An Empirical Study On English Verb Teaching In Senior High School Based On Prototype Category Theory

It is very well known to English learner that, English vocabulary, especially English verbs are used very frequently and flexibly, and verbs almost appear in each sentence. It is not easy to learn English verb for most of learners. For Chinese high school students, English verbs learning has always been a problem. In order to cope with the exams, students often lack the understanding of verbs and its related knowledge; teachers regularly use traditional teaching pattern of verbs, English verbs teaching and learning remains unsatisfying. Therefore,to find an effective teaching method to guide the verb teaching is very important.As we all know, the verbs are the reflection of the human thought, and they are the signs of human behaviors. Understanding the meanings of the verb is a cognitive process, and the prototype category theory is the theoretical base and core process of cognitive linguistics, so applying prototype category theory to English verbs teaching is of great significance. Some researches have combined this theory with vocabulary teaching and got remarkable breakthrough, but few studies have used the theory to explore English verbs teaching. The purpose of this study is to explore English verbs teaching mode from the cultural context,cognitive mechanism and hyponymy semantic field based on prototype category theory. The empirical research aims to answer three questions 1) Is the method based on prototype theory more effective than traditional one as to English verb acquisition? 2) Can verb teaching method based on the prototype category theory enhance students’ interest in learning English verb? 3) Can the new method be mastered easily by majority students?The author does the research during the teaching practicing in Panjin Second Senior High School. Two classes in Grade Two are choosen as the experimental class and the control class.For three months, the prototype category theory is used in the verb teaching in the experimental class, and some teaching strategies such as basic category, word association,metaphor thinking are used. The study also employs interview for information to complement the experimental data.Based on the data analysis, this study shows that the verb learning results in experimental class is much better than that in the control class, and it also suggests that this prototype category theory based verb teaching method can improve students’ learning interest,and can be easily mastered by most of the students. It proves that the English verb teaching based on prototype category theory is more effective and can facilitate students English learning. This study has some pedagogical implication for English teaching.