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内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
Part 1
Introduction
1.1
Overview of
this study
V
ocabulary teaching is no
longer a victim of discrimination in second
language
learning
research,
nor
in
language
teaching.
After
decades
of
neglect,
lexis
is
now
recognized as central to
any language acquisition, native, or non-native.
V
ocabulary is
basic
to
language
learning.
It
would
be
impossible
to
learn
a
language
without
learning vocabulary.
The more vocabulary teaching and learning is
studied in English
language
learning,
the
deeper
researchers
realize
that
English
words
are
the
most
important elements in linguistic
study
.
Singer in his study
points out that in a reading
activity,
understanding
vocabulary
is
about
39%
of
a
reader?
s
reading
competence,
47% of a reader's ability to
understand
vocabulary in
texts relies on his/her vocabulary
size,
and
28%
of the
reading
speed
is
used
to
recognize
the
vocabulary
items
(Sun
Xingwen,
1998,
p.
101).
This
is
why
more
and
more
language
learners,
instructors
and
researchers
are
considering
vocabulary
as
being
a
vitally
important,
if
not
the
most important, element
in language
learning
(Nation, 1990, p. 2),
and
consequently
vocabulary instruction has
been
regarded as a
significant segment in the practice of
language teaching and learning.
In
vocabulary
instruction,
the
process
of
showing
(introducing)
target
words(lexical
items)
to
students
is
called
presentation.
V
ocabulary
presentation
is
extremely important since, on the one
hand, learners are assigned the task of learning,
on the other hand,
utilizing appropriate and efficient presentation
methods enables the
learners to obtain
a deeper impression of richer information about
the target words so
as to make it
easier for the target words to enter the long-term
memory.
Mainly based on
cognitive and elaboration theory, the present
study inspects
and
tests,
by
means
of
experiments,
the
different
effects
of
English
vocabulary
1
内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
teaching
and learning
by adopting different
presentation
ways.
The orientation is
to
compare
the
vocabulary
learning
results
by
utilizing
three
types
of
commonly
used
presentation ways, and
to find out which presentation way yields the best
vocabulary
learning and retention
result. In the study, 3 groups of words (10words
in each group)
are presented to the
subjects respectively (each group is presented by
using a certain
presentation
way),
and
then
the
subjects
are
required
to
take
two
tests,
namely
the
immediate memory test
and the delayed memory test. The study attempts to
identify
an effective vocabulary
presentation way in classroom English vocabulary
instruction
in China.
1.2
The
significance of the present study
Since the importance of vocabulary
teaching and learning is concerned , there
have been an increasing number of
studies on the issue of vocabulary teaching both
at
home and abroad, and researchers of
those studies have mainly been focusing on the
specific methods of vocabulary
teaching, the issues , options and the principles
of
vocabulary teaching, the principles
of vocabulary acquisition , linguistic theories
and
vocabulary teaching, culture and
vocabulary teaching, corpus and vocabulary
teaching , grammar and
vocabulary teaching as well as vocabulary
learning
strategies, vocabulary size and
vocabulary knowledge. (Wang Wenyu, 1998; Wu
Xia&Wang Qiang, 1998; Dai Manchun,
2000; Lu Wenpeng, 2000; Zhou Dajun, 2000)
Besides, quite a few researchers have
devoted themselves to different aspects of
vocabulary teaching and different
theories of language teaching, such as context,
association, lexical chunks,
translation, etymology, connectionist theory,
lexico
-semantic theory and so on and
applied them to vocabulary teaching.
However, whether the theoretical
research or the empirical research seldom
touches the valuable topic of
presentation, and therefore, some specialized and
deeper
studies in this domain are
urgently needed (Zhang Baicheng &Wei Han, 2004, p.
2
内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
24-25).Secondly, though context,
association, lexical chunks, translation,
etymology,
connectionist theory, and
lexico -semantic theory have applied to vocabulary
teaching,
we find that there is lack of
horizontal comparison among them. Thirdly,
although a
small number of the
researchers such as Zhang Bai cheng, He Jianing,
Xiao
Hongfang ,etc have studied the
effects of different presentation ways on
vocabulary
memorization, few of them
focus their attention on vocabulary teaching to
high school
students. Most of them
limit their research subject only to college
students and college
English vocabulary
teaching.
Moreover,
in
the
actual
English
teaching
in
China,
vocabulary
teaching
is
usually squeezed in other
courses (such as reading, literature, etc.)
because there are
no classes
specializing in vocabulary teaching. In this kind
of vocabulary teaching,
presentation is
usually simple, hasty, and random. Generally, two
presentation modes
are
typically
adopted:
(1)
The
teacher
directly
shows
(presents)
the
target
words
to
students, and then ask them to read and
memorize the vocabulary items; (2) After the
target
vocabulary
items
are
presented,
the
teacher
offers
(usually
hastily
and
randomly)some
collocations or example sentences, while students
are hardly required
to
make
sentences
by
themselves,
which
may
probably
create
the
problem
that
the
example
sentences
provided
by
the
teacher
are
grammatically
correct,
but
seldom
used
in real life and thus are not authentic example
sentences (Zhang Baicheng, 2004).
Considering
the
characteristics of students?
cognition
and psychology as well as their
understanding and memorization, we
believe that it is necessary to develop and better
the commonly used presentation ways in
vocabulary teaching to make them adapted
to students' cognition and psychology.
Therefore, according to 2.2, we adopt the three
presentation ways namely presentation
in association, in context and in chunks to be
experimented in the present study. They
are so typical and widely used in classroom
English vocabulary teaching in China
that most learners and teachers are familiar with
them, hence it will be easy to make the
learners and teachers believe the effectiveness
of the three ways and utilize them
efficiently in their teaching practice.
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内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
Based
on
the
description
above,
we
believe
that
the
effects
of
different
vocabulary
presentation ways on vocabulary retention is a
valuable question for study.
By
presenting vocabulary in different ways in
empirical study, we hope to find more
effective
vocabulary
learning
ways
that
are
true
of
senior
middle
students
to
reduce
students
?
learning
burden
and
to
improve
their
learning
achievements
and
we
also
hope
that
this
study
can
draw
more
attention
of
English
language
researchers
and
teachers of English so that they can
take the importance of presenting vocabulary into
consideration and further research this
field.
1.3
Research orientation of
the study
As already
mentioned above, English vocabulary teaching is
really important in
the
system
of
English
language
teaching
so
teachers
are
responsible
for
the
whole
process
of
English
vocabulary
teaching
,
including
carefully
designing,
and
effectively
implementing. The first basic element of the
process for the teacher to take
into
consideration is the step of presentation, i.e.
the process of introducing the target
words to learners by utilizing certain
methods (presentation ways). In order to conduct
the present study more purposefully,
three questions are put forward:
1.
Do
different
ways
of
vocabulary
presentation
have
different
effects
on
Chinese
Senior
Middle School students' vocabulary retention?
2. Which vocabulary presentation way is
best for immediate gains of new words?
3. Which vocabulary presentation way
best promotes vocabulary delayed retention?
To
answer
these
questions,
we
have
designed
relevant
experiments
in
which
three
kinds of
commonly-used presentation
ways are to
be
adopted to
present
three
groups
of
target
words
respectively,
and
after
each
presentation,
two
tests
will
be
given to the
subjects, one is called the immediate
memory test performed 15 minutes
after
the
presentation, and the
other is the delayed memory test carried out one
week
after
the
presentation.
We
are
hoping
to
obtain
some
useful
findings
from
the
test
4
内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
results,
which
will
shed
some
light
on
English
vocabulary
teaching
and
learning
in
China.
1.3
The
organization of this paper
In
this
paper,
we
make
an
attempt
to
stimulate
both
theoretical
thinking
and
empirical
research
in
the
domain
of
EFL
vocabulary
presentation.
By
presenting
vocabulary
in
different
ways,
we
hope
to
find
more
effective
vocabulary
learning
ways that are true
of students of English.
This thesis covers five chapters. They
are (1) Introduction (2) Literature review
(3) Design of the Research (4) Results
and discussion
( 5
)Conclusion of this thesis
As
we
have
seen,
Chapter
1
is
the
introduction
part.
It
describes
the
aim,
orientation and the
significance of this study as well as the
organization of the study .
Chapter
2
presents
the
literature
related
to
the
ways
of
presentation,
the
theoretical
foundation
of
vocabulary
presentation
and
the
studies
on
vocabulary
teaching at home and abroad
Chapter
3
describes
the
experimental
design
which
involves
research
issues,
research materials , subjects,
instrument and procedure .
Chapter
4 presents
all the statistical
results
analyzed by SPSS 13.00 and give
the discussion of the results, at the
same time answer the research questions.
Chapter
5
is
the
conclusion.
In
it,
the
findings
of
the
study
are
given;
The
significance of the study is expressed;
Some pedagogical implications are presented;
The limitations of the current study
are appraised and recommendations for the future
is pointed out.
Part 2
Literature Review
5
内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
In this Chapter, literature
related to the present study will be reviewed,
which
includes the following sections:
what should be presented? And how should they be
presented;
the
theoretical
foundation
of
vocabulary
presentation
including
cognitive
psychology
and
elaboration
theory;
studies
on
English
vocabulary
teaching
and
learning at home and
abroad
2.1 What
is presentation?
The
New
Oxford
Dictionary
of
English
(2001)
defines
presentation
as
the
manner
or
style
in
which
something
is
given,
offered,
or
displayed
(p.
1466).
In
Longman
Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied
Linguistic(2002), presentation,
the
first
stage
in
language
teaching,
is
defined
as
the
meanings
are
explained,
demonstrated,
etc., and introduction of new items when their
meaning are explained,
demonstrated ,
etc and other necessary information is given (p.
437).
It
is
commonly
accepted
that
presentation
is
one
of
the
steps
or
stages
in
language
teaching,
during
which
new
language
items
are
introduced.
Presentation
stage
includes
showing
the
language
items
and
explaining
their
meanings,
giving
examples, illustrations, etc as well as
introducing other necessary information, and it
is
also
called
the
stage
of
showing
or
introduction.
In
English
vocabulary
teaching,
vocabulary
presentation is the procedure of, by using certain
methods, introducing the
target
vocabulary items (words) to learners. The aim of
vocabulary presentation lies in
these
two
aspects:
To
begin
with,
the
target
words
(words
to
be
learned)
are
shown/introduced to learners in this
stage, and this is called learning task assigning;
Next,
if
the
teacher
effectively
uses
certain
pres
entation
methods,
then
learners?
perceptual impression of the target
words can be deepened, and this ensures that the
rich information about the target words
obtained in this stage will enter the long-term
memory
in
time.
At
the
same
time,
learners?
lexical
information
in
their
mental
lexicon
can
be
efficiently
elaborated,
using
the
rich
information
(including
the
6
内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
information at the conceptual level,
the lemma level, and the lexeme level.) acquired
in
the presentation
stage, so
that the lexical
information
can be easily retrieved and
activated whenever necessary.
2.2 What should be
presented? And how should the vocabulary
be presented?
What
should
be
presented
is
probably
an
approximate
way
of
saying
what
should
be
taught
in
English
vocabulary
teaching.
To
answer
this
question,
we
need
first to consider what is involved in
knowing a word.
Wallace, M. J. (1982) states that to
know a word means the ability to recognize
it in its spoken or written form,
recall it at will, relate it to an appropriate
object or
concept,
use
it
in
the
appropriate
grammatical
form,
pronounce
it
in
a
recognizable
way in speech,
spell it correctly in writing, use it with the
words it correctly goes with,
use
it
at
the
appropriate
level
of
formality,
and
be
aware
of
its
connotations
and
associations (p. 27).
According
to
Nation
(2001),
nine
aspects
are
involved
in
knowing
a
word,
which
fall
into
three
categories,
namely
Form
(spoken,
written,
and
word
parts),
Meaning
(form
and
meaning,
concept
and
referents,
associations),
and
Use
(grammatical functions,
collocations, and constraints on use) (p. 27).
The aspects
involved in knowing a word mentioned above are
certainly the
information
needed
to
be
presented,
but
shall
we
or
can
we
present
all
those
information just in one presentation
activity? In our humble opinion, it may probably
be
impossible
and
unnecessary
either.
In
fact,
learning
and
grasping
a
word
(word
knowledge development) is a process
during which a number of encounters with the
target word are needed.
Now,
let
us
come
to
the
next
question:
How
should
the
information
of
new
7
内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
words be presented? To be exact, the
question is: how should we present new words?
This is a question with many possible
answers since different teachers have different
ways to do this job.
In Working with Words: A
guide to teaching and learning vocabulary, Gairn&
Redman (1986) put forward 3 kinds of
traditional approaches and techniques used in
the presentation of new vocabulary
items (pp.7-76), namely Visual Techniques
(including
visuals
一
flashcards,
photographs, blackboard drawings, wallcharts,
etc.,
mime and gesture), Verbal
Techniques (including use of illustrative
situations, use of
synonymy and
definition, contrasts and opposites, scales, and
examples of the type.),
and
Translation.
Wang Qiang (Second Edition ,2006) offer
10 suggestions (pp.124): (1) Try to
provide a visual or physical
demonstration whenever possible, using pictures,
photos,
video
clips,
mime
or
gesture
to
show
meaning;
(2)
Provide
a
verbal
context
to
demonstrate meaning . Then ask students
to tell the meaning first before it is offered
by the teacher; (3) Use synonyms or
antonyms to explain meanings; (4) Use lexical
sets or hyponyms to show relations of
words and their meaning , e.g. cook : fry , boil ,
bake
,
grill,
etc
;
(5)
Translate
and
exemplify
,
especially
with
technical
words
or
words with abstract
meaning (6) Use word formation rules and common
affixes to
build
new
lexical
knowledge
on
what
is
already
known;
(
7
)
Teach
vocabulary
in
chunks. Chunks refer to a group of
words that go together to form meaning. It is also
referred to as
?
pre-fabricated formulaic
items
?
( Lewis, 2002; 121);
( 8 ) Think about
the
context
in
real
life
where
the
word
might
be
used.
Relating
newly
learned
language to real life promotes high
motivation; ( 9 ) Think about providing different
context for introducing new words (
10 ) Prepare for possible misunderstanding or
confusion that student may have.
Penny Ur (2000) also
suggests some ways of presenting the meaning of
new
vocabulary
items
(p.
63):
(1)
Concise
definition;
(2)
Detailed
description;
(3)
Examples
(hyponyms);
(4)
Illustration
(picture,
object);
(5)
Demonstration
(acting,
8
内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
mime);
(6)
Context
(story
or
sentence in
which the item
occurs);
(7)
Synonyms;
(8) Opposite(s)(antonyms); (9)
Translation; (10) Associated ideas, collocations.
From
the
citations
above,
we
may
conclude
that
though
ways/methods
of
presenting new vocabulary items vary
because teachers or researchers have different
understandings
and
preferences
of
doing
this
job,
we
believe
that
it
is
necessary
to
develop
and
better the
commonly
used
presentation
ways in
vocabulary
teaching to
make
them
adapted
to
students?
cognition
and
psychology.
So
we
think
presenting
words in association , presenting words
in context and presenting words in chunks are
better ways in English vocabulary
teaching of the senior middle school and they will
have effects on vocabulary immediate
memorization and delayed retention. In order to
justify
our
idea,
in
the
following
section
,
we
states
the
theoretical
foundation
of
vocabulary
presentation
and
studies
on
vocabulary
at
home
and
abroad,
especially
states studies on
association and vocabulary , context and
vocabulary and chunks and
vocabulary.
2.3
Theoretical foundation of presentation
2.3.1 Information-
processing mode of cognitive psychology
According
to
Atkinson-Shiffrin
model
of
information
processing,
information
from the external stimulus first
reaches the sensory register, where some
information
is
forgotten,
other
information
is
initially
processed,
which
then
be
transferred
to
working or short-term memory, some of
which is processed again to be attended to
long-term memory by way of rehearsal
and coding(Slavin,2004, p.173). This memory
model
suggests
that
the
information
finally
transferred
to
long-term
memory
must
travel
through
the
sensory
and
working
memory
before
it
finally
retains
in
one's
memory, then how to enable the learning
material to stay in the sensory and working
9
内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
memory and then finally stay in the
long-term memory is an issue pursued by many
scholars. There are some theories
concerning the facilitation of the memorization
and
the
inhibition
of
forgetting
respectively
in
the
sensory,
short-term
as
well
as
the
long-term memory.
Research
on
the
sensory
memory
shows
that
familiarity,
significance
and
novelty could attract
attention and thus
could
facilitate memorization (Slavin, 2004,
pp.173-175).Working
memory
is
believed
to
have
a
capacity
of
five
to
nine
bits
of
information (Miller, 1956), so in
vocabulary teaching, the number of the new words
taught shouldn
?
t
be large. Otherwise, presenting students with
excessive new words at
the same time
interfere new information processing and decoding
in the short memory.
Slavin (2004, p.
177)believes that confronted with various
information, people always
come to
different memory effect. Experience and research
show that the information
with
knowledge in long-term memory that the working
memory can accommodate as
well
as
the
well-
organized
information
could
enhance
the
capacity
in
working
memory
(Slavin,2004,
p.176).
Simultaneously,
reviewing
in
time
to
transfer
the
information
to
the
long-term
memory
is
also
a
good
strategy
happens
to
facilitate
learning;
On
the
contrary,
forgetting
occurs
when
inference
and
thus
prevents
the
information in working
memory from transferring to the long-term memory
(Slavin,
2004, p. 188).
Most
of
the
knowledge
the
students
learn
in
class
demands
to
retain
in
the
long-term memory, however, what are the
ways to facilitate the long-term memory?
Research shows that semantic encoding,
multiple encoding, state-dependent memory,
retrieval cue and active processing
could facilitate long-term memory to a great
extent
(Slavin, 2004, pp. 178-182, p.
196).According to Cook
?
s
experimental result, one of
the
important
factors
that
influence
vocabulary
memorization
is
how
to
present
vocabulary,
because
the
ways
of
vocabulary
presentation
decides
the
depth
of
information processing. The deeper the
information is processed, the better effect of
word
memorization
is .
Bahrick
discussed
the
three
levels
of
cognitive
vocabulary:
10
内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
repeating
the
words
is
the
most
superficial
cognition
and
the
effect
of
word
memorization is the worst
；
If the words are put in
sentences to observe and analyze
their
functions and collocations, deep-level cognition
of the words will be got ,hence
effect
of
word
memorization
will
be
the
best.(
Cook
,
1991,p
40
).
In
other
words,
acquiring
vocabulary
in
context
is
a
very
good
way
.Cognitive
psychological
experiments
justified that context can enlarge the capacity of
memorization bits
（
Wang
Yangde, 1990, p
141
）
so we should put complex
words ,especially ambiguous ones in
contexts to learn and memorize. Bahrick
claims requiring vocabulary depends not on
recurring
frequency
but
on
the
ways
and
skills
of
presenting
vocabulary.
Modern
cognitive
psychology
agrees
using
language
is
the
highest
level
of
requiring
vocabulary and the
acquisitive effect is the best. Besides, many
language researchers
think that the
meanings of words are arranged in memory as a
network of associated
meanings.
Association can deepen the understanding of the
meanings of words, and
words
well
understood
are
easy
to
memorize,
therefore
it
is
very
easy
for
them
to
enter the long
–
term memory.
2.3.2
Elaboration theory
Elaboration
theory
(ET)
is
a
model
for
sequencing
and
organizing
courses
of
instruction. Developed by
Charles Reigeluth and associates in the late 1970s
,ET drew
heavily upon the cognitive
research on instruction available at the time, in
particular
the
work
of
Bruner,
Ausubel,
and
Norman.
According
to
Reigeluth
(1982),the
instruction based
on ET needs to teach a few general, simple, and
fundamental ideas
which
focus
on
selection,
sequencing,
synthesizing,
and
summarizing
of
subject-matter
content.
ET
also
prescribes
the
use
of
prerequisite
sequences
within
parts
of
the
simple-to-complex
sequence,
and
a
simple
to
complex
sequence
is
hypothesized
to
result
in
(a)
the
function
of
more
stable
cognitive
structures,
hence
causing
better
long-term
retention
and
transfer(
Jackson,
and
Dwyer,
1995).
Since
Reigeluth
has refined the theory by offering detailed
procedures for the planning and
11
内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
design of conceptual,
procedural, and theoretical instruction, ET has
been one of the
best-received
theoretical innovations in instructional design
(ID) in the last 15 years,
and is
heavily referred to and used by practitioners and
researchers.
In
the
present
study,
we
believe
that
elaboration
theory
can
undoubtedly
be
utilized
in
the
domain
of
English
vocabulary
teaching.
When
people
receive
and
process new linguistic information,
they unavoidably add some extra information to
the
received
input(elaborating
information)
intentionally
or
unintentionally
because
elaboration
is
a
process
during
which
newly
received
information
and
the
information stored in
the long-term memory are connected with each other
so that the
mnemonic
representations
of
the
new
information
can
be
enriched
(Gui
Shichun
,2000).Various
things
can
be
elaborated,
including
logic
,
inference,
the
continuum of information, examples and
details added, and anything that can connect
information (Gui Shichun, 1991).
Considering
elaboration,
two
questions
are
closely
related
to
English
vocabulary
teaching:
(1)
What
function
is
elaboration
performing
in
storing
and
retrieving vocabulary? (2) How can
elaboration be achieved? As to the first question,
we
can
interpret
it
from
these
two
aspects:
Firstly,
by
use
of
various
presentation
methods
in
vocabulary
teaching
,
relevant
information
at
different
levels
including
phonological,
semantic,
and
syntactic
features
can
be
elaborated,
which
ensures
the
target words' entering mental lexicon
(stored in the long-term memory) with relatively
complete lexical knowledge, and this
provides a better access to the retrieval of the
target words; Secondly, in promoting
the retrieval of the vocabulary items,
elaboration,
“
on
the
one
hand,
provides
more
possible
paths
as
the
realization
of
spreading
activation,
and
there
are
some
other
paths
which
can
be
chosen
even
when
one
of
them has been blocked;
On the other hand, it provides more
information as well so
that answers can
be
established”
(Gui
Shichun, 1991). The second question is what we
are attempting to answer in the present
experimental study.
In
the
previous
studies,
elaboration
has
been
considered
as
an
internal
12
内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
psychological
process,
and
the
elaborating
behavior
is
most
probably
unintentional.
However,
we believe that
in
English vocabulary teaching,
especially in
the stage of
presentation,
we
surely
can
help
and
promote
learners
to
achieve
the
goal
of
elaboration
by
effectively
devising
and
establishing
relevant
circumstances
or
activities, and
ultimately advance learners' vocabulary learning.
For example, making
example sentences
is an important means to help learners realize
effective elaboration,
especially
requiring
them
to
provide
the
authentic
example
sentences
in
accordance
with their own
actual life experiences, which encourages learners
to combine the new
lexical
information
with
their
own
lives
to
achieve
effective
elaboration,
strengthen
memorization, and
enhance their vocabulary learning and retention.
2.4
Studies on vocabulary teaching at home
and abroad
2.4.1 Studies on
vocabulary teaching abroad
Vocabulary
teaching
in
the
past
were
seen
as
occurring
automatically
or
unconsciously.
It
was
subordinated
to
other
linguistic
teaching
and
learning.
Nevertheless,
in
the latest
years, people have realized the
importance of vocabulary
researches.
Nowadays, vocabulary study
is developing rapidly and vocabulary teaching
have been come into its own. Many
aspects of vocabulary teaching have effectively
been concerned about. They are mainly
listed as follows:
Positive
attitudes towards vocabulary teaching: More
attention is given to
vocabulary.
Richards (1976) ,Maiguashca (1993), R. J.
Alexander (1984) James
Coady & Thomas
Huckin (2001) declare the importance of
vocabulary.
Techniques, methods and
strategies in vocabulary teaching: Such aspects of
vocabulary are now attracting
researchers? attention. There are a large number
of
research articles in this field.
Allen and Wallace (1980) in
Guidelines
for Vocabulary
13
内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
Teaching
encourage students
to guess words in context and make good use of
their
background knowledge. James
Nattinger (1988) studied contextual clues. Stern
(1983),
Marianne Celce-Murcia (2001)
concerned with developing more effective
vocabulary
teaching and learning
strategies. In 2002, Virginia French Allen
published a book
Techniques in Teaching
Vocabulary
. Scott Thornbury (2002) also
described his ideas
of vocabulary in
his book
How to Teach
vocabulary
.
Context
and
vocabulary: Since1920s, researchers
have taken consideration into
how
context
works
in
language
teaching. .
In
1923,
wski
put
forward
the
concept of context.
In 1964,
Halliday raised the concept of register, which
refers to
language
environment.
Hymes
defined
context
as
form
and
context
of
text,
setting,
participants, and
needs and so on.
Rumelhart
in 1977 explained context as the total
environment
in
which
a
word
appears.
Goodman
in
1986
defined
context
as
information that reduces uncertainty
about the elements of a text, their meanings, and
the meaning of the text as a whole.
Rivers in 1968 suggested introducing vocabulary
items in such a way as to allow the
students to infer the meaning from context and/or
illustrations. Gough (1984), Underhill
and Batt (1996) suggested that context play an
extremely important role in
distinguishing word meaning, and speed the
identification.
Haastrup (1989),
Mondria and Wit-de Boer (1991) asserted that
inferring the meaning
of
a
word
from
its
context
relates
to
the
retention
of
that
word .
Prince
in
1996
considered that contextualization helps
to understand, retain and use words.
Association and Vocabulary: Association
is a kind of psychological principle,
linked with problems of recollection,
or memory. It means that when any past event or
experience is recalled, the act of
recollection tends to bring again into use other
events
and experiences that have become
related to this event. Since1980s, researchers
have
taken
consideration
into
how
association
works
in
language
teaching.
In
1984,
Anderson
claimed
that
in
the
process
of
learning
new
knowledge,
associations
between new and old knowledge should be
made to promote the interaction of them.
Only with this elaborative processing,
can the new knowledge be acquired firmly. In
14
内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
1988 ,
Nattinger
pointed that
presenting
the meaning of
a word in
the
network of
associations is most effective. In
1997, Schmit added connecting the new word with
already known words is to organize the
information more and organized information
is easier to learn. In 2000, Penny Ur
claimed that you would get better results if items
can be linked with each other, or with
ones already known, through meaning-or-sound
association.
Lexical chunks and vocabulary : Many
linguists gave definitions for lexical
chunks,
such
as
Tina
Hicker(1993),
Michael
Lewis(1993)
Weinert
(1995)
,
Myles
&
Hooper(1998),
Alison
Wray(2002)
.
Up
to
now,
lexical
chunks
lack
overall
and
complete definitions. Lots of terms
have been used to describe the nature of lexical
chunks:
lexical
phrases,
lexicalized
sentence
stems,
mufti-word
items,
formulaic
speech,
word-combinations,
prefabricated
chunks,
holophrases
and
so
on.
However,
how to recognize lexical chunks is an
unsettled problem.
In
addition,
more
aspects
of
vocabulary
have
been
concerned.
Researchers
also give more
attention to exercises of vocabulary, principles,
problems and issues,
and mental
processes involved in vocabulary learning and
teaching.
2.4.2 Studies
of vocabulary teaching in China
Comparing with the studies of
vocabulary instruction abroad, China has a
shorter history in this field. However,
since the significance of vocabulary instruction
has been accepted, the researches in
this field have increasingly been done in China in
recent years. And vocabulary teaching
is also receiving extensive attention from
scholars. We have searched all the
articles about vocabulary in CNKI from 2000 to
2006, we found that researchers have
studied various aspects of this topic from both
theoretical and practical perspectives,
which mainly include as follow:
Positive attitudes towards
vocabulary teaching: Wang Zongyan (2001:1-3)
made a pioneering study of English
vocabulary teaching. Huang Kunhai (2002:
15
内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
56-60), Liwen & RenChanghui
(2001:40-42), and Chen Xinren (2002: 27-31) all
discussed what to teach and how to
teach effectively in vocabulary teaching. Zheng
Qingzhu (2001:69-71) put forward
vocabulary-teaching methods to English majors at
the fundamental stage. Nie Long
(2001:57-63) emphasized the importance of
vocabulary teaching and found it more
important than grammar teaching.
He
pointed out the necessity
of adding a course called
syllabus and
stressed the context of vocabulary teaching, and
the chunking of
language.
Application of different theories to
vocabulary teaching: The 15 articles in
CNKI from 2000 to 2006 mainly discuss
the application of different theories to
vocabulary teaching. Among them,
context, translation, word patterns, etymology,
connectionist theory, collocation,
association, semantics, communicative approach,
morphological motivation and cognitive
linguistics and their influence on vocabulary
teaching are mainly discussed.
Context and vocabulary: Ke
Wei &Dong Yapping (2001:352-358) and Lu
Qiaoling (2001:32-34) both stressed the
effect of context on the learning of L2
vocabulary. Shi Xiaojuan ( 2002 )
revealed cognitive context has important effect on
semantic comprehension. Cheng Anmei
(2002) emphasized teaching vocabulary in
context. Huang Wei (2006)discussed the
application of lexical and grammatical
contexts to the teaching of words .
Liang Ming ( 2006 ) pointed out that teaching
vocabulary in context could promote
high school students
?
vocabulary memorization.
Chunks and vocabulary:
Lexical chunk is a popular concept recently. It is
believed that more chunks will help
learners to avoid using inter-language as
native-like vocabulary selection and to
enhance much as possible and to achieve
competence. So chunk is introduced into
vocabulary teaching as a new approach. Pu
Jianzhong (2003:438-445), Yan Weihua
(2003: 58-62), Liu Xiaoling&Yan Zhiqing
(2003: 51-55) all proposed that
teaching of chunks are most important in
vocabulary
teaching. Pu Jianzhong
(ibid.) even put forward his suggestions of how to
teach
16
内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
chunks: new words should be presented
in context and the context should be analyzed
carefully to find out chunks. But Pu
Jianzhong and the other authors only made
suggestions of lexical chunks in
vocabulary teaching. They didn't carry out any
experiment to check if it is really
effective and if students will accept it.
Part 3. Design of the Research
This
chapter
will
make
the
whole
planning
of
this
study
that
includes
the
following
sections:
Selection
3.1
is
about
the
research
questions;
Section
3.2
offers
research materials;
Section 3.3 introduces the subjects; Section 3.4
tells the research
instrument;
Section
3.5
describes
the
procedure
of
vocabulary
presentation
experiment, which is composed of the
steps of the vocabulary presentation
experiment
and data
collection and analysis.
3.1 Research questions
This study
attempts to stimulate both theoretical thinking
and empirical research
in the domain of
EFL vocabulary presentation. By presenting
vocabulary in different
ways,
we
hope
to
find
more
effective
vocabulary
learning
ways
that
are
true
of
students of English. We
hope this paper can arouse more teachers of
English to pay
much
more
attention
to
vocabulary
teaching,
because
effective
vocabulary
teaching
can
cause
more
effective
vocabulary
learning.
Therefore,
we
put
forward
the
three
research questions as follows:
1.
Do
different
ways
of
vocabulary
presentation
have
different
effects
on
Chinese
Senior Middle School
students' vocabulary memorization?
17
内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
2. Which vocabulary
presentation way is best for immediate gains of
new words?
3. Which vocabulary
presentation way best promotes vocabulary delayed
retentions?
3.2 The
material for the experiment
Firstly, we want to make it clear that
our experiment is not a prototyped one. It is
not an isolated vocabulary teaching
experiment,
but tries to meet the
requirement of
practical English
teaching of high school students that new words
should be introduced
during
the
learning
of
the
text.
What
?
s
more
,
“
in
direct
vocabulary
learning,
new
words
are
learned
incidentally
while
reading
or
listening,
usually
as
the
result
of
information provided by
the context and presenting new words in a reading
material is
beneficial for word tests
”
(Nation, 2004:178).Then
what material should we choose?
Considering
the
subjects
are
Senior
One
Middle
School
students
and
they
are
just
leaving the junior
middle schools, we select one article from the
workbooks in Senior
English China
Student
?
s Book I published
by People
?
s Educational
Press, 2006 (See
Appendix I).During the
process of practical text teaching, we carry out
our experiment
to check the effect of
different presentation ways on vocabulary
retention.
Secondly, as far as the target words
are concerned, there is a problem: how can
we
ensure
that
the
target
words
are
really
unknown
to
the
subjects?
To
solve
the
problem,
we
make
the
principle
of
the
word
selection
which
is
that
they
are
all
included
in Word List appended in Senior English for China
Student
?
s Book I , and at
the same time, they are not rarely used
ones which make the testing and comparing
the
vocabulary
retention
effects
practical,
useful
and
comparable.
In
order
to
make
sure the selected words
are unknown to the experimented students, we
handed out the
papers
printing
this
article
to
three
experimented
classes
to
let
them
mark
the
unknown
words .And then all the papers were collected by
the teachers and assured
no one was
left. After counting up and analyzing these
unknown words , unknown to
the
experimented
students
and
is
considered,
then
we
select
10
target
words
18
内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
appropriate for the
experiment out of these marked words and they have
been proven
to
be
new
words
in
the
Word
List
appended
in
Senior
English
for
China
Student
?
s
Book I . After that we ask five good
students in the other classes of the same grade
whether he/she knew the word. When we
found that the 10 words are actually totally
new words to them, the 10 target words
are fixed. (See Appendix II )
The
detailed
procedures
of
each
vocabulary
presentation
way
are
described
in
Appendix III. (See
Appendix III )
3.3 Subjects
We
choose
60
Chinese
Senior
high
school
students
from
three
classes,
Grade
One as the participants in the
experiment. They are all from LinheNo.3 Middle
School
in
Bayannaoer
City,
Inner
Mongolian
Autonomous
Region.
All
these
students
are
grouped three, each group includes 20
students, and every group is randomly sampled
from the same class .However, how can
we ensure that the subjects are almost on a
level with each other? To solve this
problem, we choose three parallel average classes
established according to the high
school entrance exam. Because the study is
focusing
on investigating whether
different presentation ways will lead to different
vocabulary
retention effects, so there
are not special requirements for the subjects
except that the
three groups are
balanced in English learning proficiency and age.
3.4 Instrument
In this study, the instrument we use is
word test paper.
Before the process of
vocabulary teaching, we carefully design the
content of the
word
test
paper
according
to
V
ocabulary
Knowledge
Scale
and
Four-point
Scoring
Way to make the
results of the experiment better and effective. We
propose a ranging
scoring from 0 to 3,
according to different scales they choose. So the
scoring is not
19
内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
dichotomy, i.e. correct or wrong.
In
the
word
test
paper,
10
target
words
are
given
in
isolation,
with
two
blank
lines
for
each
word
where
the
subjects
may
choose
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
and
write
its
meaning
or making a new sentence accordingly.
The
subjects
are
required
to
take
two
tests:
immediate
test
and
delayed
test.
Actually, they are the same. The
delayed test aims to test vocabulary retention,
which
is held 7 days later
.
The word test paper is described in
Appendix IV(See Appendix IV) .
3.5 Procedures of the
vocabulary presentation experiment
3.5.1 The steps of the vocabulary
presentation experiment.
The same material is provided to the
three classes with the help of a computer,
It
is
worthwhile
noticing
that
one
vocabulary
presentation
way
is
provided
for
one
class
once, then another vocabulary presentation way for
the second class and the last
one for
the third class. The following is the three steps
of the vocabulary presentation
experiment.
Step
1 Presenting the target words
The
students are firstly told that they will have an
extensive English reading
session
and
then
the
teacher
presents
the
article
by
computer.
It
is
worth
noticing that three
months ago, we knew the target words
ahead
.
After reading
it, the students are asked to find the
words that they don
?
t know
in the article
quickly in 5 minutes
.When the students finish doing it, the teacher
asks them
to
guess
these
unknown
words
in
context
and
collect
the
information
that
which new words
aren
?
t understood in the
context. Then, the teacher takes the
20
内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
presentations
of
10
major
task
words.
Presentation
of
target
words
takes
15
minutes.
After completing presentation of the 10 task
words, the students are
told to read
the article once more and then do the
comprehensible questions in
5 minutes
to consolidate the words.
Step2 Taking the immediate-memory test
After the first steps, the target word
test papers, namely, the immediate-memory
vocabulary test papers are handed out.
Students are asked to choose (1) (2) (3) (4) and
finish
the
corresponding
requirement
for
each
word
according
to
their
real
understanding. Those who choose (4)
take the longest time to finish. But no student
should take more than 15 minutes to
finish the test.
The
delayed-memory vocabulary test is not mentioned.
Step 3 Taking delayed-memory test
Seven
days
later,
the
delayed-memory
vocabulary
test,
which
has
the
same
content
as the immediate- memory vocabulary test, is
carried out to check the
retention
of
the
target
words.
We
assure
to
choose
those
who
take
both
the
immediate -memory test
and the delayed-memory test as our subjects and
make
sure
that
the
each
group
of
20
students
are
randomly
chosen
from
the
same
class.
3.5.2 Data collection and analysis
3.5.2.1 The
methods of data collection
To
assess
incidentally
acquired
knowledge,
vocabulary
knowledge
scale
(Wesche & Paribakht, 1996) is used. The
scale is a little complex, but it does give rich
insights
into
the
subjects?
word
knowledge,
and
reflect
receptive
（
listening
or
reading
）
and
productive
knowledge
(
speaking
or
writing
).
Since
receptive
and
productive knowledge is mentioned, you
must want to know what they are referred to
21
内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
as.
Receptive
knowledge
of
a
word
involves
being
able
to
recognize
it
when
it
is
heard
or
when
it
is
seen
and
it
also
involves
having
an
expectation
of
what
grammatical
pattern
the
word
will
occur
in.
while
productive
knowledge
of
a
word
includes receptive
knowledge and extends it. It involves knowing how
to pronounce
the word, how to write and
spell it, how to use it in correct grammatical
patterns along
with the words it
usually collocates. Productive knowledge also
involves not using the
word
too
often
if
it
is
typically
a
low-
frequency
word,
and
using
it
in
suitable
situations. It involves using the word
to stand for the meaning it represents and being
able to think of suitable substitutes
for the word if there are any( Nation,2004:31-32).
The following table is the vocabulary
knowledge scale
Scale
(1) I don't remember
I
?ve seen this word
previously.
(2) I saw this
word previously, but I don't know its meaning.
(3) When meeting in the sentence, I
know this word. But I couldn't use it. It's
meaning is________ (synonym or Chinese
translation)
(4) I can make a sentence
with this word. E.g._________
Table 1
Vocabulary Knowledge Scale
In
order
to
answer
the
word
knowledge
scale
,
we
use
the
four-point
scale
which
reflects
a
score
ranging
from
0
to
3.
The
four-point
scale
is
illustrated
as
follows:
Scale
score
meaning of score
(1)
0
I don't know this word.
(2)
1
I've ever seen
this word, but have no idea of its meaning.
22
内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
(3)
2
I write down correct
meaning of this word.
3
(4)
3
I
make
a
sentence
with
this
word,
with
appropriate
meaning
and
correct grammar.
Table 2
Four-point Scoring Way
Choosing (1), absolutely
not knowing the word, receives a zero point;
choosing
(2) receives a score of
1;choosing (3) and writing down the correct
meaning receives a
score
of
2;
choosing
(4)
and
making
sentence
with
its
appropriate,
meaning
and
correct grammar receives
a score of 3. If (3) is chosen and wrong meaning
is provided,
a score of 1 is
given. If (4) is chosen and a
grammatically wrong sentence is made
with correct word meaning, a score of 2
is given; and if wrong meaning is used in the
newly-made sentence when (4) is chosen,
only 1 score is got.
3.5.2.2 The methods of data
analysis
To
identify the best vocabulary presentation way for
immediate and delayed
retention, we
select Descriptive Statistics and ANOVA of
SPSS(13.0) to show the
results
To compare the effects of
different vocabulary presentation ways on
vocabulary
immediate
and
delayed
retention,
we
choose
the
Paired
Samples
T-Test
and
the
Analysis of Variance (ANOV
A)
to show the results.
Part 4
Results
and discussion
23
内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
4.1 Results and analysis of vocabulary
immediate- memory test
The
following
scores
are
collected
from
the
experimental
students
?
vocabulary
immediate-memory
test
papers.
They
reflect
the
students
?
learning
and
memorizing
level after
teacher
?
s presenting target
words and they are used as original score record
The immediate-test scores
of Group 1
12 , 19, 14, 20, 17 ,21 ,20,
22, 19, 23,
21, 30, 21, 27, 22, 26, 23,
25, 24, 22
The immediate-test scores of
Group2
14, 29, 15, 26, 17, 25, 18, 24,
20, 23,
20, 22, 20, 21, 20, 18, 21, 19,
21, 22
The immediate-test scores of
Group2
13, 16, 18, 17, 27, 15, 18, 19,
21, 25,
14, 19, 20, 30, 26, 17, 20, 19,
22, 14
Table 3 Original
score record of the vocabulary immediate-memory
test papers
4.1.1
Group
Descriptive
Statistics
for
the
Vocabulary
Immediate-
Memory Test
The
purpose
of
this
test
is
to
check
the
retention
of
vocabulary
memory.
The
results of vocabulary
immediate- memory test are shown in Table 4, Table
5 and Table
6.
Group1
Group2
N
Minimum
Maximum
Mean
Std. Deviation
Variance
20
12.0000
30.0000
21.4000
4.1726
17.411
20
14.0000
29.0000
24
20.8500
3.6027
12.976
内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
Group3
Table 4 Group Descriptive
Statistics for the Vocabulary Immediate- Memory
Test
20
13.0000
30.0000
19.5000
4.5940
21.105
From the table 4 , we can
easily discover the data distribution
characteristics of the
individual
samples
as
well
as
the
whole
sample.
The
data
of
the
test
scores
when
using
group
3
have
the
least
centralized
distribution
with
the
biggest
standard
deviation value of
4.5940 ,that is, this standard deviation values
show that the scores
in
this
group
distribute
most
unevenly
and
thus
have
the
maximum
dispersion
(decentralization) among the three, and
it has the smallest mean value of 19.50 as well
as the biggest variance value of
21.105; On the contrary, the data of the test
scores by
using group 2 distribute most
centrally and it has the smallest standard
deviation value
of 3.6027 and also the
smallest variance of 12.976, though the maximum of
this group
is the smallest (29). That
is to say,
the scores in
this group have a closer distribution
tendency
一
there is
a shorter distance between each score and the mean
value of this
group; Finally, the data
of the test scores in the group 1 lie between the
two groups
described above with the
biggest group mean value of 21.40 and maximum of
30, but
the minimum is the smallest and
the standard deviation value is just between the
other
two groups.
4.1.2
Multiple
comparison
:
analysis
of
variance
of
the
immediate-
memory test
This is one of our
orientations in the present study with the purpose
of finding out
the
possible
differences
among
the
immediate
memory
tests
results
when
utilizing
different
presentation
ways.
In
analyzing
the
significance
of
the
difference
between
25
内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
groups
of
samples,
we
adopted
the
powerful
One-way
ANOV
A
since
it
is
specially
used to analyze the data in single
factorial experiments. In Table 4 , the comparison
results are displayed:
Dependent Variable: score
Scheffe
Mean
Std.
Sig.
95%Confidence
Interval
Lower
Bound
Upper
Bound
.2000
1.9000
-.2000
1.7000
-1.9000
-1.7000
1.2998
1.2998
1.2998
1.2998
1.2998
1.2998
.988
.350
.988
.431
.350
.431
-3.0670
-1.3670
-3.4670
-1.5670
-5.1670
-4.9670
3.4670
5.1670
3.0670
4.9670
1.3670
1.5670
Difference
Error
Group 1
Group2
Group2
Group3
Group3
Group1
Group3
Group1
Group2
Table 5 Multiple Comparison
: Analysis of Variance of the Immediate -Memory
Test
From the table 5 , we
can clearly perceive the difference between every
two
levels: The mean difference between
group 1 and group 2 is 0.2, P=0.988; The mean
difference
between
group1
and
group
3
is
1.9,
and
P=0.35;
The
mean
difference
between group 2 and group 3 is 1.7, and
the P=0.431. All the three variation degrees
have not reached significant level yet
(P= 0.988; 0.350 0.431; >0.05)
4.1.3 Result of ANOV
A of the
immediate- memory test
26
内蒙古师范大学硕士学位论文
Sum of
Between
Groups
Within Groups
Total
Squares
43.600
963.000
1006.600
df
2
57
59
Mean
Square
21.800
16.895
F
1.290
Sig.
.283
Table 6
Result
of ANOV
A of the Immediate -Memory Test
Table 6 shows the result of
the Analysis of Variance (ANOV
A). From
the result,
we find that at the level
of .05, three different vocabulary presentation
ways show no
significant
difference
between
groups
in
the
immediate
memory
test.
(F=
1.290,
P= .283
>.05)That
means
though
three
different
presentation
ways
make
different
impacts
in
the
immediate
test,
this
difference
is
not
significant.
These
three
presentation ways all
promote immediate vocabulary gains. They all work
effectively.
4.2 Results
and analysis of vocabulary delayed - memory test
The
following
scores
are
collected
from
the
experimental
students
?
vocabulary
delayed -memory
test papers. They reflect the
students
?
level of
vocabulary retention
after
a
week
when
vocabulary
presentation
happened
and
they
are
used
as
original
scores record
The delayed-test scores of
Group1
29, 23, 19, 11, 13, 18, 17, 16,
16, 15,
26, 22, 18, 12, 14, 17, 17, 16,
15, 14
The delayed-test scores of
Group2
7, 12, 14, 15, 16, 12, 13, 15,
17, 18,
21, 14,15,13, 16,
16, 26, 8, 14, 17
The delayed-test
scores of Group3
18, 8, 10,
12,13, 2, 20, 16, 12, 14,
27
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