The English preposition is a language unit with many space-concept expressions and recognition differences between English and Korean. It engenders much difficultly for those initially studying English. Proper preposition selection is difficult because there are many varying possibilities within the complicated characteristics of polysemy and the meaning structure of prepositions. The context also creates many different meanings. A student’s first language affects the foreign language study of prepositions. Differences in languages may linger and continue into an advanced stage of the language errors at the start of learning can devolve into many errors and occasional confusion. With prepositions, as with nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, form is specific. The intention is important.
Theoretically, Langacker (1980), Herskovits (1983), Lee Gi Dong (1984)'s study revealed that finding meanings with a new view point and the various meanings in English prepositions are not independent respectively. Prototypical meanings in base with metonymy and metaphor processes are connected. Using the fundamental framework of a basic assumption of cognitive linguistics, as extended meaning increased, so did the basic meaning of the prototype. It will be significant that trying to find the study on effective preposition teaching method. Our study will focus on the prototype meaning theory and on the following prepositions: about on, off, in, out, and at. A new teaching method was designed for 66 students at the sixth grade in Elementary school. Our study divided them into two groups, an experimental group and a comparison group. We conducted pre-tests and post-tests in two-week intervals using direct instructional materials. We used image schema and picture data for the experimental group and presented each preposition within situations and contexts for the comparison group. We examined the comprehension ability improvement from basic meaning to extended meaning. These results lead us to the following conclusions.
First, the results of the pre-test and post-test were analyzed. These tests compared the basic meaning to extended meaning with prepositions using the image schema which focused on chunk sentences with pictures data and situational explanations in Korean using example sentences. Confusion of meaning diminished with at, on, and in give expression to the space in basic meaning and the time in extended meaning. Our study indicates that image schema is the more effective way of teaching the elementary students because it improves their ability to discriminate between each preposition.
Second, as the students’ accomplishment levels and number of correct answers for each preposition type increased, the students' competence with meaning also became higher. There was evidence of an increased discriminability of the basic meaning of the prepositions themselves.
Third, comparing the results of the metaphor process on extended meaning with the basic meaning on preposition, our study demonstrates very effectiveness that they are correlated as the central figure with prototypical meaning on prepositions, expanded from the meaning on the conceptual space and time to the extent of the abstract relation which express the improvement of the meaning comprehensibility.
In conclusion, teaching with the cognitive grammatical approach has great implications for the process of teaching the meaning of English prepositions. It indicates that the meanings of prepositions in English are consistent with the prototype meanings of prepositions. Teaching prepositions with the cognitive grammatical approach assists the English language students in learning the grammatical rules and the effective teaching materials that apply to the prepositions. It also enhances the learners ability to foresee the structure of sentences that include the prepositions and comprehend the meanings of the prepositions.
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