A Study Of Cognitive Strategies By The Naxi Bilingual Pupils In Learning English Vocabulary

This thesis focuses on the cognitive strategies held by the Naxi bilingual pupils in learning English vocabulary. The main purpose of this study is to explore the overall characteristics of cognitive strategies used by the Naxi pupils in learning English vocabulary, more specifically, its category, employment frequency and group difference.This study mainly employed the quantitative research methodology supplemented with some qualitative data. Written questionnaire, oral interview and classroom observation were used as the main research instruments. The participants include 435 Naxi bilingual pupils in Grades Five and Six in Lijiang, Yunnan and some teachers of English. All the quantitative data were analyzed in SPSS 21.0 and the qualitative data were interpreted.The results of factor analysis, t-test, one-way ANOVA, correlation analysis, and qualitative analysis show that cognitive strategies applied by the Naxi pupils in learning English vocabulary can be classified into such six categories as resemblance?relevance-based strategy, mother tongue strategy, note taking strategy, resourcing strategy, motion?imagery strategy, and substitution strategy.Specific cognitive strategies such as note taking, repetition and contextualization of resemblance ? relevance-based strategy and motion ? imagery strategy were frequently used by the Naxi pupils while mother tongue strategy was rarely used. The overall frequency of cognitive strategy use was medium. Significant differences in cognitive strategy use have been found between different groups classified by region, grade, gender, language proficiency and language use. Comparatively, pupils at urban schools, pupils in Grade Six, the girls, the better English learners used resemblance?relevance-based strategy more frequently. Pupils at rural schools and the boys more frequently used mother tongue strategy. Pupils in Grade Six, the girls, and the better English learners used more note taking strategy. Pupils in Grade Six also used resourcing strategy more often. Pupils in Grade Five and the better English learners used motion?imagery strategy more frequently. Pupils at rural schools and poor English learners utilized more substitution strategy.Regarding to bilingual proficiency and use, the better Chinese learners and more frequently Chinese-speaking pupils used more resemblance?relevance-based strategy. The Naxi pupils who are proficient at the Naxi and more frequently speak the Naxi used more mother tongue strategy. The balanced Naxi and Chinese bilingual speakers used not only more resemblance?relevance-based strategy and mother tongue strategy but also more note taking strategy and motion?imagery strategy than the unbalanced Naxi and Chinese bilingual speakers.Furthermore, a positive correlation between English and Chinese test scores has been found. Evidence showed that Chinese-related cognitive strategies were more frequently used by the Naxi pupils in their vocabulary learning, thus Chinese(L2) has a stronger influence on their vocabulary learning processes.These findings indicate that multiple factors of the Naxi bilingual pupils’ age, gender, level of language proficiency and Naxi-Chinese bilingual use, and educational diversity, sociolinguistic setting and language type can impact their choices of cognitive strategies. Finally, the researcher made several suggestions for methods of learning English vocabulary more efficiently and about how better to teach English vocabulary to the minority pupils of Naxi and other minority language-Han bilingual pupils in China.