Context-based Vocabulary Teaching In Rural Junior Middle Schools

Vocabulary is one of the three elements of language (pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar), which is the foundation of language. And ideas cannot be expressed without vocabulary. Therefore, vocabulary teaching is of great significance in English teaching."The New Curriculum Standard in Junior Middle School English"(revised in2011) puts forward a higher requirement. As it shows that, students should have a fairly good knowledge of English vocabulary including words, phrases and idioms and collocations, etc. Students should understand both the basic meanings of words and their meanings in particular context. They should also use words to describe things, behavior and characteristics and concept, etc. Currently, however, through the investigation and interview, the author found that there still exist a lot of problems in junior middle school vocabulary teaching. Influenced by the traditional English teaching method, in some junior middle schools, especially those in the relatively backward regions, teachers often ignore context when teaching vocabulary. They often teach new words out of context. And students usually remember words mechanically over and over again. Owing to the lack of awareness of context, many students learn English inefficiently. Moreover, because of the lack of understanding the meaning of words in different context, most of the students cannot use English in real communication. Hence, exploring a scientific and effective vocabulary teaching method is very urgent.In recent years, some experts and teachers have been exploring new methods of vocabulary teaching. Many of them are committed to the application of context theory to vocabulary teaching. But most of the researches are related to senior middle schools or colleges. And researches related to junior middle schools is much fewer. The purpose of this paper is to investigate and explore whether context-based vocabulary teaching method can improve students’competence of vocabulary application and how to teach English vocabulary effectively based on context. In order to test the feasibility and effectiveness of context-based vocabulary teaching method applied in rural junior middle schools, the author has carried on a three-month empirical research in a rural junior middle school. Two hypotheses are put forward and verified:1. Context-based vocabulary teaching can arouse students’ interest in vocabulary learning and improve their ability of using vocabulary learning strategies;2. Context-based vocabulary teaching can effectively improve the students’ competence of vocabulary application. During the three-month experiment, two questionnaires and two vocabulary tests were given to the students. The results of analysis shows that the average scores, passing rate and excellence rate of experimental class that adopted context-based vocabulary teaching method are much higher than that of the control class adopting traditional vocabulary teaching method. And the interest and competence of vocabulary learning strategies are also higher in the experimental class after three-month experiment. Therefore, the results prove that it is feasible and effective to apply context-based vocabulary teaching method in rural junior middle school.