A Study on Teaching Vocabulary for English Writing to Taiwanese High School Students

本研究旨在實驗一套單字教學活動是否能成功增加台灣高中生的寫作應用字彙。在實驗開始前，研究者先進行前測，採用了字彙知識自評表(Vocabulary Knowledge Scale)和一份作文題目以了解學生一開始的字彙知識及主要單字的使用情況。之後，研究者開始了為期十二週的教學活動，此活動分為三階段：呈現(Presentation)、練習(Practice)、應用(Production)，每個階段皆採用不同的活動進行教學，並根據這四大原則來設計教導應用字彙的活動：刻意性、重複性、參與性、情境性。教學實驗過後，研究者進行後測以了解字彙知識的改變及主要單字的使用情況，並分析不同程度的學生作品，以了解學生實際的用字情況。 研究結果顯示，本教學活動能有效增進學生的辨識字彙能力及字彙的應用。字彙知識自評表顯示前後測分數有顯著性差異，在後測中，超過半數以上的單字進步到比前測更高的等級，而且有八個字進升到應用字彙的程度。百分之八十七的學生有把主要字彙用在他們的作文中，且正確的使用頻率及相關單字的使用也增加了，無論是新字或舊字，在後測的使用數量都是前測的兩倍。The current study experiments with a series of teaching activities for productive words to Taiwanese students at the senior high level. It aims to understand the changes of word knowledge and target word use after the experiment. In the beginning, a pre-test was administered with the help of two instruments, the Vocabulary Knowledge Scale and a writing prompt, to understand the students’ initial level. Then, the researcher conducted the teaching experiment for 12 weeks, which consisted of the Presentation, Practice, and Production stages. In each stage, the activities were designed based on four important principles for teaching productive words: intentional, repeated, involving, and contextualized. After the experiment, a post-test using the same instruments was carried out to analyze the changes of word knowledge and target word use. Moreover, individual writing products of different levels were analyzed to see the actual usage of words in the students’ writing. The results showed that the teaching experiment was effective in increasing the students’ receptive knowledge and productive use of the target words. The VKS scores of the pre- and post-test differed significantly. More than half of the words moved up to higher levels, and eight words moved to the productive level in the post-test. The students’ writing products also indicated a considerable increase in the use of target words in terms of the correct usages and related words. Eighty-seven percent of the students used the target words in the post-test. Moreover, the number of old and new words used doubled in the post-test