A Study On The Use Of Meta-Cognitive Strategies In English Vocabulary Learning Among Senior High School Students

Vocabulary is the cornerstone of language,both in terms of comprehension and expression,and it is also the basis for all language skills such as listening,speaking,reading and writing.The new English College Entrance Examination,with its increased proportion of reading and writing,requires students to have the ability to use language in an integrated way,making it especially important for high school students to master vocabulary of curriculum standards efficiently.Language learning is inseparable from the use of strategies,and meta-cognitive strategies as an important component of learning strategies have received attention from scholars,providing a new perspective on the teaching and learning of various language skills,including vocabulary.This paper compiles relevant literature from home and abroad and finds that there are more studies applying meta-cognitive strategies to English vocabulary learning for university students,while fewer studies combined meta-cognitive strategies with English vocabulary learning for high school students.For this reason,based on metacognition theory and constructivist learning theory,this study aims to investigate the use of meta-cognitive strategies by senior students in their vocabulary learning.The specific research questions are as follows:(1)What is the overall status of high school students’ use of meta-cognitive strategies in English vocabulary learning?(2)What are the differences in the use of meta-cognitive strategies in English vocabulary learning between boys and girls?(3)What are the differences between highlevel and low-level students’ use of meta-cognitive strategies in English vocabulary learning?To address the above issues,this study uses questionnaires,vocabulary test papers,and interviews as the research instruments,and analyzes data with the help of SPSS 26.0 software to conduct a study on 355 senior high school students and 5 teachers from the No.W Senior High School in M City.The results of the study show that:(1)In general,high school students’ use of metacognitive strategies in English vocabulary learning is at a mid-range level and their use of selective attention is highest,followed by monitoring and evaluation strategies and the lowest for planning strategies.(2)Overall,there is no significant difference in the use of metacognitive strategies between boys and girls.(3)Generally speaking,there is a significant difference in the use of meta-cognitive strategies in English vocabulary learning between the high-level group and the low-level group.Students in the low-level group use planning strategies significantly less frequently than students in the high-level group.Based on the findings,in order to improve students’ ability to use meta-cognitive strategies in English vocabulary learning,this paper makes the following suggestions:(1)Changing teaching concepts and teachers’ roles;(2)Creating a good classroom environment to develop students’ meta-cognitive strategies;(3)Paying attention to the differences in the use of metacognitive strategies between the high-level group and low-level group.