Reflection on English Vocabulary Teaching

Reflection on English vocabulary teaching class

Different words are required to be mastered. First, priority should be given to learning and mastering. This article is a reflection on English vocabulary teaching class carefully edited by me. I hope it can help you!

Reflection on English vocabulary teaching

Vocabulary is one of the three major elements of language and the building material of language. How to teach students to master a certain amount of vocabulary was, is and will be one of the important tasks of English teaching in middle schools.

After nearly six years of English teaching in senior high schools, the author encountered three puzzles in English vocabulary teaching, namely, memorizing vocabulary alone instead of conventional English language learning; Pay too much attention to vocabulary, spend too much time explaining vocabulary repeatedly, and explain too many words too deeply; Ignoring vocabulary teaching and relying entirely on students' self-study. Every time I encounter confusion, I discuss it in time and try some improvement methods. This paper is the author's reflection and rethinking on English vocabulary teaching in senior high schools, and some discussions on the problems he has encountered, hoping to give some useful guidance to English vocabulary teaching in our school.

First of all, talk about the three puzzles that the author found in vocabulary teaching and the feasible ways to solve them. First, replacing the conventional English language learning with memorizing vocabulary books alone. With the rise of exams such as Postgraduate Entrance Examination, TOEFL and IELTS, the wave of learning English in society is getting higher and higher, and the so-called theory that breaking through vocabulary difficulties can be invincible derived from these exams has given birth to the "English crash method" to a certain extent, that is, the maximum benefit can be achieved with the least investment and the qualitative leap can be achieved with the least time. These are not worth taking, and they have long been proved wrong by practice. This is because the process of learning English is like climbing a mountain. Only by working hard step by step and measuring the rocks under your feet inch by inch, you can rise step by step without knowing it, just as a Chinese proverb says, "Learning is like a seedling that rises in spring, and you will grow stronger every day if you don't see it." And any idea and practice that can be achieved overnight is unrealistic and will not achieve the desired results. It is also undesirable to try to make a leap in English learning quality by memorizing words in a short time. There are three reasons:

(1) Pay attention to the organic combination of sound, form and meaning of words when learning vocabulary, and the memory effect simply out of context is not good. To know a word, we must at least understand its form and meaning: the pronunciation and spelling of words are the basis of the existence of words and the first factor that distinguishes them from each other. In vocabulary teaching, we should pay attention to the unity and combination of sound and shape, so that students can associate certain sounds with possible corresponding shapes, and certain shapes with possible corresponding sounds. Through repeated practice, we can establish the connection of sound and shape patterns of one kind of words in our brains, such as asking students to associate long vowels [i:] with vowels and vowel combination shapes in words such as She, See, Sea and Piece.

The meaning of words is given to it by "people", and vocabulary learning can never be separated from a certain language environment. In a narrow sense, context is the sentence, paragraph or article where a word is located, which is what people usually call "context"; Broadly speaking, context also includes the time, place, surrounding things and the communication mode between the speaker and the listener. The narrow sense of context is called "linguistic environment" and the broad sense of context is called "extra-linguistic environment".

In some cases, a smaller language environment cannot solve the problem, and a larger language environment or non-language environment must be considered. Non-verbal environment can be divided into two categories. One category refers to the knowledge related to specific communication situations, including participants (roles, status), occasions (time, place), accuracy, media (written and oral), themes, fields and so on. The other category refers to general background knowledge beyond specific communication situations, including specific social norms and habits belonging to a specific culture, specific painting rules and methods related to a specific culture, and general knowledge about the objective world. A foreign linguist once said: "The same word in different contexts can be regarded as different new words." Therefore, it is not flattering to simply chew on words out of context. As a teacher, we should give students clear guidance on this. Encourage students to take notes in listening, reading and practicing.

(2) It is easy for students to have the illusion that learning English means memorizing words, or learning English by memorizing more words naturally. Relevant language experts and scholars point out that a person guessvocabulary can be roughly divided into four levels, and the number of words mastered is decreasing in turn, that is, speakingvocabulary, writingvocabulary, readingvocabulary. The first two levels belong to activevocabulary that can be applied, while the last two levels belong to passivevocabulary that can not be applied. Students often encounter such a situation: many words can know the meaning or guess the meaning when they see it, but they can't remember it when they want to speak and write. It is for this reason.

I have also met many students. After several years of English study, their vocabulary is not small, but there are still many problems that I can't understand when doing reading questions, and there are still situations in which my expression is not in place when writing. This also fully proves that a large vocabulary is only a basic foundation, not a sufficient and unnecessary condition.

(3) When students blindly memorize words, they may ignore the basic law of memory, that is, forgetting is faster in the early stage, and the longer it takes, the slower it will be. Because students fail to repeat and review the words, the memory effect is not good, which affects the enthusiasm and initiative of further study. Some students who take memorizing words as a breakthrough in English learning often can't find a good way to memorize words, so they are constantly frustrated, thus causing a vicious circle. Teachers should alert students at this time. Instruct students to treat and deal with word learning correctly.

Second, pay too much attention to vocabulary, spend too much time explaining vocabulary repeatedly, and explain individual words too much and too deeply.

As a middle school English teacher, I have such experience. I'm afraid that I won't be able to prepare lessons before class. When explaining, I am afraid that I can't speak enough. When teaching vocabulary, it has become an insurmountable problem for us to blindly expand vocabulary and seek perfection. To avoid this problem, I think it can be avoided from the following aspects.

(1) Radiation centered on the core vocabulary of NMET

As we know, there are only a few hundred core vocabulary in NMET, while there are thousands of vocabulary in the textbooks compiled by senior high schools, and the vocabulary required for students to master is about 4,5. In addition, the number of new words allowed in NMET papers is 3%, which requires us to treat vocabulary differently: we should speak the core vocabulary thoroughly and correctly, so that students can reach the four meetings.

(2) using lexicalchunks to help students extend the teaching of

lexical chunks, which can be divided into several types: word collocation, phrasal verbs, idioms,

slogans, proverbs, established formulas, sentence patterns, etc.

(3) using conventional word-formation knowledge to help students remember

a. using the same root words: after teaching use, students can infer the meanings of useful, useless and user through word formation analysis. Teachers can say: "useful" comes from "use." It means "of use". "useful" comes from "use", too.

B. Using the method of prefix analysis. If retell,tell,write are taught, students have mastered tell and write, so it is necessary to explain to them that the prefix re- means "again". On this basis, students can guess the meaning of retell,rewrite. Teachers can say "retell" comes from "tell". "retell" means "totellagain."

C. By analyzing suffixes. If the meaning of suffix -ese is pointed out on the basis that students have studied China and Japan, it is easy for students to infer the meaning of Chinese,Japanese.

D. Use the method of analyzing compound words. If students have learned waiting-room,reading-room, they will naturally infer the meaning of waiting-room and reading-room.

(4) In text teaching, the organic combination of new vocabulary and learned vocabulary proves each other.

In text teaching, many words appear alternately, which provides students with a good opportunity to memorize vocabulary repeatedly. As a senior high school English teacher, it is an important and urgent task to guide students to find the swimming paddle in the complicated vocabulary sea and find the illuminating light in the seemingly chaotic vocabulary.

In the author's teaching practice in recent years, I deeply feel that the burden of students' English learning is heavy, especially the memory of words is incomparable. Therefore, with the increasing test pressure, students often feel tired and confused, and then have the heart to retreat. In order to reduce this phenomenon, when teaching new vocabulary, the author tries to guide students to simply review the vocabulary they have learned recently, and then classify and explain the pure new words. To a certain extent, vocabulary learning is clear, focused and core, and the effect is quite obvious.

Third, vocabulary teaching is neglected and students are totally dependent on self-study.

At one time, the author thought that since reading comprehension was emphasized in NMET, and objective test questions accounted for a large proportion in the test questions, it might not be necessary to spend too much time on vocabulary learning. In teaching practice, more time should be spent on cultivating reading ability and exam-taking skills, so less time is spent on vocabulary teaching. Even in the process of teaching vocabulary, there is a lack of sufficient theory and convincing experience to guide vocabulary teaching and students' vocabulary learning. In fact, as comprehension questions and application questions become more and more important in test questions, it should be said that the position of vocabulary in foreign language teaching can only become more important, not less important. Correctly understanding this problem is undoubtedly an important task in foreign language teaching.

When we say that students learn vocabulary by themselves, they tend to go to extremes, that is, we mentioned earlier that remembering too much is too deep or too little is too shallow, thus getting twice the result with half the effort. Self-learning vocabulary is not realistic for high school students with heavy learning tasks and limited learning time.

Secondly, let's talk about the author's suggestions on current vocabulary teaching

(1) Students should be managed, guided and implemented at different levels according to their level.

The English vocabulary of senior high school students is very different, especially for students in Class A and Class B in foreign language schools. Some students have a vocabulary of about 1,, while others have only two or three thousand. In view of this situation, a unified teaching model is definitely not feasible. The level of students' vocabulary accumulation knowledge in the two A classes brought by the author is very different. To this end, the author adopts the following methods:

First, let go of the small number of students who are very good, give them full trust and support, encourage them to explore more effective ways to remember and use the vocabulary they have learned, and work out practical plans to improve listening, speaking, reading, writing and translation with them. And regularly invite them to exchange learning experience with the whole class. Even if these students are excellent, the learning atmosphere and enthusiasm of the whole class have been greatly improved and enhanced. In the third year of senior high school, these students performed very well and were admitted to an ideal university. Secondly, for those students whose vocabulary is particularly limited, the author encourages them to master all the vocabulary involved in each class so as to achieve the purpose of using it. And dictation for them in time to help them review. In addition, the author also divided these students into two groups and dictated to each other. With this bit by bit accumulation, students' vocabulary has expanded to a certain extent. At this time, they are encouraged and urged to recite a large number of texts on new concepts, which not only enhances students' confidence, but also makes them have fun in the process of learning vocabulary. Finally, it also received good results.

Thirdly, for those frowning students who have average vocabulary but are not very interested in English vocabulary learning, the author "forces" them to find their own vocabulary by urging them to keep a diary every day and write more compositions. When they feel gradually enriched, teachers can "laugh in the classroom"

(2) Actively guide students' extracurricular reading, enhance students' understanding and mastery of new words with the flavor of the times, and enhance students' sensitivity and perception of language.

English reading is closely related to the development of English learning. The amount of English reading and the effectiveness of reading often determine the progress and trend of a person's English learning and development. The amount of English reading also directly determines the size of students' vocabulary and the number of effective vocabulary.

For this reason, the author attaches great importance to students' in-class reading and extracurricular reading, and attaches importance to the cultivation of students' reading habits and the cultivation of students' language acquisition ability. Arrange the reading content and scope every Monday, such as the reading edition of the 21st Century newspaper, the reading articles in the English weekly, the fine works in English magazines, etc. At the weekend, check the students' reading situation through topic discussion, and select some important words to consolidate with the students. In addition, when teaching new lessons, especially looking forward to the future study, I pay great attention to the introduction and expansion of background knowledge, and when necessary, I will print and post important contents for students to remember. This method of learning while studying in middle school has a good effect. Students not only "hear things outside the window", but also read the "sage book" better and better. The students really realized that "a day without reading will make them feel disgusting."

(3) Always pay attention to the new trends and trends of vocabulary development, and introduce the freshest

content in the original language to students.

The ways of word meaning evolution can be classified from different aspects. There are many ways for English and American linguists to classify the evolution of word meaning, and it is difficult to have a unified standard. In his dictionary of meaning changes, AdrianRoom divides the ways of meaning changes into eleven categories: functional transformation of meaning, narrowing of meaning, degradation of meaning, expansion of meaning, related transformation of meaning, abstraction of meaning, rising of meaning, weakening of meaning, scientific adjustment of meaning, artificial distortion of meaning and strengthening of meaning. In these situations, the author thinks that there are three kinds that are closely related to our senior high school students, namely, the expansion of meaning, the narrowing of meaning and the rise and fall of meaning case.

telling students something about this will not only help them remember vocabulary,