An Experimental Study On The Effects Of Semantic Mapping Training On Primary School Pupils' English Vocabulary Learning

This thesis combining Memory Theory with Schema Theory and Semantic Field Theory,presents a semantic mapping teaching research which emphasizes three major types of semantic relationships--synonyms and antonyms,hyponymy and meronymy,polysemy and homonymy,collocation to discuss the changes and improvements of the pupils' vocabulary retention and semantic association through semantic mapping training.In this study,two questions had been put forward: 1)Does semantic mapping training have a positive influence on primary school pupils' semantic association? 2)Does semantic mapping training have any significant effects on primary school pupils' English vocabulary retention?80 primary school pupils from Class 3 and Class 4 in Grade Six from a primary school in Panyu were chosen by two pretests to participate in the study.One of the two classes was randomly chosen to serve as the Experimental Class and the other as the Control Class.Pupils in the Experimental Class were trained to use the semantic mapping strategy to learn the target words while the pupils in the Control Class were required to memorize the new words after informing them the meaning,spelling,grammar,collocation,synonyms and antonyms of the words.Data were collected with two instruments,including questionnaire and tests(mid-test and post-test)during the study.The questionnaire is used to measure the effects of semantic mapping training on semantic association during the experiment and after the experiment.The purpose of using the mid-test and the post-test is to measure the effects of semantic mapping training on English vocabulary retention during the experiment and after the experiment.The results of the questionnaire showed that,a large majority of pupils in EC tend to use semantic association strategies such as synonyms(82.5% in EC,51.5% in CC),antonyms(91.5% in EC,51% in CC),grammar and collocation(92% in EC,64.5% in CC),semantic relation(96.5% in EC,55% in CC),grouping(91% in EC,60.5% in CC),and connecting the words with the part-whole relation(84.5% in EC,50% in CC)after semantic mapping training.Compared to CC,the percentages of always and usually using semantic association strategies to learn new word increased in EC after semantic mapping training.The data indicated that semantic mapping training has a positive influence on pupils' semantic association.Through analyzing the results of the tests by Independent Sample Test in SPSS19.0,we can find that pupils in EC performed much better than the pupils in CC(P=.048 in the mid-test and P=.018 in the post-test).The results of the questionnaire and the tests indicated that semantic mapping training can improve pupils semantic association and English vocabulary retention.There are three reasons as to why semantic mapping training improve pupils' semantic association.Firstly,semantic mapping strategy helps pupils to organize the new word through systematic semantic relations and get them ready for retrieval.Secondly,semantic mapping straining is considered feasible to improve pupils' semantic association by building a network of the new word.Thirdly,remembering words by semantic map enhances pupils' semantic association.There are also three reasons that can be analyzed as to why semantic mapping strategy can convert short-term memory into long-term memory in vocabulary learning.First,semantic mapping strategy enforces pupils' processing of the information of the new word through associating the new word with the prior knowledge or experience.Second,the complete knowledge of the new word can make pupils remember the word in long-term.Third,various memorizing ways make pupils master the new word better.The findings tentatively come to the conclusion that semantic mapping training has facilitated primary vocabulary teaching.The limitations of this research were also pointed out in the end.Several teaching suggestions were put forward for English vocabulary teaching and for future research design.The author hopes that this study is of some implications to primary English teachers' vocabulary teaching.