An Action Research Of English Vocabulary Teaching Through Situational Teaching Method

Vocabulary plays a significant role in language acquisition, vocabulary acquisition iscrucial to second language learners, and it is regarded as a fundamental part of Englishteaching. But quite a lot of teachers utilize traditional teaching methods to teach thevocabulary out of context, which results in a mechanical way on memorization of thevocabulary. The situational teaching method based on the constructive theory and inputtheory is adopted in study by providing situations and context for the vocabulary. Based onwhat Anderson&Nagy said, context is necessary for dealing with multi-meaning words,word connotations, and other nuances of meaning inherent in language. We should realizethe important status of the context in the vocabulary acquisition. Therefore, how to applysituational teaching method to improve students’ vocabulary competence andcommunication competence is the main issue to be solved in the study.This thesis is based on the theory of constructivism and input theory. The importanceof the situation and comprehensible authentic input is carried out to support the argument inthe thesis. The thesis tries to answer the following three questions:1) Can the studentsincrease their interests and confidence in vocabulary teaching in high school?2) Can thestudents increase their test score and English competence in vocabulary teaching in the highschool class?3) How is the situational teaching method used in the vocabulary teaching inthe high school class?120students from grade one in high school participate in theresearch. Communication and interview are used during the implementation of the studyamong teachers and students, while the questionnaire is used in the end of the experiment tocollect the data from the students, but the author only gets118validated questionnaires.The study is in accordance with the experimental procedures designed before by author.Specifically, the author introduces the newly learned vocabulary by means of raisingquestions, providing various activities and creative practices in the experiment.After the experiment, we find that students’ interests towards vocabulary learning arearoused. At the same time, their test score and communication competence are enhancedwhich result in an improvement of confidence in the English learning. Therefore, we canconclude that the situational teaching method used in the vocabulary teaching which paysmore attention to the context is helpful in the improvement of the language competence andability.