单词背诵妙招.doc

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Effective Ways of Helping Middle School Students Memorize Words

As is well known, the English language boasts a large number of words. If English learners memorize words one by one, it will be time-consuming and effortless for them to learn vocabulary. Furthermore, English vocabulary is changing from time to time with the development of the society and many new words appear with time passing. The reason is that English has not only the characteristics of other languages, but also the distinctive feature of productivity. And English vocabulary is expanded at a significantly high speed mainly because of its powerful word-formation ability. So if English learners start from the analysis of the internal structure of English vocabulary to grasp the rules of word-formation, it will be helpful for them to get twice the result with half the effort to remember vocabulary. Thus, it is necessary for middle school students to learn English word-formation. In this part, some ways of word-formation are introduced as follows:
A. Affixation
Affixation is the most productive one to form a great range of words and it is believed to be one of the best ways of learning English. Bedsides, compounding, conversion, blending, clipping, acronyms, back-formation and onomatopoeia are also effective word-formation ways of learning English. Affixation is the formation of words by adding derivational affixes to stems. This process is also known as derivation. Affixation shows the lexical relation between roots and affixes. According to the position affixes occupy in words, affixation falls into two subcategories: prefixation and suffixation.
i. Prefixation
Prefixation is the formation of new words by adding prefixes to the stems. Prefixes do not generally change the word-class of the stem. Their chief function is to change its meaning, although there are a few exceptions. According to the meaning, prefixes can be divided into: negative prefixes, prefixes of reversative or privative, pejorative prefixes, prefixes of degree or size, prefixes of orientation and attitude, prefixes of locative, prefixes of time and order, prefixes of number, prefixes of miscellaneous neo-classical, prefixes of conversion. In the following table, some examples of English derivational prefixes are presented.
Table 1: Prefixation
Prefixes
Change
Examples
un-
adj.– adj.
unhappy, unhealthy, uncertain
dis-
verb – verb
dislike, disagree, disapprove
pseudo-
noun – noun
pseudoscience, pseudograph

adj.– adj.
pseudoclassic, pseudoaquatic
mini-
noun – noun
minibus, miniskirt, minicab
ii. Suffixation
Suffixation is the formation of new words by adding suffixes to stem. Unlike prefixes which primarily change the meaning of the stem, suffixes have only a small semantic role, their primary function being to change the grammatical function of stems. In other words, they mainly change the word class. However, they may also add attached meaning to the stem. The following examples in table 2 are some English derivational suffixes.
Table 2: Suffixation
Suffixes
Change
Examples
-able
verb --- adj.
fixable, respectable
-al
verb --- noun
proposal, refusal, disposal
-ing
verb --- adj.
exciting, moving, touching
-ive
verb --- adj.
exertive, impressive, restrictive
-ful
noun --- noun
mouthful, spoonful
-ful
noun --- adj.
hopeful, wonderful, faithful
-ize
noun --- verb
realize, finalize, hospitalize
-ness
adj. --- noun
happiness, sadness, shyness
B. Compounding
Compounding is also called composition. It is a word-formation by joining two or more bases to form a new unit.
i. Orthographically, compound words may be written in 3 various ways: solid, hyphenated, and open.
If there is neither character space nor hyphen in some compound word, that is to say, if the compound word is made up of two completely separate words without anything between the letters of this word, then this compound word is considered solid.
eg: week + end = weekend; under + line = underline break + through = breakthrough;
bed + time = bedtime; friend + ship = friendship; green + house = greenhouse.
If there is a hyphen in some compound word, that is to say, if the compound word is made up of two completely separate words with a hyphen between the two separate words, then the compound word is considered hyphenated.
eg: sleep + walk = sleep-walk; state + owned = state-owned
above + mentioned = above-mentioned; air + condition = air-condition.
If there is a character space in some compound word, that is to say, if the compound word is made up of two completely separate words with a character space between these two words, and it looks like two separate words but in fact it is one independent word, then the compound word is considered open.
eg: reading + material = reading material; black +board = black board;
happy + group = happy group; hand + pick = hand pick; green +house = greenhouse.
ii. Semantically, compounds can often be identified as having a meaning which may be related to but can not simply be inferred from the meaning of its parts. For example, a black board means the color of a board is black; a dark room means a dim room. However, a blackboard means an instrument used for teaching and a darkroom is not just a room that is dark, rather a room used for photographic processing.
Generally speaking, compounds have relatively fixed meaning. Some of their meanings can be understood according to their literal meanings. For example, blogsphere is formed from blog and sphere; ‘sandstorm’ is formed from sand and storm; ‘one-way’ is formed from one and way. For these compounds, their meanings are the simple superstitions of two individual parts. While the meaning of many compounds include at least to some extent the meanings of individual parts, as in a falling star (a star that falls) and a looking glass (which doesn’t mean ‘a glass that looks’ but “a glass in which one can see one’s face’), other compounds do not seem to relate to the meanings of the individual parts at all. A bigwig, for example, does not have a big wig, nor does a highbrow necessarily have a high brow.
C. Conversion
Conversion is a word-formation whereby a word of a certain word-class is shifted into a word of another without the addition of an affix. It is also called zero derivation. There are three types of conversion according to the change of word class：noun-verb conversion; verb-noun conversion and adjective-noun conversion.
i. Noun-verb conversion
e.g.: He elbowed his way through the crowd.
In this sentence, ‘elbow’ is conversed from a noun to a verb. It means to push one’s way with the elbows.
ii. Verb-noun conversion
e.g.: It is a good buy.
In this sentence, ‘buy’ is conversed from a verb to a noun. It means a shopping.
iii. Adjective-noun conversion
e.g.: This man is a native of this place.
In this sentence, ‘native’ is conversed from an adjective to a noun. It means some person is a native of local region.
D. Blending
Blending is a process of word-formation by which a word is created by combining parts of other words. Words formed in this way are called blends. From morphological viewpoints, there are four types of blending.
i. The first part of the first word + the last part of the second word
e.g.: botel: boat + hotel; smaze: smoke + haze
ii. The whole part of the first word + last part of the second word
e.g.: carbecue: car + barbecue; workfare: work + welfare
iii. The whole form of the second word + the first part of the first word
e.g.: medicaid: medical + aid; medicare: medical + care
iv. The first part of the first word + the first part of the second word
e.g.: sitcom: situation + comedy; comsat: communications + satellite
E. Clipping
Clipping is the word-formation process by which a word is created from other word clips its part. Clipping is also known as "shortening." Clipping mainly consists of three types: back clipping; fore-clipping and middle clipping.
i. Back clipping
Back clipping is the most common type, in which the beginning is retained. The unclipped original may be either a simple or a composite word.
e.g.: ad from advertisement; exam from examination; math from mathematics
ii. Fore-clipping fore-clipping, the final part is retained.
e.g.: phone from telephone; pike from turnpike
iii. Middle clipping
In middle clipping, the middle of the word is retained.
e.g.: flu from influenza; tec from detective
F. Acronymy
Acronymy is a process of word-formation by which new words are formed by joining the first letters of several words together. Acronymy consists of acronyms and initialisms depending on the pronunciation of the words.
i. Acronyms are words formed from initial letters but pronounced as a normal word.
e.g.: APEC, NASA
ii. Initialisms are words pronounced letter by letter.
e.g.: VOA, TV
G. Back-formation
Back-formation is an abnormal type of word-formation where a shorter word is derived by deleting an imagined affix from an already existing longer word in the vocabulary. The majority of back-formed words are verbs, for verbs can generate a number of nouns, and various types of participial adjectives. For example, all the following words ‘creator, creation, creating, created’ are developed from the verb ‘create’. So when people come across one or more apparently deverbal nouns, they often take it for granted that there must be a corresponding verb. According to its origin, back-formation may be formed from the following parts of speech.
i. Verbs back-formed from nouns ending in –er, -ar, -or, -sion , -tion, etc.
e.g.: to edit ← editor; to televise ← television
ii. Verbs back-formed from nouns in other forms or from adjective:
e.g.: to diagnose ← diagnosis（noun）; to laze ← lazy (adjective)
iii. Many new back-formation verbs come from compounds:
e.g.: to house-keep ← housekeeper; to sight-see ←sight-seeing
iv. A few nouns back-formed from adjective
e.g.: greed (n.) ← greedy (adjective); gloom(n.) ← gloomy (adjective)
H. Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is the formation of words by stimulating sounds. Onomatopoeic words are also called imitative words or echoic words. Although the proportion of onomatopoeic words occupies a small percentage in modern English vocabulary, onomatopoeia is one of the oldest word formation methods, and what is more, many new words are coined by this kind of method. Due to its vivid and lifelike character, onomatopoeia has become a unique part in English Vocabulary. It is mainly used in spoken English, and it creates a kind of vivid sense, just as if people were on the scene. Still, it is widely used in written English, and it enhances the effect of language expression to a large extent.
If middle school students can be told how these words formed when memorizing these onomatopoeic words, they will find it easier and more interesting to remember them. Also, it can stimulate them to find more onomatopoeic words to remember them. Thus, their interests on English will be enhanced. When teaching these words, teacher can find some excellent examples of the application of onomatopoeic words to make his class more interesting. For example, Robert Southey (1820) once wrote a poem. In this poem, Southey used more than 20 different onomatopoeic words to bring readers to the swift river. The poem is called How Does the Water Come Down at Lodore:
Here it comes sparkling,
And there it lies darkling…
Eddying and whinking,
Spouting and frisking，…
And whizzing and hissing,…
And rattling and battling,…
And guggling and struggling,…
And bubbling and troubling and doubling,…
And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,…
And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping,…
And thumping and pumping and bumping and jumping,…
And at once and all o’er with mighty uproar,
And this way the water comes down at Lodore.
In sum, word-formation mainly consists of affixation, compounding, conversion, blending, clipping, acronyms, back-formation and onomatopoeia. When middle school students memorize words, they should be advised to memorize them by way of word-formation according to different words character rather than mechanical memory. Because after grasping the rule of word-formation, words will become easier to memorize and not tend to forget. In a word, word-formation has significant impacts on middle school students’ English vocabulary learning. So word-formation can be the helpful and valuable method for students to memorize vocabulary. At the same time, English teachers are wanted to lead middle school students to memorize words by way of word-formation. In light of this case, English teachers can use some classes to teach middle school students the rules of word-formation.

II. Ebbinghaus’s theory on memorizing words
A.Ebbinghaus’s scientific and systematic theory on memory
Ebbinghaus (1885) developed the first scientific approach to the study of a higher psychological process. He was the first person to describe the “Forgetting Curve”. Ebbinghaus’s findings would have been enough to obtain a status for him in the history of psychology, but his research also made many essential contributions to scientific knowledge foundation. His experiments showed that meaningless stimuli are more difficult to memorize than meaningful stimuli; that is to say, it is harder to memorize materials that do not have significance or relevance to the learner. Then, his data revealed that increasing the number of materials to be learned usually significantly increases the amount of time it takes to learn it. This is the learning curve. Finally, he established that relearning is easier than initial learning, and that it takes longer to forget material after each subsequent re-learning. Ebbinghaus’s work also suggested that learning is more effective when it is spaced out over time rather than crammed into a single long time study session. This insight was later supported by other scientists. Finally, Ebbinghaus discovered that forgetting happens most rapidly right after learning occurs and slows down with time passing. These findings have important consequences for the development of pedagogical practice and also provide a theoretical basis to guide the study of individual differences in human intelligence.
The Forgetting Curve is shown vividly in the following line chart.
Table3: Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve

The curve tells people forgetting is regular in the process of study: forgetting in the process is not balanced, not fixed one day to lose a few, the next day and lost a few, but in the initial phase of the forgetting memory is very fast, then slows down gradually, then after a long time, almost no longer forgetting, that is forgotten in the law of development, namely "fast