The Application Of Spreading Activation Model To English Vocabulary Teaching Of Grade Two In Senior High School ——A Case Study Of Xingzhi Senior High School In Changji

Vocabulary is essential in language learning.Students’ capacity to listen,speak,read,and write in English is directly influenced by their mastery of English vocabulary.The National English Curriculum Standard for General Senior High School（2020）requires teachers to reduce the teaching of isolated vocabulary,emphasizes the semantic relationships between vocabulary and aims to make students learn words in context.The Spreading Activation Model proposed by Collins and Quillian（1975）is a semantic network model consisting of interconnected nodes.It represents human mental lexicon,which is connected together by semantic relationship,pronunciation and syntax.Therefore,the author applies the Spreading Activation Model to senior high school English vocabulary teaching,which aims to explore the effects of the Spreading Activation Model on students’ English vocabulary learning when it is employed as a new teaching method in class.The paper focuses on the following three questions :（1）What is the situation of senior two high school students’ English vocabulary learning attitudes and habits before the experiment?（2）What are the effects of Spreading Activation Model on students’ vocabulary performance?（3）What are the impacts of SAM on English vocabulary learning attitudes and habits of senior two high school students?Under the guidance of semantic field theory,schema theory and information processing theory,the author chooses two parallel classes at Grade 2 of Xingzhi Senior High School in Changji at random,with a total of 100 students as research subjects.Class 5 and Class 6 are the two parallel classes.Class 6 is the experimental class where the teacher adopts the Spreading Activation Model to teach vocabulary.As the control class,class 5 uses the traditional method of explaining word meanings.In the process of the experiment,the author makes full use of questionnaires,tests and interviews to collect data.Before the experiment,the author conducts the pre-tests in the two classes and distributes pre-questionnaires on their vocabulary learning attitudes and habits.After the experiment,the author conducts the post-test in the two classes but only distributes post-questionnaires in the experimental class.The author also interviews six students from the experimental class.At last,the author use SPSS 26.0 to analyze the relevant data.The results of this study show that:（1）As for the pre-questionnaire before the experiment,students have negative attitudes towards vocabulary learning and weak autonomous learning abilities in terms of vocabulary learning habits.They mainly rely on word lists and teachers’ explanations.（2）According to the differences between the pre-test B and post-test results,the Spreading Activation Model can improve students’ vocabulary performance and their English grades.（3）In the post-questionnaire after the experiment,students’ attitudes towards vocabulary learning has changed from negative to positive,and their habits of learning words have also changed.The interview content shows that students strongly approve the effects of the Spreading Activation Model on vocabulary learning,and can flexibly apply the model to learn vocabulary according to their own situation.Therefore,when teaching vocabulary to senior high school students,teachers can adopt the Spreading Activation Model to vocabulary teaching.At the end of the paper,the author comes up with some pedagogical implications according to the results of this study,and also provides some teaching advice for using the Spreading Activation Model to senior high school English vocabulary teaching.