A Study On The Application Of Context Theory In Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High School

Vocabulary teaching is an essential part of English teaching.Vocabulary learning is closely related to relevant context about the words.Comprehending the meaning of words in fixed context can not only benefit memorization,but also avoid the embarrassment of being unable to use.Originally,the concept of context was proposed by Polish anthropologist Malinowski who once claimed that utterances were related to the environment;linguistic context was imperative to language comprehension.Under the guidance of The Senior English New Curriculum Standard,increasing number of teachers pay attention to the effectiveness of vocabulary teaching.However,problems still exist in it.For instance,some teachers still present words by the way of explaining words list;the way of memorizing and teaching new words is much too mechanical;the learning process is passive.As a result,little can be gained from the vast investment of time and energy.Without improving their learning efficiency,students will easily lose self-confidence.The issue of how to improve learners' vocabulary learning competence is puzzling teachers constantly.Trials be made,little can be done to solve the problem.Based on this situation,context theory is applied to senior high school English teaching in this paper.After experimenting for 4 months,it is hopeful to find effective ways of teaching vocabulary.To begin with,relevant references on context at home and abroad as well as the application of context theory in vocabulary teaching are reviewed so as to construct the theoretical framework supported by Gagne's information process theory,communicative approach and input-output hypothesis.Then,context theory is applied to senior high school vocabulary teaching,so as to testify the following two questions.First,can the application of context theory in senior high school promote students' vocabulary achievements? Second,can the application of context theory in senior high school promote students' capability of using vocabulary?Under the guidance of the theories,two classes in grade one are chosen as experimental subjects to conduct the experiment of the application of context theory in vocabulary.Class 7 serves as the experiment class,and Class 8 the control class,both of which possess 50 students.The experiment lasts for 4 months.In the process of experiment,traditional vocabulary teaching is adopted in the control class,while context theory is reinforced in the experimental class,mainly in the steps of presentation and consolidation of new words.After the experiment,by using SPSS17.0 to analyze the data before and after the two tests,a conclusion is made.It shows that before the experiment,the level of English vocabulary in the two classes are approximately the same,while after the experiment,levels of the experiment class rises evidently,which shows that the application of context theory in vocabulary can not only improve students' learning efficiency,but also improve their ability of using new words.It can be concluded from the research that applying context theory into senior high school is an effective teaching method,which changes the tedious teaching atmosphere,fits for the rule the vocabulary cognition and memorization,arouses learners' interest in vocabulary learning,and accordingly strengthens their confidence on English learning.