An Empirical Study Of English Preposition Teaching In Junior High School Based On Image Schema Theory

For English teachers,vocabulary teaching is the key point and difficult point all the time.Due to the different senses in different situations,the difficulty of vocabulary teaching increased,and this is especially true for prepositions.Although simple in form and limited in number,the prepositions are unique in terms of morphology,semantics and syntax.When applied in different situations and collocated with different words,many rare senses which are not understood easily by students emerge.As far as traditional methods concerned,the usage and collocation of prepositions are usually fixed and conventional.Students are asked to memorize these usages and collocations by rote,which leads to ineffective learning results.With the development of cognitive linguistics,researchers,both abroad and at home,have been on to explore the possibility of applying the theories of cognitive linguistics to applied linguistics and English teaching.However,few empirical studies have applied image schema theory to preposition teaching.The study aims to explore the effectiveness and availability of preposition teaching in Junior high schools based on image schema.Based on the theory of image schema and dual coding theory,thethesis mainly focuses on the following three questions: 1)For junior high school students,what are the immediate effects of preposition teaching based on image schema? 2)For junior high school students,what are the delayed effects of preposition teaching based on image schema? 3)What's the attitude of junior high school students toward preposition teaching based on image schema?Students from two intact classes,Class 1401 and Class 1402(41students and 40 students respectively),Grade Three,in Taiping Middle School in Yuelu District,Changsha,participated in the study,which lasted for two months.Before the experiment,the students were asked to have a pretest to ensure there's no significant differences in preposition learning between these two classes.Next,the teaching treatment was conducted.Class 1401 was chosen as the experimental class(EG),in which the teacher applied the new method;Class 1402 the control class(CG),following the traditional method.On the day after the experiment,the immediate post-test was done and the questionnaire was also finished.A month later,the delayed post-test of which students were not informed was conducted.Here are the findings of the study: 1)Compared with the traditional method,the preposition teaching based on image schema is superior in the immediate test as well as the delayed test.2)The junior high school students have a positive attitude toward preposition learning based onimage schema.The results manifest that applying the theory of image schema to the preposition teaching in junior high school is effective and available.Applying the new method can help students to understand and memorize the prototypical senses and extended senses of a preposition.However,students need more time to get used to the new method and therefore further studies are expected.