Effects Of English Proficiency And Working Memory Capacity On The Processing Of Subject-predicate Agreement In Senior High School English

In the current literature on subject-predicate agreement,only Chen Fu（2013）and Yuan Hui（2016）carried out the study on subject-predicate agreement under adjacent and non-adjacent conditions.However,the former conducted the study with event-related potential（ERP）experiment and the subjects were students who had passed the TEM-8,while the latter conducted the experiment with self-paced reading（SPR）and the subjects were native speakers and learners with relatively high English proficiency.In addition,the studies of Chen Fu（2013）and Yuan Hui（2016）did not involve the influence of working memory capacity on subject-predicate agreement processing,but some studies found that sentence processing was affected by working memory capacity,and working memory capacity had an interaction with English proficiency.Therefore,this study chose 100 learners of English in a senior high school in zhuhai as the research subject,using the Oxford English Proficiency Test,online Operations Span of Working Memory Capacity Test and the self-paced reading of subject-predicate agreement test to get the score of senior high school students’ English proficiency,the capacity of the working memory,the reaction time and accuracy of reading subject-predicate agreement.The statistical software SPSS21.0 was used to analyze the experimental data and try to answer the following questions :（1）Does English level affect the English subject-predicate agreement processing of senior high school students?（2）Does working memory capacity affect the English subject-predicate agreement processing of senior high school students?（3）Do English proficiency and working memory capacity affect the processing of English subject-predicate agreement in senior high school students?The results show that when senior high school students processed subject-predicate adjacent and subject-predicate non-adjacent test sentences,the average response time of high level students in reading subject-predicate agreement and subject-predicate inconsistency was smaller than that of low level students,and the main effect of senior high school students’ English level was significant.Senior high school students with high working memory capacity had higher correct rates of subject-predicate agreement and inconsistency than those with low working memory capacity,but the mean of response time was smaller,and the main effect of working memory capacity was significant.The interaction between English proficiency and working memory capacity was significant.The above showed that when senior high school students read test sentences with subject-predicate adjacent and subject-predicate non-adjacent,the higher the English level of senior high school students,the faster the processing speed;the higher the working memory capacity is,the higher the accuracy rate and the shorter the processing time of the subject-predicate agreement are.Conversely,the lower the English level is,the lower the working memory capacity is,the lower the accuracy rate,the longer the processing time of the subject-predicate agreement and the subject-predicate inconsistency are.The working memory capacity of senior high school students is affected by their English level.Therefore,in the teaching of subject-predicate agreement,teachers should strive to improve the English level of senior high school students,and improve their working memory capacity through training,so that they can better grasp the grammatical knowledge point of subject-predicate agreement.