An Empirical Study On Teaching Countability Of English Nouns In Light Of Cognitive Linguistics

The traditional way of teaching countability of English nouns in Chinese schools at all levels such as primary school, middle school and college is a morpho-syntactic approach; teachers explain the rules of countability in an implicit way while students learn by memorizing the rules. However, Chinese students continue to make many countability mistakes in their oral and written productions of English.The present study, within a cognitive linguistic framework, attempts to establish a Cognitive Triangle Model (CTM) to teach countability of English nouns and applies it to practice. The theoretical foundations of the model include three parts, i.e. insights of cognitive linguistics for language instruction, the cognitive development theory in psychology, and the task-based approach in pedagogy. The study is to testify the hypothesis that the instruction of countability of English nouns to 13-year-old junior high school learners with the cognitive approach is far more advantageous than that of the traditional approach in both short and long-term effects. The short term advantage refers to the understanding of the concept whereas the long term advantage refers to the use of the knowledge concerned at a later time.A teaching experiment of 9 weeks was conducted between two classes in No. 3 Middle School of Loudi City, Hunan Province. The cognitive approach was adopted in the experimental class while the traditional approach was used in the control class. The two classes were given a pre-test and two post-tests in the form of multiple-choice questions on count and mass nouns. The analyses of the data gained from the tests revealed significant differences between the two classes: the students in the experimental class came to a better understanding of the concept of countability during the course of learning and the post-test results one month after the experiment indicated their statistical preference as well.The results of the experiment have proved the hypothesis to be correct, and the present thesis puts forward the following proposals in teaching: 1) Teachers should try to apply the theories of cognitive linguistics while teaching English. 2) Teachers should teach linguistic units in the order from the simple to the complex, from the concrete to the abstract, and from the easy to the difficult. 3) Teachers should give priority to the task-based teaching approach.The present research is an empirical study of cognitive linguistics applied to pedagogical grammar. It can broaden our horizon in the researches of foreign language teaching as well as the application of cognitive linguistics.