Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
1.1.1 The Significance of English Vocabulary
As the world is continuously globalized, the role of English as a universallanguage is indispensable. It is unquestionable that the extensive usage of Englisharound the world promotes international communication and cooperation, aslanguage constitutes a big barrier to people’s communication in the global setting,most countries, including China, regard English as one of the core and compulsorycourses in all levels of schools. For example, our country, specific requirements ofEnglish learning are proposed in English course so as to improve people’s wholelevel of English. Based on the requirements of the English Curriculum Standard ofSenior High School (2017), English learning in senior high school aims to upliftstudent’s comprehensive skills in using language, It means that the main task inEnglish comprehensive course is to train the integrated skills of listening, speaking,writing and reading. Vocabulary is an essential component of all four of those, solearners need to have the opportunities to develop their vocabulary receptivelythrough these four skills. For instance, pronunciation, intonation and stress arepresented in the process of listening or reading some English materials, learners canalso understand the meaning of words by reading and apply what they have learnedinto writing. At the same time, these four skills can be also improved by usingvocabulary productively in a variety of situations. Ma Wenhui and Wen Qiufang(1999) point out that students’ vocabulary level has a direct impact on their Englishwriting, because vocabulary provides a foundation for students to present ideas andthoughts with a more accurate expression. Wilkins has put a brilliant exposition ofvocabulary: “Without grammar very little can be conveyed; without vocabularynothing can be conveyed”(Wilkins, 1972: 48). Therefore, how to help students learnEnglish vocabulary effectively and use them properly is a big task for Englishteachers to overcome.
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1.2 Aims of the Research
As for vocabulary learning, we not only need to know the word meaning butalso know how to integrate them into suitable context to produce thoughts. Thusscientific and effective vocabulary learning strategies are critical to students’ Englishlanguage learning, because they can use these vocabulary learning strategies tounderstand the actual meaning of words and use them properly rather thanremembering words mechanically and separately without truly understanding. Inactual learning, how students use vocabulary learning strategies and whichvocabulary learning strategies they use will be directly influenced by teachers. If ateacher tends to use multiple strategies flexibly to help students understand andremember words in class, under the subtle influence, students will gradually applythese strategies into their autonomous learning process and foster their own learningmethods.
Therefore, through observing the videos of exemplary English classes in seniorhigh school and a multi-faceted analysis of the videos, the main purpose of this studyis to observe whether the teachers implement the requirements advocated by theEnglish Curriculum Standard of Senior High School (2017) , and what kind ofvocabulary learning strategies are imparted to students in the teaching process. Sothat we can know more about the current vocabulary learning situation in ** seniorhigh schools, then based on the above observation results, certain advice andsuggestions on vocabulary strategies would be given to improve teachers’ vocabularyteaching ability and help students to find the highly efficient methods of learningEnglish.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 Definition
2.1.1 Definition of Vocabulary
Vocabulary usually refers to a series of language items, includes single word,compound words and idioms, and it can also refer to words and phrases used inlanguage variation, such as dialects, styles and register, terminology, etc. Word, as abasic unit in linguistic organization, has its sound, meaning and grammaticalfunctions. “Vocabulary is a collection of all words and set phrases of a language, andsome technical terms used in a particular field can also refer to vocabulary”(Dictionary, 1999: 390). Words are the building materials of language and thesmallest language unit that can be used independently. Any word in a language isconnected to other words through a certain syntactic relationship and semanticstructure, and conveys information in the context (Ministry of Education, 2017: 22).
2.1.2 Definition of Language Learning Strategies
The definition of strategy is given in Oxford Advanced Learner’sEnglish-Chinese Dictionary (8th edition)：(1)a. a plan that is intended to achieve aparticular purpose. (2) the process of planning something or putting a plan intooperation in a skillful way. The concept of strategy was given a new meaning when ithas used in education, that is to say, learning strategy is the process of putting a planinto learning for achieve a particular purpose. Learning strategies research hasbecome increasingly popular since the 1970s, yet there is still no generous definitionof learning strategies in the literature. Several key definitions of language learningstrategies have been given by a number of leading scholars in the second and foreignlanguage field, several representative definitions are presented as follows.
Table3 The Information of Teachers in High School English Exemplary Lessons
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2.2 A review of Theoretical Perspectives
The study is guided by the following relevant theories:
2.2.1 Constructivism
Constructivism theory grows up from the theories of Piaget and Lev Vygotsky,which presents a unique teaching theory and teaching concept with its pioneeringviews on knowledge, students’ learning style, learning and teaching ways. Many ofits ideas are consistent with those advocated by the new curriculum reform in ourcountry. Constructivism further emphasizes that students should construct the newknowledge on the basis of their own psychological structure and experiences, and italso stresses the structuralism, social and situational nature of learning, which is ofgreat significance to the reform of teaching methodology (Zhan Lu, 2009).According to Constructivism, learning is a process of meaning construction thattakes place in certain circumstance and social and cultural background, learning canonly achieve through interpersonal collaborative activities.
Constructivists emphasize the initiative, sociality and situational nature oflearning. In teaching, teachers not only need to present basic knowledge for students,but also lead students to understand various phenomena appeared in our life andlisten to their ideas, and take these as a basis to guide students to enrich and adjusttheir ways of thinking. Constructivism emphasizes that the purpose of teaching is topromote the development of every students, and sets up students-centered learningenvironment (Jiang Junhe, 2005). Besides, teachers should be good at stimulatingstudents’ interest in learning, arousing and maintaining students’ learning motivation,guiding and encouraging them to think and construct a better way of learning. Inaddition, Constructivism believes that the effectiveness of learning is mainlyreflected in whether students actively participate in learning to ensure the activeconstruction of knowledge (Wen Qiufang, 2015). The effectiveness of teaching ismainly reflected in the process of arousing students’ enthusiasm for learning andpromoting students’ active construction of knowledge.
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3.1 Research Design.............................................28
3.1.1 Research Questions....................................28
3.1.2 Participants..................................29
Chapter4 Results and Discussion.......................................37
4.1 Results and Discussion with Reference to Research Question 1...................37
4.1.1 Belief of Vocabulary Learning....................................39
4.1.2 Meta-cognitive Strategies............................................ 40
Chapter 5 Conclusion...........................................63
5.1 Research Findings..........................................63
5.2 Implications...............................................64
5.3 Limitations of the Study..............................68
Chapter4 Results and Discussion
4.1 Results and Discussion with Reference to Research Question 1
According to the vocabulary knowledge part and learning strategies part of theNew Curriculum Standard (2017), general requirements of vocabulary are presentedin the teaching tips part, these tips include the beliefs about vocabulary teaching, therequirements about how should teachers teach vocabulary in general English classand the application of learning strategies. In order to accurately analyze andunderstand teachers’ teaching behavior in 19 exemplary lessons, this paper pidesthese teaching tips into 9 parts as observation points. This paper will use the firstobservation scale to observe teachers’ behaviors to answer the first question and theobservation results are showed in Table 6.
Table 7 Result of Observation Point 1
Chapter 5 Conclusion
5.1 Research Findings
Guided by relevant theories and experiences, this study can draw the followingconclusions by observing and analyzing the penetration of vocabulary learningstrategies by 19 teachers in senior high school English exemplary lessons:
First, the high school teachers in these exemplary lessons generally accept theconcept of vocabulary learning advocated by the new curriculum standard, andrealize that vocabulary learning is a comprehensive language practical activity. Theywill consciously apply some vocabulary learning strategies into classroom to helpstudents learn vocabulary, but several problems in the penetration of vocabularylearning strategies can also found in class. Besides, Teachers’ teaching methods havealso changed, instead of sticking to rigid vocabulary teaching, they help studentsunderstand words through various form of activities and exercises, and emphasizethe use of words. However, when analyzing teachers’ behaviors one by oneaccording to the requirements of the new curriculum standard, it is found that someteachers' modes of teaching words are still relatively fixed and mechanical.
Second, most teachers ignore the value and function of dictionaries in teachingprocess, and do not cultivate students’ awareness and methods of using dictionariesto learn vocabulary. In actual English class, most teachers are choose to presentlexical chunks and example sentences directly, but rarely tell students to usedictionaries and search relevant vocabulary knowledge.
Third, many teachers keep a high frequency of using strategies such as guessing,taking notes, repeating and practicing, but lack corresponding guidance and practiceon mind mapping, classification, association and other strategies. As a result,students will rarely use these strategies in their English learning process.
Fourthly, concerning to vocabulary pronunciation, most teachers in theseexemplary lessons only read the pronunciation of a word once, and do not teachany pronunciation skills and intonation, let alone requiring students to practicevocabulary pronunciation. This phenomenon also proves that teachers ignore theteaching of spoken English.
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