Abstract:Since the 1970s, more and more attention was drawn to vocabulary teaching in language teaching. However, problems still exist in vocabulary teaching of English class in China. Generally, vocabulary learning is regarded as the individual work of students. Educators hardly focus on it, merely introducing the pronunciation, spelling, meaning, word class, and collocation of new words separately. As a result, most students acquire words by rote, unable to put them into practice. In this area, educators are faced with two challenges. How can the educators teach vocabulary effectively in reading class? Are there any strategies which enable students to learn vocabulary with practical purpose?
The research method of this paper is case study. It illustrates the typical problems of vocabulary teaching in reading class by analyzing a case taken from teacher’s manual of Advance with English, the English teaching material of senior high school in Jiangsu Province.
In order to find the reliable strategies, five pedagogical strategies, based on the lexical system of English, semantic network, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) principle, are introduced in this paper:
According to researches, words related to the same topic are stored closely in the semantic network. The activities of predicting words from topic and predicting topic from words are beneficial to remember words through inter relationships.
Since the meaning of a new word can be guessed out in the context, three strategies of word guessing are introduced, i.e. guessing from substitution, definition and common sense.
In order to facilitate the acquisition of collocations in English, chunks are adopted to introduce frequently co-occurred forms.
In the light of Situation-based Language Teaching, teachers purposefully design the related situation with vivid images, audio materials and other tools, so as to give students the direct experience and better understanding of new words.
Communication Approach and Task-Based Language Teaching support that vocabulary should be taught in tasks with authentic and real life materials. Educators can introduce new words in designed tasks.
These strategies will serve as a guide for teachers to design lesson plan, especially vocabulary teaching in reading class. It will contribute to the elimination of unscientific teaching method, and ultimately be a part of the force for the development of English teaching in China. Moreover, if adopted by students, they will also help students to acquire new words systematically and schematically.
Key Words: vocabulary teaching, reading class, strategies
摘要:20世纪70年代以来,教师开始更多地关注阅读课程中的词汇教学。然而中国的词汇教学仍然存在诸多问题。总体而言,教师轻视词汇学习,认为其是学生个人的任务,因而很少将单词做为教学重点,仅是向学生单独介绍单词的发音、拼写、词义、词类和短语。学生死记硬背单词,而不能在实践中使用单词。教师如何在阅读课程内有效地教授生词?学生是否可以借助策略将所学生词用于实践?
本文采用了案例分析的研究方法,选取《牛津高中英语》教师用书中的教案作为案例,并通过案例呈现了阅读课程中词汇教学的问题。
为了找到可行的策略,本文结合词汇系统知识、交际教学法和任务教学法等理论,针对阅读课中的词汇教学提出了五条教学策略:
1.研究发现,学生倾向于将同一话题下的单词一起存储入语义网,由单词预测话题和由话题预测单词有助于学生通过词汇内在联系记忆单词。
2.学生可通过语境猜测词义,本文介绍了三种猜词方法:同位猜词法、定义猜词法、常识猜词法。
3.词块教学可用于教受固定搭配。
4.根据语境教学法,教师可设置情境帮助学生直接体验单词的含义。
5.交际教学法和任务型教学法支持在真实任务中教受词汇。
这些策略将指导教师编写教案,消除不科学的教学方法,最终成为中国英语教育力量的一部分。学生可以借助这些策略系统深入地掌握生词。
关键词:词汇教学,阅读课程,教学策略