Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
With the rapid development of the international exchanges, English is used widely inthe whole world nowadays. In order to get involved in and adapt to the world tide, it isurgent to learn English well. “If we compare language structure as the sketch of language,vocabulary is the thing that provides important organs as well as blood and flesh” (Harmer,153). However, Krashen even points out that one cannot learn a language withoutvocabulary. What they said above suggests that vocabulary is the indispensable and basicpart of the language learning. Without vocabulary, it is hard for us to communicate withothers. Just as building construction, a high building is composed of bricks. It is the samewith the vocabulary to language learning. As what the linguist David Wilkins concludedabout the importance of the vocabulary, “without grammar very little can be conveyed,without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed”. It is widely accepted by language teachersand researchers that the knowledge of vocabulary is essential for being able tocommunicate in second language (Kormos, 2006). In order to make the learners understandand communicate with the English speakers fluently, the teaching of vocabulary isinevitable. Therefore, for the English teachers, their focus should be on how to teachEnglish vocabulary in an effective way.It is known to us that majority of the teachers apply the traditional way by providingthe pronunciation, spelling, example phrases and simple sentences to the students whenteach them the English vocabulary in class nowadays. However, it only emphasizes theimportance of the English score in the test rather than the communication ability. Fromanother aspect, students follow teachers’ guidance and write down the key points whichthey get from teachers passively and seriously. Eventually, their vocabulary storage isexpanded to a large extent, but many errors appear in their speaking and writing aspects,which suggests the low efficiency happens in the language learning. In short, teachingEnglish in a mechanical way only adapts to the exam-oriented education because littleattention is paid on vocabulary usage. As a result, students’ proficiency in communicationskill which is related to the lexical competence is not well developed in the process ofEnglish learning.
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1.2 Purposes of the Study
There is a universal phenomenon existing among the high school students. They showlittle interest in vocabulary learning. Through many years’ hard work after theimplementation of the new curriculum standard, teachers have realized the importance ofvocabulary teaching. Nevertheless, there is still no practical and viable approach commonlyused in most class for the vocabulary teaching. This thesis is designed to have a good try byadopting the situational teaching method in the field of vocabulary teaching. The purposesof the study are showed below:Briefly speaking, we can list the purposes of the study as following:
1) To find out the drawbacks in the present vocabulary teaching. For example, mostEnglish teachers use the traditional way to teach vocabulary but overlook its usage.
2) To change the class atmosphere by adopting the situational teaching method toarose the students’ interest in English vocabulary learning.
3) To enhance middle school students’ ability and competence in using the vocabularyflexibly in the certain context.
4) To improve the students’ communicative competence in English to meet the need ofthe globalization.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 Relevant Researches about Vocabulary Teaching
In this chapter, the basic knowledge about the vocabulary acquisition is presented atthe very beginning. Then, the author tries to find out the drawbacks in the vocabularyteaching by using the traditional teaching method in the present high school. Then, variousresearches at home and abroad about their vocabulary teaching and development areprovided for the general picture of the present study. It is well known to us that English is a language highly developed in the world.Therefore, with the development of the English language, English vocabulary is becomingricher and richer. As Michael Lewis (2000:8) said, the single most important task facinglanguage learners is acquiring a sufficiently large vocabulary. So the importance of theEnglish vocabulary is obvious. Because of the large amount of English vocabulary, theeffective method to teach the vocabulary is of great importance for the English teacher ondeveloping a positive influence on the real understanding and grasping the vocabulary andusing the English effectively in the communication.As what Shu Baimei explains in his book, Modern Foreign Language TeachingMethodology, knowing a word involves knowing its meaning, form and use. Knowing aword is not just mean that we know how to pronounce, spell a word and know its meaningwith the help of dictionary about its corresponding Chinese meaning. But only satisfy thefollowing conditions, we can say that we know a word.
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2.2 Relevant Research about Situational Teaching Method
The Webster’s New World Dictionary gives a definition of the word context as “theparts of a sentence, paragraph, discourse etc, immediately next to or surrounding a specifiedword or passage and determining its exact meaning.”Oxford English Dictionary (2000: 281) defines “context” as two primary meanings: 1).The structure, framework, environment, situation, circumstance. 2). Ambience or ambiance,surround, surroundings, frame (of reference), setting, background.In the reality of spoken or written languages, a word without linguistic context is amere figment and stands for nothing by itself. So in the reality of a spoken living tongue,the utterance has no meaning except in the context of situation. (Malinlowski, 1923: 467)Rumelhart (1977) defined “context means the total environment in which a wordappears. The new word interacts with other words and the learner can acquire its meaning from the context”.According to Chinese scholar Zhang Yunfei (Zhang Yunfei 1986: 241), the context isno longer restricted to what immediately precedes and follows, but may cover the wholepassage and sometimes the whole book in which a word occurs, and in some cases even theentire social or cultural setting.
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Chapter 3 Theoretical Framework........ 16
3.1 Constructive Theory ......... 16
3.2 Input Theory ......... 21
3.2.1 Input Theory in Gass’s Second Language Acquisition Theory ..... 21
3.3.2 Krashen’s Input Theory ..... 23
Chapter 4 Methodology...... 25
4.1 Purposes of the Study ....... 25
4.2 Subjects of the Study ........ 25
4.3 Action Research.... 26
4.4 Instruments of the Study......... 27
4.5 Time and Arrangement of the Study......... 29
4.6 Experimental Procedure ......... 30
Chapter 5 Data Analysis ..... 33
5.1 Analysis of the Communication ......... 33
5.2 Analysis of the Interview........ 33
5.3 Analysis of the Questionnaire....... 35
5.4 Result of the Experiment........ 40
Chapter 5 Data Analysis
5.1 Analysis of the Communication
Compared with the traditional teaching method, the teachers involved in the situationalteaching method all come to an agreement that a better atmosphere resulting from theapplication of the situational teaching method leads to an improvement of the classroomteaching. In the class, the students involved in the class take an active part in the classactivity with high spirit and enthusiasm. To our surprise, the students who are poor in theEnglish tests also change their attitude and manner in the class. They can repeat sentences,make simple sentences and even make up stories by using the newly learned vocabulary. Inthe process of learning, they not only enhance their personal satisfaction in vocabularylearning, but also improve their motivation and confidence in the English learning. Interview is a research approach applied to experiment which collects the data andinformation by means of oral communication. This is a direct way to know the procedureand result of the research. During the implementation of the study, teachers attach greatimportance to students’ learning effect. In this study, two interviews are provided for theteacher to gather more convincible data.
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Conclusion
This chapter draws a conclusion on the situational teaching method applied in thevocabulary teaching. In this chapter, major findings, the implications of the study and therecommendations for future research are illustrated. the interests of the students are greatly improved. In the traditional teachingmethod, the students learn the English passively. They just have to listen to the teachercarefully and make notes about what they have learned in the class and memorize the keypoints after the class. It is too boring for the students to passively accept what teacher saidwithout active participation. The teacher plays a dominant role in the class, for the thoughtof the students are not evoked. While in the situational teaching method, the teacher designsthe teaching plan for the good of the students’ English learning. At the beginning of thevocabulary teaching, the teacher raises questions about the vocabulary to arouse theinterests of the students. The provided situations or the comprehensible inputs are presentedbefore the students, which provide a real situation for the students to acquire the authenticlanguage and apply the authentic English in the real communication. In the situation, thestudents’ interests are aroused by the teacher. According to the communication, interviewand questionnaire, both teachers and students believe that students involved in theexperiment improve a lot on the aspects of interest and confidence. After they observe theperformances of students in the class, communicate with the teachers and studentsthemselves, teachers draw a conclusion that the experiment is effective to the students onthe development of their interests and confidence on English vocabulary learning.
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Reference (omitted)