An Empirical Study On The Effectiveness Of Mintel Memory Engine In Vocabulary Memorizing

In English learning, English vocabulary is the most important foundation. The lack of vocabulary is a dilemma for most of middle school students in English learning process. Because of the shortages of English vocabulary, students’ listening, reading, speaking and writing abilities could not be developed.The fundamental reason why so many students lose heart to English studying is just because they don’t possess enough vocabulary.Consequently, memorizing English vocabulary naturally becomes a significant task for the students. This research explores Mintel Memory Engine as a tool of computer-assisted language learning(CALL) to help high school students in Wenshan memorize English words.In recent twenty years in China, as science and technology develop, the new methods of teaching and learning foreign language spread across China.The computer-mediated communication system and the Internet spring up, in particular, which have created advantaged conditions for foreign language learning.Afterwards, as the availability of computer learning software has developed, more and more English teachers have access to the practice and research of CALL.Mintel Memory Engine, one of the useful CALL. According to Mintel company, Mintel Memory Engine, a leading-edge technology that will revolutionize the way of human learning language.It can help students memorize English quickly.Some specialists speak highly of it.The researcher’s concerns about the students’ low achievement in English and the poor English education of Wen Shan motivated her to focus on the following research questions:(1)Whether memorizing English vocabulary by using Mintel Memory Engine canmotivate the senior high students’ interest in memorizing English words?(2)Whether vocabulary memorizing by using Mintel Memory Engine is more effective than traditional methods?In the study, 112 Grade one students are chosen as its subjects from two classes of a senior high school in Wenshan. Among them, 56 students in Class 3 are selected as the experimental group while 56 students in Class 4 are selected as the control group.The author conducted a four and a half months experiment in vocabulary memorizing in which both qualitative and quantitative research methods were adopted to accomplish the research assignment. Questionnaire, vocabulary tests and interview were designed to collect data from 5 English teachers and 112 students.The relevant data were processed with the aid of Excel and computer software SPSS(Statistical Package for Social Sciences).From the data analyses, two major findings were obtained, which are:(1)Mintel Memory Engine can develop the students’ interest in memorizing English words;(2)Mintel Memory Engine is more effective than traditional methods and it can help to improve students’ memory ability.In the end, the author comes to a conclusion on the present research and some implications are described.And the limitations as well as recommendations come up by the author for the future research.