| Vocabulary is undoubtedly recognized as an important element for a language, and vocabulary teaching is the essential part of learning a language. In China, both the English teachers and students are still facing the dilemma of insufficient effectiveness of English vocabulary teaching and learning. From the history of vocabulary teaching and the recent researches of vocabulary teaching abroad and in China, we concluded that the vocabulary teaching tends to be interactive from isolated approach, and in views of the current situation of English vocabulary teaching, we found that it is an urgent issue to explore the effective and feasible vocabulary teaching in the middle school to help the students enhance their vocabulary.Schema theory is a theory developed from the field of Gestalt psychology on the basis of psychological model of a learner’s background knowledge. The basic principle of schema theory is that a new knowledge can be comprehended by comparing with a framework of previous existing experience which is stored in memory. The main purpose of this thesis is to explore an effective and feasible English vocabulary teaching method in light of the schema theory.In light of schema theory, a semantic map which guides the students to intrigue their background knowledge in their mind to understand the new knowledge can be constructed in the vocabulary teaching. The schema theory-based English vocabulary teaching that is centered on the semantic map can be applied in the senior middle school vocabulary teaching. And an experiment was conducted to check the teaching effect of this method by comparing with the conventional vocabulary teaching.It is hypothesized that the application of schema theory in the English vocabulary teaching in the senior middle school will improve the teaching effect. The study will be conducted to answer the following questions:1) Compared with the conventional English vocabulary teaching, can the schema-based vocabulary teaching show better teaching effect in vocabulary teaching? 2) Compared with the conventional English vocabulary teaching, can the schema-based vocabulary teaching enhance the students’using of strategies of the English vocabulary learning?The subjects were involved in100students in the Grade1of the Tian Jiabing Senior Middle School, which were grouped into experimental class and controlled class, with50students in each. The research instruments include language test and questionnaire investigation.The procedures of the experiment follows bellowing steps:Firstly, a pre-test and a pre-questionnaire were conducted in the two classes. The result of pre-test proved that there was no significant difference between the scores of experimental class and controlled class; and the pre-questionnaire showed that the students in both class applied little vocabulary learning strategies. Then in the experimental class, the English vocabulary teaching based on schema theory was conducted, while in the controlled class, the conventional teaching was conducted. After the treatment, a post-test and post-questionnaire were conducted in the two classes. The result of pos-test proves the performance of the experimental class is obviously better than that of the controlled class; and the result of post-questionnaire shows that the scores of experimental class are obviously higher than that of the controlled class. In conclusion, comparing with the conventional English vocabulary teaching, the schema theory-based English vocabulary teaching showed better teaching effect in the Tian Jiabing Senior Middle School.At the same time, some pedagogical implications can be put forward based on the result and discussion of this study. Firstly, the vocabulary should be taught from the angle of students; secondly, the new words should be taught by evoking the students’background knowledge; and thirdly, the teaching of vocabulary need a well plan design. Finally, some limitations of this research are discussed and some suggestions for future studies are proposed. |
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