作 者 楊曉春

2005年4月10日

A Study of Student-Centered English Vocabulary Teaching

I. Introduction

A. Vocabulary

If language structures make up the skeleton of language, it is vocabulary that provides the vital organs and the flesh. Vocabulary is one of the most important essentials of language, and it is also the basis of language communication. In vocabulary researches, vocabulary refers to not only the single words, but also the “chunks” such as phrases and idioms (1). And in Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary, the definition of the vocabulary is a total number of the words that make up a language .It is the basic meaningful unit in language communication.

B. English vocabulary teaching

English vocabulary teaching is the primary and essential part of English teaching. This is because we cannot express anything perfect without vocabulary; we cannot carry on the basic language communication such as listening, speaking, reading, writing and translation if there has no vocabulary. We need to have a store of vocabulary, which we can select from freely when we wish to express our thoughts. For students, mastering a certain number of vocabularies is the key to learning English. As everyone knows, the greater vocabulary one masters, the stronger skill in applying language he/she will have. But to our Chinese students, the vocabulary learning is a great difficulty in English learning. What is more, many of the students always consider that “vocabulary learning” is to recite the words which are appeared in the text. They think that if they can remember all those words, they will finish their vocabulary learning. As a matter of fact, their vocabulary learning still stays in the combination of “pronunciation, spelling and meaning”, and almost all their time and energy are used in these three parts. This will bring failures to them in learning and communication. Thus, the teacher’s vocabulary teaching becomes especially important.

C. Purpose of teaching vocabulary

The purpose of teaching vocabulary is to make the students master the vocabulary, use the vocabulary freely and lay the base for their English learning. In order to achieve this purpose, educators from home and abroad have been researching the approaches of English teaching. No matter what kind of approach they adopt, they must make sure that their teaching is based on the students. Because the student is the body of the teaching, the teacher just plays a leading role. All teaching activities must focus on the students.

II. The student-centered vocabulary teaching

A. Some factors which affect the students’ vocabulary learning

There is a fact that the students should take notice. That is, some students are successful in vocabulary learning while others are not. If we know the reason, the job of teaching vocabulary would be easy. We don’t, of course. But we can point out a number of factors which seem to have some effect on the students’ success in vocabulary learning.

Firstly, it is motivation in learning vocabulary. People involved in English teaching often say that students who really want to learn will succeed. This is their motivation. Motivation refers to the intensity of intention regarding the students’ learning behavior (2). In other words, motivation stands for how much effort the students are ready to put into the learning activity. It is some kind of the internal drive that encourages students to study. The internal drive here may be the parents’ hope, the teacher’s appreciation or the students’ eager for study, and so on. Such phenomenon suggests that the motivation the students bring to class is the biggest factor affecting their success.

Secondly, method for learning vocabulary is an extremely important factor. We know that if a teacher’s method for teaching vocabulary is deadly boring, the students will probably become uninterested in learning. Therefore, teachers must adjust themselves so as to meet the various situations. Teaching method also has some effect on the students’ learning motivation. Good method can easily rouse students’ learning interests.

Finally, the factor affect the students’ vocabulary learning is the teacher himself/herself. Whether the students like the teacher or not may be a problem. Almost all people in their students’ time had this kind of feelings. So, this requires the teacher is not only a deliver of the knowledge, but also a good friend of the students.

B. The traditional teaching

The traditional English vocabulary teaching is a “Duck-stuffing” way. It only needs teachers’ mouths and pieces of chalk. The students just act as receivers of knowledge. This kind of teaching greatly prevents the students’ initiative in learning. And this is not what the teaching aims. What the teacher should do is try his/her best to wake up the students’ initiative and interests in learning. First, a teacher should know his/her role in teaching. He/she is not only the deliver of the knowledge, but also the director, conductor and organizer. He/she must be a facilitator for the students. Then, a teacher should teach according to the students’ characteristic and nature, change the traditional method. Last, and most important, we know that “teaching” should serve for “learning”. In fact, the effect of English learning depends on the students’ subjective initiative and participation. We should change “teacher-bodied” into “student-centered”.

C. Student-centered teaching

Student-centered teaching takes the students as the body part in class, all the teaching activities must center on the students. This kind of teaching is quite opposite to the traditional teaching. And , the student-centered teaching has a lot of good effects on both teacher and students.

1). Student-centered teaching can improve the teacher’s teaching skills. Maybe someone will think that student-centered teaching will lower the teacher’s avail, and it cannot smooth the teacher’s teaching skill. The author thinks that it is no need to be worried about it. Student-centered teaching doesn’t mean that the teacher is superfluous, or the teacher will give up the control to the teaching. On the contrary, this kind of teaching puts a high demand for the teacher. And the whole class needs the teacher’s organization and management. At the same time, the teacher will help the students recognize and tap the latent of their study power. This is also a challenge for the teacher. They must be proficient in their teaching, and above all, they must design a set of student-centered teaching plans supplying the students with real condition. In student-centered vocabulary teaching, the teacher should adjust the relation between a teacher and students, teach them skill about input and output of the knowledge, forecast the difficulties which the students will meet in learning vocabulary, and so on. All of these need the teachers to plan and manage. During this procedure, the teacher’s teaching skill will get progressed and improved.

2). Student-centered teaching can attract the students’ attention and rouse the students’ learning interests. Through this approach, the students’ being eager to study will be raised, and their motivation will become stronger. Student-centered teaching is so far an ideal circumstance in English teaching (3). It can greatly meet the students’ needs and give free rein to their capabilities. Thus, the vocabulary teaching will be no longer boring. It will lead to an excellent result. And there is also a fact that in four principles of English teaching, the first one is student-centered principle (4). The students’ ability get a full play in the class, their learning interests will also become strong.

3) Student-centered teaching is a challenge to both the teacher and the students. It breaks out the teacher-centered stage, and it does create the students’ studying motivation and open a new space for English teaching. During the whole teaching process, the students play a body role. After all, it is the teacher who builds up the key of student-centered teaching. If a teacher changes his/her teaching idea timely, applying a flexible teaching method, the students will be benefited a lot in vocabulary learning. But if the teacher overlooks the students’ body part in teaching, the students will naturally fall into a passive role in class. They will just listen and copy mechanically and receive the knowledge ineffectively. Thus, neither the teacher nor the students will be satisfactory. So, the teacher should pay more attention to the students, arouse their enthusiasm for the study and lead them to a correct and scientific study method.

III. The method of student-centered vocabulary teaching

We know the student-centered teaching is effective from the words above, but how to carry on ? There are several suggestions.

A. Role exchange

Obviously, this method refers that the students change their student role into teacher. They will act as teacher and teach the vocabulary to others. Very often, we read, watch, listen and do something because it interests us, or at least we think it will interest us. This is the same to the teaching and learning. If teaching can interest the students, they will be willing to learn. Let the students act as teacher, they will try their best to have an enough and active preparations. What is more, they will put into a great energy in organizing the teaching. Thus, the students who are listening will feel very fresh and interesting, and they will also listen carefully. Although teaching vocabulary is a rather boring job, we can change this bad situation by exchanging the role in class. With the development of the science and technology, the way of getting knowledge becomes wider and wider. Maybe to some extent, the students’ knowledge is larger than the teacher’s. If make them act as teacher, they will study careful at first. Then, they will have a good preparation and be very familiar with the vocabulary which they will teach. They will use all kinds of mean to gain the related knowledge. Maybe they will look up the dictionary to make sure their own pronunciation and usage is correct. Maybe they will think how to make other students understand easily. They will use the network, magazines and some other materials. All these attempts can improve their vocabulary learning. The whole class will be in an active and vivid atmosphere. It is good for the students, and it will also highly interest the students in vocabulary learning. Outside the class, the teacher can spend spare time pointing out the shortcomings of the lesson, helping the students analysis the reason of their mistakes. During such procedure, the students’ interests in learning vocabulary will become stronger and stronger, and at the same time, the boring vocabulary teaching will be changed into interesting one.

But this method is not fit for the English learning beginners. It needs the students who will act as teachers have rich knowledge about vocabulary. The beginners are lack of this kind of skill.

B. Graphic presentation

In teaching vocabulary the teacher can use some pictures. The pictures can be the board drawings, wall pictures, and charts, and so on . This method can especially be used for teaching a series of words which are close each other in meaning. It has an extremely effect on the beginners. For example, when teaching the preposition “on”, “over”, “above” and “beneath”, “under”, “below”, the teacher can draw a simple picture like this:

( on ) ( over ) ( above )

( beneath ) ( under ) ( below )

It is very clear for the students to understand and remember. If teacher just uses Chinese to explain those words, the students will only know the surface meaning of those words. And they will make mistakes or get mixture of them when using these words.

This method is very easy for the students to adopt . And it will attract the students’ attention in class, too. By using this method, both the teacher’s teaching and the students’ learning will become relaxing and joyful. Thus, the teaching will get a good effect.

C. Association

Association is a psychological procedure of connecting one thing with another. This kind of method makes a good use of human being’s rich association , so the students’ interests in learning vocabulary will be woke up easily. Association can be brought into reality by these two ways. First, we know some letters’ pronunciation is different in different words. Lots of students will get confusion especially when the pronunciation is very similar. For example, the letters “oo” in the word “foot” pronounces [u], but in the word “boot”, it pronounces [u:]. In order to make the students distinguish and remember, the teacher can tell the students to imagine it like this: “Because the boot is longer than the foot, we can get our boots on.” In Chinese we say “ 靴子比腳長，我們才能把靴子穿上.” Another example, in the word “food”, ”oo” pronounces [u:], in order to avoid to pronounce it [u], the teacher can teach like this: “We know a small stream flows long, it is the same as food.”(我們知道細水長流，食物也當如此.) Second, some English words’ pronunciation is like Chinese characters, we can take advantage of this characteristic. For example, the pronunciation of the word “barber [ba:b ]” (理發師) is like Chinese character “爸爸(baba)”, so, “爸爸是位理發師(Father is a barber.)”; “Vase [va:z]”(花瓶) pronounces like Chinese character “襪子(wazi)”, so, “襪子藏在花瓶中(The sock was hidden in the vase.)”. Examples of this kind are so many. All the two ways of association method are convenience for remember. And it will produce the students’ initiation and interests in learning vocabulary. Because the association is very rich and vivid, the students’ vocabulary learning will become more active and effective.

D. Role play

This kind of method is using the simulative scene. Generally speaking, this simulative scene is special and interesting. In the classroom, the students will get a deep impression. Of course, the scene is not a really one, it needs the teacher and the students create in the classroom. Teacher can ask them to pretend that they are at a special place, such as at an airport, in a telephone call, or organize them to get together to play an imaginary reunion, and so on. In this simulated situation, the students must not think themselves as language students, but as the people in the simulation. Of course, we do not take the students to a real airport---that would no longer be a simulation, it would be a real thing. For example, if the teacher will teach some vocabulary about telephone and want his/her students to master that, he/she can ask the students to play a role like this: first, asking them recall a telephone call which they did before. Then, asking them show that out. The students will be very active because that role-play is rather interesting and like real daily life. After their performances, teacher should help them summarize the phrases and expressions which are often used in telephone. Thus, the students will understand all these phrases and expressions easily and well.

Sometimes the students act as themselves (if we ask them to organize a party, for example, we are not asking them to pretend to someone else) and sometimes we ask them to play a role, pretending someone they are not. In the latter case, we are taking about role-plays. And the role-play method can be not only used in teaching vocabulary, but also in teaching sentence structure.

After those simulative scene, the teacher should conduct feedback with the students. The object here is to discuss with them whether the activity was successful. This will also be a good opportunity to practice the students’ oral English.

E. Vocabulary network

When a teacher teaches a new word, he/she often gives several words which have a close relation with the new word. This is a better way to enlarge the students’ vocabulary. For example, when teaching the word “house”, the teacher can use “mind map” technique to help the students to recall a series of words around the house. This method can also put a list of words into different groups. Here is a “vocabulary network” about the word “house”:

Television cupboard

Audio apron refrigerator

Carpe sofa pot gas oven

Parlor kitchen

House

Bedroom bathroom

Quilt towel bathtub

Blanket pillow water heater

Clothes horse shampoo

This method will give the students a clear vocabulary map in their minds and allow the students more involvement than a presentation led by the teacher. Thus , out of the class , the students will have strong interests in learning vocabulary by this way. When they see the word “doctor”, they will remember the word “nurse”, “hospital”, “sick” and so on. Also, this method is more convenience for enriches the students’ vocabulary though some of the vocabulary may be known by them already.

F. Other methods

There are hundreds of methods in English teaching. Of course the word formation in vocabulary teaching is also important and necessary. Teacher can add some knowledge about the word formation during the vocabulary teaching. If the students master more knowledge about the word formation, their skill in learning vocabulary will be stronger. For example, if the students know the prefix “re-” means “again”, they will know the word “replay” means “play again”; “rebuilt” means “build again”, and so on. Thus, the students can not only remember the new words soon, but also solidify the old words. Further more, they can change the limited vocabulary into limitless skill of producing the vocabulary.

IV. Summary

During the whole procedure of the vocabulary teaching, the students are the body part from beginning to the end. They play a very important role in the teaching. They will absorb the new vocabulary from the teaching and use those vocabulary continuously in order to understand and master them. There are thousands of methods in teaching vocabulary in teaching area. But there is no best plan or proposal. Maybe a better way lies in the students themselves. Every teacher should teach according to the students’ level. The vocabulary learning is the business of the students and the teacher. The teacher should lead them and organize them correctly. So one of the teacher’s tasks is design all kinds of good practice, create good and suitable scene of using vocabulary and make the students raise their vocabulary level. However, the students are the body and the vocabulary learning is the students’ task. So, we should base on the students and establish the students’ learning motivation and interesting.

Student-centered English vocabulary teaching makes entertainment a medium of teaching. It is a challenge for the teacher and a good opportunity for the students. The students will learn, understand and master the vocabulary in an active and vivid atmosphere by the student-centered teaching approach. And the teacher’s teaching will be changed from boring to interesting. The author hopes all these will have some useful implications for the English vocabulary teaching.