Abstract

As we all know, vocabulary teaching is an important part of English teaching, especially to the elementary school students. Many pupils think vocabulary is tough to them. And most of the English teachers would like to use the traditional teaching method in their vocabulary teaching. However, the traditional method is focuses on the rote learning but neglects the internal relationship between sounds and letters. Thus the pupils are unable to decode the words. 

And phonics is an effective vocabulary learning method to help elementary school students recognize the new words, which is worthy of our efforts. It makes students learn vocabulary in a more autonomous way by establishing the correspondent relationship between letters or letter combinations and the form of words. The study of phonics abroad has made great achievements, but most studies of phonics are conducted among learners in English speaking countries. So it is necessary to know whether this method is useful for our Chinese learners of English.

Owing to the importance of vocabulary learning, and the shortage of applying phonics in primary school teaching currently, the author conducts a collaborative research in a primary school in Huzhou. This study employs the methods of test, class observation, questionnaire, and interview. According to the results, it is clear that phonics can do positive influence in English vocabulary learning. And the data also shows that phonics instruction is better than the traditional vocabulary instruction. The results of questionnaire and class observation also shows phonics is helpful to words recognition. What’s more, the results of questionnaire, class observation and interviews for students show that phonics enhance the interest of pupils to learn the new words of English and students are willing to use this method to get new words in the future learning. The writer believes that with the improvement of phonics by the scholars and experienced teachers, it can be developing faster and wildly used in the mainland of China in the near future. 

Keywords: phonics; English vocabulary teaching; pupils

Contents

Abstract

摘  要

1. Introduction-1

1.1 Background of the study-1

1.2 The Significance of the Study-1

2. Literature Review-2

2.1 Phonics-2

2.2 Theoretical Framework-2

2.2.1 The Critical Period Hypothesis-2

2.2.2 Language Transfer-2

2.2.3 Theory of Children’s Cognitive Development-3

2.3 Studies Abroad and at Home-3

2.3.1 Related Study of Phonics Abroad-3

2.3.2 Related study of Phonics at Home-4

3. Research Design-5

3.1 Research Questions-5

3.2 Subjects-5

3.3 Instruments-5

3.3.1 Tests-5

3.3.2 Class Observation-5

3.3.3 Questionnaires-6

3.3.4 Interview-6

4. Results and Discussion-7

4.1 Results and discussion of tests-7

4.2 Analysis and discussion of observation-7

4.3 Results and discussion of questionnaires-7

4.4 Analysis of interview-10

4.5 Summary of the results and discussions-10

5. Conclusion-11

5.1 Findings-11

5.2 Limitations-11

References-12

Appendix I-13

Appendix II-14

Appendix III-15