Effects Of Cognitive Strategies Approach On English Vocabulary Learning

Vocabulary learning plays an important role in the English language learning in primary schools. Students’ listening, speaking, reading and writing, to some extent, depend on their vocabulary proficiency. Growing evidence suggests that most of Chinese primary school students lack the effective vocabulary learning strategies and they gradually lose their interest of English learning. So cognitive strategies approach that was put forward by western researchers may help to improve vocabulary learning effectiveness among the primary school students. Ample evidences have also demonstrated that there is a direct correlations between vocabulary strategies and vocabulary learning. New English Curriculum has suggested that teachers use the learning strategies during the primary school stage. In order to explore the effectiveness of the cognitive strategies on vocabulary learning in Chinese primary school settings, the author carried out an 8-week experiment and addressed the following questions:(1) What cognitive strategies would the participants use most frequently in vocabulary learning?(2)Is the cognitive strategies learning model more effective than non-cognitive strategies learning model for facilitating the participants’ vocabulary learning?In order to answer the above research questions, the researcher employed a questionnaire to examine the frequencies of cognitive strategies use by the participants. The questionnaire was from O’Malley&Chamot’s(1990) information processing model. The study recruited the students from Class 3 and Class 8 of Guiyang Experimental Primary School as its participants. Class 8 was the experimental class and Class 3 was the control class. The total number of students in the two classes was 40 respectively. Before the pretest, the scores of the final examination of 2013 in Grade 4 were analyzed in order to make sure that the two classes’ English proficiency were the same. In the pretest, both the experimental class and the control class took the test of the target words and expressions while the experimental class also did a questionnaire. Then, the students in the experimental class studied vocabulary under the cognitive strategies model while the students in the control class studied vocabulary under the non-cognitive strategies model. The instructional experiment lasted 8 weeks, after which the posttest was carried out to test the effects of the two instructional models on vocabulary learning. In the posttest, two instruments were used: one test of the target words and expressions, and a questionnaire, both of which were the same as those in the pretest.The quantative data of the pretest and the posttest were analyzed by means of Statistical Package for Social Science(SPSS Software for MS Windows 12.0) and the results showed:(1) Among the cognitive strategies, the two least frequently used strategies were note-taking strategy and dictionary strategy. The most frequently used strategies were listed respectively: the repetition strategy > the imagery strategy > the auditory strategy > the grouping strategy > the guessing strategy > the contexulation strategy > the note-taking strategy > the dictionary strategy.(2) The two instructional models had significant differences on vocabulary learning achievements. The CS model was more effective in improving the participants’ vocabulary learning achievement.