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克拉申输入假说在中职英语词汇教学法中的应用研究
Contents
Part 1 Introduction 1
1.1 Need for the Study 1
1.2 Structure of the Thesis 3
Part 2 Outline 5
2.1 Basic Concepts and Theories 5
2.1.1 Krashen’s Hypotheses 5
2.1.2 Input Hypothesis 6
2.2 Literature Review 7
2.2.1 Studies abroad 7
2.2.2 Studies at home 8
2.3 Research Hypotheses 10
2.4 Research Methods 11
2.4.1 Experiment design..................................................................................11
2.4.2 Questionnaire..........................................................................................14
2.4.3 Interview.................................................................................................15
2.5 Anticipated Conclusions ............15
References 18
Part 1 Introduction
In recent decades, with people’s daily life deeply influenced by information and economic globalization, second language acquisition naturally has drawn more researchers and language teachers’ attention and become a more significant research field than ever before in Applied Linguistics. Seen from the present secondary vocational English teaching, vocabulary teaching serves as a cornerstone in cultivating secondary vocational school students’ language skills, such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing. To renovate the traditional approaches to imparting vocabulary, this thesis will explore vocabulary teaching approaches appropriate for secondary vocational schools, in combination with Krashen’s input hypothesis in second language acquisition. Meanwhile, in the following process of vocabulary teaching experiment, the four principles of input hypothesis will be embodied in different teaching approaches.
1.1 Need for the Study
There is no need to mention vocabulary’s importance due to its function in daily life and work. Vocabulary makes up the indispensable element of a language, and people must learn vocabulary first before they can normally use a new language. In taking up secondary vocational English teaching, teachers are supposed to concentrate on the significance of vocational vocabulary learning and the present circumstances of vocational vocabulary teaching.
For one thing, it is fundamental to study vocabulary. As a required subject of college entrance examination, the necessity of English is not reduced but gained. Hence to study English well, especially English vocabulary, is of great importance if students, whether in secondary vocational schools or regular schools, expect to get higher education. First and foremost, it is well-known that mastering English aims at perfect interaction in spoken and written forms. Admittedly, the reason why people can communicate with one another without difficulty lies in the sufficient vocabulary, composed of a word’s sound, spelling, class and meaning. Furthermore, vocabulary is a prerequisite to such activities as listening comprehension, reading comprehension, conversation practice and composition. A successful English learner is expected to use English like a native speaker. To reach this goal, one must own abundant vocabulary. Accordingly, the way to get more English vocabulary is to get more English input. That is to say, with abundant vocabulary, one can read an original English book readily. Moreover, his idea can be expressed clearly in English. Last but not least, rich lexical resources can raise a learner’ interest and confidence in English. For secondary vocational school students, vocabulary learning is all the time emphasized at the beginning of English learning, as the English vocabulary that they learn will probably be applied to their future jobs. Nevertheless, their low English grades in junior high school have an extremely negative effect on their study in secondary vocational schools. Thus it is necessary for secondary vocational English teachers to adopt an effective teaching approach to presenting English vocabulary and to provide students with a practical learning strategy. Besides, there is urgent need to study the status quo of vocational English vocabulary teaching. To make sure of the effectiveness of English teaching, it is reasonable to dissect the present circumstances of vocabulary teaching, witness their shortcomings, and make a renovation. In terms of present vocabulary teaching in secondary vocational schools, there are some common problems with teaching and learning, as perceived by the author and many other colleagues.
As to teaching, most teachers in secondary vocational schools impart vocabulary in a rigid way, focusing on pronunciation and word meaning, without valuing a word’s usage. Teachers do not make a clear distinction between receptive vocabulary and productive vocabulary. While designing teaching activities, teachers do not take the process of going over new words into consideration. Teachers fail to present English words from all aspects.
As to students, they have difficulty in memorizing words. That is to say, it is hard for them to keep vocabulary in mind for a long time. And even if they bear in mind a word at the moment, they will forget it very soon somehow. The usual and rigid way to memorize a new word is to try to keep it in mind letter by letter, yet it is actually a waste of time and energy. Rote way is futile on the condition that a lot of much longer words come around. In that case, students will probably skip those complicated words. With memorizing process hindered, students become less interested in English study as well.
The intention of this research is to dissect the problems with vocabulary teaching in secondary vocational schools, in combination with Krashen’s input hypothesis theory and relevant teaching approaches, and also to bring some enlightenment on vocabulary teaching. With the adoption of input hypothesis theory, a deep analysis on English vocabulary teaching problems in secondary vocational schools is done so as to inspire other English teachers working in secondary vocational schools to attach great importance to English vocabulary teaching and to innovate traditional vocabulary teaching approaches.
Vocabulary teaching under the instruction of Krashen’s input hypothesis has both theoretical and practical significance.
On one hand, applying the input hypothesis to vocabulary teaching is of great theoretical significance. The input hypothesis refers to some research on foreign language teaching, especially on the exploration of college students’ vocabulary learning strategies. However, there has been rather little research on the exploration of secondary vocational school students’ vocabulary learning strategies. Therefore, this paper’s exploration of vocabulary teaching in combination with input hypothesis theory undoubtedly brings some enlightenment on secondary vocational school’s English teaching research. On the other hand, the input hypothesis is of great practical significance for further English teaching in secondary vocational schools. The teaching approaches based on this hypothesis are different from those of the traditional teaching. Take vocabulary teaching for example, from perspective of quality of input, this hypothesis assumes that the input materials should be a bit higher than students’ current language level, and the explanation to vocabulary should be interesting and relevant. From the point of view of quantity, vocabulary should not be taught in a grammatically-sequenced way, and the input to students should be adequate.
First, this theory enlightens teachers about considering how to get students to develop vocabulary learning strategies with vocabulary imparted. The enlightenment on teaching that four principles of this theory bring also makes students obtain some relevant vocabulary learning strategies. Second, this theory enlightens teachers about some approaches to improving students’ vocabulary proficiency. These approaches relieve students’ burden of vocabulary learning while students’ vocabulary proficiency can be reinforced.
1.2 Structure of the Thesis
On the whole, this thesis is made up of two parts. Part One is a general presentation to the background and defines the purpose and significance of the research, and the entire structure of the thesis. Part Two is an outline, consisting of five sections. Section One gives a general explanation to basic concepts and theories. A literature review forms Section Two, making a systematic review of research results regarding English vocabulary teaching based on Krashen’s hypothesis both at home and abroad, which aims at attempting to lay a theoretical foundation for the thesis. Relevant concepts such as comprehensibility, interestingness and relevance are made clear. Section Three presents research hypotheses that need to be verified. Based on the research hypotheses, Section Four introduces the research methods with which experiment design, questionnaire and interview are arranged in order. Chapter Five brings out the results of the research with an exhaustive discussion and a summary on the major findings, setting out implications of the research and making suggestions on teaching and learning.
Part 2 Outline
2.1 Basic Concepts and Theories
2.1.1 Krashen’s Hypotheses
Vocabulary is the most basic component of a language and also a prerequisite to learning a language’s other knowledge throughout the whole process of language learning. Generally speaking, English learning strategies include the strategies of listening, speaking, reading and writing, similar to English language skills. Nowadays, teachers in secondary vocational schools still impart the vocabulary without interaction in class, and most students memorize vocabulary just through rote learning, which leads to students’ weak capability of using vocabulary knowledge. Obviously, vocabulary memorizing belongs to a sort of cognitive activity. Teachers should follow the regularity of second language acquisition, provide students with a great deal of “comprehensible language input”, and take the role of “affective filter” in input into full account (Krashen, 1981, p. 45). Stephen Krashen, a renowned American linguist, first proposed a theory of second language acquisition in the late 1970s.
The theory is comprised of five hypotheses: acquisition–learning hypothesis; natural order hypothesis; input hypothesis; monitor hypothesis and affective filter hypothesis. Of them, input hypothesis is the core section. Its guiding thought is that learners can acquire and comprehend knowledge of a language by reading and listening to language materials. Krashen (1982) holds that only if getting exposed to the “comprehensible input” (the second language input is a bit higher than learner’s current language level and the attention can be paid to understanding meaning and information instead of structures), can learners acquire the language. The “comprehensible input” is represented as “i+1”. “i” stands for the current language competence of a learner, and “i+1” denotes the language input that can be accepted by a learner. Suppose that the second language acquisition level of a learner is “i”, the input of “i+1” is the key to promoting language acquisition. Therefore, the occurrence of language acquisition requires two conditions: the input content and the quantity of content that a learner can understand. Krashen (1982, p. 21) notes:
2.1.2 Input Hypothesis
vocabulary plays a significant role in English learning, and vocabulary learning is one of the most concerned problems for the second language learners. In addition, because the number of vocabulary is large, and the usage is complicated, and it is difficult to memory, so it is necessary to put some theory into practice in the current situation of vocabulary teaching. Many practitioners has proved that Krashen’s comprehensible input hypothesis can facilitate vocabulary teaching. Mainly introduces Krahsen’s comprehensible input hypothesis, different opinions of vocabulary and vocabulary competence,vocabulary strategies and finally puts an emphasis on the application of Krashen’s comprehensible input hypothesis to vocabulary teaching both abroad and at home.The input hypothesis has two key aspects – quantitative input and qualitative input. In order to make the input hypothesis come into effect, Krashen puts forward four ideal input conditions as follows (1982, pp. 66-67).
(1) Comprehensibility
In language learning, if students do not understand the input learning materials, then the learning will be come to an end. On the contrary, if the teaching materials are designed according to the students’ zone of proximal development, student’s learning will attain twice the result with half the effort.
(2) Interestingness and Relevance
The language input is beneficial to language acquisition, and it is not easy but important to find the material that students are interested in. The more relevant the language materials are to students’ life, the fonder the students are of learning. Secondary vocational school students have chosen a major since they came to school, whether it be information technology, tourist service or electro-technical charting, and if the material has something to do with their majors or future jobs, their enthusiasm for learning English will greatly rise.
(3) Not grammatically sequenced arrangement
It is unreasonable for teachers to arrange vocabulary teaching according to grammatical sequences. For beginners, vocabulary is far more important than grammatically structural accuracy. More often that not, the vocabulary in each textbook is always taught unit by unit and each unit has a focused topic. A unit’s vocabulary list comes around a topic, yet teachers should also pay attention to the synthesis in class, concentrating on the connection of previous and present knowledge.
(4) Adequate input
Acquiring new words by doing just a few exercises and reading several passages is not enough for students’ learning. Instead, working on continuous, interesting, informative reading and a lot of conversations are required. Teachers can encourage students to memorize more specialized English words by leading them to look through bilingual glossary in the textbooks’ appendix, so as to enrich students’ vocabulary and improve their practical language skills.
2.2 Literature Review
During these years, English learning has always been a concern for most linguists and language teachers. Accordingly, a number of researchers have been trying to explore language teaching approaches and learning strategies in the hope of facilitating English learners’ language knowledge and skills. Second language acquisition has been in the spotlight, especially its theories in vocabulary acquisition. Vocabulary learning plays a crucial part in English learning for all English learners. Besides, language scholars have also done some research on how to learn vocabulary. Hereby, this thesis will review the research results achieved by both foreign and domestic researchers.
2.2.1 Studies abroad
Krashen's Input Hypothesis involves the essence of second language learning and has a great impact on foreign language education. Many scholars support this input hypothesis, and some scholars have put forward relevant theories. Brown (1977) believes that learners' understanding of language depends on understandable language input. As a mother, she teaches her baby to learn to speak. At first, she will say something that the baby can understand, gradually communicate with the baby with some new and difficult words, and then the baby finally learns to talk to others. According to Swan (1985), she believes that the success of immersive teaching lies in sufficient comprehensible input, but she also believes that output plays an indispensable role in language teaching. Therefore, we can come to the conclusion that comprehensible input is not sufficient but necessary for vocabulary learning.
According to Cook (2000), comprehensible input is very important to second language acquisition. She believes that an important factor for a successful second language learner is how to treat learners, "the teaching methods they use with them, the languages they hear, and the environment they are learning" (Cook, 2000: 129). However, the key point in the language learning process is the best input. Therefore, Cook believes that Krashen's input hypothesis should be applied to language teaching.
Shintani (2012) wrote an article on input and vocabulary. He conducted an experiment on young people who are beginning to learn English. The basic condition is that English is regarded as their second language. The focus of the experiment is to put the focus of input teaching on listening practice and homework. The experimental results show that in the process of the experiment, children produce language with meaning and form as the main part without any pressure. The experiment also shows that input-based tasks are based on receptive knowledge and productive knowledge of lexical items. This study also shows that listening and doing tasks can create incidental context for vocabulary and grammar acquisition, which is effective for learners. These factors show that comprehensible input is conducive to language acquisition.
2.2.2 Studies at home
With the introduction of Krashen's second language acquisition theory into China, more and more scholars realize that this theory plays an immeasurable guiding role in English teaching. The following are some major studies applied to vocabulary teaching.
Qin (2008) pointed out in his article "Krashen Input Hypothesis and Vocabulary Teaching" that we should not only pay attention to the quality and quantity of comprehensible input provided by teachers, but also pay attention to students' input. Niu and Liu (2007) believe that in order to make vocabulary teaching more interesting and vivid, teachers should provide more understandable input when presenting vocabulary. When explaining new words, teachers had better give some cultural roots and affixes, which can not only stimulate students' interest in learning, but also improve the efficiency of vocabulary memory, thus expanding the quantity of vocabulary and improving the quality of vocabulary.
Zhong (2010) proposed the importance of learning news vocabulary under certain context and multimedia by combining the four conditions of input hypothesis and the characteristics of news vocabulary learning. She believes that one of the conditions of Krashen's input hypothesis is that teachers create sufficient language environment for learners in language teaching so that learners can acquire news vocabulary in real context instead of grammatical order. To a certain extent, the acquisition of new words is difficult, so context teaching and multimedia-assisted teaching can make it easy. Wu (2011) balanced language input and output. She proposed that comprehensible input should be added to vocabulary teaching and output should be completed in various ways. She puts forward some suggestions for the problems existing in learners' vocabulary learning. First, teachers should help students to expand extracurricular reading. Second, teachers should tell learners to make full use of network resources to watch movies and listen to English songs, so as to help learners better understand and master vocabulary. Evidence shows that expanding audio-visual teaching helps students understand language input, help them better understand foreign language culture and complete language output.
Xu Heduan (2012) discussed how to acquire vocabulary through reading based on Krashen's input hypothesis. In their view, reading is an effective way to acquire words, because reading articles provides students with a context to understand words and can make the input words understandable. Students can choose the articles they are interested in, and learning new words in these articles can reduce the boredom of the word list. Therefore, a large number of understandable and interesting articles are essential.
Lin (2015) pointed out in his article "Application of Krashen Input Hypothesis in Junior High School English Vocabulary Teaching" that the main task of vocabulary teaching is to guide students to use vocabulary correctly in communication, rather than to teach the pronunciation, meaning and usage of some words. Similarly, in the advanced vocabulary teaching research based on Krashen's input hypothesis, Tang (2015) believes that Krashen's input hypothesis can make vocabulary teaching more active, enable students to have a better understanding of what they have learned, even stimulate students' interest in memorizing vocabulary, and ultimately help to effectively construct the connection between English and Chinese vocabulary.
Wang (2015) explores how to carry out vocabulary teaching by analyzing Krashen's Input Hypothesis and Affective Filtering Hypothesis, so as to enable learners to better acquire vocabulary. She pointed out that the teaching content should conform to the understanding input assumption, and teachers should create a harmonious and relaxed learning environment to reduce anxiety. Under the guidance of Krashen's Input Hypothesis and Affective Filtering Hypothesis, teachers should adopt appropriate teaching methods according to specific conditions.
Xu (2016) believes that the application of the comprehensive input hypothesis to English classroom teaching will greatly promote the reform of English teaching methods and improve the quality of English teaching. In her article, she mentioned three pieces of advice. First of all, we should improve teachers' ability. Fluent oral expression can increase the quality and quantity of input language. Students' attention will be focused on what the teacher said, thus realizing the change from I to I+1. Second, it is necessary to provide background knowledge. Introducing some background knowledge can help students better understand, such as explaining the etymology of some words, which can increase students' curiosity and broaden their vision of English culture. Third, the application of multimedia in vocabulary teaching. Multimedia can create a real language environment for students so that they can learn vocabulary in the context.
Hu (2017) discusses the application of input hypothesis and output hypothesis in English major education. Input Hypothesis provides a theoretical basis for our second language teaching. She pointed out that in second language learning, English teachers should properly handle the relationship between input and output, clarify the current level of students, choose reasonable "i+1" language input materials, and carry out sufficient exercises. Her article tells us the importance of putting input theory into practice even in vocabulary teaching. These studies prove that when these four conditions are met, the input language is understandable, which is conducive to vocabulary acquisition.
The application of Krashen's input hypothesis in vocabulary teaching is conducive to vocabulary acquisition, improving teaching efficiency and students' vocabulary ability. This article will talk about how to apply these four factors of input hypothesis to teaching practice.
From the above discussion, it can be seen that vocabulary teaching under the guidance of Krashen Input Hypothesis has achieved certain practical results, but the research on the application of Krashen Input Hypothesis in junior high school vocabulary teaching is still limited. Therefore, this paper puts the understandable input hypothesis into practice and conducts research to explore whether the theory can cultivate students' vocabulary learning strategies and improve students' vocabulary ability under the guidance of these four principles.
2.3 Research Hypotheses
Secondary vocational English, related to students’ future occupation to some degree, is more specialized than English in junior high school or regular senior high school. In order to learn secondary vocational English well, the importance of vocabulary cannot be unmentioned. Through the whole secondary vocational English learning, vocabulary is a priority over everything else and a key to mastering terminology in students’ majors. Therefore, the author intends to examine whether the theory of input hypothesis can help students improve vocabulary learning efficiency, which is followed by a vocabulary teaching experiment.
In the experimental class, the author taught vocabulary from three aspects based on the input hypothesis: presenting vocabulary, memorizing vocabulary and consolidating vocabulary. Under the guidance of the four principles of the input hypothesis, which including the input should be enough, comprehensible, interesting and relevant, and ungrammar sequenced, the author chose some related methods to vocabulary teaching. The first stage was about vocabulary presentation. Presentation was the beginning stage of vocabulary teaching. It referred to the creation of scenarios, and a certain way of showing the target vocabulary to students. The purpose was to deepen students’ perception of the target vocabulary and maintain their long term memory. Vocabulary presentation was the most important process. As Cook says “First of all words are remembered best if they are learned quickly with few presentations” Cook (2000:54).
According to the principle of interests, the author designed the following steps. In the first step, the teacher used warming up activity to arouse students’ interests, and led in the topic by asking some questions in step two. The third step was word presentation.
According to the principle of input should be comprehensible and relevant, the teacher led in a context about banana milk shake which including some new words, and showed these relevant pictures to students by PPT, the purpose was to make students know the process of making milk shake, then the teacher wrote down the new words on the backboard. And next, the teacher presented some pictures that match with new words, and asked students to repeat after the teacher. This way of vocabulary presentation also satisfy the input should be interest.
The second stage was vocabulary memorizing. In the forth step, the teacher used a missing game to help students memorize the new words. The teacher showed some pictures in the big screen, and let some pictures missing at first, and then let students answer who are missing in English. Memorizing in game increased the interests of learning. Step five was vocabulary production. This was a pair work activity to practice some new words or new sentence patterns in context. The teacher presented some pictures in PPT and asked students to describe each action and made an oral opposition. During this production process, the teacher allowed students to speak without any interruption.
Ungrammar sequenced teaching method encouraged students to speak freely, and it accelerate the efficiency of vocabulary learning in communication.
The third stage was vocabulary consolidation. In step six, the teacher prepared a role-play. The role-play activity can stimulate students’ enthusiasm to speak English and used the new words. Consolidating by listening, reading, and speaking, satisfied the principle of input should be enough. In this step, at first, the teacher played the recording for the first time and let students found some new words. And next, let students read the conversation and tried to do it in groups, while students were practicing, the teacher offered some help. Third, asked some students to act it out.
Summary was necessary in teaching, it helped students summarize what they have learned in the class. The last procedure was homework, it was benefit to help them consolidate what they have learned.
This experiment is to research the English vocabulary’s comprehensible input in secondary vocational schools, for the purpose of examining whether vocabulary teaching approaches based on input hypothesis can really cultivate secondary vocational school students’ English mindset, improve their interest in learning and memorizing English vocabulary, and build up their confidence in achieving English vocabulary proficiency. Correspondingly, English teachers’ vocabulary teaching ability can also be enhanced. The research in this thesis aims to verify the three following hypotheses:
(1) With the guidance of the input hypothesis theory, The author puts forward some vocabulary teaching strategies and applies them to the experimental class the students’ interest in English vocabulary learning has improved.
(2) Students learn vocabulary more efficiently through teaching approaches based on the Krashen Input Assumption.
(3) The vocabulary teaching based on the Krashen Input Assumption is contributive to students’ long-term memory of English vocabulary.
2.4 Research Methods
2.4.1 Experiment Design
In order to carry out this experiment successfully, the author mainly uses three methods ( test, questionnaire, and interview) to guarantee the reliability of the research, in the hope of obtaining reasonable results from various angles . The author prepared a questionnaire with 51 questions for the experimental class, and all these questions were concerning vocabulary learning strategies. Additionally, the author prepared a pre-test and post-test for control class and experimental class. These two classes completed the pre-test at the same time before the training, and finished the post-test after the training. These two tests shared the same assessment standard.
2.4.1.1 Subjects
In this experiment, two different classes of Senior Two from Santai Vocational school, in Mianyang city of Sichuan Province, are selected. And the number of students in experimental class (EC) is 46; so is the number in control class (CC). This experiment is performed in their second semester. In order to ensure the reliability of the data, the two chosen classes are of average academic level. In a nutshell, students in the two classes have the same English basic level. Two classes are given the same learning materials by the same teacher. They both have 6 English periods a week and they learn the same lessons, and most importantly they both have the same passion and desire for learning. The difference is that two classes are taught in different ways. One is called the experimental class (EC), which is based on the Krashen’s input hypothesis theory, while the other is called the control class (CC), which harnesses traditional English classroom teaching. The two classes are both tested before and after the experiment respectively. A test standard, according to the secondary vocational English vocabulary scoring criteria, assists in testing students’ vocabulary expression with various degrees, including three aspects of language ability – the accuracy, the consistency of vocabulary expression and the rationality of lexical organization.
2.4.1.2 Tests
A test is often used to evaluate students’ learning results after students study over a period of time. However, the two tests in this research aim to check whether the students’ learning strategies change with the guidance of input hypothesis, and whether students who study vocabulary based on the theory are significantly different from those who do not. The final examination’s grades of last semester in Santai Vocational School are recollected before the implementation of the experiment. The goal of this recollection is to see if the students in the control class and the experimental class are of the same English level previously. Then the author gives out the vocabulary test paper to carry out the experiment. The objective of this test is to examine whether the theory makes for the students’ English vocabulary learning.
The test is offered with full scores 100 and test time 90 minutes. There are four major types of test questions to test vocabulary’s proficiency. The first type is filling in the blanks with English words’ Chinese meanings according to their English spellings given (20 words, 1 point each). Similarly, the second type is filling in the blanks with English words’ spellings according to their Chinese meanings given (20 words, 1 point each). The third type is choosing the most appropriate one among four different words to fit in with a sentence or conversation context given (10 sentences plus 10 conversations in total, 1 point each). The fourth type is choosing the best one among four choices according to questions of a reading passage (5 passages, 4 questions for each passage, 2 points each). The vocabulary that students learn in the second semester of Senior Two will be tested as much as possible.
2.4.1.3 Implementation
The students in secondary vocational schools are very distinct from those in regular senior secondary schools. They have weak English basics, and most of them are by heart afraid of English learning. And just a few of them have certain vocabulary and phonetic basics. The author, who also works in Santai Vocational School as an English teacher, tries using Krashen’s theory to guide teaching, optimize vocabulary teaching, and motivate students’ learning interest.
The secondary vocational English textbooks in Mianyang are all issued by Higher Education Press. Here take Unit 2 How to open a savings account, from Basic Module 3, for example.
Table 2.1
Teaching Process in Experimental Class
Teaching steps Teaching activities Student activities The use of teaching approaches and input hypothesis
Step 1
Greetings The teacher greets students and divides them into different groups. Students greet the teacher and work in groups. To pave the way for the following teaching steps
Step 2
Presentation Ask students to watch a video, the following words involved:
account, exchange, cash, passport, deposit, check, form, sign, rate. Students learn and understand new vocabulary through a video. Situational teaching approach, based on the principle of krashen’s interestingness and relevance
Step 3
Practice I Ask students to watch the video again and read the sentences in the video aloud. To realize it, the teacher needs to pause the video after each sentence in the video is heard. Students watch the video and read sentences in it when the teacher pauses it, trying imitating every sentence’s intonation and stress and grasping its meaning Audio-lingual teaching approach: new vocabulary can be more easily memorized in the sentence patterns and comprehensibility can be enhanced this way.
Step 4
Practice II Ask two students from each group to make a dialogue like this:
A: Can I help you?
B: How can I open a savings account, please?
A: You need to fill in the form and deposit at least 10 Yuan. Students work in groups. Every two students act as bank clerk and client respectively. If anyone is left without a partner, he can just watch and comment on the others. Communicative approach is adopted to practice vocabulary in the sentence within specific context; the conversation is made for the need of communication, not arranged grammatically.
Step 5 Extension
Ask each group to make up a short passage to tell about how to open an account and exchange foreign currency in the bank, with the help of new vocabulary they just learned.
Hints:
When...; First, second, third ...; We can...; We need to ... Every student in a group practices presenting the passage by turns, where most of new vocabulary needs to be used;
Every group chooses the most proficient student to make the presentation in front of the whole class. Exercise approach is taken to extend sentence patterns, which corresponds to adequate input principle of Krashen’s input hypothesis.
Namely, consolidation of new vocabulary through exercise advances adequate input.
Table 2.2
Teaching Process in Control Class
Teaching steps Teaching activities Student activities The use of teaching approaches
Step 1
Greetings The teacher greets students and lets them preview new vocabulary by themselves before being taught. Students greet the teacher and try pronouncing new words and phrases respectively. To pave the way for the following teaching steps
Step 2
Presentation Teach students how to read new words and phrases on the word list one by one. Students read aloud after the teacher and meanwhile, focus on vocabulary’s form and meaning. Audio-lingual teaching approach: the teacher’s leading in reading
Step 3
Practice Play new vocabulary’s audio three times on the multimedia and ask students to read after it. Students read after the audio, trying imitating the stress and the intonation in it. Audio-lingual teaching approach: leading the reading by audio with authentic accent
Step 4
Self-memorization
Let students memorize new vocabulary by themselves.
The teacher walks around in the classroom to correct students’ pronunciation when necessary. Students learn new vocabulary by heart, peering at a word’s form and meaning when they memorize it. To consolidate students’ memory further.
2.4.2 Questionnaire
The questionnaire will be conducted twice. The first is before the experiment and the purpose is to know what strategies students had to learn vocabulary before the theoretical guidance, and whether they have developed new strategies in the course of learning. The second is after the experiment and the purpose is to know whether the students learn vocabulary faster under the guidance of the input hypothesis theory.
A total of 46 pieces of questionnaire, including 51 multiple-choice questions and an essay question, is handed out to students in the experimental class. For multiple-choice questions, students are free to make their choices in frequency. If they choose A (always) , they will get 4 points; B (often), 3 points; C (sometimes), 2 point; D (hardly ever), 1 point; E (never), null.Finally, each student’s total points as well as the class’ average score will be calculated, so as to conclude and assess the whole questionnaire.
Ten of those multiple-choice questions are listed here.
(1) How often do you analyze a word’s class (e.g. noun, verb ...) to learn it?
(2) How often do you analyze a new word’s root, prefix, or suffix to know it?
e.g. lucky→ unlucky
(3) How often do you analyze a picture or a speaker’s body language to guess a word’s
meaning?
(4) How often do you guess a word’s meaning according to the context?
(5) How often do you use an English-Chinese dictionary to look up a word?
(6) How often do you use an English-English dictionary to look up a word?
(7) If you come across a new word, how often do you consult a Chinese-English bilingual word list?
(8) If you come across a new word, how often do you look through word cards to find out its Chinese meaning?
(9) How often do you ask your English teacher about a word’s Chinese explanation?
(10) How often do you request your English teacher to explain a new word’s meaning or to offer its synonym?
2.4.2.1 Pre-questionnaire
After the test ahead of the experiment, the author distributes the questionnaire to the 46 students in the experimental class and tells them the importance of the questionnaire so that the students can clearly write down a series of information. The author explains some of the strategy terms in the questionnaire to them, and then gets them to fill out the questionnaire within 15 minutes intuitively. Personal answers to the true status of their English vocabulary learning need not be forged. After the students fill out the first questionnaire, the author collects it and does a job of data collection and summary.
2.4.2.2 Post-questionnaire
After two months of teaching based on input hypothesis theory, the author lets students fill out the same questionnaire. The purpose of this survey is to see if students have developed new learning strategies, and if their speed of learning and memorizing vocabulary has accelerated. Then the author collects data, compares and analyzes the questionnaire.
2.4.3 Interview
At the end of the experiment, the author randomly invites 15 students from the experimental class to an interview so as to know about their feelings and experiences of study and examination in the second semester of Senior Two. This interview is a beneficial complement to the research, by which students’ understanding of vocabulary learning strategies as well as approaches with the guidance of input hypothesis theory can be reflected. Finally, the author writes down the feedback of the 15 students and analyzes it to further support the research.
2.5 Anticipated Conclusions
There is no doubt that language has no practical meaning without vocabulary, and vocabulary teaching is one of the indispensable processes of language teaching. After the experiment, some major findings are attained in this thesis.
First of all, vocabulary teaching approaches based on Krashen’s input hypothesis theory can help secondary vocational school students cultivate various vocabulary learning strategies. Under the four principles of the input hypothesis, the teaching approaches adopted in the experiment make students learn vocabulary in a more effective way. According to the results of the questionnaire analysis, it proves that through the author’s new way of teaching vocabulary under the instruction of the input hypothesis, vocabulary learning strategies such as determination strategies, social strategies, cognitive strategies, metacognitive strategies, memory strategies are all mastered by students more or less.
Meanwhile, by using different vocabulary learning strategies, students could convert some complicated new words into “i+1” words, which makes vocabulary learning ways recognized more easily. Additionally, by analyzing the statistics of the questionnaire in EC before and after the experiment, an obvious conclusion that teaching under input hypothesis theory makes for bringing up students’ vocabulary learning strategies can be drawn.
Secondly, vocabulary teaching approaches based on this theory could enrich students’ vocabulary and enlarge their vocabulary memory capacity. By analyzing the results of post-test, it is easy to see that students in EC gain much higher scores than those in CC. After being instructed by such vocabulary teaching approaches, students can use different vocabulary learning strategies to learn new words, such as learning vocabulary by pictures, learning by meaning association, or guessing the word meaning from textual context etc. All these strategies could help students minimize their memory task and make them use vocabulary more flexibly. In addition, it is helpful for students to enlarge their vocabulary memory capacity and reach a higher level of learning proficiency. By analyzing the interview, it is found that students’ memorization of vocabulary in experimental class is steadier than students in CC learning in a traditional way, and those students in EC are more capable of using vocabulary that they learned.
Thirdly, it is more effective for teachers to teach vocabulary based on this theory. In order to gain a successful acquisition, the input should be comprehensible, interesting, relevant, adequate and non-grammatically-sequenced. In the meantime, with appropriate vocabulary teaching approaches adopted, students can correspondingly find a certain strategy to learn vocabulary in accordance with the vocabulary categories, to make vocabulary learning full of interestingness and easier to accept, and to achieve the expectant acquisition.
After analyzing the results, some implications are gained from the experiment.
First, think more highly of vocabulary teaching. Through two months of teaching and survey, it is found that vocabulary plays a very important role in English learning. In a way, backward students are supposed to ascribe their low English scores to limited lexical resources. Undeniably, vocabulary is the fundamental knowledge of a language and ought to be thought highly of.
Second, focus on vocabulary teaching approaches. Backward students usually lack interest in English learning, causing them to give up learning this subject. However, according to the statistics from questionnaire, it is seen that vocabulary teaching approaches based on this theory can facilitate students’ vocabulary learning efficiency. Therefore, in the future teaching, English teachers in secondary vocational schools should pay more attention to putting the four principles of input hypothesis into practice so that different vocabulary teaching approaches can perform better.
Third, concentrate on the application of vocabulary learning strategies. According to the experiment, students can memorize different kinds of words by choosing a particular vocabulary learning strategy. Those vocabulary learning strategies can lower the difficulty of vocabulary memorization, and improve the learning efficiency. Hence teachers should impart varieties of vocabulary learning strategies to students when students come across different kinds of new words, and lead them to independently create some strategies of their own. Besides, students should also learn to apply those strategies flexibly in different situations to ease the burden of English learning.
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Contents
Part 1 Introduction 1
1.1 Need for the Study 1
1.2 Structure of the Thesis 3
Part 2 Outline 5
2.1 Basic Concepts and Theories 5
2.1.1 Krashen’s Hypotheses 5
2.1.2 Input Hypothesis 6
2.2 Literature Review 7
2.2.1 Studies abroad 7
2.2.2 Studies at home 8
2.3 Research Hypotheses 10
2.4 Research Methods 11
2.4.1 Experiment design..................................................................................11
2.4.2 Questionnaire..........................................................................................14
2.4.3 Interview.................................................................................................15
2.5 Anticipated Conclusions ............15
References 18
Part 1 Introduction
In recent decades, with people’s daily life deeply influenced by information and economic globalization, second language acquisition naturally has drawn more researchers and language teachers’ attention and become a more significant research field than ever before in Applied Linguistics. Seen from the present secondary vocational English teaching, vocabulary teaching serves as a cornerstone in cultivating secondary vocational school students’ language skills, such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing. To renovate the traditional approaches to imparting vocabulary, this thesis will explore vocabulary teaching approaches appropriate for secondary vocational schools, in combination with Krashen’s input hypothesis in second language acquisition. Meanwhile, in the following process of vocabulary teaching experiment, the four principles of input hypothesis will be embodied in different teaching approaches.
1.1 Need for the Study
There is no need to mention vocabulary’s importance due to its function in daily life and work. Vocabulary makes up the indispensable element of a language, and people must learn vocabulary first before they can normally use a new language. In taking up secondary vocational English teaching, teachers are supposed to concentrate on the significance of vocational vocabulary learning and the present circumstances of vocational vocabulary teaching.
For one thing, it is fundamental to study vocabulary. As a required subject of college entrance examination, the necessity of English is not reduced but gained. Hence to study English well, especially English vocabulary, is of great importance if students, whether in secondary vocational schools or regular schools, expect to get higher education. First and foremost, it is well-known that mastering English aims at perfect interaction in spoken and written forms. Admittedly, the reason why people can communicate with one another without difficulty lies in the sufficient vocabulary, composed of a word’s sound, spelling, class and meaning. Furthermore, vocabulary is a prerequisite to such activities as listening comprehension, reading comprehension, conversation practice and composition. A successful English learner is expected to use English like a native speaker. To reach this goal, one must own abundant vocabulary. Accordingly, the way to get more English vocabulary is to get more English input. That is to say, with abundant vocabulary, one can read an original English book readily. Moreover, his idea can be expressed clearly in English. Last but not least, rich lexical resources can raise a learner’ interest and confidence in English. For secondary vocational school students, vocabulary learning is all the time emphasized at the beginning of English learning, as the English vocabulary that they learn will probably be applied to their future jobs. Nevertheless, their low English grades in junior high school have an extremely negative effect on their study in secondary vocational schools. Thus it is necessary for secondary vocational English teachers to adopt an effective teaching approach to presenting English vocabulary and to provide students with a practical learning strategy. Besides, there is urgent need to study the status quo of vocational English vocabulary teaching. To make sure of the effectiveness of English teaching, it is reasonable to dissect the present circumstances of vocabulary teaching, witness their shortcomings, and make a renovation. In terms of present vocabulary teaching in secondary vocational schools, there are some common problems with teaching and learning, as perceived by the author and many other colleagues.
As to teaching, most teachers in secondary vocational schools impart vocabulary in a rigid way, focusing on pronunciation and word meaning, without valuing a word’s usage. Teachers do not make a clear distinction between receptive vocabulary and productive vocabulary. While designing teaching activities, teachers do not take the process of going over new words into consideration. Teachers fail to present English words from all aspects.
As to students, they have difficulty in memorizing words. That is to say, it is hard for them to keep vocabulary in mind for a long time. And even if they bear in mind a word at the moment, they will forget it very soon somehow. The usual and rigid way to memorize a new word is to try to keep it in mind letter by letter, yet it is actually a waste of time and energy. Rote way is futile on the condition that a lot of much longer words come around. In that case, students will probably skip those complicated words. With memorizing process hindered, students become less interested in English study as well.
The intention of this research is to dissect the problems with vocabulary teaching in secondary vocational schools, in combination with Krashen’s input hypothesis theory and relevant teaching approaches, and also to bring some enlightenment on vocabulary teaching. With the adoption of input hypothesis theory, a deep analysis on English vocabulary teaching problems in secondary vocational schools is done so as to inspire other English teachers working in secondary vocational schools to attach great importance to English vocabulary teaching and to innovate traditional vocabulary teaching approaches.
Vocabulary teaching under the instruction of Krashen’s input hypothesis has both theoretical and practical significance.
On one hand, applying the input hypothesis to vocabulary teaching is of great theoretical significance. The input hypothesis refers to some research on foreign language teaching, especially on the exploration of college students’ vocabulary learning strategies. However, there has been rather little research on the exploration of secondary vocational school students’ vocabulary learning strategies. Therefore, this paper’s exploration of vocabulary teaching in combination with input hypothesis theory undoubtedly brings some enlightenment on secondary vocational school’s English teaching research. On the other hand, the input hypothesis is of great practical significance for further English teaching in secondary vocational schools. The teaching approaches based on this hypothesis are different from those of the traditional teaching. Take vocabulary teaching for example, from perspective of quality of input, this hypothesis assumes that the input materials should be a bit higher than students’ current language level, and the explanation to vocabulary should be interesting and relevant. From the point of view of quantity, vocabulary should not be taught in a grammatically-sequenced way, and the input to students should be adequate.
First, this theory enlightens teachers about considering how to get students to develop vocabulary learning strategies with vocabulary imparted. The enlightenment on teaching that four principles of this theory bring also makes students obtain some relevant vocabulary learning strategies. Second, this theory enlightens teachers about some approaches to improving students’ vocabulary proficiency. These approaches relieve students’ burden of vocabulary learning while students’ vocabulary proficiency can be reinforced.
1.2 Structure of the Thesis
On the whole, this thesis is made up of two parts. Part One is a general presentation to the background and defines the purpose and significance of the research, and the entire structure of the thesis. Part Two is an outline, consisting of five sections. Section One gives a general explanation to basic concepts and theories. A literature review forms Section Two, making a systematic review of research results regarding English vocabulary teaching based on Krashen’s hypothesis both at home and abroad, which aims at attempting to lay a theoretical foundation for the thesis. Relevant concepts such as comprehensibility, interestingness and relevance are made clear. Section Three presents research hypotheses that need to be verified. Based on the research hypotheses, Section Four introduces the research methods with which experiment design, questionnaire and interview are arranged in order. Chapter Five brings out the results of the research with an exhaustive discussion and a summary on the major findings, setting out implications of the research and making suggestions on teaching and learning.
Part 2 Outline
2.1 Basic Concepts and Theories
2.1.1 Krashen’s Hypotheses
Vocabulary is the most basic component of a language and also a prerequisite to learning a language’s other knowledge throughout the whole process of language learning. Generally speaking, English learning strategies include the strategies of listening, speaking, reading and writing, similar to English language skills. Nowadays, teachers in secondary vocational schools still impart the vocabulary without interaction in class, and most students memorize vocabulary just through rote learning, which leads to students’ weak capability of using vocabulary knowledge. Obviously, vocabulary memorizing belongs to a sort of cognitive activity. Teachers should follow the regularity of second language acquisition, provide students with a great deal of “comprehensible language input”, and take the role of “affective filter” in input into full account (Krashen, 1981, p. 45). Stephen Krashen, a renowned American linguist, first proposed a theory of second language acquisition in the late 1970s.
The theory is comprised of five hypotheses: acquisition–learning hypothesis; natural order hypothesis; input hypothesis; monitor hypothesis and affective filter hypothesis. Of them, input hypothesis is the core section. Its guiding thought is that learners can acquire and comprehend knowledge of a language by reading and listening to language materials. Krashen (1982) holds that only if getting exposed to the “comprehensible input” (the second language input is a bit higher than learner’s current language level and the attention can be paid to understanding meaning and information instead of structures), can learners acquire the language. The “comprehensible input” is represented as “i+1”. “i” stands for the current language competence of a learner, and “i+1” denotes the language input that can be accepted by a learner. Suppose that the second language acquisition level of a learner is “i”, the input of “i+1” is the key to promoting language acquisition. Therefore, the occurrence of language acquisition requires two conditions: the input content and the quantity of content that a learner can understand. Krashen (1982, p. 21) notes:
2.1.2 Input Hypothesis
vocabulary plays a significant role in English learning, and vocabulary learning is one of the most concerned problems for the second language learners. In addition, because the number of vocabulary is large, and the usage is complicated, and it is difficult to memory, so it is necessary to put some theory into practice in the current situation of vocabulary teaching. Many practitioners has proved that Krashen’s comprehensible input hypothesis can facilitate vocabulary teaching. Mainly introduces Krahsen’s comprehensible input hypothesis, different opinions of vocabulary and vocabulary competence,vocabulary strategies and finally puts an emphasis on the application of Krashen’s comprehensible input hypothesis to vocabulary teaching both abroad and at home.The input hypothesis has two key aspects – quantitative input and qualitative input. In order to make the input hypothesis come into effect, Krashen puts forward four ideal input conditions as follows (1982, pp. 66-67).
(1) Comprehensibility
In language learning, if students do not understand the input learning materials, then the learning will be come to an end. On the contrary, if the teaching materials are designed according to the students’ zone of proximal development, student’s learning will attain twice the result with half the effort.
(2) Interestingness and Relevance
The language input is beneficial to language acquisition, and it is not easy but important to find the material that students are interested in. The more relevant the language materials are to students’ life, the fonder the students are of learning. Secondary vocational school students have chosen a major since they came to school, whether it be information technology, tourist service or electro-technical charting, and if the material has something to do with their majors or future jobs, their enthusiasm for learning English will greatly rise.
(3) Not grammatically sequenced arrangement
It is unreasonable for teachers to arrange vocabulary teaching according to grammatical sequences. For beginners, vocabulary is far more important than grammatically structural accuracy. More often that not, the vocabulary in each textbook is always taught unit by unit and each unit has a focused topic. A unit’s vocabulary list comes around a topic, yet teachers should also pay attention to the synthesis in class, concentrating on the connection of previous and present knowledge.
(4) Adequate input
Acquiring new words by doing just a few exercises and reading several passages is not enough for students’ learning. Instead, working on continuous, interesting, informative reading and a lot of conversations are required. Teachers can encourage students to memorize more specialized English words by leading them to look through bilingual glossary in the textbooks’ appendix, so as to enrich students’ vocabulary and improve their practical language skills.
2.2 Literature Review
During these years, English learning has always been a concern for most linguists and language teachers. Accordingly, a number of researchers have been trying to explore language teaching approaches and learning strategies in the hope of facilitating English learners’ language knowledge and skills. Second language acquisition has been in the spotlight, especially its theories in vocabulary acquisition. Vocabulary learning plays a crucial part in English learning for all English learners. Besides, language scholars have also done some research on how to learn vocabulary. Hereby, this thesis will review the research results achieved by both foreign and domestic researchers.
2.2.1 Studies abroad
Krashen's Input Hypothesis involves the essence of second language learning and has a great impact on foreign language education. Many scholars support this input hypothesis, and some scholars have put forward relevant theories. Brown (1977) believes that learners' understanding of language depends on understandable language input. As a mother, she teaches her baby to learn to speak. At first, she will say something that the baby can understand, gradually communicate with the baby with some new and difficult words, and then the baby finally learns to talk to others. According to Swan (1985), she believes that the success of immersive teaching lies in sufficient comprehensible input, but she also believes that output plays an indispensable role in language teaching. Therefore, we can come to the conclusion that comprehensible input is not sufficient but necessary for vocabulary learning.
According to Cook (2000), comprehensible input is very important to second language acquisition. She believes that an important factor for a successful second language learner is how to treat learners, "the teaching methods they use with them, the languages they hear, and the environment they are learning" (Cook, 2000: 129). However, the key point in the language learning process is the best input. Therefore, Cook believes that Krashen's input hypothesis should be applied to language teaching.
Shintani (2012) wrote an article on input and vocabulary. He conducted an experiment on young people who are beginning to learn English. The basic condition is that English is regarded as their second language. The focus of the experiment is to put the focus of input teaching on listening practice and homework. The experimental results show that in the process of the experiment, children produce language with meaning and form as the main part without any pressure. The experiment also shows that input-based tasks are based on receptive knowledge and productive knowledge of lexical items. This study also shows that listening and doing tasks can create incidental context for vocabulary and grammar acquisition, which is effective for learners. These factors show that comprehensible input is conducive to language acquisition.
2.2.2 Studies at home
With the introduction of Krashen's second language acquisition theory into China, more and more scholars realize that this theory plays an immeasurable guiding role in English teaching. The following are some major studies applied to vocabulary teaching.
Qin (2008) pointed out in his article "Krashen Input Hypothesis and Vocabulary Teaching" that we should not only pay attention to the quality and quantity of comprehensible input provided by teachers, but also pay attention to students' input. Niu and Liu (2007) believe that in order to make vocabulary teaching more interesting and vivid, teachers should provide more understandable input when presenting vocabulary. When explaining new words, teachers had better give some cultural roots and affixes, which can not only stimulate students' interest in learning, but also improve the efficiency of vocabulary memory, thus expanding the quantity of vocabulary and improving the quality of vocabulary.
Zhong (2010) proposed the importance of learning news vocabulary under certain context and multimedia by combining the four conditions of input hypothesis and the characteristics of news vocabulary learning. She believes that one of the conditions of Krashen's input hypothesis is that teachers create sufficient language environment for learners in language teaching so that learners can acquire news vocabulary in real context instead of grammatical order. To a certain extent, the acquisition of new words is difficult, so context teaching and multimedia-assisted teaching can make it easy. Wu (2011) balanced language input and output. She proposed that comprehensible input should be added to vocabulary teaching and output should be completed in various ways. She puts forward some suggestions for the problems existing in learners' vocabulary learning. First, teachers should help students to expand extracurricular reading. Second, teachers should tell learners to make full use of network resources to watch movies and listen to English songs, so as to help learners better understand and master vocabulary. Evidence shows that expanding audio-visual teaching helps students understand language input, help them better understand foreign language culture and complete language output.
Xu Heduan (2012) discussed how to acquire vocabulary through reading based on Krashen's input hypothesis. In their view, reading is an effective way to acquire words, because reading articles provides students with a context to understand words and can make the input words understandable. Students can choose the articles they are interested in, and learning new words in these articles can reduce the boredom of the word list. Therefore, a large number of understandable and interesting articles are essential.
Lin (2015) pointed out in his article "Application of Krashen Input Hypothesis in Junior High School English Vocabulary Teaching" that the main task of vocabulary teaching is to guide students to use vocabulary correctly in communication, rather than to teach the pronunciation, meaning and usage of some words. Similarly, in the advanced vocabulary teaching research based on Krashen's input hypothesis, Tang (2015) believes that Krashen's input hypothesis can make vocabulary teaching more active, enable students to have a better understanding of what they have learned, even stimulate students' interest in memorizing vocabulary, and ultimately help to effectively construct the connection between English and Chinese vocabulary.
Wang (2015) explores how to carry out vocabulary teaching by analyzing Krashen's Input Hypothesis and Affective Filtering Hypothesis, so as to enable learners to better acquire vocabulary. She pointed out that the teaching content should conform to the understanding input assumption, and teachers should create a harmonious and relaxed learning environment to reduce anxiety. Under the guidance of Krashen's Input Hypothesis and Affective Filtering Hypothesis, teachers should adopt appropriate teaching methods according to specific conditions.
Xu (2016) believes that the application of the comprehensive input hypothesis to English classroom teaching will greatly promote the reform of English teaching methods and improve the quality of English teaching. In her article, she mentioned three pieces of advice. First of all, we should improve teachers' ability. Fluent oral expression can increase the quality and quantity of input language. Students' attention will be focused on what the teacher said, thus realizing the change from I to I+1. Second, it is necessary to provide background knowledge. Introducing some background knowledge can help students better understand, such as explaining the etymology of some words, which can increase students' curiosity and broaden their vision of English culture. Third, the application of multimedia in vocabulary teaching. Multimedia can create a real language environment for students so that they can learn vocabulary in the context.
Hu (2017) discusses the application of input hypothesis and output hypothesis in English major education. Input Hypothesis provides a theoretical basis for our second language teaching. She pointed out that in second language learning, English teachers should properly handle the relationship between input and output, clarify the current level of students, choose reasonable "i+1" language input materials, and carry out sufficient exercises. Her article tells us the importance of putting input theory into practice even in vocabulary teaching. These studies prove that when these four conditions are met, the input language is understandable, which is conducive to vocabulary acquisition.
The application of Krashen's input hypothesis in vocabulary teaching is conducive to vocabulary acquisition, improving teaching efficiency and students' vocabulary ability. This article will talk about how to apply these four factors of input hypothesis to teaching practice.
From the above discussion, it can be seen that vocabulary teaching under the guidance of Krashen Input Hypothesis has achieved certain practical results, but the research on the application of Krashen Input Hypothesis in junior high school vocabulary teaching is still limited. Therefore, this paper puts the understandable input hypothesis into practice and conducts research to explore whether the theory can cultivate students' vocabulary learning strategies and improve students' vocabulary ability under the guidance of these four principles.
2.3 Research Hypotheses
Secondary vocational English, related to students’ future occupation to some degree, is more specialized than English in junior high school or regular senior high school. In order to learn secondary vocational English well, the importance of vocabulary cannot be unmentioned. Through the whole secondary vocational English learning, vocabulary is a priority over everything else and a key to mastering terminology in students’ majors. Therefore, the author intends to examine whether the theory of input hypothesis can help students improve vocabulary learning efficiency, which is followed by a vocabulary teaching experiment.
In the experimental class, the author taught vocabulary from three aspects based on the input hypothesis: presenting vocabulary, memorizing vocabulary and consolidating vocabulary. Under the guidance of the four principles of the input hypothesis, which including the input should be enough, comprehensible, interesting and relevant, and ungrammar sequenced, the author chose some related methods to vocabulary teaching. The first stage was about vocabulary presentation. Presentation was the beginning stage of vocabulary teaching. It referred to the creation of scenarios, and a certain way of showing the target vocabulary to students. The purpose was to deepen students’ perception of the target vocabulary and maintain their long term memory. Vocabulary presentation was the most important process. As Cook says “First of all words are remembered best if they are learned quickly with few presentations” Cook (2000:54).
According to the principle of interests, the author designed the following steps. In the first step, the teacher used warming up activity to arouse students’ interests, and led in the topic by asking some questions in step two. The third step was word presentation.
According to the principle of input should be comprehensible and relevant, the teacher led in a context about banana milk shake which including some new words, and showed these relevant pictures to students by PPT, the purpose was to make students know the process of making milk shake, then the teacher wrote down the new words on the backboard. And next, the teacher presented some pictures that match with new words, and asked students to repeat after the teacher. This way of vocabulary presentation also satisfy the input should be interest.
The second stage was vocabulary memorizing. In the forth step, the teacher used a missing game to help students memorize the new words. The teacher showed some pictures in the big screen, and let some pictures missing at first, and then let students answer who are missing in English. Memorizing in game increased the interests of learning. Step five was vocabulary production. This was a pair work activity to practice some new words or new sentence patterns in context. The teacher presented some pictures in PPT and asked students to describe each action and made an oral opposition. During this production process, the teacher allowed students to speak without any interruption.
Ungrammar sequenced teaching method encouraged students to speak freely, and it accelerate the efficiency of vocabulary learning in communication.
The third stage was vocabulary consolidation. In step six, the teacher prepared a role-play. The role-play activity can stimulate students’ enthusiasm to speak English and used the new words. Consolidating by listening, reading, and speaking, satisfied the principle of input should be enough. In this step, at first, the teacher played the recording for the first time and let students found some new words. And next, let students read the conversation and tried to do it in groups, while students were practicing, the teacher offered some help. Third, asked some students to act it out.
Summary was necessary in teaching, it helped students summarize what they have learned in the class. The last procedure was homework, it was benefit to help them consolidate what they have learned.
This experiment is to research the English vocabulary’s comprehensible input in secondary vocational schools, for the purpose of examining whether vocabulary teaching approaches based on input hypothesis can really cultivate secondary vocational school students’ English mindset, improve their interest in learning and memorizing English vocabulary, and build up their confidence in achieving English vocabulary proficiency. Correspondingly, English teachers’ vocabulary teaching ability can also be enhanced. The research in this thesis aims to verify the three following hypotheses:
(1) With the guidance of the input hypothesis theory, The author puts forward some vocabulary teaching strategies and applies them to the experimental class the students’ interest in English vocabulary learning has improved.
(2) Students learn vocabulary more efficiently through teaching approaches based on the Krashen Input Assumption.
(3) The vocabulary teaching based on the Krashen Input Assumption is contributive to students’ long-term memory of English vocabulary.
2.4 Research Methods
2.4.1 Experiment Design
In order to carry out this experiment successfully, the author mainly uses three methods ( test, questionnaire, and interview) to guarantee the reliability of the research, in the hope of obtaining reasonable results from various angles . The author prepared a questionnaire with 51 questions for the experimental class, and all these questions were concerning vocabulary learning strategies. Additionally, the author prepared a pre-test and post-test for control class and experimental class. These two classes completed the pre-test at the same time before the training, and finished the post-test after the training. These two tests shared the same assessment standard.
2.4.1.1 Subjects
In this experiment, two different classes of Senior Two from Santai Vocational school, in Mianyang city of Sichuan Province, are selected. And the number of students in experimental class (EC) is 46; so is the number in control class (CC). This experiment is performed in their second semester. In order to ensure the reliability of the data, the two chosen classes are of average academic level. In a nutshell, students in the two classes have the same English basic level. Two classes are given the same learning materials by the same teacher. They both have 6 English periods a week and they learn the same lessons, and most importantly they both have the same passion and desire for learning. The difference is that two classes are taught in different ways. One is called the experimental class (EC), which is based on the Krashen’s input hypothesis theory, while the other is called the control class (CC), which harnesses traditional English classroom teaching. The two classes are both tested before and after the experiment respectively. A test standard, according to the secondary vocational English vocabulary scoring criteria, assists in testing students’ vocabulary expression with various degrees, including three aspects of language ability – the accuracy, the consistency of vocabulary expression and the rationality of lexical organization.
2.4.1.2 Tests
A test is often used to evaluate students’ learning results after students study over a period of time. However, the two tests in this research aim to check whether the students’ learning strategies change with the guidance of input hypothesis, and whether students who study vocabulary based on the theory are significantly different from those who do not. The final examination’s grades of last semester in Santai Vocational School are recollected before the implementation of the experiment. The goal of this recollection is to see if the students in the control class and the experimental class are of the same English level previously. Then the author gives out the vocabulary test paper to carry out the experiment. The objective of this test is to examine whether the theory makes for the students’ English vocabulary learning.
The test is offered with full scores 100 and test time 90 minutes. There are four major types of test questions to test vocabulary’s proficiency. The first type is filling in the blanks with English words’ Chinese meanings according to their English spellings given (20 words, 1 point each). Similarly, the second type is filling in the blanks with English words’ spellings according to their Chinese meanings given (20 words, 1 point each). The third type is choosing the most appropriate one among four different words to fit in with a sentence or conversation context given (10 sentences plus 10 conversations in total, 1 point each). The fourth type is choosing the best one among four choices according to questions of a reading passage (5 passages, 4 questions for each passage, 2 points each). The vocabulary that students learn in the second semester of Senior Two will be tested as much as possible.
2.4.1.3 Implementation
The students in secondary vocational schools are very distinct from those in regular senior secondary schools. They have weak English basics, and most of them are by heart afraid of English learning. And just a few of them have certain vocabulary and phonetic basics. The author, who also works in Santai Vocational School as an English teacher, tries using Krashen’s theory to guide teaching, optimize vocabulary teaching, and motivate students’ learning interest.
The secondary vocational English textbooks in Mianyang are all issued by Higher Education Press. Here take Unit 2 How to open a savings account, from Basic Module 3, for example.
Table 2.1
Teaching Process in Experimental Class
Teaching steps Teaching activities Student activities The use of teaching approaches and input hypothesis
Step 1
Greetings The teacher greets students and divides them into different groups. Students greet the teacher and work in groups. To pave the way for the following teaching steps
Step 2
Presentation Ask students to watch a video, the following words involved:
account, exchange, cash, passport, deposit, check, form, sign, rate. Students learn and understand new vocabulary through a video. Situational teaching approach, based on the principle of krashen’s interestingness and relevance
Step 3
Practice I Ask students to watch the video again and read the sentences in the video aloud. To realize it, the teacher needs to pause the video after each sentence in the video is heard. Students watch the video and read sentences in it when the teacher pauses it, trying imitating every sentence’s intonation and stress and grasping its meaning Audio-lingual teaching approach: new vocabulary can be more easily memorized in the sentence patterns and comprehensibility can be enhanced this way.
Step 4
Practice II Ask two students from each group to make a dialogue like this:
A: Can I help you?
B: How can I open a savings account, please?
A: You need to fill in the form and deposit at least 10 Yuan. Students work in groups. Every two students act as bank clerk and client respectively. If anyone is left without a partner, he can just watch and comment on the others. Communicative approach is adopted to practice vocabulary in the sentence within specific context; the conversation is made for the need of communication, not arranged grammatically.
Step 5 Extension
Ask each group to make up a short passage to tell about how to open an account and exchange foreign currency in the bank, with the help of new vocabulary they just learned.
Hints:
When...; First, second, third ...; We can...; We need to ... Every student in a group practices presenting the passage by turns, where most of new vocabulary needs to be used;
Every group chooses the most proficient student to make the presentation in front of the whole class. Exercise approach is taken to extend sentence patterns, which corresponds to adequate input principle of Krashen’s input hypothesis.
Namely, consolidation of new vocabulary through exercise advances adequate input.
Table 2.2
Teaching Process in Control Class
Teaching steps Teaching activities Student activities The use of teaching approaches
Step 1
Greetings The teacher greets students and lets them preview new vocabulary by themselves before being taught. Students greet the teacher and try pronouncing new words and phrases respectively. To pave the way for the following teaching steps
Step 2
Presentation Teach students how to read new words and phrases on the word list one by one. Students read aloud after the teacher and meanwhile, focus on vocabulary’s form and meaning. Audio-lingual teaching approach: the teacher’s leading in reading
Step 3
Practice Play new vocabulary’s audio three times on the multimedia and ask students to read after it. Students read after the audio, trying imitating the stress and the intonation in it. Audio-lingual teaching approach: leading the reading by audio with authentic accent
Step 4
Self-memorization
Let students memorize new vocabulary by themselves.
The teacher walks around in the classroom to correct students’ pronunciation when necessary. Students learn new vocabulary by heart, peering at a word’s form and meaning when they memorize it. To consolidate students’ memory further.
2.4.2 Questionnaire
The questionnaire will be conducted twice. The first is before the experiment and the purpose is to know what strategies students had to learn vocabulary before the theoretical guidance, and whether they have developed new strategies in the course of learning. The second is after the experiment and the purpose is to know whether the students learn vocabulary faster under the guidance of the input hypothesis theory.
A total of 46 pieces of questionnaire, including 51 multiple-choice questions and an essay question, is handed out to students in the experimental class. For multiple-choice questions, students are free to make their choices in frequency. If they choose A (always) , they will get 4 points; B (often), 3 points; C (sometimes), 2 point; D (hardly ever), 1 point; E (never), null.Finally, each student’s total points as well as the class’ average score will be calculated, so as to conclude and assess the whole questionnaire.
Ten of those multiple-choice questions are listed here.
(1) How often do you analyze a word’s class (e.g. noun, verb ...) to learn it?
(2) How often do you analyze a new word’s root, prefix, or suffix to know it?
e.g. lucky→ unlucky
(3) How often do you analyze a picture or a speaker’s body language to guess a word’s
meaning?
(4) How often do you guess a word’s meaning according to the context?
(5) How often do you use an English-Chinese dictionary to look up a word?
(6) How often do you use an English-English dictionary to look up a word?
(7) If you come across a new word, how often do you consult a Chinese-English bilingual word list?
(8) If you come across a new word, how often do you look through word cards to find out its Chinese meaning?
(9) How often do you ask your English teacher about a word’s Chinese explanation?
(10) How often do you request your English teacher to explain a new word’s meaning or to offer its synonym?
2.4.2.1 Pre-questionnaire
After the test ahead of the experiment, the author distributes the questionnaire to the 46 students in the experimental class and tells them the importance of the questionnaire so that the students can clearly write down a series of information. The author explains some of the strategy terms in the questionnaire to them, and then gets them to fill out the questionnaire within 15 minutes intuitively. Personal answers to the true status of their English vocabulary learning need not be forged. After the students fill out the first questionnaire, the author collects it and does a job of data collection and summary.
2.4.2.2 Post-questionnaire
After two months of teaching based on input hypothesis theory, the author lets students fill out the same questionnaire. The purpose of this survey is to see if students have developed new learning strategies, and if their speed of learning and memorizing vocabulary has accelerated. Then the author collects data, compares and analyzes the questionnaire.
2.4.3 Interview
At the end of the experiment, the author randomly invites 15 students from the experimental class to an interview so as to know about their feelings and experiences of study and examination in the second semester of Senior Two. This interview is a beneficial complement to the research, by which students’ understanding of vocabulary learning strategies as well as approaches with the guidance of input hypothesis theory can be reflected. Finally, the author writes down the feedback of the 15 students and analyzes it to further support the research.
2.5 Anticipated Conclusions
There is no doubt that language has no practical meaning without vocabulary, and vocabulary teaching is one of the indispensable processes of language teaching. After the experiment, some major findings are attained in this thesis.
First of all, vocabulary teaching approaches based on Krashen’s input hypothesis theory can help secondary vocational school students cultivate various vocabulary learning strategies. Under the four principles of the input hypothesis, the teaching approaches adopted in the experiment make students learn vocabulary in a more effective way. According to the results of the questionnaire analysis, it proves that through the author’s new way of teaching vocabulary under the instruction of the input hypothesis, vocabulary learning strategies such as determination strategies, social strategies, cognitive strategies, metacognitive strategies, memory strategies are all mastered by students more or less.
Meanwhile, by using different vocabulary learning strategies, students could convert some complicated new words into “i+1” words, which makes vocabulary learning ways recognized more easily. Additionally, by analyzing the statistics of the questionnaire in EC before and after the experiment, an obvious conclusion that teaching under input hypothesis theory makes for bringing up students’ vocabulary learning strategies can be drawn.
Secondly, vocabulary teaching approaches based on this theory could enrich students’ vocabulary and enlarge their vocabulary memory capacity. By analyzing the results of post-test, it is easy to see that students in EC gain much higher scores than those in CC. After being instructed by such vocabulary teaching approaches, students can use different vocabulary learning strategies to learn new words, such as learning vocabulary by pictures, learning by meaning association, or guessing the word meaning from textual context etc. All these strategies could help students minimize their memory task and make them use vocabulary more flexibly. In addition, it is helpful for students to enlarge their vocabulary memory capacity and reach a higher level of learning proficiency. By analyzing the interview, it is found that students’ memorization of vocabulary in experimental class is steadier than students in CC learning in a traditional way, and those students in EC are more capable of using vocabulary that they learned.
Thirdly, it is more effective for teachers to teach vocabulary based on this theory. In order to gain a successful acquisition, the input should be comprehensible, interesting, relevant, adequate and non-grammatically-sequenced. In the meantime, with appropriate vocabulary teaching approaches adopted, students can correspondingly find a certain strategy to learn vocabulary in accordance with the vocabulary categories, to make vocabulary learning full of interestingness and easier to accept, and to achieve the expectant acquisition.
After analyzing the results, some implications are gained from the experiment.
First, think more highly of vocabulary teaching. Through two months of teaching and survey, it is found that vocabulary plays a very important role in English learning. In a way, backward students are supposed to ascribe their low English scores to limited lexical resources. Undeniably, vocabulary is the fundamental knowledge of a language and ought to be thought highly of.
Second, focus on vocabulary teaching approaches. Backward students usually lack interest in English learning, causing them to give up learning this subject. However, according to the statistics from questionnaire, it is seen that vocabulary teaching approaches based on this theory can facilitate students’ vocabulary learning efficiency. Therefore, in the future teaching, English teachers in secondary vocational schools should pay more attention to putting the four principles of input hypothesis into practice so that different vocabulary teaching approaches can perform better.
Third, concentrate on the application of vocabulary learning strategies. According to the experiment, students can memorize different kinds of words by choosing a particular vocabulary learning strategy. Those vocabulary learning strategies can lower the difficulty of vocabulary memorization, and improve the learning efficiency. Hence teachers should impart varieties of vocabulary learning strategies to students when students come across different kinds of new words, and lead them to independently create some strategies of their own. Besides, students should also learn to apply those strategies flexibly in different situations to ease the burden of English learning.
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