Research On Current Situations Of English Vocabulary Teaching Under The New Curriculum----A Case Study Of A Junior High School In Qingdao

Vocabulary is one of the indispensable elements in language learning. With the increasing amount of English vocabulary of Junior High School required by the New National Curriculum, most of the students complain about the heavy burden vocabulary memorizing has laid on them. This has produced a negative influence on their interest and enthusiasm in English language learning. Therefore, to strengthen English vocabulary teaching and to cultivate students’ abilities of learning and using vocabulary become an essential task in English teaching practice in Junior High School.The New English Curriculum Standard (abridged as NECS) published in2011proposed specific requirements of the quantity and quality of vocabulary teaching and learning, as well as teaching methods and learning methods. This has brought to the attention of some experts the following question:whether the teachers in Junior High School can work up to the standard of NECS. Against such background, the author attempts to carry out a research on the current situation of vocabulary teaching in Junior High School in Laoshan District, Qingdao City in order to better improve English vocabulary teaching.For this research,6English teachers and133students from junior2(117students’ questionnaires are valid) participated in this case study, the research methods employed being questionnaire survey, classroom observation and interviews in order to find out the answers to the following questions:1. What are the students’ attitudes and opinions about vocabulary learning and teaching?2. What vocabulary teaching methods are mostly used by English teachers in their teaching activities?3. Have the teachers learnt about the new concepts of NECS and put them into practice in their teaching activities? If not, what might be the problem? After the analysis of the data collected from the survey, the author found that the importance of vocabulary learning in junior high school has been widely recognized by the students. They agree that vocabulary learning needs methods. A majority of students like their teachers to use new methods to teach vocabulary. Four teachers involved in this research know very well about the vocabulary teaching requirements while the other two have only a basic understanding. Most teachers prefer to use traditional methods in vocabulary teaching, although some have tried new methods in class. The objective reasons for this phenomenon are the limited teaching periods and the large amount of teaching contents. And the subjective reason is that the teachers sometimes are not willing to spend more efforts on exploring new methods for vocabulary teaching.