An Empirical Study On The Memetic Effect On English Vocabulary Learning By College Art Students

No matter in the primary stage,intermediate stage or advanced stage of Englishlearning,vocabulary learning is always an important module,so English teachers should use diverse methods to make students interested in learning vocabulary.However,the traditional English class still lays great emphasis on teachers' explanations rather than students' autonomous learning,which certainly ignores students' initiative and creativity.Memetics,a new theory based on Darwin's evolutionism,is used to explain the rules of culture evolution.It is often used to explain the process where some concepts and ideas are retained and transmitted by copying or imitating.From the perspective of memetics,the nature of English vocabulary teaching is to help students memorize vocabulary solidly within situational contexts.Given the fact that in college,art students have a lower efficiency of English vocabulary learning than other students,this study seeks to explore the memetic effect on English vocabulary learning among college art students.In this study,the experimental class adopted the memetic way of vocabulary teaching and the control class adopted the traditional vocabulary teaching method.This study aims to answer the following three questions: 1)Can memetic way of English vocabulary teaching positively change art students' attitude towards English vocabulary learning? 2)Can memetic way of English vocabulary teaching help art students develop practical strategies in English vocabulary learning?3)Can memetic way of English vocabulary teaching improve students' scores of English vocabulary learning?The experimental results show that memetic way of vocabulary teaching can indeed promote art students' English vocabulary learning outcomes: 1)it can positively change art students' attitude towards English vocabulary learning;2)it can help art students develop practical strategies in English vocabulary learning;3)it can improve students' scores of English vocabulary learning.So the author finally concludes that it is worth applying memetics into college art students' English vocabulary teaching process,which will also benefit to their English and other disciplines' study in the future.