A Study Of The Application Of Frame Semantics To English Listening Teaching In Junior High School

Listening,ranking the first among the four basic skills of language,lays the base for the development of speaking,reading and writing.Therefore,it plays a crucial role in English learning.Listening comprehension is an active process of information processing,during which listeners not only depend on linguistic knowledge but also need to utilize relevant background knowledge to interpret new information.However,in current junior high stage,the traditional listening teaching mode just attaches great importance to pronunciation,new words and grammar structure explanation.The teaching effect is not satisfactory.The thesis takes the application of Frame Semantics to English listening teaching in junior high school as the research subject.The present study strives to explore a more effective listening teaching mode based on the semantic frame theory as well as Underwood's three-phase listening teaching method,and brings out two general research questions:1)Is the new listening teaching model based on semantic frame theory more effective?2)As far as English learners in junior high school are concerned,what functions does frame mainly embody in their listening comprehension process?3)What changes did the students experience in their learning attitude and interest after receiving the new listening teaching mode?The present study is a both qualitative and quantitative research.The subjects are one teacher and 46 Grade nine students from Hetang Central Junior High School in Loudi and the instruments are test paper analysis&collation,teaching experiment,pre-test&post-test,classroom observation and teacher interview as well as student interview,which are used to collect relevant data about the application of Frame Semantics to English listening teaching in junior high school and examine its effectiveness.According to the data collected,the author also can analyze the functions of frames in listening comprehension,and know about the teacher's and students' attitudes towards the new listening teaching model based on semantic frame theory.All the data collected are sorted out and data from pre-test&post-test are keyed into Excel.Descriptive statistics analysis is also conducted.As the results show,the present study gains the following findings:Firstly,through analyzing the entrance examination papers for senior high school over the years from 2012 to 2016 in Loudi,the author cleared up 17 topics which have been high-frequently chosen as the question-setting scope.According to the topic key words,corresponding frames were retrieved from the FrameNet lexical database.Each frame has its frame description,frame elements,relevant semantic encyclopedic knowledge and the like,which,during the preparatory phase of teaching experiments,were explained and illustrated to the experimental group in detail,frame by frame.Therefore,the experimental group has an all-round and clear understanding of the 17 frames.In addition,in order to integrate the semantic frame theory into listening teaching practice better,the author explored a new frame-based listening teaching mode and conducted listening teaching practice based on the mode.Secondly,from the contrast of the performances of experimental group and control group in pre-test&post-test,it can be found that the average score of the experimental group has risen so quickly,while the control group improved comparatively slowly.In other words,the new listening teaching model based on semantic frame theory is more effective than the traditional one.Towards the new mode,the teacher and most students take a positive attitude.They think that the acquisition of frames and the new teaching mode play an active role in improving listening comprehension.Thirdly,Frame knowledge mainly embodies the following several functions:1)facilitate listening learners to predict what might be said;2)assist listening learners to make inferences;3)help listening learners process information by reducing information processing load;4)contribute to achieve automatic processing of information in listening learners' mind.In the light of the findings,several implications for English listening teaching in junior high school are proposed.Teachers should combine listening with reading.That's to say,students are encouraged to read more so as to accumulate more background knowledge and broaden their scope of knowledge.Meanwhile,teachers must pay more attention to the preparatory work before listening.They are supposed to adopt a variety of ways to arouse students' background knowledge in their mind and activate relevant frames for the purpose of reasonable prediction.And furthermore,along with subsequent information input,teachers should instruct their students to revise and enrich a specific frame through fast-noting,guessing,associating,inferring,etc.