An Empirical Study On The Vocabulary Teaching Based On The Context Theory In Junior High School

Vocabulary is one fundamental component of language and is also one of the most important keys in English learning. However, there are defects in vocabulary teaching with traditional teaching method. There is a phenomenon that teachers teach the vocabularies without the context and they emphasize the importance of rote learning. It’s difficult to arouse the students’ interests with this method and they often forget the words they learnt.In recent years, more and more scholars begin to pay attention to the influence of context theory on English vocabulary learning. However, most of them applied this theory to the vocabulary teaching just in senior high schools or universities, rarely in junior high schools.Therefore this study applies the method to vocabulary teaching of junior high school students in grade two in order to answer these questions: 1. Can the context-based teaching approach improve students’ awareness of using context for vocabulary learning? 2. Can the context-based teaching approach extend the students’ vocabulary memory time? 3. Is the context-based teaching approach more effective in vocabulary teaching?The experiment lasted for four months, adopting contrast groups. Seventy-eight students in grade two of junior high school participated in the experiment, among which 40 students in the experimental class(EC) who received vocabulary context-based teaching method and 38 students in control class(CC) who received vocabulary traditional teaching method. The results of the questionnaire and the interview analysis show the context-based teaching approach have a positive effect on improving students’ awareness of using context for vocabulary learning. The analysis of the mid-test and delayed-test in EC and CC reveal that students in experimental class have a better vocabulary long-term memory than the control class. Furthermore, the analysis of interview in EC also shows the effect on vocabulary memory time in EC is great. The analysis of post-test in EC and CC proves that the context-based vocabulary teaching approach is more effective than traditional English vocabulary teaching method.