A Study On English Vocabulary Teaching In Junior High Schools

This thesis is devoted to carrying out a deeper investigation into the current situation ofEnglish vocabulary teaching in junior high school. Vocabulary is an indispensable element ofhaving a good grasp of English. Vocabulary teaching is an important approach for students tolearn English vocabulary and its importance is self-evident. The New English CurriculumStandards puts forward higher requirements for English vocabulary teaching in junior highschool. Not only does it require students to master larger vocabulary, but also it requiresstudents to learn how to use the vocabulary. Under the influence of the New EnglishCurriculum Standards, great changes have taken place in English vocabulary teaching such asconcepts, contents and methods of vocabulary teaching. In addition, vocabulary teaching paysmore attention to cultivating students’ comprehensive language application ability. However,there still exist a lot of problems in vocabulary teaching. English teachers neglect to teachmethods and strategies of vocabulary learning and vocabulary teaching is pretty boring, whichmakes students master the vocabulary mechanically. As a result, students lose their interest inlearning vocabulary and vocabulary teaching is inefficient.The research dedicates to addressing four questions as follows:(1) What is the currentsituation of English vocabulary teaching in junior high school?(2) What is the currentsituation of English vocabulary learning in junior high school?(3) What is the correlationbetween English vocabulary size and English overall ability and the correlation betweenEnglish vocabulary competence and English overall ability of students in junior high school?(4) How does the vocabulary input in the textbook Go for it!? What are effects of thevocabulary input in Go for it! on English vocabulary teaching? Therefore, the author carriedout the16-week research in NO13middle school in Jinan, Shandong Qilu School and JinanMiddle School in Shandong Province in the second half of2013.163students from Gradenine and15English teachers from Grade seven, eight and nine are selected as the participantsof the research. Such instruments as questionnaires, test, textbook analysis and interview areadopted in the research, and the data collected from the research are carefully input into thecomputer and analyzed through SPSS17.0. Combining with the present English textbook Gofor it!, this study makes an investigation into the current situation of English vocabulary teaching and learning in junior high school and analyzes the correlation between Englishvocabulary size and English overall ability and the correlation between English vocabularycompetence and English overall ability of students in junior high school so as to light up thestatus and role of vocabulary learning in learning English. This study provides reference forEnglish vocabulary teaching in junior high school to improve its quality and efficiency.Based on the investigation into the current situation of English vocabulary teaching andlearning as well as the analysis of vocabulary input in the present English textbook Go for it!,this research mainly has the following findings:(1) the current situation of Englishvocabulary teaching in junior high school is in accordance with the requirements of NewEnglish Curriculum Standards in junior high school to a large extent. Both teachers andstudents give a great recognition towards the importance of vocabulary teaching and theyaffirm the essential status of vocabulary teaching and learning in English teaching.(2) thetraditional vocabulary teaching methods and modes are still dominant in vocabulary teaching.Under the pressure of senior high school entrance examination, most of the teachers still tendto use the traditional vocabulary teaching methods due to the influence of tight time as well asheavy tasks.(3) some teachers have realized that teaching vocabulary in traditional ways hasbad effects on students’ interest in learning vocabulary. Therefore, teachers try to exploremore effective vocabulary teaching modes applied to vocabulary teaching.(4) the idea ofteachers’ vocabulary teaching has greatly changed. Teachers place greater emphasis oncultivating students’ ability of comprehensive language application than teaching vocabularyknowledge.(5) students have no strong initiative and self-awareness to learn the vocabularyin the process of vocabulary learning. On one hand, students still adopt the traditionalmethods of vocabulary learning and they grasp or memorize the vocabulary mechanically andpassively. On the other hand, students depend on teachers and teaching materials too muchand have no active consciousness to enlarge the vocabulary knowledge.(6) Englishvocabulary size and English vocabulary competence of students in junior high school aresignificantly and positively correlated with their English overall ability. The larger thevocabulary size students have, the higher the English overall ability will be. The higher thevocabulary competence students have, the higher their English overall ability will be.(7) thepresent textbook Go for it! adopts student-centered mode and attaches great importance to improving students’ language proficiency while the vocabulary in Go for it! is not inaccordance with students’ practical needs which affects the effect of vocabulary teaching.This study explores the current situation of English vocabulary teaching in junior highschool from multiple perspectives such as the perspective of English teachers, junior highschool students and the present textbook Go for it!. The findings of this study have greatsignificance to English vocabulary teaching and learning and provide reference for Englishvocabulary teaching in future. However, due to the restrictions of current conditions and theauthor’s capability, such as the short investigation time, the existence of uncontrollablevariables as well as the incomplete processing and analysis of data, this research has someinevitable limitations. Great efforts need to be taken to the further study and exploration.