Chapter One Introduction
1.1Background of the Thesis
Vocabulary is the basis and backbone of English learning. Some scholars believethat vocabulary acquisition is the center of L2 acquisition. The amount of vocabulary xiperson has directly affects the development of his/her listening, speaking，reading andwriting skills，because learners may feel that many of their difficulties in both receptiveand productive language use result from an inadequate vocabulary (Nation, 2004). It issafe to say that without the knowledge of vocabulary, language teaching will turn outto be a castle in the air. This is particularly true of teaming a foreign language.Therefore, whether a person has a good command of vocabulary plays a very importantpart in his/her English learning process. As for the significance of vocabulary in English learning, the following are somefamous quotations:"Without grammar，very little can be conveyed; without vocabulary, nothing canbe conveyed." (D. Wilkins，1972:16)As Wang Rongpei said，"People may master the rules of grammar during a certainshort period, but they can not master all the words even during the whole life," "Thegreatest difficulty in learning English rests with the learning and mastering of thewords." (2000)"No matter how well the student leams grammar，no matter how successfullyhe/she masters the sounds of a second language，without words to express a wide rangeof meanings or understand other people's thoughts and opinions, communication inthat language cannot happen in any meaningful way." (MaCarthy，1990)Delia and Hocking thought, "If you spend a lot of time learning grammar，littlecan you improve your English; however, if you spend much time learning vocabularyand phrasing, much progress you will certainly make. With grammar, very little can besaid; however, with vocabulary, almost everything can be expressed?” (2000)From the above, we can see that vocabulary plays a vital role in English learning;therefore，a certain amount of vocabulary is essential to English learning.
…………
1.2Purpose of the Thesis
Through quantitative and qualitative research methods, the thesis is intended totestify whether the association mode can facilitate the improvement of Englishvocabulary learning ability of second-year junior middle school students and to inspectwhether the association mode can encourage students to form autonomous andexploratory learning habits.The significance of the present study lies in that it aims at probing into the feasibility of the association mode in English vocabulary teaching and learning injunior middle schools; it also tries to provide a new analytical thinking of Englishvocabulary learning and better help students memorize English words from a deeperangle rather than enlarging the size of English vocabulary merely.
…………
Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Related Research Abroad
According to Wang Zonghua and Liu Zhenqian，it was not until 1970s of lastcentury that people began to attach importance to vocabulary teaching and learning.Generally speaking, the development of vocabulary teaching and learning abroad hasundergone the following four stages: (a). pre-"Vocabulary Control Movement" period(before 1930s); (b). the "Vocabulary Control Movement" period (from 1930s to 1960s);(c). flourishing period (1970s); and (d). blossoming period (from 1980s till nowadays).(1994)Before 1930s, people were still quite vague about vocabulary teaching andlearning，and little importance was attached to vocabulary teaching and learning.Languages learners at that time just memorized vocabulary mechanically.Till 1930s，the “Vocabulary Control Movement" began to flourish in the field oflanguage teaching and learning (Here, "vocabulary control" means when preparing thereading materials or language teaching, teachers should control the use of vocabularyaccording to word lists or some other standards.), and language learners were requiredto grasp the basic vocabulary. From 1940s to 1960s，against the background ofAmerican Linguistics, vocabulary was pushed into the background and its importancewas upgraded to a secondary level in the teaching of foreign languages. In Britain，more attention was paid to vocabulary, but English teaching just paid attention mainlyto the selection of vocabulary for teaching and did not deal with the issue of learnersand their needs. (O'Malley et al.，1989)
……………
2.2 Related Research at Home
The following part makes a survey of studies at home on vocabulary learningstrategies, application of schema theory in English vocabulary teaching and learning,and application of associative-mode based strategy in English vocabulary teaching andlearning, all of which are the crucial foundations of the present study. In other words，itis those that make sure of the feasibility and efficiency of this thesis. According to Wen Qiufang & Wang Lifei，in 1984，Huang Xiaohua's dissertationAn Investigation of Learning Strategies in Oral Communication that Chinese EFLLearners in China Employ marked the beginning of the study on learning strategies inChina. From then to 2003，it can be pided into two stages~the budding stage(1984-1992) and initiating stage (1992-2003). In nearly twenty years，38 articles areabout the empirical research on English learning strategies, of which 8 are concerningvocabulary learning strategies. However, there are only two studies (Xu Yulong, 2003;Su Yuanlian, 2003) relating to middle school students (2004: 39-45).Of the eight articles about vocabulary learning strategies, five explored therelation between vocabulary strategies and the testing results of vocabulary (Gu Yongqi,1994; Gu Yongqi & Johnson，1996; Wang Wenyu, 1998: 49-94; Wu Xia & WangQiang, 1998: 55-59; and Zhang Ping, 2001: 442-449); one investigated the vocabularylearning strategies employed by children (Chen Hua & Zhang Yifang, 2001: 100-106);one tested the effect of vocabulary strategy training (Fan Lin & Wang Qinghua, 2002:209-212); and one more made a survey on the relation between the change ofvocabulary strategies and the amount of vocabulary together with English performance(Gu Yongqi & Hu Guangwei，2003).
……………
Chapter Three Theoretical Background for Vocabulary..........11
3.1Schema Theory.........11
3.2Associative Mode.........11
3.2.1Word Sound Association.........12
3.2.2Word Form Association.........12
3.2.3Word Meaning Association.........13
3.3Relationship between Schema Theory and Associative Mode.........13
3.4Relationship between Associative Mode and Vocabulary.........14
Chapter Four Research Design on Associative-mode Based.........15
4.1 Hypotheses of the Research.........15
4.2Subjects of the Experiment.........15
4.3Materials and Instruments.........16
4.3.1Materials of the Experiment.........16
4.3.2Instruments of the Experiment.........18
4.4Methods and Procedures.........20
Chapter Five Results and Discussions about the Experiment.........29
5.1Result Analysis of Data.........29
5.1.1On the Test Papers.........29
5.1.2On the Questionnaire.........42
5.2Findings and Discussions.........46
Chapter Six Conclusions and Implications
6.1 Summary of the Study
The present study is concerned with the effectiveness of associative-mode basedvocabulary teaching and learning in second-year students of Junior Middle School.As mentioned in Section 1.1.1，vocabulary plays an important role in languagelearning. Since nothing can be conveyed without vocabulary，the mastery of wordspartly represents the competence of language learners as well. However, most studentsin Xinjie Central Middle School reflected that the biggest problem they face whenlearning English is that it is hard for them to remember words，which drew the author'sattention.In view of this situation, the author executed the present study and this thesisfinally came into being.In order to better work out the framework of this thesis, the author made anearnest study on the related literature at home and abroad, including the four stages ofthe development of vocabulary, English vocabulary learning strategies, and theapplication of schema theory and associative-mode based strategy in vocabularyteaching and learning, which lays a firm foundation for the present study. However,different from previous researchers, the author focuses her perspective on second-yearstudents in Junior Middle School and made an empirical study.
…………
Conclusion
As we can see from Section 6.3，though the researcher tries her best to guarantee? “the validity and the reliability of the study, yet due to both subjective and objectiveconstraints, there are still so many limitations of the present study. Therefore，in thefuture，linguistic researchers should try their best to avoid these problems and paymuch more attention to these issues.Firstly，a longer period of experiment is needed if similar studies are conducted.Only in this way can we better ensure the validity of the results.Secondly, since English vocabulary study is a long-term process, teachers shouldpay special attention to the infusion of associative-mode based teaching and learningform the very beginning consciously，which may lead to better learning effects of thestudents.Thirdly, if test papers are designed by the researchers themselves in the future，thevalidity, reliability, the degree of difficulty and the degree of distinction should beanalyzed first，which will ensure the overall validity of the study.
……………
Reference (omitted)=