An Empirical Study Of Inquiry Teaching Of English Synonyms In Senior High School From The Perspective Of Context Theory

With the implementation of the new curriculum standards,it is becoming more and more important to cultivate students’ comprehensive language ability in English teaching.Vocabulary is the foundation of language,and the use of language cannot be separated from the speaker’s choice of words in communication.There are a lot of words in English language that are similar in meaning but different in mood,applicable object and color of praise and criticism.We call them synonyms.How to improve students’ interest in synonyms and how to guide students to apply them correctly in the proper context are two major problems that teachers face in the teaching of synonyms.The present method of teaching synonyms has some difficulties in stimulating students’ interest in learning and improving their ability to distinguish synonyms.Therefore,the teaching of synonyms needs a new teaching model to make up for the deficiencies of the current teaching methods.Based on constructivism learning theory and context theory,the author combines inquiry teaching with context theory to form a five-step inquiry method which is suitable for English synonym teaching,and applies it to this stage of teaching practice.In this study,96 students from two parallel classes in a middle school in Harbin were taken as samples.By combining quantitative and qualitative research methods,a four-month teaching study was conducted to solve the following two problems:1.Can inquiry teaching from the perspective of context theory enhance students’ interest in synonyms?2.Can the inquiry teaching from the perspective of context theory enhance students’ ability to discriminate synonyms?After the experiment,through comparative analysis of the data obtained from the empirical research,the author found that the inquiry teaching under the context theory can improve students’ interest in learning synonyms and discrimination ability.To some extent,this study enriches the teaching methods of English synonyms in senior high schools,and makes up for the deficiency of current teaching of synonyms which neglects to cultivate students’ interest and can not effectively improve students’ ability to distinguish synonyms.At the same time,it provides some theoretical basis for the application of inquiry teaching in the teaching of synonyms.