现阶段中学英语词汇教与学的现状调查分析
[Abstract] Grammar，phonetics and vocabulary are the three main elements which make up language. Especially, vocabulary is the most important one. In fact the amount of vocabulary one acquired represents one’s English level. So vocabulary teaching is the supporting point in English teaching. Both English teaching and learning in the intermediate period (middle school) are the key stage. For many years English learners have been laying stress on grammar teaching overlooking the importance of vocabulary teaching. The aim of this survey is by making a thorough research on the techniques for English vocabulary teaching and learning used by teachers and students in middle school, to know about the present state of English vocabulary teaching; to know about the attitude of students toward English study and the methods they used for English vocabulary memorizing; to know about the problems exiting in their English study; to know about the attitude of teachers toward English vocabulary teaching, and put forward several pieces of suggestion for the teachers and the students in English vocabulary teaching and learning.
[Key words] middle school English；vocabulary teaching and learning；strategy
【摘 要】语音、语法和词汇是构成语言的三大要素，其中词汇又是最重要的因素。词汇量的多少代表了一个人的水平高低。因此词汇教学是英语教学的支撑点。而中学是外语教学的关键时期。然而一直以来我们的英语学习者只强调英语教学法中的语法教学忽视了词汇教学。本文通过对中学阶段教师在词汇教学和学生在词汇学习方面所采取的一些策略调查，了解中学英语词汇教学的基本情况；中学生对英语学习的态度及学习词汇的方法；中学生在学习英语过程中存在的问题；以及中学英语教师的词汇教学态度。
【关键词】中学英语；词汇教与学；策略
1. Introduction
Language is made up of three main elements : grammar，phone and vocabulary .While vocabulary is the most important one. Vocabulary is the carrier of phone and grammar and also is the construction material of linguistic building.[1] Just as the great English linguist Wilkins said: “If there is no grammar, people can only express something; but if there is no vocabulary, people can express nothing .”[2] So vocabulary teaching and learning is the basic point in English teaching and learning .
For many years, however, programs that prepared language teachers paid little attention to techniques for helping students learn vocabulary.[3] And there are many problems existing in English vocabulary teaching. So the students find it difficult to learn vocabulary and gradually lose the interest in memorizing vocabulary. This survey is to know about and analyze the recent situation of English vocabulary teaching and learning in middle school and also to provide some practical techniques for the teachers and the students.
2. The way and the course of this research
2.1 The aim of this research:
（1）To know about the middle school students’ attitude in English study and the method they take in learning English vocabulary.
（2）To know about the method that teachers take in middle school English vocabulary teaching.
(3 ) To provide some practical methods of English vocabulary teaching and learning by this survey.
2.2 The objects of this research: students in Senior 2 Class 3 and Class 6 in NO.3 Middle School in Zhangzhou City; students in senior1Class 2 and Class 4 in NO.2 Middle School in Jianou City; English teachers in these two schools; The number of students and teachers is 400.
2.3 The means of this research: questionnaire research
3. The questionnaire (Appendix)
4. Analysis on the questionnaire
4.1 In this research there are 65.8% students are interested in English study. They have a certain understanding of English study, but there are still 12% students in this research have a passive attitude in English study. They are not interested in it at all. So this part of students are not so active in vocabulary learning. Another 22.2% students in this research just feel some fresh in English study. This kind of active attitude is like a flash, so once this kind of students can not find fresh in English study, they would lose their interest in English study. For this part of students , teachers should help them keep feeling fresh in English study time and time.
4.2 There are 89.8% students in this research have realized that vocabulary memorizing in English study is important. For this part of students, they at least have a correct attitude toward English vocabulary learning. There are 7.8% students consider that vocabulary memorizing is not so useful at all. For this part of students, they can not learn English vocabulary well, and in the counterpart, they can not study English well.
4.3 In this research 20% students think that it difficult to memorize English vocabulary because of so many vocabulary and some of them are complex. For this part of students, they do not pay attention to the inner rules in English vocabulary composition and the skills in memorizing English vocabulary. To our pleasure, 53.4% students in this research have found there are many kinds of skills in memorizing vocabulary. And 15.6% students try to memorize but in vain. For this part of students, they may not use proper skills to memorize vocabulary.
4.4 On the aspect of time arrangement in English vocabulary memorizing vocabulary. There are 30% students in this research do not have scheduled time and the other part all have their own time in memorizing vocabulary. For the former part of students, they can not guarantee a period of time for English vocabulary memorizing each day. For this part of students, if they can not learn English vocabulary well, one of the reasons is that they lack the key step—memorizing.
4.5 When memorizing a new word, over 80% students in this research mainly memorize the meaning, spelling, and pronunciation of the new word. 38% students could memorize the usage, while only 14.4% students could memorize the word-formation, and 9.5% students could memorize the sources of new words. In fact, commanding of word-formation and sources are a good skill in vocabulary learning.
4.6 For the attitude to memorizing vocabulary, only 10.1% students in this research are fully enthusiastic. They can memorize English vocabulary in an active way. 46.7% students are comparatively active. They can spend some time memorizing vocabulary. 41.9% students just memorize vocabulary when necessary. For this part of students, their attitude to vocabulary memorizing is passive. 1.2% students spend few time memorizing vocabulary.
4.7 86.2% students in this research acquire their vocabulary from English textbooks, and 66.5% from their teachers’ teaching. 41.3% students can acquire their vocabulary from ing to the radio, watching TV, besides from English textbooks and their teachers. 22.8% students can acquire their vocabulary from other channels.
4.8 When come across a new word in reading or listening to the radio,22.8% students in this research can write down the new word immediately and try to get the meaning and memorize it . 43.1% students pay little attention to it. 16.1% students make a remark on it and do with it when have time. 18.6% students pay no attention to it, just let the new words pass. This kind of attitude is quite passive.
4.9 As for how long students can memorize a new word, in this research there are 16.8% students can keep a new word for only several hours, while 46.7% students can keep several days, and 22.8% students can keep longer for several months. Only 13.2% students keep a new word much longer than several months. From this data we know that nearly half of the students in this research easily forget new words which they have learnt.
4.10 In this research, for the series connected memory system, 29.5% students know this kind of approach but never use it. Only 15.7% students use this kind of approach sometimes. 55.8% students even have no idea about this approach. From this research we know that this is a rarely used method. For teachers, they should encourage students to use this method as much as possible.
The data in this research shows that the following approaches are comparatively well-accepted. Those approaches include:
A discriminate the meaning of a word by distinguishing the root.
B use polysemy to expand vocabulary
C English to English
D use word-formation rules: according to word-formation rules in English compounding, conversion and affixation
E image association: associate the words and the image of something which the words refer to
F Synonyms, Antonyms, Homonyms memory approach
For the above methods in English vocabulary memorizing, there are 50% to 60% students in this research can use them according to each word.
The second accepted approaches :
A by word tree
B pay attention to everything around you at ordinary times
C study and remember vocabulary in a certain context: means putting a word to be remembered in a paragraph or a passage
D similar association: associate the things that have a similar feature
E topical memory approach
F comparison association
G by the pronunciation rules in alphabetical combination
For the above 7 kinds of methods, there are 30% to 40% students in this research use them sometimes according to each word.
The least accepted methods in English vocabulary memorizing are the two approaches:
A according to the arrangement alphabetical order in vocabulary list in textbooks
B day by day memory approach
There are only 10% to 20% students in this research use those two methods.
4.11 For the teachers’ attitude to English teaching, 44.9% teachers pay much attention to and often teach some techniques of English vocabulary learning to the students. 32.9% teachers pay the same attention to in as to other parts of English teaching. To our surprise, there are 22.2% teachers pay not enough attention to vocabulary teaching.
4.12 As the data shows in this research, we can conclude that among the skills in English vocabulary teaching .The most widely used are the following skills:
A acquire the spellings of vocabulary through the pronunciation rules in a alphabetical combination
B use real objects to teach new words
C draw pictures, diagrams and maps to show meaning
D mine, act or use face expression to introduce new words
E introduce the cultural background in the target language while teaching some words
F comparison
G introduce new words by making sentences or examples
H English—explanation
For the above 7 kinds of methods in English vocabulary teaching, there are 80% to 90% teachers use properly
While for the other 3 kinds of methods in English vocabulary teaching, there are 62.5% to 68.8% teachers used them:
A use classification approach
B use word-formation rules: 1) compounding 2) deveriation 3) conversion
C use association approach 1) close association 2) relation association
5. Discussion
In the previous parts, the writer has given a detail description of the outcomes of the two sets of questionnaires. Based on the comprehensive study of the outcomes, the writer has reached a conclusion that though the performance of the students and the teachers in the questionnaires are encouraging, and most of students feel that they have acquired a lot in vocabulary from their English textbooks and their teachers’ teaching. and most of the teachers also feel that they have done well in their English vocabulary teaching. In fact the students and the teachers in this research are still lacking in effective and efficient English vocabulary learning and teaching strategies. There are many problems existing in the course of vocabulary learning and teaching. In this part the writer would like to make some discussion on the current situation of English vocabulary teaching and learning.
5.1 The attitude of the students toward English study and the method they used in learning English vocabulary in middle school.
5.1.1 The students we make research on have a certain understanding of English study and have a certain interest in it.
5.1.2 On the aspect of memorizing English vocabulary, at present the students we make research on have been aware of its important role in English study.
5.1.3 A large number of the students we make research on can memorize English vocabulary according to word-formation rule, pronunciation rule, and image association, overcoming mechanical memorizing.
5.1.4 As for the time distribution, the students we make research on all have their own English vocabulary memorizing time
5.2 Problems existing in the course of the students’ English study.
5.2.1 The attitude toward study is not good enough, and they show little interest in English study, so they are not so active in vocabulary learning.
5.2.2 Being influenced by traditional English vocabulary teaching, most students always pay their attention to the meaning, spelling, and pronunciation, When they memorize a new word, neglecting the word’s usage, word-formation and origin.
5.2.3 The source of their vocabularies is confined to their textbook and the content their teachers teach to them
5.2.4 As for the new words appearing in their outside reading, the radio, and TV the students pay not enough attention to
5.2.5 Most students are only confined to some common English vocabulary memorizing methods, they lack the initiative to actively explore different kinds of methods in English vocabulary memory. As for some newly invented methods, they do not know use them. Even for the common methods there are also a great part of students never used.
5.2.6 As the survey shows, there is a common phenomenon existing: half of students easily forget the vocabularies they have learned. This phenomenon can be explained as following:
Firstly, the students cannot review the vocabularies which they have learned in time
Secondly, the students cannot exercise those vocabularies in time, for example, they can try to write a passage or diary with those vocabularies.
5.3.1 Most of the teachers except a small part we make research on pay great attention to English vocabulary teaching
5.3.2 Most of the teachers we make research on can adapt various techniques for English vocabulary teaching in a flexibly way.
5.4 Problems existing in the course of English vocabulary teaching.
Through the writer’s six-week’s educational practice observation in Jianou NO.1 Middle School, the writer finds out that there are many problems existing in English vocabulary teaching.
5.4.1 95 percent of the English teachers still keep a traditional English vocabulary teaching procedure: a present new words b correct the pronunciation c explain the meaning d making sentences with new words
some teachers separate the vocabularies from the passages. In those teachers’ views vocabulary teaching is more than teaching the meanings of vocabularies. They think their roles are to help the students master the dictionary meaning. So a phenomenon arises that the students memorize the new words’ meaning but they do not know how to use them. Therefore, the students’ language skills are still not improved.
5.4.2 The pattern of English vocabulary teaching is unitary. Some teachers only concentrate on imparting knowledge alone, simply explaining the meanings, the spellings and the usages. This pattern is contrary to the law of language study, separating the vocabulary from context. It makes students can only memorize English vocabulary in isolation and mechanically. We cannot understand the meaning of a sentence by pulsing the meaning of all words which make up this sentence. The exact meanings of a sentence should be understood by combining the situation in which it is uttered, the purpose for which the speakers utter it and even with the speakers’ intellectual level and social background. Almost each word has its own lexical meaning, contextual meaning, denotative meaning, connotative meaning and stylistic meaning. So students must understand a word’s meaning through a context. An unitary pattern would make students lose their interest in vocabulary learning.
5.4.3 Some teachers neglect the close connection between language and culture. When we learn a new word we tend to look for its meaning in the word itself. Yet in addition to its dictionary meanings, the same word may stir up different associations in people. Take the word “dragon” for example. In western culture, dragon is considered as a monster while in China, dragon is seen as a symbol of luck. Therefore, the word “dragon” elicits a quite different meaning because of different culture experiences. This example indicates that language use is heavily tinted with its culture. So in the course of English vocabulary teaching teachers should permeate culture background knowledge.
5.4.4 Some teachers never taught their students how to memorize vocabularies. It’s impossible to learn English well if you are not able to acquire a large of number of vocabularies. To memorize so many vocabularies you should acquire some techniques and method in English vocabulary memorizing in addition to hard-study and diligence. However, some teachers do not instruct the students to master some effective vocabulary memorizing skills. Therefore, students spend much time memorizing vocabularies but in vain.
6. Suggestion
Based on the previous analysis of the current situation of English vocabulary teaching and learning in Jianou NO.1 Middle School & Zhangzhou NO.3 Middle School, the writer would like to put forward some practical suggestion for English learners and English teachers.
6.1 Suggestion for English learners:
6.1.1 Students must set up right attitude toward English study; cultivate their interest in English study and pay great attention to English vocabulary study.
6.1.2 Change the traditional English vocabulary memory techniques and try to seek for some practical vocabulary memory techniques for themselves
6.1.3 English study can not be confined to the textbooks and teachers’ teaching. To expand students’ vocabulary, they must do as much outside reading as possible, and to the radio which has relevant English information. When come across a new word, they should write down the new word and try to look up its meaning then memorize it
6.1.4 Strengthen their memory and review the vocabulary in time
6.2 English teachers in middle school are advised to have a good command of students’ employment of learning strategies. So the next part is the suggestion given to English teachers on English vocabulary teaching.
6.2.1 Teachers must be aware of the important role that English vocabulary teaching play in English teaching. Change the traditional vocabulary teaching methods and teaching patterns. Explore all kinds of practical approaches and apply them into English vocabulary teaching. In the class teachers should teach their students how to learn English vocabulary in an effective way.
6.2.2 According to Jia yanping(贾砚萍)[41], there are many advantages of setting up learning goals and plans:
A students will be encouraged to learn by the goals and plans
B students are able to overcome the blindness existing in their studies and choose their own way of learning English vocabulary
C students are to be aided by them in self-monitoring and self-evaluation so as to know about their learning level and progressing situations at any moment
D it is helpful for students to find and solve the problems in their vocabulary learning at any time
The long-term goal of English learning in middle school has been set for the students in forms of teaching syllabus, however, when it comes to the short-term goals of English learning, the existing individual difference ought to be taken into account. Thus, each student needs to define one’s own goals on the basis of the “standards” and one’s own weakness. The responsibility of English teachers in middle school is not to set goals for students but to show them how to define realistic goals through asking students reflective questions or offering certain amount of modeling. Teachers should make students aware of why their goals are not feasible: are these goals too high or are they not working hard enough? Meanwhile, teachers ought to help students to find their own weakness: only after students have found out the weakness, can students set corresponding goals to improve their English learning.
6.2.3 In the course of English vocabulary teaching, teachers must follow the 5 basic principles as following:
6.2.3.1 System principle. Each word has a close connection with other words in pronunciation, spelling and meaning. Also each word is a member of the whole English vocabulary system. So one of the key step in English vocabulary teaching is to show the nature of English vocabulary system and connection, making students acquire the rules in variation and conversion of English vocabulary. Encourage students to learn to observe and think over the connection in pronunciation, spelling and meaning among each word they had learnt, and find out the “exciting point in memorizing”[35] then change the mechanical memorizing into understanding memorizing. For example, using synonyms, antonyms and homonyms memory approach; by analysizing the limitation of meaning collocation and syntax collocation, understand and acquire the rules in vocabulary composition.
6.2.3.2 Communicate principle. Language is the tool of communication. The aim of language study is to communicate. The most important thing in language communication is the meaning produced by combining vocabulary and context.[36]
If the context is not enough, the meaning of vocabulary can not come up. So when teachers introduce, explain and practise the meaning and usage of a new word, they must try to set up all kinds of language communicate context. In this way students can acquire the vocabulary and the ability to communicate in a real context or mock context.
6.2.3.3 Cognitive Principle.[37] Students have acquired quite a lot cognition before they learn English. However, the essence of vocabulary learning between English and Chinese is absolutely different. Moreover, the students’ Chinese knowledge, general knowledge about language and entire Cognitive Competence would influence a lot in English vocabulary learning. Therefore, teachers should make full use of the students’ former knowledge while selecting the materials of vocabulary teaching, making arrangements and giving explanations. It is for the sake of excavating students’ former cognitive competence, so as to improve students’ subjective initiative of English learning. In this way, the students can consciously distinguish the difference of vocabulary structure between English and Chinese. Meanwhile, the students can get a deeper understanding of new vocabulary.
6.2.3.4 Emotion Principle.[38] Compared with pronunciation and grammar learning, vocabulary learning sounds much more arduous. In this sense, the factors of non-mentality get priority. It is known to all that considerably concentrated learning vocabulary is a great trial and train to the will. Teachers should cultivate students’ great interest, far- reaching motivation, strong will, cooperative attitude and pleasant emotion. All these are the key to upgrade the learning effect. While mobilizing all the students’ learning initiatives, the teachers should help students overcome the over-anxiety (i.e., keeping common anxiety is best for learning effect) during the process of learning.
6.2.3.5 Culture Principle.[39] Vocabulary is the carrier of culture: Cultural features are reflected in the vocabulary of a certain language. As a part of the English language, English vocabulary carries rich cultural information in their meaning structure and collocation. In English, Words’ conceptual meaning can be entirely different from their cultural meaning. For example, in the western culture, dragon is a kind of fierce and cruel monster: it is the synonym for evil, while, in Chinese culture, dragon symbolizes nobility, sacredness, might and great vitality. Therefore, it is very necessary to introduce the culture which relates to semantic meaning and pragmatic of target meaning into English teaching. While teaching students to master the word’s conceptual meaning, teachers should dig out the cultural connotation and, if necessary, compare Chinese culture and Western culture. This teaching method can help students further understand the essential characteristic of Western culture, cultivate their interest in English culture and English learning, and enhance their intercultural communicative sense and ability.
6.2.4 Indirect vocabulary teaching.[40] Expand students’ vocabulary through reading, listening and speaking activities. In middle school period the main method that students used to memorize English vocabulary is mechanical reciting. As practice shows that mechanical memory is useful to acquire basic vocabulary. But to make students acquire the correct understanding and the ability to use vocabulary, we must strengthen indirect vocabulary teaching, that is learning vocabulary by communicating. According to the fact that learning English vocabulary should be step by step. So the method of making students can guess the meaning of a new word and acquire the usage of the new word is very important. Indirect vocabulary teaching have the following 3 forms:
6.2.4.1 Reading teaching. In fact, reading is an important method in expanding English vocabulary. Teachers instruct students to read a series of passages which are connected with textbooks, so students can frequently meet the vocabulary which appear for times. Frequently appearing in each passage can make students remember it when students meet the words next time. Besides, meeting the same word in different passages can help students acquire the different usages and meanings of a word.
6.2.4.2 Listening teaching. Listening practice can train students to have the ability to set up the connection between lexical meaning and grammatical meaning of a word when they listen to the word. When teachers do dictation training ,they can make some simple explanation of new words and grammar beforehand to remove the excessive problems in understanding. Teachers also can let students themselves to solve problems by using their guessing ability and listening skills in the course of listening before teachers explain the new words.
6.2.4.3 Speaking teaching. Speaking training is also very important to English in the course of instructing students to correctly use language to express meaning. Students’ interpretative skills can be cultivated and students can also understand the function of vocabulary in syntax, semantic and pragmatic.
To make students acquire a certain amount of vocabulary, English vocabulary should attach importance to enlarging students language circulation. It must make students do as much reading, dictation, reading and conversation practice as possible. If there is not enough effective language circulation training, students’ sense of language can not be produced and vocabulary can not be changed from passive into active, at least communicating ability can not be trained.
Of course, there are many other kinds of methods in English vocabulary learning and teaching in addition to the methods that are referred in this paper and in the questionnaire. So no matter the methods are widely used or rarely used we should make full use all of them.
7. Conclusion
This paper has analyzed the present state of English vocabulary teaching and learning through research. Generally speaking, most students’ attitude to English vocabulary study is active and most of them can use some effective techniques for vocabulary learning. And the teachers’ attitude toward English vocabulary teaching is good. They can use various methods in vocabulary teaching in a flexible way. But there are still many problems existing in English vocabulary teaching and learning. As for the students, they have limited sources of vocabulary; they easily forget vocabulary they lack the initiative to explore new methods in vocabulary memorizing, etc. As for the teachers, many teachers still keep a traditional English vocabulary teaching procedure; their teaching pattern is unitary; some teachers cannot permeate cultural background knowledge in their vocabulary teaching; some teachers cannot help students to develop vocabulary learning strategies. In the last part this paper put forward some practical suggestion for English learners and English teachers.
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