Research On The Application Of Context Theory To English Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High School

New Curriculum Standards(2017 ed.)has emphasized that vocabulary learning is not an isolated word drilling,but a comprehensive language practice in a specific context combined with specific themes.However,in today's vocabulary lesson,traditional vocabulary teaching approach is mainly adopted,which only lay emphasis on explaining vocabulary out of context and doing a large number of mechanical exercises.Students learn the vocabulary passively,resulting in unsatisfactory vocabulary teaching effect.Namely,it's difficult for students to understand and apply vocabulary in context,and they don't know how to learn vocabulary by themselves independently.Obviously,the ideals of New Curriculum Standards is not perfectly reflected in the English vocabulary class.Compared with traditional vocabulary teaching,context-based vocabulary teaching can be used as an effective external means to arouse students' interest,thus arousing students' internal learning initiative and engagement.These ideals juxtapose with the requirements of English curriculum reform.Under the background of New Curriculum Standards,this thesis applies context theory as a theory foundation,taking National Matriculation English Test(NMET)papers as a carrier,which aims to verify the effects of context theory on vocabulary teaching.Three research questions are discussed: 1)Whether the application of contextbased vocabulary teaching could improve senior high-school students' vocabulary grades from NMET papers? 2)What are these students' changes in vocabulary learning interest,attitudes and strategies through context-based vocabulary teaching? 3)Why do senior high school students have these changes based on context-based vocabulary teaching? In order to answer these questions,the author has conducted a three-month research in two parallel classes from senior two students in Chengdu.A total of seventysix students from two classes(37 in the control class and 39 in the experimental class),with approximately the same English levels,are selected as the research subjects.The teaching materials include Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press Book six and seven and NMET papers.Meanwhile,tests,questionnaires and interview are used as experimental tools.During the experiment,traditional vocabulary teaching is maintained in the control class while the experimental class is exposed to context-based vocabulary teaching.That is,the experimental class integrates linguistic context and non-linguistic context theory into NMET papers,and takes NMET types as a specific context.Vocabulary tests have been conducted either in the controlled or the experiment class before and after the experiment,and the results of the test grades have been analyzed by SPSS 24.0.In addition,questionnaires have been assigned to the experimental class to explore the changes of students' vocabulary learning interest,attitudes and strategies,and six students in different grades have been interviewed to analyze the reasons behind these changes.Based on all findings of the statistical analysis and also supported by questionnaires and interview results,it demonstrates that context-based vocabulary teaching can help senior high school students to derive the unknown vocabulary more accurately,enable these students to skillfully employ topic-related vocabulary to write,thus improving students' vocabulary grades from NMET papers.Additionally,NMET types,as a specific context,can develop students' vocabulary learning interest,attitudes and strategies.Moreover,combined with the findings of this study,the author proposes some suggestions to teachers and students,providing inspiration for future English vocabulary teaching.