Improving Senior Middle School Students' English Vocabulary Through Application Of Context Input

Vocabulary learning is just a beginning of language learning. Many researchers have been found that students' vocabulary and the ability of the mastery have a great effect on their English scores. Traditional vocabulary teaching emphasizes very much on teachers' main position, which can't help students form good vocabulary learning strategies. Context is a certain communication environment, which restricts the understanding and expression of language; from context, it is difficult to determine its connotation in isolation. This paper is intended to explore how to make the most of context theory to improve vocabulary teaching in high school. The exploration is to be based on the author's investigation into the application of context in high school vocabulary teaching and learning, students' use of context strategies and causes of the problems.Assumptions of this paper:1. Students will enlarge vocabulary through application of Context Input2. Students will remember vocabulary more easily through application of Context Input.The author randomly selected the two parallel classes from senior two in our school (Wuhai No. ten middle school), to survey how to memorize words from questionnaires and interviews in the two classes of students. Before the questionnaire, the author learned from the classroom teachers that there were no significant differences between the two classes of students' taught by the same teacher. Interview and questionnaire survey results have shown that most students used to adopting the way of rote memory word, and only less than ten percent of the students used scientific vocabulary cognitive strategy to memorize words. Teaching practice has proved that using of the traditional spoon-feeding teaching methods to memorize vocabulary, students' learning efficiency is wasted effort, and often don't get good teaching effect. Through interviews with students, students also expected to improve their vocabulary learning efficiency by changing the vocabulary learning strategies. The researcher used context approach in the experimental class, while in the control class the traditional method of teaching was used.In the next four-month experiment, the author adopted context application in experimental classes, while control class was still use the traditional way of teaching.SPSS statistical analysis showed that the application of context promoted high school English vocabulary teaching is superior to the traditional teaching, which is helpful for students to master good vocabulary learning strategies, and improve their learning efficiency and the university entrance exam scores. Using the context as an adjuvant vocabulary teaching method can achieve the shift of teaching subject, that is, from the teacher-centered teaching to the student-centered learning. Students can be changed from passive to active learning, thus further improve the learning efficiency.