An Action Research On The Use Of Pairwork In English Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High School

Vocabulary is an essential part in senior English teaching and learning.At present,teacher-centered vocabulary teaching pattern is dominant in many senior high classes.Teachers are busy presenting the vocabulary while students are busy taking notes,whose idea is totally against that of English New Curriculum,which attaches great importance to the autonomous learning ability of students and demand for more time for students in our English classes.Therefore,it is time for us to figure a new and less time-consuming vocabulary teaching method to return the English class to the students and improve English vocabulary teaching efficiency.More importantly,the New English Curriculum stressing the key competence of English learners makes a request for the pragmatic competence in English,which means vocabulary learning is far from the recite of Chinese meaning or context meaning,it aims to develop learners' English thinking ability.The key in vocabulary teaching is to develop students' English thinking ability by memorizing the meaning of vocabulary,thus having a good command of its usage and collocation.Based on the Cooperative theory,the study aims at figuring out a creative and time-saving and student-centered vocabulary learning and teaching method to improve vocabulary teaching efficiency.The study mainly adopts action research with the aid of questionnaire and interview.Through the one-term study,the author finds that seniors have preference for cooperative learning method in vocabulary learning and they are pleased to be the master of their learning.Besides,pairwork is an efficient and time-saving activity while learning and reviewing words and expressions.It can overcome the shortcomings of individual learning and activate students' interest in vocabulary learning,solve teachers' puzzles in teaching vocabulary and help students recite and understand words and expressions.In the meantime,it can also enrich the cooperative theory by adopting pairwork in vocabulary teaching.It's a study of theoretic value.