On The Application Of Schema Theory To The Teaching And Learning Of English Vocabulary In Senior High Schools

The acquisition of vocabulary is an essential part of a language.British Wilkinson(1972:111)once said,“Without grammar,very little can be conveyed;without vocabulary,nothing can be conveyed.” Thus,cultivatingstudents' ability to use vocabulary is the foundation of improving their comprehensive language ability.According to the New English Curriculum Standard for Senior High schools set by the Chinese Ministry of Education,students of Level 8 should master 3300-3500 words,400-500 idioms and collocations.At the same time,students are requested to “form effective English learning strategies ",because "learning strategy is a prerequisite for improvement of the learning efficiency and the development of autonomous learning ability."(Chinese Ministry of Education,2003: 20-21)Therefore,it is a common thinking for all the English teachers to explore some effective vocabulary teaching methods to cultivate the students' vocabulary learning strategies.Recently,more and more scholars at home and abroad have begun to focus on Schema,and paid attention to the relationship between schema-based language teaching and students' learning strategies.However,the research on English vocabulary teaching based on schema theory in senior high school is less.The purpose of this thesis is to explore the influence of schema-based methods of vocabulary teaching on senior high school students andfind out more efficient methods of vocabulary teaching.The research aims to answer the following questions.1.What problems may arise in the application of Schema Theory to the English Vocabulary Teaching in senior high schools?2.What are the possible causes for these problems? What are the feasible ways to solve these problems?The author conducted a three-month action research in Zhengzhou No.18 High School,in HenanProvince.116 students of two parallel classes were involved in the research,including 56 students of Class 5 and 60 students of Class 6.The author applied schema theory to vocabulary classes in the two experimental classes during the experiment.Based on the methodology of an action research,the author employed questionnaires,pre-test,post-test,interview and classroom observation in the research.On the basis of data collection and analysis,the major findings of the research are as follows:Firstly,though schema-based methods of vocabulary teaching can improve the students' interest in vocabulary learning,not all the students could benefit from the vocabulary teaching based on schema theory.There were also around 20% students who werestill not interested in vocabulary learning;and their progress was not obvious.Besides,some students found it difficult to follow English teacher during Schema-based vocabulary teaching classes.There were also some students who argued there was too much pressure during the experiment.The problem above arose mainly because of individual differences between students;not all the students could accept new learning strategiesactively.Especially for some lower students,because of their weak foundation of English and low interestin English,they were not willing to accept new strategies.Besides,the teacher explained too many complex roots of words,rules of pronunciation,and culture behind words,whichbrought students much pressure and low interest.Therefore,teachers must consider students' actual situation and pay more attention to students' individual differences when applying schema to English vocabulary teaching in high school.Meanwhile,problems should be found timely and solved timely.Meanwhile,teachers should adopt appropriate schema and reduce the content and just employ the most related and interesting material in class to improve these students' awareness of strategies and culture.