A Corpus-based Instructional Design On Vocabulary Learning In Senior High School

It is a common sense that vocabulary learning plays an important part in language acquisition. However, as to many students in senior high school, vocabulary has become a great obstacle in English study, even though they have made every effort to recite new words, it produces very little effect. The New English Curriculum Criteria issued in2001not only makes a higher demand on students, but also challenges the old methods of vocabulary teaching. Since the good quality of teaching depends on a good instructional design, it is critical for all the English teachers in senior high school to seek an effective way to meet students" needs in vocabulary learning.This paper is an attempt to apply corpus to practical vocabulary teaching in senior high school’s English class. It centers on how to teach synonym and polysemy with the assistance of corpora as a direct teaching material. The corpora used in this instructional design are LOB and CLEC. which stand for native speaker’s corpus and learner’s corpus respectively. In the teaching process, the teacher should first confirm the target words and select the concordance lines containing the target words, then, the concordance lines should be processed in accordance with the learners’ English level. After that, the teacher can present the prepared teaching materials on screen with the help of a projector or print them on pieces of papers, then ask students some questions that are enlightening. As for the students, they do not passively get knowledge from the teacher as before, instead, they will discover the language rules by themselves. By observing, analyzing and inducing, they will develop an ability of independent thinking, and acquire more language knowledge that will not be easily forgotten.At the last part of the paper, to check whether this corpus-based instructional design takes effect, the author employed experimental means and questionnaire. The results of the test achievements shows that the new teaching method is effective but not appropriate for all the students, therefore, an integrated way of teaching is recommended in vocabulary teaching in senior high school.