Study On Application Of Prototype Category Theory To English Vocabulary Teaching In Senior Middle School

Vocabulary is the carrier of phonetics and grammar, which is the most basic material of language. High school English vocabulary teaching is an important part of English teaching; it directly affects the use of students’ English ability and development, and directly affects the quality of high school English teaching. The new curriculum syllabus of senior English puts forward new challenges for vocabulary teaching, students are required to master 3,300-4,200 words and 300-500 phrases or idioms, teachers are required to start from the perspective of vocabulary use rather than from the perspective of definition. Confined by the boring traditional vocabulary teaching method, students’ vocabulary learning is simple and restricted. Therefore, to explore a new type of vocabulary teaching is imperative.The prototype category theory pays attention to the deep contacts of vocabulary’s multi-meaning and multi-use and classification learning. This study applied prototype category theory to guide the high school English vocabulary teaching, and a teaching experiment was done to measure whether vocabulary teaching based on prototype category theory helps to improve the vocabulary learning ability of students. In this study, the author chose two classes, one for experimental group, the other for control group; a two-month experiment about ability of using vocabulary learning strategies based on the theory of the prototype was done in experimental group. Students in both groups were invited to fulfill the questionnaire about the ability of using vocabulary learning strategies before and after the experiment. A mid-test paper to test the effects of incidental vocabulary acquisition was carried in the middle of experiment. A post-test paper was to testify the comprehensive ability of words learning after experiment. Finally, SPSS 17.0 was used to analyze all the data, so as to demonstrate the effectiveness of vocabulary teaching based on the theory of the prototype.Questionnaire data analysis showed that the vocabulary learning strategy ability of experimental group was significantly higher than that of control group, so the vocabulary teaching under the guidance of prototype category theory helped to cultivate the students’ ability of vocabulary learning strategies; Mid-test results showed that the vocabulary teaching based on the prototype category theory helped to promote students’ incidental vocabulary acquisition; Experimental group got significantly higher scores than that of control group in the post-test, the results manifested that English vocabulary teaching based on the prototype category theory helped to enhance the ability of students’ vocabulary learning, furthermore, the students’ abilities of word-formation association, grouping strategy, guessing strategy have been increased significantly.The focus of this study is to guide students to use strategies to learn and memorize vocabulary, to improve the students’ ability of using vocabulary learning strategies, so as to improve the quality of vocabulary teaching. The results and findings provides some beneficial basis and reference to the further research and vocabulary teaching.