Exploration in English Vocabulary Teaching

1、初探英語詞匯教學(xué)exploration in english vocabulary teachingcontentsabstract.1key words.1i. introduction .2ii. what is vocabulary and what needs to be taught?.32.1 what is vocabulary?.32.2 the role of vocabulary.42.2.1 in the traditional chinese approach.42.2.2 in a lexical approach.42.3 what needs to be taug

2、ht?.52.3.1 form: pronunciation and spelling.52.3.3 collocation.62.3.4 aspects of meaning (1): denotation, connotation, and appropriateness.62.3.5 aspects of meaning (2): sense relations.72.3.6 word formation.7iii. presenting new words. .83.1 principles of vocabulary teaching.93.2 teaching vocabulary

3、 learning strategy.93.3 ways of presenting new vocabulary.10iv. mechanism of mental memory.114.1 methods of memorizing vocabulary.12v. ideas for vocabulary work in the classroom and testing vocabulary.135.1 ideas for vocabulary activities.135.1.1 brainstorming round an idea.135.1.2 identifying words

4、 we know.145.2 vocabulary-testing techniques.14vi. conclusion.17references.17 exploration in english vocabulary teaching摘要: 語音,語法和詞匯是構(gòu)成語言的三大要素.其中詞匯是構(gòu)成語言最基本的材料.但是在我國傳統(tǒng)外語教學(xué)研究中, 由于受結(jié)構(gòu)主義理論的影響,過分強(qiáng)調(diào)語法規(guī)則而忽視了詞匯的重要性.面對21世紀(jì),英語教育應(yīng)是動(dòng)態(tài)的,發(fā)展的教育,改革傳統(tǒng)的英語教學(xué)是勢在必行的.隨著教育改革的深入發(fā)展,人們對詞匯有了新的認(rèn)識:詞匯教學(xué)是語言教學(xué)的基礎(chǔ),在整個(gè)語言教學(xué)過程中起著舉足輕重的

5、作用,如何有效地進(jìn)行英語詞匯教學(xué)將直接關(guān)系到學(xué)生是否真正理解和掌握英語,能否切實(shí)有效地運(yùn)用英語交際.本論題從詞匯定義和詞匯教學(xué)涵蓋的內(nèi)容出發(fā),探討了教授新單詞,記憶生詞,課堂詞匯練習(xí)和測試詞匯的方法.關(guān)鍵詞: 詞匯教學(xué);詞匯教授;詞匯記憶;詞匯練習(xí);詞匯測試abstract: pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary are the three components of language. among them, vocabulary is the most fundamental one. however, our countrys foreign lan

6、guage teaching has been misdirected in history, influenced by structuralism view, the traditional english teaching overemphasized on grammatical rules and very much neglected the importance of vocabulary teaching. face the 21st century, english teaching and learning should be more active than before

7、, innovating traditional english teaching is undoubtedly. with the development of education reform, people have come to realize that vocabulary teaching is the base of language teaching; it plays an important role in the whole teaching process. teaching english vocabulary effectively has direct affe

8、ct on students. this paper takes vocabulary teaching as the research question and makes a through discussion on the five aspects of what is vocabulary, what needs to be taught in vocabulary teaching, the ways of presenting new words, ideas for vocabulary memorizing, and vocabulary work in classroom

9、and vocabulary testing techniques.key words: vocabulary teaching; vocabulary presenting; vocabulary memorizing; vocabulary work; vocabulary testingi. introductiontheories of language teaching have gone through several periods of development. the traditionalgrammar-translation method had prevailed fo

10、r quite a long-time until it was replaced by the direct method emphasizing proper input of the target language. in the eyes of behaviorists, language is aform of learned behavior through stimulus-response-production model. behavioral psychologist skinner, who applied watson, initiated this behaviori

11、st theory of language learning and raynors theory of conditioning to the way humans acquire language. this theory of learning is referred to as behaviorism, which was adopted for some time by the language teaching profession, particularly inamerica. one influential result is the audio-lingual method

12、, which involves endless listen andrepeat drilling activities. the idea of this method is that language is learned by constant repetition and the reinforcement of the teacher. mistakes were immediately corrected, and correct utterances were immediately praised. this method is still used in many part

13、s of the world today.later, the term cognitivism is often used loosely to describe methods in which students are asked to think rather than simply repeat, it seems to be largely the result of noam chomskysreaction to skinners behaviorist theory, which led to the revival of structural linguistics.acc

14、ording to chomsky, language is an intricate rule based on system and a large part of languageacquisition is the learning of this system. under the influence of cognitive theories, thecommunicative approach was widely adopted in many countries, with emphasis on authenticsituationsand real roles. a cl

15、ass conducted communicatively is always livened up, and learnersare better motivatedand more imaginative. but in this approach, vocabulary and linguistic formsare paid less attention to than are the meanings, which may fail to help learners carry out successful communication through the interaction

16、of structural meanings and lexical meanings with the situations. however, english learning in china is quite different from the second language acquisition in western countries, as it is formally learned rather than naturally acquired. further, our countrys english learning has been misdirected in h

17、istory. because of the great influence of traditional structuralism view on english teaching and learning in china, the teachers teaching is limited to the textbook, to the patterns and grammar, it overemphasized on grammatical rules and very much neglected the importance of vocabulary teaching. tea

18、cher in teaching texts often concentrates only on the grammatical forms and restricts itself to the teaching of grammar, whereas the meaning of whole vocabulary is thought to be self-evident, whatever its context maybe. students are not taught how to use these words appropriately in real situations.

19、 as a result, many students only have simple understanding on those words and phrases, which they learned in class. they can hardly use them correctly. besides, they also cannot express themselves in english. of course, it is rather difficult for beginners to pick up their confidence in learning eng

20、lish when they are in middle school. so some average students come to lose heart. those who are slow learners have been forced to give up learning. for college english learners, they are no longer beginners since they already have considerable knowledge of english. their purpose in learning english

21、is the effective use of english in social communication and their future careers. so it is clear that traditional english teaching method will fail to meet the needs of learners in today.with the development of education, people have come to realize that language teaching and learning must go back t

22、o the place where it was ignored at the very beginning. in contrast, a lexical approach might be feasible for such intermediate and advanced learners. for one thing, it attaches much importance to lexical items, which is very similar to the pattern of acquisition of their mother tongue. for another,

23、 it is helpful in facilitating learners to turn more input of english into intake through the process of increased awareness. furthermore, the learners will benefit tremendously from the developed strategies for their future study of english. as we know, conventionally, linguists have broken languag

24、e down into three main components: pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. among them, vocabulary is building material of language. we can say that no vocabulary, no language. britain famous linguist d.a.wilkins (1972) once mentioned that without grammar, very little can be conveyed; without vocabul

25、ary, nothing can be conveyed. lexicologist mccarthy (1990) said more clearly that no matter how well the students learns grammar, no matter how successfully he masters the sound of a second language, without words to express a wide range of meanings, communication in that language cannot happen in a

26、ny meaningful way. due to such great influence, much importance is now attached to vocabulary teaching and learning. a lexical approach can be more suitable for students. in such an approach, vocabulary begins to take on a new role of organizing the target language in addition to being meaningful in

27、 itself. ii. what is vocabulary and what needs to be taught?2.1 what is vocabulary?english is one of the worlds highly developed languages. naturally its vocabulary is one of the largest and richest. the general estimate of the vocabulary is over one million words. vocabulary can roughly mean the wo

28、rds we teach and learn in the foreign language, vocabulary item is a speech sound or combination of sounds having meaning and is used as a basic unit of language and human communication. it may be more than a single word: for example, ice cream and good- for-nothing, which are made up of two or thre

29、e words but express a single idea. there are also multi-word idioms such as a piece of cake, where the meaning of the phrase cannot be inferred from an analysis of all the words together. a useful convention is to cover all such cases by talking about vocabulary item rather than words.2.2 the role o

30、f vocabulary 2.2.1 in the traditional chinese approach vocabulary is considered vital in learning english by chinese students because of the similar pattern in acquiring chinese. at their pre-school age, they are taught to remember the meanings of some chinese characters before they are able to writ

31、e them out and make sentences in primary schools. so the acquisition of chinese always follows the pattern: word-phrase-sentence-paragraph-passage, in which vocabulary is the basic unit for linguistic competence. students are also advised to have more chinese input through extensive reading, and tak

32、e notes of well-written phrases, sentences or passages. only with more input stored in their mind, can they speak and write better chinese. for most english classes in china, a very similar approach is adopted which places much emphasis on vocabulary and grammar. it is assumed that with enough vocab

33、ulary and grammar, a learner can express whatever he wants to with the target language. however, that lack of enough vocabulary is the main problem for their incompetence in using the target language. whatever difficulties the students have in using english, they are likely to attribute to their ins

34、ufficient vocabulary.as a result, when the learners attitude is heavily affected by the deep-rooted culture, it is unlikely that a sudden shift will occur from the traditional mode with vocabulary as the core. in fact, there is nothing seriously wrong with placing much emphasis on vocabulary, becaus

35、e if there were no vocabulary, communication would hardly be possible.2.2.2 in a lexical approachin a lexical approach, lexical items are viewed as the core of a language. but having a large vocabulary does not mean simple understanding of the meaning of words, but also using words pragmatically. to

36、 use words competently, learners should be encouraged to have enough practical strategies, including mastering the collocational range and restrictions on that range (lewis, 1993). lewis emphasizes that vocabulary can be viewed as the unit of a language merely for a certain analytical purpose, but f

37、or syntactic purpose. lexical items are the basic units, which constitute sentences that occur frequently and naturally in social communication. in a lexical approach, it is believed that language is stored in memory in the form of prefabricated chunks. the chunks should first be identified through

38、observation when the learners are exposed to the second language input. the learners will then hypothesize the lexical items to be aware of their collocational range and restrictions on the range so as to make part of the input their intake.with sufficient chunks taken in, the learners will be able

39、to express themselves so that they are capable of using the target language more effectively by following the pattern: input-observe (collocations/expressions)-hypothesize-experiment-intake.in this process, learners need to master not only the meaning of vocabulary but not also the organizing rules,

40、 both of which are necessities for using the target language more competently.2.3 what needs to be taught? what to teach about english vocabulary? if we want to help the students to grasp more english lexical items effectively, we must first be aware of what the students should know about a word.acc

41、ording to the study of hatch and brownt, learners strategies for learning vocabulary fall into five essential steps:(1) having the meaning of the words;(2) getting the forms of the new words;(3) learning the meaning of the words;(4) making a strong memory of the words;(5) using the words.this word a

42、cquisition theory not only manifests the inner rule of vocabulary learning but also reveals the following important aspects of vocabulary teaching:2.3.1 form: pronunciation and spellingthe learner has to know what a word sounds like (its pronunciation) and what it looks like (its spelling). for exam

43、ple: book cannot be spelled into boot. misspelling a word can lead to another word or no word at all. these are fairly obvious characteristics, and one or the other will be perceived by the learner when encountering the item for the first time. in teaching, we need to make sure that both these aspec

44、ts are accurately presented and learned.2.3.2 grammarthe grammar of a new item will need to be taught if this is not obviously covered by general grammatical rules. an item may have an unpredictable change of form in certain grammatical contexts or may have some idiosyncratic way of connecting with

45、other word in sentences; it is important to provide learners with this information at the same time as we teach the base form. when teaching a new verb, for example, we might give also its past form, if this is irregular (think, thought), and we might note if it is transitive or intransitive. simila

46、rly, when teaching a noun, we may wish to present its plural form, if irregular (foot, feet), or draw learners attention to the fact that it has no plural at all (advice, information). we may present verbs such as want and enjoy together with the verb form that follows them (want to, enjoy-ing), or

47、adjectives or verbs together with their following prepositions (responsible for, warn someone of something).2.3.3 collocationsome vocabulary items are used with particular items regularly. they are called collocation. the collocation typical of particular items is another factor that makes a particu

48、lar combination sound right or wrong in a given context. so this is another piece of information about a new item, which it may be worth teaching. for example, some prepositions are used with particular verbs, and some verbs and nouns are used together. we say read a book, but watch tv; in the colle

49、ge, but on the campus; when introducing words like decision and conclusion, we may note we say make a decision, but come to a conclusion.2.3.4 aspects of meaning (1): denotation, connotation, and appropriatenessvocabulary items have different aspects of meaning, such as denotative meaning, connotati

50、ve meaning, and contextual meaning.the meaning of a word is primarily what it refers to in the real world, its denotation. this is often the sort of definition that is a given in a dictionary. for example, the denotation of the english word dog refers to a kind of animal, more specifically, a common

51、 domestic animal; human denotes any person such as jane and mary.connotation, on the other hand, is the additional meaning that a word has beyond its dictionary definition. it is the feelings, emotions, either positive or negative, suggested by a word. this meaning may or may not be indicated in a d

52、ictionary definition. the word dog, as is understood by most british people, has positive connotations of friend and loyalty while in some other cultures, it has negative associations of dirtiness and inferiority; the connotation of human is biped, featherless, rational, etc.a more subtle aspect of

53、meaning that often needs to be taught is whether a particular item is the appropriate one to use in a certain context or not. that is, the meaning a word has within a particular sentence. thus it is useful for a learner to know that a certain word is very common, or relatively rare, or taboo in poli

54、te conversation, or tends to be used in writing but not in speech, or is more suitable for formal than informal discourse, or belongs to a certain dialect. for instance, in the dictionary, cold means having low temperature, unkind, or an illness, which is common in winter and may cause headaches, co

55、ughing, slight fever, and general discomfort, etc. but it is in the particular sentence like it is a hotel with hot and cold water in every bedroom that the meaning takes effect.2.3.5 aspects of meaning (2): sense relationswords are in different sense relations with each other. how the meaning of on

56、e item related to the meaning of others can also be useful in teaching. there are generally three kinds of sense relations recognized, namely, sameness relation, oppositeness relation and inclusiveness relation.synonyms: items that mean the same, or nearly the same. english is said to be rich in syn

57、onyms. there are many pairs of words, which mean the same, e.g. buy and purchase, world and universe, brotherly and fraternal.antonyms: items that mean the opposite, such as long and short, alive and dead.hyponyms: items that serve as specific examples of a general concept, tulip and rose are hyponyms of flower, and dog, cat and elephant are hyponyms of animal.besides these, there are other, perhaps looser ways of associating meaning that are