文章_初中英語詞匯教學(xué)存在的問題和解決策略分析

1、初中英語詞匯教學(xué)存在的問題及其解決策略The Problems on Vocabulary Teaching in Junior Middle School and the SolutionsIntroductionVocabulary is one of the fundamental elements of language, the most basic element used to express one's words. It is frustrating for in termediate learners such as middle school students w

2、hen they discover they cannot communicate effectively because they do not know many of the words they need. Unfortunately, vocabulary is neglected in some English language courses. Both teachers and students do not pay enough attention to the vocabulary learning. They do not realize the importance o

3、f teaching vocabulary in middle schools. What are the problems preventing students grasping vocabulary in English Class of Junior Middle School. Maybe some teachers teach words isolated from context, what about others? Then do you know how to solve these problems? The author conducts a survey andfin

4、ds out some effective methods. The solutions here are to seekscientific techniques of teaching vocabulary. By adopting scientificteaching vocabulary techniques, teachers can help students improve theirlanguage acquisition ability and language competence.n . The Importanee of Teaching Vocabulary2.1 T

5、he Definition of VocabularyVocabulary is all the words and phrases used in particular language.Vocabulary is the basic unit of the sentence, usually what the one'ssay is all formed by vocabularies. Therefore, on learning language, especially English, the vocabulary is just made of the letters on

6、e by one, only based on it we can learn phrases sentences and passages. The famous linguist Rivers also thinks, “Controllingthe enough vocabularyis the key to succeeding in using English, the idea which has no vocabulary and they can not take use of structure and function learned reads aloud. Becaus

7、e “we can't neglect a giant of existence, and in fact, thelearner 's vocabulary size indicates his English level, as aninternational language, its important status gets everybody's commonunderstanding more and more.2.2 The Importance of Teaching VocabularyVocabulary learning is quite cha

8、llenging. While grammar at least seems to be finite, vocabulary is virtually infinite. Words are also more complex than they appear to be on the surface. As all know, people who have studied English but haven't grasped some vocabulary can hardlycommunicate with each other in English, especially

9、for middle school students. Students who are immersed into a new linguistic settling tend to pick up vocabulary first, and then gradually develop a more accurate, structural framework. And they must continually be learning words as theylearn structures and as they practice the sound system. Therefor

10、e, teaching vocabulary is an indispensable part of English lesson in middle school, and an important task for the teachers. Whether a middle school English teacher can follow scientific methods to teach vocabulary or not directly bring good or bad influence toward the student. If his methods are sui

11、table for the student and beneficial for them in the long run, he could arouse their interest on English and help them to develop a solid foundation of language acquisition ability, whereas if he fails to do so, it might result in the students ' diffidence toward themselves and might cause them

12、to disgust English.川.The Problems on Teaching Vocabulary in English Class of JuniorMiddle SchoolAt present, cramming is still popular in the teacher-centered teaching vocabulary. Traditional teachers always spend a lot of class time asking students to read and write new words again and again. The me

13、aning of new words are presented and explained directly in Chinese. As above reasons, more and more problems appear. The paper will mention four problems on Vocabulary Teaching: 1.Teaching words in isolation; 2.Exposing words incompletely; 3.Neglecting the process of memory; 4.Disconnecting culture

14、background.3.1 Teaching Words in IsolationMiddle school English teachers in China usually ask students to learn vocabulary lists in which words are isolated from the context. In one case, they let the students pick out all the new words in the text, list them on a paper, and consult the dictionary f

15、or the Chinese or Englishmeanings. For example, “display means “show, “arrive means “reach. In another case, they try to getthe students to associateeach word with an image or an object. For example, they hold up a picture of a car and say “This is a car. Both these teaching techniques imply that le

16、arning vocabulary means learning individual word one at a time.These two methods may save time and be fast-effective. However, the relationships between words are as important as the meaning of the word in isolation: how“car contrasts with“bus and “truck , and howit is related to“driver and “engine

17、are as important as the worditself.Neglecting the study of the relationships in English vocabulary system might result in students ' slowness in comprehension and inappropriateness in exploiting the English words. Being taught in these ways without a change, students might have difficulty in wor

18、king out the meanings of somewords, such as “time in the following three sentences:1. She is near her time. (means “She would die soon. )2. The umpire called time. (means“The umpire called for a stop. )3. He is in the time of his life. (mea ns “ The days he is experie ncingare very enjo yable.)Stude

19、 nts whomakesuch senten ces only know the meaning of each in dividual word, but they are poor in the proper use of “beneficial (which should “ be beneficial for people) and“ bad (which shoul d be changed into“poor ). Thus, it is advisable to present new words in an English sentence or a short text,

20、and the n con duct the con textual guesswork.3.2 Expos ing Words In completelyMany En glish teachers tend to teach En glish words in on e-to-onecorrespondence to Chinese words; for example, English“glass is “玻璃 in Chinese, English“cup is “茶杯 in Chinese, and so on. Thistraditi onaltran slatio nteach

21、ing method which has bee n adopted in Chinafor a long time is considered to be helpful. But in the long run the overuse of this method is harmful to the developme nt of stude nts' Ian guagecompete nee. Especially in the eleme ntary stage, this method should be avoided as possible as it can be.No

22、w that the En glish Ian guage is liv ing and productive in particularcon text, stude nts should acquire vocabulary in con text. The teacher had better ask students to try their best to guess the meaning from the given con text as possible as they can. Furthermore, the same En glish word in differe n

23、t con texts can have various meanin gs. Rememberi ng the Chin ese meaning in the wordlist does not mean stude nts have already grasped the target word fully. So it is advisable to present new words in an English sentence or a short text, and the n con duct the con textual guesswork. There is an exam

24、ple:Teaching the word“cover in Unit -6 of the Oxford Junior English Book8A:While presenting the meanings of the polysemous word“cover , theteacher had better give stude nts the follow ing senten ces at first:1. The magaz ine has a picture of a horse on its cover. <n.> the front title page of a

25、 book2. Could you ope n the cover of the bottle for me?<n.> a thing that is used to shelter other things3. He told a lie to cover the mistake.<vt.> con ceal; hide4. China covers a n area of 96,000,000 square kilometers.<vt.> take up; occupy5. His research covers a wide field.<vt

26、.> in clude; invo Ive6. They covered 500 miles one day in their jo urn ey.<vt.> travelAfterwards stude nts are requested to guess and infer the accurate meanings of the target w ord “ cover in differe nt sentence con texts. As for some advaneed students in Grade 8 or 9, the teacher may give

27、 themenough scope for their own paraphrases of the target word. Such a student- oriented activity activates students ' thinking at the basis of their known English knowledge. Otherwise the Chinese meanings of the target words given out of context maybe a little ambiguous for students to understa

28、nd. Although this contextual guesswork costs muchclass time, it is worth training students ' autonomy to learn English and to deal with new words successfully. Students ' satisfactory feelings of success may contribute to their interest and confidence in studying English, which will be a ben

29、ign circulation.3.3 Neglecting the Process of Memory Many students find that they could not effectively memorize vocabulary, some even feel frustrated. Why? As all know, memorization is important for vocabulary learning. If words cannot be remembered, few are likelyto be produced properly. There are

30、 two types of memory processes-short-term memoryand long-term memory. Short-term memorymeansthat the storation of input only stay in your memory temporarily while the long-term memory means the storation of input can stay in your memory for more than 10 days, ever for the whole life. In fact, our me

31、moryprocess is a recycling process. According to the survey of linguists, the more times the word is used, the better you rememberit. However, manyteachers partially emphasize the function of short-term memory. They seemto care more about the amount of vocabulary input than those actually stay in st

32、udents ' memory.Being forced to remember a large amount of vocabulary in this way,students are treated as if they were a funned. In appearance, they takein thousands of new words, but in effect only a few words that are frequently used really can stay in their storation and be exploited. It is n

33、ot amazing that a senior middle school student who is required to master 3000 words has misused or made mistakes in 60 words when asked to write down a passage of 100 words because of his poor vocabulary storation. Manyof teachers put all the blame to the students ' laziness. They explain for th

34、emselves that those students are too lazy to enlarge their size of vocabulary.There might be some teachers seeing the long-term memory rule. However, they never succeed in applying the memory rule in classroom. They claim that the time of each period of class is limited that they can't spendso m

35、uch time on the repetition of vocabulary teaching. As far as I am concerned, I do not think their excuses make any sense. What matter is their ignorance of scientific teaching techniques and irresponsibility for the development of students?3.4 Disconnecting Culture BackgroundAnother problem is disco

36、nnecting culture background. That meansmore and more students lean words separable from learning their culture. Because of culture differences, misunderstanding may arise, although thelanguage used in communication may be fault less. The same words or expressions may not mean the same thing to diffe

37、rent people. Because of cultural differences, a serious question maycause amusementor laughter; a harmless statement maycause displeasure or anger. Because of cultural differences, jokes by a foreign speaker maybe received with blank faces and stony silence. Yet the same stories in the speaker's

38、 own countrywould leave audiences holding their sides with laughter.When students say that they know the meaning of an English word, they usually meanthat they have found an equivalent word in Chinese language, but this equivalent word maybe misleading. Let's take the word “with for example. In

39、the sentence of“I have milk for breakfast, the word“milk in Chinese culture refers to hot milk, because Chinese people are used to drink hot milk; while the word “milk in the American culture refers to cold milk, because Americans never drink boiled milk as weChinese do. This example shows us that t

40、he same word“milk hasdifferent social meanings in different cultures. In fact, manylinguists believe that no word can be exactly translated into another language.Learning the vocabulary of a second language is not just to memorize the equivalent words of language one, but to learn the meaning relati

41、onship between “milk and al l other words in English within the context ofcultural life.Students can seldom ask such questions as what“run means because itis difficult to explain the meaning of a word without knowing the contexts. For example, look at what happens to “run in di fferent contexts. “Do

42、n't run so fast. “The diesel engine runs perfectly well. “How your tongue runs. “The vine runs over the porch. “He makes a run of guns across the border. These sentences show that“run has manydifferent meanings. In fact, the word “run appears not to change. It 's surroundings that change. Th

43、is function of context also applies to unfamiliar words. In expressing the idea of inferring meaning fromcontext, Nuttall provides examples defining the word “tock (a nonsense word). She poured the water into a tock. Then lifting the tock, she drank. Unfortunately, as she was setting it down again,

44、the tock slipped from her hand and broke. Only the handle remained. In this example, it is very clear that context helps infer and explain the meaning of an unfamiliar word and help students have a more vivid impression of the word, whichis helpful for memorization.IV. Soluti onsThe problems existed

45、, the teacher must find out scientific techniques of teaching vocabulary. As all know, the classroom teaching is one of the most important ways that the students learn English. As far as the English teaching in the middle schools concerned, teachers need arouse the students ' interests so that t

46、hey can learn effectively. Thispaper will provide five solutions: 1.Object lesson in teaching vocabulary;2.Pictures in teaching vocabulary; 3.Body language in teachingvocabulary; 4.Leading-in in teaching vocabulary; 5.Riddles in teachingvocabulary.4.1 Object Lesson in Teaching VocabularyThe teacher

47、can use some objects teach vocabulary. For example, book, bag, desk, map, pen, pencil-box and so on. In teaching vocabulary, all kinds of teaching aids should be used most of the time to show the meaning of the words, so we need some pictures in class, which has the advantage of avoiding the student

48、s learning vocabulary.4.1.1 The Definition of Object TeachingGenerally speaking, the object teaching is to use some teaching aids or popular electric equipment to guide the students to get a vivid image of the knowledge, then to richen their feelings of recognition in order to improve the students &

49、#39; intelligence. Why do we emphasi ze the object teaching in the elementary English teaching ？First, they can remember15 percent of the all learning, if they just watch; the amount can add to 25 percent, if combined with the two, it is even up to 65 percent. The object teaching is not only to form

50、 an image, but also to stimulate thefeelings of watching, hearing. Second, the object teaching is an important stage in learning language scientifically. It is impossible to form an abstract thinking without concrete thing for the elementary students. If we ignore the object teaching, many elementar

51、y students cannot achieve the understanding from concrete to abstract. If they cannot, they just don't get the meaning really. Therefore, the objectteaching should be the main method in elementary education. It is a necessary part to learn English scientifically, effectively and vividly.4.1.2 Ho

52、w to Present the Object TeachingWhen preparing for the object teaching aids or models, teachers should consider something like the conditions of our schools, the hobbies of the student. According to our teaching goals, teachers should try to make our teaching aids various. Generally speaking, there

53、are three objectteaching aids.1. Concrete thingsThey conclude object things, samples that are related to thestudents 'experience or daily lives. They are very helpful for remembering by deep understanding. In English teaching, if teachers just explain straightly, students will feel boring and ca

54、nnot remember and understand what the teacher said. The result of the lesson is not satisfactory. Nevertheless, the teaching method of showing the concrete things is better. It can bring every positive factor into play. Students can deepen their impressionor understanding.For example, when teaching

55、noun words, teachers can use object things as an aid.When teaching adjective words ' comparative degree, teachers can use three rulers of different length and three different size of boxes, or three different height of students to make a contrast and practice it. Another example, when teaching t

56、his sentence structure“What about ？ teachers can prepare three clothes of red, blue, white and put them in front of the classroom. In the class, teachers can call two students to the front and say,“Let's go shopping. The studentssay “OK. Then the teachers come to the clothes and make a question

57、for the first student with an air of asking opinions“Do you like thered one? The first one answers happily“Yes, I do. Next, the teacherasks “What about the blue one? The first studen t answers unwillingly“No, I don't like it. At last, the teacher asks, pointing to the white cloth,“What about thi

58、s one? The first student answers withoutthinking“No, I don't. Then the teacher asks the second student “Whatabout you? The second one answers at once,“I like the blue one. Through the showing play, the teacher writes“What about ？ on theblackboard and explains in Chinese. All students relate the

59、teacher'sexplanation to the performance and understand the sentence structure very well.2. Model and videoModel and video conclude pictures, models, project on the screen, films and so on. They are powerful in representing respectively.4.2 Pictures in Teaching VocabularyPictures as one kind of objects in teaching vocabulary can be used in the class. As all know, p