My recept of vocabulary teaching
My surname is Li , I graduated from Anhui Univernity FLD, I`ve been teaching in a middle school for over twenty years . In my teaching , I found there is a problem that my students can’t remember so many new words and expressions in each lesson . I found there is three reasons .
1.Some students did not feel interested in leaning English .
2.Some students had many difficulties in remebering so many new words .
3.Most students felt overloaded because of a heavier homework assignment.
The problems has been troubling me for a long time and now I am determined to find a solution to them . In the following paragraphs , I will talk about how to enhance my students’ interest and effect in leaning vocabulary .
Through careful analysis , I was led to a series of questions . For example , I found a majority of my students can not remember so many new words and I want to know why it should be the case and whether they thought it important and nessary to learn new words or not ? If they thought it important and necessary , the problems was actually caused by myself ,not by my students . Probably the new words I presented my students to learn and to remember were not well presented .
In this situation , I ask myself series questions and tried to provide some answers to them . Why did many of my students can’t remember so many new words in each lesson ? In order to know more about this issue, I desingned a cause explaration procedure like this :
Is it because they aren’t interested in English ?
Is it because the presentations of new words poorly designed ?
Is it because they do not like to remember so many new words ?
Is it because they have not enough time to remember ?
Is it because they do not think this language is not important and necessary ?
Is it because they have some difficulties unsolved by themselves ?
Is it because the classroom is getting too noisy ?
Is it because they are introvert and don’t like to say in English ?
I made a pilot investigation in this respect to know more about the situation . For this purpose , I designed a research procedure like the follows:
One day , I made them remember some new words and use each new word to make up a sentence after class . The next day, I got the following feadback . Only five students can remember all the new words and made a new sentence with each of them. Some students didnt spend enough time to learn the new words . Then I ask them the following questions ,one was why the students had done it well. The students’ responses:
First ,those who had completed the task said they enjoyed learning English and they also liked to learn the new words by themselves after class .
Second ,those who had learned the new words said they learn them because they
can pronounce them,they must remember the spelling and Chinese meaning, so that they can understand the text.
The other question was why most students hadn`t done it well? After analysis , I determined to lounch a project to overcome the problem . So I help my students to make up eight groups and use different techniques for presenting vocabulary and so on .
In order to guarantee most of my students would be highly involved in the vocabulary learning , I decided to make up groups . Through the investigations , I found there were two main problems for them to learn new words by themselves after class . One of the problems was that the family members of most students did not know or hardly know English . When the students met difficulties or had problems , they could not get any help . And if they made mistakes they could not be corrected in time . The other was they thought they could not check effectively by themselves . They felt they ought to have a partner . Through analysis , I thought that the students were all fourteen or fifteen years old and they were all English learning beginners , so they have strong and mutual dependence . If they were organized into small groups , more over , I could cultivate their spirit of coperation and achieve unity amomg students by making them learn from each other and help each other .
Next keeping a written record of new vocabulary is an imporanat part of language learning ,because it helps one to remember it . There are several ways students can record new words :
I recommend my students to keep a vocabulary notebook , in which they can write down new words when they meet them .
I introduced some efficient recording strategies to encourage the students to use more than one strategy : translation ,drawing pictures , writing sentences , reviewing the list of words ......
Checking their performance regularly is very important . I decided to check their work because many students would usually do better under the supervision of their teachers or parents . Sometimes I asked them something about the new words . Sometimes I gave them some minutes to write from memory .
Some students often complained they had too much written home . So they have no enough time to learn the new words . I should make allowance for the students’ pressure . I gave them less homework when there are too many new words in the lesson to reduce their pressure .
After some time , most students felt interested in leaning English . They weren’t afraid of vocabulary anymore . Now , when they have English classes , they are very happy .
关键词: Investigation
Analysis
Solution