A Study Of English Preposition Instruction In Junior High School Based On Metaphor Theory

As function words, the position of prepositions in English cannot be ignored.Although the number of prepositions is not very big, the senses of them are rich andcolorful. Because their collocation usages are agile and complex, they are regardedas very difficult issues both in English teaching and learning. However, traditionalEnglish preposition instruction doesn’t pay due attention to the internal relationshipsbetween the complex senses. Therefore, neither teachers nor students are satisfiedwith the teaching results. Cognitive linguists believe metaphor theory can fullydemonstrate the semantic network of prepositions.The present study focus on the effects of English preposition instruction basedon metaphor theory for learners’ learning. In addition, the learners’ attitudes towardthe English preposition instruction from the perspective of metaphor theory are alsoexplored. Following are the research questions of the present study:1) Can thepreposition instruction based on metaphor theory effectively facilitate learners’preposition learning?2) Do the students hold a positive attitude toward thepreposition instruction based on metaphor theory?The subjects of the research are60students of grade one in Guangzhou ForeignLanguage School. They are from two classes. One of them was appointed asexperimental group and the other one was appointed as control group randomly. Theresults of the pretest indicate that there is no significant difference between theperformances of the two groups. Therefore, the two groups were comparable beforethe experiment. The two groups received the different preposition instruction ways,that is, the instruction based on metaphor theory for the experimental group and thetraditional preposition instruction for the control group. The treatment would betwice a week, forty-minute each time and last for three months. Posttest wasemployed after the treatment, which aimed to find out the effects of the Englishpreposition instruction. Besides, after the treatment, the questionnaire was carriedout to investigate the learners’ attitudes toward the preposition instruction based on metaphor theory.The result of posttest shows that there is no significant progress in the controlgroup’s performance after the treatment, which is based on traditional instructionapproach. On the contrary, the experimental group’s performance has significantprogress after the treatment, which is based on metaphor theory. It indicates that thepreposition instruction based on metaphor theory can more effectively facilitatelearners’ preposition learning than that of traditional preposition instruction. Finally,the results of the questionnaire reveal that most of the students in the experimentalgroup strongly felt that they benefited a lot from the preposition instruction based onmetaphor theory. Consequently, they are strongly looking forward to employingmetaphor theory to preposition instruction in the future.