The Effects Of Metacognitive Strategy Training On Non-English Majors’ Vocabulary Learning

Vocabulary learning is perceived as the prominent part in English learning.During the past three decades, considerable researches have been undertaken onvocabulary learning methods and strategies in second language acquisition, whichhave a great impact on vocabulary learning. Flavell (1976:252) claims thatmetacogniton involves “active monitoring and consequent regulation andorchestration of cognitive process to achieve cognitive goals.” The development ofthe concept of metacognition and metacognitive strategy does help improve learners’sense of planning, monitoring and evaluating in language learning, thus facilitatelearners’ autonomy. Some researches also have showed that metacognitive strategytraining has positive impact on teachers’ enhancement of English vocabularyproficiency and the development of autonomous learning ability. O’Malley andChamot et al (1985:56) put forward to that “students without metacognitiveapproaches are essentially learners without direction or opportunity to review theirprogress, accomplishment and future directions”. Oxford (1990:210) states that thestrategy training has some positive effects on the teacher:“Teacher who use strategytraining often become enthusiastic about their roles as facilitators of classroomlearning. Strategy training makes them more learner-oriented and more aware of theirstudents needs.”The present research focuses on explicit metacognitive strategy training and itseffects on non-English majors’ vocabulary learning in Lu Dong University. It aims toimprove the students’ awareness of metacognitive strategy use and facilitate theirEnglish vocabulary learning including vocabulary size and vocabulary proficiency.With the relevant theories reviewed, this research depicts the research design bymeans of questionnaires, testing and interview to explore the effectiveness that themetacognitive strategy training has for non-English majors’ vocabulary learning.This experiment obtains students from one academic level (freshmen) of non-English majors. In the process of the experiment, the subjects are fed and trainedwith metacognitive strategies training in10weeks from the7thweek to the16thweeksof the semester in the college. The training was based on Oxford (1990), O’Malleyand Chamot’s CALLA (1990), Cohen’s SBI model, which incorporates the strongpoints of the two models and is modified to meet the need of the current experiment.The new model consists of4steps: promoting students’ metacognitive strategiesawareness; planning strategy in vocabulary learning; monitoring strategy invocabulary learning; evaluating strategy in vocabulary learning. In the week beforeand after the experiment, subjects would respectively complete two English tests:pre-test and post-test papers, and subjects’ reports of their background informationand learning strategies before the training and their leaning strategies after the trainingused in vocabulary learning were also collected respectively by means of Chineseversion questionnaires distributed to them. The results were computed and comparedwithin and between classes by SPSS16.0.The results of the present research show that most freshmen sometimes usemetacognitive strategies in their language learning process before the strategy training.There is a correlation between application of metacognitive strategy and achievementsin English vocabulary tests. The strategy training plays a positive role in improvingthe learners’ metacognitive strategy awareness and learners’ cognitive strategy’sapplication, which contribute to the obvious effectiveness in promoting the students’self-dependence and autonomy in their vocabulary learning process. Thus the teachershould incorporate the metacognitive strategy training into teaching in order to aidstudents to select the appropriate strategy for learning tasks.