A Study On The Integration Of Explicit And Implicit Instruction Into English Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High Schools

The National English Curriculum Standard for Common Senior High School(2017 Edition)pinpoints that students should master 4000-4200 words(for high-level learners)and apply the words appropriately according to different contexts.However,in the current teaching practice,the teaching results are not relatively satisfactory,which requires educators to make more efforts on exploring vocabulary teaching methods.Some previous studies have implied that explicit instruction and implicit instruction are conductive to improve the teaching status quo.In the explicit instruction process,teachers,occupying a dominant position,put forward specific teaching objectives and guide students to conduct purposeful learning,while teachers assist students to learn vocabulary in context in a student-centered way in the implicit instruction process.Theoretical and practical studies indicate that explicit instruction is efficient but dull while implicit instruction is laborious but funny.Both have pluses and minuses.Therefore,this thesis attempts to adopt an experimental method to explore whether the integration of explicit and implicit instruction is effective in improving senior English vocabulary teaching.The following three research questions are addressed in this study.1.What effects does the integration of explicit and implicit instruction have on senior high school students' vocabulary learning results?2.Besides the effects on senior high school students' vocabulary learning results,what effects does the integration of explicit and implicit instruction have on their attitude?3.How can explicit and implicit instruction be integrated into senior English vocabulary teaching?The research sub jects selected in this study were 90 students from two senior one parallel classes in Nanjing.Before and after the experiment,tests and questionnaires were used to explore the effects of explicit and implicit instruction on students' vocabulary learning results.Independent sample T-test was applied to check whether there was significant difference in students' vocabulary learning results before and after the experiment.Paired sample T-test was used to compare the difference in students' learning results between the pre-test and the post-test in the experiment group.Moreover,the questionnaire data before and after the experiment was compared to explore the effects of explicit and implicit instruction on students' attitude to vocabulary learning.At last,the integration mode was put forward based on the data and case analysis.The major findings are as follows:Firstly,compared with the explicit instruction,the integration of explicit and implicit instruction was more effective in improving the students' vocabulary learning results.Besides,the improvement of elementary and intermediate students was significant.Secondly,under the integration of explicit and implicit instruction,students held more positive attitude towards vocabulary learning and paid more attention to lexical form and its application.Thirdly,on the basis of the case analysis,the integration of explicit and implicit instruction mainly consist ed of 9 steps “creating context – input – phasic summary – practice – evaluation – task practice – discussion-summary”.All in all,the experiment verified the feasibility of integrating explicit instruction with implicit instruction into senior English vocabulary teaching.