Chapter One Introduction

1.1 The situation of vocabulary study

Language learners see lack of vocabulary as being one of the major hindrancesin being able to use another language. Senior high school students, beginners ofEnglish learning as they are, find it difficult to memorize new words and enlarge theirvocabulary, which becomes the main choke point of their English learning. Facts haveborne out that failure to grasp the effective approaches to vocabulary learning,vocabulary memory, and students will lose interest in vocabulary study or even quitthe language study. At author's school, Vocabulary is also students' biggest headacheeven if they spend a lot of time. They often complain that they cannot understandwhat teachers have taught in the class, and they cannot memorize the words they havelearned. Meanwhile, for the teachers, they often feel confused why students cannotunderstand the knowledge the teacher has already taught, why they think English is adifficult subject and why they cannot memorize even simple words. Nowadays, there are various methods in foreign language teaching (FLT). Thisstudy is concerned about vocabulary teaching in senior high schools.

……….

1.2 The significance of the research

In order to help students to learn vocabulary effectively, more and more languagelearners, instructors and researchers are considering vocabulary as being a vitallyimportant element in language learning, and consequently vocabulary teaching hasbeen regarded as a significant segment in the practice of language teaching andlearning. The author also does some research to find out the useful way to helpstudents build up their English. Hopefully, the present study might shed lights onresearch related to teaching vocabulary and learning strategies on the level of seniorhigh in particular and on second language teaching in general, Vocabulary is one of the indispensable components of the language system."Words are basic building blocks of language" (Brown, 1994). It is also clear that thetask of vocabulary learning is a substantial one for the EFL learner. Richards (1976)suggested that a native-speaker child on entering school at the age of five or six wouldalready have a vocabulary of 2,000 to 3,000 words. Therefore, vocabulary plays asignificant role in the process of foreign language learning. In language teaching andlearning, vocabulary deserves special attention because it needs continuingdevelopment.

……….

Chapter 2 Literature Review

2.1 The definition of vocabulary

According to the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, the noun"vocabulary" has two definitions:All the words known and used by a particular personAll the words that exist in a particular language or subjectThey divided the knowledge of vocabulary known by a particular person into twogroups; Receptive/passive vocabulary-it is defined as the set of all words that areunderstood at reading or listening but not used in the spoken or writtenexpressions.? Productive/active vocabulary-it is the set of all words that are not only understood,but also used meaningfully when creating new sentencesCambridge Advanced Learner 's Dictionary"...knowing a word is not an all-or-nothing proposition; it is not the ease that oneeither knows or does not know a word. Rather, knowledge of a word should be viewed in terms of the extent or degree of knowledge that people can possess.，，(Beck& McKeon，1991) It is not enough to know the meaning of a word. You alsoneed to know: what words it is usually associated with; how it is pronounced.(Michael McCarthy & Felicity 0，Dell，1994) "...Vocabulary is the glue that holdsstories，ideas, and content together. Make comprehension accessible forchildren?” (Rupley，Logan，&Nichols，1998)

………….

2.2 Teaching methods abroad and at home

McCarthy (1994) stated good dictionary can tell you a lot more about a word than itsmeaning, including synonyms and their difference, antonyms, and pronunciation.Schmit and Schmitt (1995) suggested keywords and word networks can be combinedwith other information to create word cards.Joe (1994) stated that degree of generation was closely related to amount of learningin retelling, such as retelling task.Newton (1993) stated that negotiation of the meaning of a word greatly increased itschances of being learned.Paul Nation (2000) pointed out that communicative tasks can be used to teachvocabulary. He said vocabulary teaching could be fitted into a communicativeapproach to teaching, especially into speaking activities where the learners worktogether in groups without much spoken involvement by the teacher. By designingshort simple activities focused on particular words，learners can develop theirspeaking skills and increase their knowledge of vocabulary, such as retelling activity and role play activity.LS.P.Nation (1990) stated that when we teach a word we must teach the shape or formof the word, and the meaning of the word. He said we could help the learnerunderstand the meaning of the word by using different approaches. The meanings ofwords can be communicated or taught in many different ways，such as bydemonstration, by pictures and by verbal explanation.

…………

Chapter Three Teaching Experiment procedure........ 8

3.1 Research Questions........ 8

3.2 Research Subjects........ 9

3.3 Research Methodology ........ 12

3.4 Experiment Procedure ........ 13

3.4.1 Preparation for the experiment........ 13

3.4.2 Embodiment of research questions........ 15

Chapter Four Results and Analysis ........ 17

4.1 The result and the analysis the questionnaires........ 17

4.2 The result and analysis of the test........ 18

Chapter Five Conclusion........ 19

5.1 Influence to teachers........19

5.2 Influences to students........  32

5.3 The problems in the process of research ........ 32

5.4 Suggestions for further study ........  33

Chapter 4 Results and Analysis

4.1 The results of questionnaires

In the current study, there are 104 students involved in this survey and although104 copies of questionnaires are considered valid. Class 6 is the experimental classand class 10 is controlled class. Before the experiment, the students take thequestionnaire one and the results are as follows. The result suggests 61% students are not interested in English, 38% studentsthinks that it is difficult to leam English. At their early stage, thy think English is easyto leam, so most students like to leam it. They show a great enthusiasm in English learning. Sooner they gradually lose their passion on learning English when they arein senior high because of the abundant vocabulary. From the figures it shows, the author knows that most students recite the wordsbased on the words list in order to cope with the teacher's dictation. Although theshort-term memory is helpful, it is easy to forget which they've just learned.

……..

Conclusion

The author thinks that this preliminary experiment has done something to solveour English teaching's big problem—vocabulary teaching, and has explored somesuitable methods for students to leam and memorize new words. But we also realizethat, cultivating and improving students' vocabulary learning ability in high school isa long-term, tough, meticulous job. Teachers should create a good vocabulary learningenvironment for students, arouse their interest, build up confidence, and give everystudent feasible vocabulary learning strategy and make effective planning. At thesame time, teachers should use all kinds of methods guarantee the implementation ofthe plan. The study not only helps the author analyze the main problems in vocabularyteaching, but also finds out the reasons and countermeasures, and takes action to try tosolve it, so as to promote her professional development. And in the whole course ofthe study, the author's ever-present concern for the students' learning situation is nolonger only set for the teaching target and the teaching content, but all the students'actual needs.

…………

Reference (omitted)