Asvocabulary presentation modes are the base of vocabulary teaching, which is the first andforemost teaching step, the author cast some light on presentation modes to probe into strategieson vocabulary teaching. Words are the aim of vocabulary teaching. The presentation is to makean introduction of words by means of integrated methods to pass on the target word information,including spelling, pronunciation, meanings, sentence characteristics, collocations andapplications. There are three presentation modes which are most commonly adopted, namelyword list, semantic fields, and context presentation modes. The study adopted such theories asthe information process mode of cognitive psychology, elaboration theory, input hypothesis andstandard model of memory. A comparison was made between word list and context in order tosearch for a more effective way in the vocabulary teaching for students from vocational colleges.The author conducted a teaching experiment, which included82students from twoparalleled classes in Shandong TV University majored in Computer Communication, in whichvocabulary is taught through word list and context presentation modes separately. Twovocabulary tests are launched both at the end of the term and four months after the practicalteaching process so as to keep an eye on different memory effects from the short-term memoryand long-term memory perspectives. In addition to questionnaires and interviews, a paralleledand a vertical comparison of vocabulary efficiency was made. A conclusion has been naturallyreached that wordlist presentation mode is effective for students’ short-term memory becausethey are able to grasp target words’ spelling and collocations in a short time to increase theirvocabulary quantity. While from a long-time perspective, learning effect cannot be kept withouta high frequency revision. For the context presentation mode, students need time to adaptthemselves to this process at the very beginning and in this process, combined with the help ofcontext, students’ reading level increases simultaneously with the lexical acquisition. In addition,as target words are presented in context, it is beneficial for students to grasp their actual usage in the context to reach a better long-term memory effect.Finally, pedagogical implications and some suggestions are given according to thisexperimental teaching process and conclusion. In vocabulary teaching, teachers should pay moreattention to the presentation step, which is very important for students’ vocabulary learning.Students must make great efforts with the most effective learning method to transfer and absorbnew knowledge. It is obvious that English vocabulary teaching needs a joint effort from teachersand students to make a substantial progress and reach a satisfactory effect.