Some Approaches to Enlarge Students’ Vocabulary

题目：

初探扩大学生词汇量的方法

项目设计者

赵瑜亮

甘肃电大

提交日期2011年4月28日

课程名称：教学实践设计

1

Project Title:

Some Approaches to Enlarge Students?

V ocabulary

Investigator

Zhao Yuliang

Gansu Radio ＆TV University

Submitted on 28th April 2011

In fulfillment of the course

2

Practical project design

Acknowledgment

I really appreciate my tutor, whose help and patience made this proj

ect get off the ground and come to a close smoothly.

I am also grateful to my colleagues, thank for their time spent on brainstorming and panel discussions with me.

No amount of thanks will be adequate for my students, without wh ose willing participation in the project implementation it would have remained on paper.

Last but not least, thanks are given to my husband and my daught er, who have shared with me my worries, frustrations, and hopefully m y ultimate happiness in eventually finishing this project.

3

摘要:

本论文以学生词汇量匮乏从而影响他们进一步学习英语为中心，在解决实际问题和具体贯彻教学方案等方面做出了详细的研究。论文中假设良好的词汇训练方法定会激发学生的词汇学习兴趣，并以这个假设为前提，采用全新的教学计划，经过四周的课堂实践，从而证实这个假设的正确性。

在科学的调查实践中采用的主要方法有：苏格拉底式的问答，原因分析，问卷调查和集体探讨等方法。

关键词：方法、词汇、训练。

4

Abstract:

It presents a detailed report of the project implemented to solve the problem that some of my students are limited in V ocabulary, which hinders their further English leaning. It is hypothesized that learners?interest in new words will be aroused by better-designed word study approaches. This hypothesis is verified by a four-week classroom teaching of the newly designed word study approach exercises.

Among the methods of scientific investigation used are analytic method, Socratic dialogue, cause analysis, questionnaire, and brainstorming.

Key Words:Approach, vocabulary, training.

5

Main Heading of the project Report

Contents

1.References Problem and Problem

Analysi s-----------------------------------------------1

2.Project objective----------------------------------------------------------------4

3.Project hypothesis--------------------------------------------------------------5

4.Project rationale----------------------------------------------------------------6

5.Subject description-------------------------------------------------------------7

6.Project design-------------------------------------------------------------------9

7.Project implementation--------------------------------------------------------12

8.Project evaluation--------------------------------------------------------------14

9.Project findings and discussion----------------------------------------------16

10.Conclusion----------------------------------------------------------------------19

References

6

Appendix A The questionnaire for problem analysis

Appendix B The Post-trial questionnaire

1 Problem and Problem analysis

1.1 problem

The problem I encountered in my teaching is that some of my students are limited in vocabulary, which restricts them in their further English study.

1.2 Problem analysis

This problem has remained a headache for quite a long time in my teaching, I tried every means to solve this problem. Eventually I worked out 5 main reasons that block the students? enlarging English words and phrases.

(1)The students don?t pay great attention to the importance of the vocabulary in

their English learning.

(2)V ery often, they recite the new words mechanically, but neglect their lexical

change.

(3)Students learn the words from the conceptual meaning rather than from the

functional features.

(4)In terms of contextualism, they lack ability of classifying the words in certain

groups.

(5)Teacher have to adopt effective teaching methods in order to activate student s?

interest in the mastery of English words.

In doing my study, I employ the analytic method, socratic dialogue, cause analysis, questionnaires, and brainstorming respectively.

1.2.1 Analytic method

I think out several questions concerning the students? word problems:

Why are some of my students rich in vocabulary, while others are not? How can we teachers help the weaker to improve their vocabulary? In what way?

1.2.2 Socratic dialogue

In the following dialogue, I serve as A and Socratic serves as B.

A: I asked: why are some of my students limited in vocabulary?

B: Do you think you can swim faster than a swimming athlete?

A: Of course not.

B: Why?

A: Because the main reason is that I haven?t been trained in that way.

B: Did you teach your students some proper skills to recite the new words?

A: Oh, perhaps not, because I am too busy in carrying out my teaching plans and overlooking some definite methods to improve students? vocabulary.

B: How about those students who are rich in vocabulary?

A: Oh, I see, they must have some tricks in mastery of the new words.

B: That?s right. How about you? Have a try?

7

1.2.3 Cause analysis

In terms of cause analysis, I compile why-question corresponded with a group of because-question. The questions are arranged like this:

Why are some of my students limited in vocabulary? Are there any blocks that hinder their new words stock? What methods should I use to help them build up their vocabulary?

△Is it because they think English is not so important? or

△Is it because they feel rather difficult to recite new words? or

△Is it because they don?t form habit of memorizing new words? or

△Is it because they go short of proper learing methods in the English learing? or

△Is it because they are too busy engaging other subjects and overlook their English course? or

△Is it because my teaching methods lack flexibility and variety in teaching students with their mastery of vocabulary?

1.2.4 Questionnaire

In order to find out reasons that students have problems with their vocabulary. I designed a worksheet based on the above questions by the end of February and let students answer them briefly in 10 mins. They wrapped up the questionnaires seriously and handed them in. I checked the results and pondered the findings. From the result, I conducted a survey; Over 80% of them thought English is one of their major course, they said it was very important and necessary to learn English. Over 60% of them thought it was a hard work to recite the new words. 30% of them were not interested in memorizing the new words. 10% of them were quite interested in learing English and nearly 90% of them wanted to use scientific methods to memorize English words.

It?s quite clear that most of my students are interested in learing English. They think it?s important and urgent for them to learn English, but they feel awkward about their limited V ocabulary and don?t know how to increase their vocabulary efficiently.

1.2.5 Brainstorming action

Whenever I came across difficulties, I consulted my tutor Mr Liu and my colleagues. Quite often they gave me advice, solutions sincerely. As a well-designed plan was around the corner. I began to launch a project to solve the problem.

2. Project objective

My research objective is to help the students to enlarge their V ocabulary so that their general-level of English can be improved.

3. Project hypothesis

It is hypothesized that if my students know some approaches or techniques to memorize the new words they can master more English words. And if they have more words, their English will be improved even better.

8

4. Project rationale

4.1 The role of word

We use language every day. We live in a world of words. A good language learner should firstly know the internal structure of words, that is the rule by which words are formed. Secondly, good language learner may explore all the aspects of vocabulary use. Such as synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, collocation etc and has ability to work out the meanings of unknown words from the context. All of these skills above come from morphology, semantics and contextualism. So I regard them as my basic theories and to carry them out in my teaching, what I will do therefore is based on these theories coordinately to design some approaches in cultivating students to enlarge their vocabulary.

4.2 The role of the students

A fully-motivated learner can naturally increase his learing interest, widen his knowledge view and gradually form a habit of independent analysis rather than always depend on dictionary to consult the new words, besides, prolong his attention-span in class to absorb more knowledge and initiatively share other s?techniques and shortcuts in memorizing the new words after the class.

4.3 The role of the teacher

The nature of a good teacher should be friendly, patient, considerate, justice, humorous, what?s more, well-educated and rich experienced. In the class, he can serve as a controller, assessor, instructor, prompter and coordinator. While carrying out his teaching plan, he will focus on motivating students?learning interest, adjusting class atmosphere, linking the learing objectives with the students?personal needs, the classroom activities should be student-centred as a whole.

5. Subject Description

I have 2 classes, each contains roughly 30 students. They are all in the second year of a private senior middle school and they have four English lessons per week. The level of their English is nearly the same except a few of them with a greater difference. The textbook they use is Reader?s Choice. For the purpose of finding out the effect of my research project. I teach one of them with well-designed approaches, and the other with the traditional approaches.

6．Project Design

General timetable for project design

9

10

W eek 1Activity 1

Unit 1

STEMS and AFFIXES

Purpose: students have to know component of English words: stem, prefix, suffix and infix, the function of each pert, the meaning of some typical stems and affixes (listed on page 9-10)

Introduction:

Unit 1 mainly introduce the basic knowledge of word-formation. Students will learn to work out the meanings of some words by their stem or affix meaning throughout this unit.

At beginning of the class, I introduce the knowledge of morphology, and then I write a word “prediction”on the blackboard, underline …pre?and tell Ss “This is so called prefix.”the function of the prefix is it can change the meaning of a word. Secondly, tell them the basic part of a word is the stem and underline …dict?for them to make clear. Thirdly, suffix in this word refers to …tion?, this part of a word normally can change its part of speech.

For the students:

Now open your textbook on page 9, try to memorize the list of some commonly occurring stems and affixes on the left side and their related meaning on the right side in 10mins. Ss scan them and roughly master them in given time. “Ok everybody, let?s do the exercises on page 10 to see if you can relate the meaning from stems and affixes to work out the meaning of some certain words.”The last 10mins, Ss are required to do the pair-work to conduct an activity in order to brush up what they have learned in this unit. Homework on page41, 77and recite The stems and affixes form on page 41,and 77.

W eek 2Activity 2

Unit 2

VOCABULARY from CONTEXT

Purpose: students learn to use the reading skills, such as the logic meaning of the relating sentences, the structure of the text, the immediate context around the word and punctuation provided in the context to determine the meanings of the unfamiliar words [typical lesson on page 36-37] This method reinforces Ss?guessing instead of using dictionary.

Introduction:

First arouse Ss to recall some important reading skills, and then I sort out and list them on the blackboard, explain their functions separately, make some examples to prove that they are useful and effective to analyses the meanings of some unknown words.

For the students:

“I think you?ve got familiar with these methods, and now open your textbooks on page 36. Y ou will be given 20 mins to finish this exercise.”And then I divide the

11

whole class into several groups, let Ss to evaluate the results together, ponder their “reasonable”answer, and select one student on behalf of the group to report their answers to the class. The whole class then have a thorough discussion to find the best answer. Homework on page 57, and find some reading materials to consolidate this knowledge.

W eek 3Activity 3

Unit 4

SYNONYM and ANTONYM

Purpose: With help of the knowledge of register and semantic field, the students learn to use synonyms to replace some given words, and at meantime try to find their antonyms.

Introduction:

Students will first of all finish the exercise on page 66-67, make sure the definite meanings of the italicized words. Then I will introduce some linguistic knowledge concerning: register, synonymy, antonymy, complementarity, gradability, relation opposites and hyponymy etc. Next students will have a pair work to give the synonyms and antonyms of the given words. In order to activate students?interest to vocabulary learing, I made a pack of word cards with all the given words on one side and their synonyms, antonyms on the other. The whole class now are too ready to have a competition to see who will be the first one to win more cards.

For the students:

Let?s start the competition everybody, the cards in my hand listed all the words you?ve learned, I will show you each card, anyone who can tell the word with its synonyms and antonyms will win a card, finally I will count who will be the one with more cards. Today?s prize is a 5000-word dictionary. Just as Robert said: “Games and activities are the best way to build a large and new vocabulary and help the students adapt a new language and culture,” (1999:10), the students are quite active to take part in this activity, although some of them are depressed in giving some inaccurate answers. They really grasp more words and expand their vocabulary. Homework: Do the exercise on page 76-78, write down all the given words with their synonyms and antonyms on your notebook and memorize them, next time we will have a quiz!

W eek 4activity 4

Unit 5

LEXICAL CHANGE

Purpose: Our society is changing, language as a matter of fact, is changing too. So some deeper word knowledge such as: abnormal type of word-formation, connotation and collocation should be introduced in this lesson in order to expand students? word knowledge scope.

Introduction:

As I?ve arranged last time, A quiz will be carried out to test the students? current vocabulary mastery as well as the effect of my teaching. Then I introduce some abnormal types of word-formation such as: blending, abbreviation, acronym,

12

back-formation etc. and meanwhile give some examples, let Ss make their own judgments in order to strengthen their understanding. To explain the concept of connotation and collocation clearly, I think I will find some situational dialogue to let students listen to first. So they learn how to use the same word in different occasions as well as how to use different modifiers to different people or different things. It is common belief that “most forgetting occurs immediately after initial learning this would seem to suggest that repetition is most effective if it commences very soon after the first encounter.”(Mc Carthy, 1990:117) Therefore I find some exercises to make students consolidate these new knowledge. Following are the designed exercises:

Number 2. connect the verb “wear” with different words or phrases around the circle and translate them into Chinese.

a smile --------- ----------- away

gold ring ----------- ----------- long hair

jewels ------ wear ----- a new dress(hat, pair of gloves)

a red flower --------- -----------black shoe

glasses --------------- ------------ the rocks

(Yu Nina, 4B Practical English. Book 1. Page326)

For the students:

I've just introduced several important concepts, I wonder if you can understand them completely? Anyway, you are welcome to ask questions if you have. And now, we will do the following exercises in order to grasp them as soon as possible! The class at this moment will be divided into several groups and do the exercises above together. I go around to each group, listen and answer their questions, collect their results arid list them on the blackboard, through the discussion of the whole class, select the correct answers and finally I distribute the second questionnaire to the students.

7. Project Implementation

It takes me four weeks to carry out my project. Because of the active corporation of students and warm-hearted colleagues' help, the teaching plans and related activities were conducted better than expected. Following are the details of the implementation.

13

Week 1 Activity l

Unit 1 emphases basic knowledge of word-formation. At beginning of the class, they felt difficult to memorize so many stems and affixes in a short time and often misplaced them one another. I noticed their puzzled look and explained, "If you know more about stems and affixes, your vocabulary will be soon multiplied." and gave them some examples like dis, un, homo, pathy, able, ful etc at the meantime. The students were somewhat enlightened and encouraged and realized the importance of the function of these stems and affixes, therefore paid more attention to their reciting. The activity conducted in that unit was a pair-work combining individual's imagination and two-people corporation to work out meanings of several completed words that I previously arranged called "your Guess." The typical word in this exercise was' conspiror.'

Week 2 Activity 2

Students in unit 2 were required to use context clues to work out the mea nings of some given words. The reading skills , in other words, the reading levels, seem quite critical for them in their judgments, I aroused them to recall some important reading skills and listed them on die blackboard at first, but not enough , so I added some specific ones, took the punctuation for example; Semicolon can be used as a conjunction in the compound sentences, the words therefore in its connecting two parts usually have the same meaning. Through my further explanation, Ss

were motivated and perform actively in the group discussion .The activity I have adopted called

"The best analyst ".Most of the students were so involved in this activity, not only did they positively express their opinions but also consolidated their newly learnt knowledge.

Week 3 Activity 3

I advocated students to use synonyms to replace the given words in this unit .It was quite natural they could not find more words with the exact same meaning at this stage, I understood their difficulties, and what I wanted to emphases is that they have to gradually form a habit of using English words or phrases to replace the given words." If you feel quite difficult, you may paraphrase them." I prepared word cards to call on them to have a competition, the activity called "Prize winner" Almost all of students in this activity were fully adjusted their attention -span and took pains to find some synonyms. Take the word `emotion' for example, they gave nearly six synonyms to it. Finally I explained the differences of this group words.

Week 4 Activity

As it was my last lesson, I intended to give more knowledge to the students. From the quiz I knew their vocabulary had really got improved, then I put the tape-recorder on the rostrum to see if they could work out the meanings of some key words through listening. Oh, not so good, then the second time and…… Gradually, they got used to

14

and could clearly point out different modifiers in the given sentences. I wrote them on the blackboard, such as; A tall man lives in a high building. A pretty girl follows her beautiful mother. These typical examples help them to establish the concept of connotation and reasonable collocation .Then they were arranged to have a group discussion to finish two of my written assignment . At the end of the class, I distributed the second questionnaire, let them fill in seriously.

8．project evaluation

The project I designed focuses on its objective and realistic. I conscientiously fulfilled the requirements for its objective, hypothesis, rationale and worked out the details for the schedule of the implementation. By the time I finished my action research, the problem I found in my actual teaching was researchable. Almost all of the methods I adopted in giving an analysis on the problem were suitable and practical .The project hypothesis was testified to be correct and reasonable. All the theories quoted in the investigation have reinforced my proof.

9 Project findings and discussion

The data collected from games and activities are classified into two categories. One is questionnaire and the other is vocabulary test, which will be analyzed respectively in this section.

9.1 Data analysis at the questionnaires

9.1.1 Students general attitude towards word learning.

Between March and April this year, I conducted two investigations in my class. The result of the questionnaires can be seen in the follow figure; The figure shows the second tune compared with the first for those who feel `very interesting' iii word memorizing increase 6.6%, `interesting' increase 16.7%, `just so-so' decrease 13% and feel `too difficult' decrease 10.3% .Seen in the following figure:

Figure 1

15

35

adjust our teaching interest. Students' mastery of rather than follow traditional their vocabulary efficiently.

9.1.2 Students' attitude towards the skills and activities in my project

16

The statistics shows that most of the students think the new teaching methods and activities cater I their taste, they have combined interesting, pragmatic, variety and flexibility as a whole. The atmosphere of the class is active since then .Students on the other hand, take initiative towards their English learning, no longer feel boring or hold passive attitude to the word learning. However, there are still a few of them can't adapt to their learning methods. That's what I need to consider and put effort to. Whatever, I have confidence to handle them in the future research.

9.2 Data from four weeks vocabulary tests

I conducted three word tests for the students during my action research. The last one on April 13 involved more skills than the previous two , it was more comprehensive.

From the test score, I'm fully convinced that my students have been steadily making progress in term of their vocabulary during implement of my practical project. In contrast to this class, the one sticked to the traditional methods has remained the same level.

10．conclusion

My action research lasts more than one month, some important teaching approaches are mainly based on linguistic theories. During this hard-working period, I consistently adjusted my teaching methods, analyzed the first -hand datum, evaluated the teaching effect, adopted different kinds of activities to carry out the teaching plan. All of these merely focus on a specific goal that is to take pains to increase students' vocabulary. The results, in fact, are very satisfactory. I aim so optimistic at present as it indeed works out a solution to the students' problem, I regard it as a valuable work, because it helps students not only increase their vocabulary, but also strengthen their awareness of, adopting some appropriate learning methods in their English study.

17

References：

Chen Dezhang & Y ang Lingjuan. 1989. English Words at party. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press .

E. Margaret Baudoin & Ellen S. Bober, 1977. Reader's Choice. Michigan: The University of Michigan Press.

Gu Yueguo.1999. English language Teaching Methodology (park l) (park2). Beijing : Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

Gu Yueguo. 1999. Practical Project Design. Beijing: Foreign language Teaching and Research Press.

Guy Yueguo. 1998. Language and Linguistics. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

Liu Runqing & Hu Zhuaulin. 1998. Research Methods In Foreign Language Teaching. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press .

Liu Runqing &Hu ZhuagLin.1988. Linguistics: A course Book. Beijing: Peking University Press.

Wedell, M&liu Runqing, 1995. Language Teaching & Learing. Beijing: Higher Education Press.

18

Zhang weiyou. 1997.8《英语词汇学》北京：外语教学与研究出版社。

Zhang weiyou. 1995. Essentials of English. Hubei: Educational Press.

Zhang Jinghao. 2000. Everyday English Synonyms. Shanghai: 世界图书出版公司Liu, Ruenqing刘润清。1999,《语言测试和它的方法》。北京：外语教学与研究出

版社。

Tan,Xianmei 覃先美。2001, 《毕业论文导写》。湖南：湖南师范大学出版社。Jia, Guanjie 贾冠杰。1996, 《外语教育心理学》广西：广西教育出版社。

文章：

Chen,Fenglan陈风兰。2001,引导学生参与促进主动学习《教育评论》2001年第2期，72－73页。

Chen,Yixin陈一心。2002,重视小组学习能力的培养《福建教育》2002年第5期，33页。

Gu,Ming 顾明。2002, 与英语长门人对话《上海教育》2002年第5期，15－17页。

Gu,Y adi 顾娅娣。2001,中国古代心理学思想的注意问题《心理科学》2001年第2期，175－177页。

Lin,Bijing林碧箐。2001，在英语教学中实施创新教育的尝试《教育评论》2001年第四期，67-68页。

Zou,Chuenyan邹燕春。2002，认知风格：影响学生成就的心理分析《教育评论》2002年第一期，34－36页。

Zheng,Xinjun郑信军。2001，阅读速度与提高位置对不同认知方式学生信息保持的影响《心理科学》2001年第3期，300－302页。

19

本文来源：https://www.bwwdw.com/article/8fve.html