| Vocabulary is one of the most important components that constitute language. It is an important carrier of pronunciation and grammar. With the advance of the new curriculum reform, vocabulary teaching in middle school has been promoted to a new level. However, vocabulary teaching drew little attention in the past. Ordinary secondary school seldom set up specialized vocabulary class. Thus, students’ master of vocabulary is small. Therefore, it is a worthy research topic on what effective vocabulary research method can be used to help students to master a large number of basic vocabulary. Cognitive grammar, which lays emphasis on vocabulary teaching, is a new linguistic theory. Thus, there are both theoretical significance and practical significance in using cognitive grammar to do research on teaching middle school English vocabulary.Until now, a large number of studies have been researched from the perspective of native speaker or SLA learner. However, the study based on the theory of basic level of categorization on cognitive linguistics and from the perspective of teacher is relatively scant. According to this situation, the author conducted an empirical research in BaYi Middle School. Specifically, this study addresses the following research questions:(1) What effects does basic level categorization-based teaching have on the breadth of the students’ vocabulary learning?(2) What effects does basic level categorization-based teaching have on the depth of the students’ vocabulary learning?To figure out answers to the two questions, the author spend 13 weeks conducting an empirical research in Ba Yi Middle School. Before the experiment, a pre-test is held to choose two class, which mean scores are on the similar level. Then, the author choose the Class 4 as the experimental class, while the Class 8 as the control class. The instruments include two kinds of vocabulary tests and an interview. After 13 weeks’ teaching, a post-test is given to the two classes and an interview is conducted in experimental class. All the data in this thesis are collected and analyzed by the author with SPSS16.0. Independent T-test and Paired Samples Test are applied respectively to compare between pre-test and post-test in each class of breadth and depth of vocabulary. The major findings are listed as follows:(1) Concerning the aspect of students’ breadth of vocabulary, students in experimental class are proved to have achieved obvious progress compared with the pre-test and control class in vocabulary level test. The result reveals that experimental class tends master more words after the experiment. Thus categorization-based vocabulary teaching method is verified to be feasible and effective in improving students’ breadth of English vocabulary.(2) Concerning the aspect of students’ depth of vocabulary, compared with the traditional class and the pre-test, the experimental class makes much better progress in Word Associates Test. Categorization-based vocabulary teaching method is verified to be feasible and effective in improving students’ breadth of English vocabulary.(3) We can see that control class also achieve better scores in post-test than in pre-test of both vocabulary level test and word association test. Students’ devoting of much time in memorizing words that teacher taught in class may lead to their higher scores in post-test.It is found in this experiment that the teacher plays an important role in guiding students’ acquisition of vocabulary. A complete teaching procedure should consist of both students and the teacher. When faced with a new method, the teachers’ function can not to be neglected. Thus, this empirical study opens up a way to prove the effectiveness of categorization-based method from the perspective of the teacher’ guidance. |
PDF Full Text Request