A Study Of English Preposition Instruction In Junior High Schools Based On Metaphor Theory

Because of their complex and flexible collocations,prepositions are always regarded as difficult issues both in teaching and learning English.However,the traditional preposition teaching assumed that meanings of prepositions are arbitrary,and without any regular pattern,so learning by rote is considered to be the most efficient way for students.Actually,it is only efficient superficially,and students cannot apply it properly exclusively depending on memorize.Therefore,neither teachers nor students are satisfied with the teaching results.Cognitive linguists believe that meanings of each preposition are related with each other.Firstly,each preposition has a central and the most concrete meaning which is highly related to our daily life.Secondly,the rest meanings of a preposition are extended from the most central one.Thirdly,we can simplify the preposition teaching by following a sequence from concrete ones to abstract ones.Last but not least,metaphor theory can fully demonstrate the semantic network of prepositions.The present study focuses on the effects of English preposition instruction based on metaphor theory for learners' learning.Besides,the learners' attitudes toward the English preposition instruction based on metaphor theory are also explored.Following are two research questions of this study: 1)What's the effect of preposition instruction based on metaphor theory? 2)What are the students' attitudes toward preposition instruction based on metaphor theory?The subjects of this research are 116 students of grade two in Zhilan Laboratory Middle School in Changde.They are from two classes.Each class has 58 students.One class was appointed as experimental group and the other one was appointed as control group randomly.The experimental group receives the preposition instruction based on metaphor theory,while the control group receives the traditional preposition instruction.The result of post-test shows that both groups have significant change after the treatment,and there is significant difference between the post-test of two groups as it was expected,indicating that preposition instruction based on metaphor theory is more efficient than traditional preposition instruction.In addition,the result of questionnaire also shows that students are very interested in this way of learning and they will apply metaphor to preposition learning in the future.