AnEmpiricalStudyofSen_省略_ningEnglishVoca
公共英语教育
本栏目责任编辑：傅勤奎
An Empirical Study of Senior One High School Students'Cognitive Strategies in Learning English Vocabulary
黄璐
（广州大学外国语学院，广东广州510421）
Abstract:The present research aims to find out (1)the general vocabulary learning beliefs of Senior One high school students in Guang ?zhou;(2)the general vocabulary cognitive strategies adopted by Senior One high school students in Guangzhou;(3)the differences be ?tween successful English learners and unsuccessful English learners in adopting cognitive strategies in their English vocabulary learning.A cohort of 68Senior One high school students participate in the research.The results of the investigation show that the notion that vocabu ?lary should be learnt in context and through using is shared by the majority,that the most frequently used vocabulary cognitive strategies are inferencing,note-taking,contextualization and resourcing,that there is no significant difference between the successful English learners and the unsuccessful English learners in using identical vocabulary cognitive strategies.Key words:cognitive strategies;vocabulary learning strategies 中图分类号：G632
文献标识码：A
文章编号：1009-5039(2012)03-0059-02
1Introduction
The research of learning strategy has only been born for 40years.Before the research of learning strategy,behaviorism which was originated with the work of John B.Watson in the 1920s was predominant in teaching.One result of the application of behavior ?ism of English teaching is the over-emphasis on how to teach in ?stead of how to learn.This patriarchic teacher-centered tradition treats the learner as a stimulated object and a mechanical reactor.Since the 1960s,the attitude towards the cognition process has fun ?damentally changed the bias.Many researchers have come to real ?ize that the cognition activity is a complicated process of thinking and problem solving.Learning does not only require learners to feel,understand,and comprehend what is being taught,but also to apply the psychological process,such as memorizing,identifying,and categorizing and so on to their learning.
Harmer (2001)in his comparison of language structure to the sketch of language defines vocabulary as "the thing that provides important organs to blood and fresh".Vocabulary,so to speak,plays an indispensable role in the acquisition of skills in English speak ?ing,reading,listening,translation and writing.
In the study carried out in Class 6of Yuexiu Foreign Language School in relation to English vocabulary expansion,it is found that Senior One high school students have difficulty recalling English new words.Most of them tend to forget words which they have just learned not long ago in spite of considerable learning efforts.These students often take a negative attitude towards English as a whole probably due to the fact that learning English vocabulary is rarely a happy experience even though they know the importance of vocabu ?lary in English learning.
Many researches ascribe the low efficiency of learning words to the ineffective use of vocabulary learning strategies.(Cohen 1998;O'Malley &Chamot 1990;陈辉2001;文秋芳1996).So the extensive strategy research is encouraged by many researches.The teaching method of learning strategy can be formulated to improve the efficiency of learning based on the results of learning strategy re ?
search.Thus the author conducted a survey to study the patterns of
English vocabulary learning strategies adopted by Senior One high school students of Yuexiu Foreign Language School,Guangzhou.
2Research Methodology
2.1Research questions
1)What are the general vocabulary learning beliefs of Senior One high school students in Guangzhou?
2)What are the cognitive strategies adopted by Senior One high school students in Guangzhou?
3)Are there any differences between successful English learn ?ers and unsuccessful English learners in adopting cognitive strate ?gies in learning English vocabulary?2.2Subjects
The subjects of the study consisted of 68Senior One high school students.Of the 68students,42were girls and 26were boys.The participants in this study are from a senior high school typical of the majority of Chinese high schools.None had prior learning ex ?periences overseas.All had five English classes each week at school.By the time this research was conducted,they had had at least six years'formal English class instruction.To answer the third research questions,20students chosen from the 68students were grouped as successful and unsuccessful language learners accord ?ing to their sores in the VLT.2.3Instruments
The first instrument is a structured questionnaire used to elicit the information concerning both the vocabulary learning beliefs and learning strategies on the part of the learners.The questionnaire in this study is taken from Gu and Johnson (1996).It is a self-report questionnaire based on the O'Melly &Chamot's strategies taxono ?my that aims to determine what strategies the learner generally adopts and how frequently each strategy is used.
The second instrument is a VLT (vocabulary level test),which is designed by the researchers'internship supervisor,one of her se ?
收稿日期：2011-12-05
修回日期：2012-01-05
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Overseas English海外英语
本栏目责任编辑：傅勤奎公共英语教育
2012年02月
nior colleagues,contains40words selected from Module I,Module
II and the English Curriculum Standard.The full mark of the VLT
was100.It was administered to find out the subjects'vocabulary
size.The subjects were required to write the Chinese equivalents of
the given English words.
2.4Data collection and analysis
Before the data analysis,the researcher picked eight invalid
questionnaire replies,so the participated subjects were reduced to
60.To analyze the data,SPSS8.0was applied to calculate the mean
value and standard deviation of learning beliefs and vocabulary cog?
nitive strategy employment.To ensure the reliability and validity of
the grouping,an Independent Samples T-test was used to work out
whether there is significant difference of VLT scores between suc?
cessful and unsuccessful language learners.An Independent Sam?
ples T-test was used to explore whether there is any significant dif?
ference of the vocabulary cognitive strategy use between successful
and unsuccessful English learners.
2.5Theoretical framework of the study
The researcher constructed a thorough cognitive strategies
framework by borrowing the taxonomy from O'Melly&Chamot(cit?
ed in Brown,H.D.2001).Then the researcher modified the
sub-items to adapt to the vocabulary learning instruction.Cognitive
strategies are more limited to specific learning tasks and they in?
volve more direct manipulation of learning material itself.There?
fore,cognitive strategies in this study should be vocabulary-depen?
dent.They are inferencing,deduction,resourcing,note-taking,rep?
etition,grouping,imagery,contextualization,elaboration,transfer
and keyword strategy.
3Results and Discussions
On Oxford's(1990)scale,an average score of4.5to5.0means
that a specific strategy is"always or almost always used"while an
average score of1.0~1.4means that a strategy is"never or almost
never used".The mean of the score range on the continuum is sum?
marized in Table1.
Table1Oxford's Scoring Scale
3.1results and discussions concerning question1
Vocabulary learning beliefs are the perspectives that learners
take towards vocabulary learning strategies.Learners may consider
a strategy as facilitative or useless in vocabulary learning.In fact,
learning beliefs do influence the selection and employment of learn?
ing strategies and eventually learning outcome.The results of the
data collected are presented in Table2.
Table2Learning Beliefs
From Table2,we can see significant differences.The mean
value of"Learning through using"is4.06and"Learning in context"
4.54,much higher than that of"rote learning",which indicates that
most students believe that English vocabulary learning will not be
effective unless it takes place in context in practical use.This find?
ing coincides with the subsequent investigation of strategy employ?
ment.Repetition,a rote learning method,has an obviously low
mean value of2.94(see table3),compared with other cognitive
strategies.This may be due to the abandonment of the traditional
teaching method.
3.2Results and discussions concerning question2
A questionnaire was allotted to the respondents asking them
how frequently they use each particular vocabulary cognitive strate?
gy.Then the mean value is counted,and the results are presented
in Table3.
From Table3below,we can see that no mean value of strategy
employment is below2.4.This indicates that almost all the strate?
gies are used by the students to some extent.Most mean values of
the strategy employment preponderate over3.5,which indicates
that all the strategies are generally used by the students.According
to Oxford's scoring scale,the strategies that are generally used(3.5
﹤M﹤4.4)by the learners are note-taking,inferencing,contextual?
ization,and resourcing.
3.3Results concerning question3
First of all,a vocabulary level test was administered to all the
subjects and based on the results of the test,the top ten best stu?
dents were put into one group(i.e.,the successful learners),and the
bottom ten were put into another group(i.e.,the unsuccessful learn?
ers).In order to ensure the validity and reliability of the classifica?
tion of the learners in terms of English vocabulary size,a t-test was
applied.The result shows that t=18.212and sig.=.000as shown in
Table4.A clear indication of a statistically significant difference
between the groups.
Table3Cognitive Strategies Employment
Table4Results of the Grouping
Table5T-Test of the Successful and Unsuccessful Learners
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3)商务英语教学成效的评价指标应与普通大学英语教学成效的评价指标相区别，前者重实务操作能力的提高，后者重语言水平的提高，因此，本次教改实验的成效未以学生语言水平的提高程度为检验成效的标准，计辅PBL 教学模式对提高语言水平方面的成效有待进一步考证。
4)该模式的演示环节还有很大的探索空间。首先，该环节对现代化的教学设备过分依赖，一旦多媒体设备发生故障，就会影响整个进程；其次，每次演示由于课时限制，虽然每个项目各组成员都要做准备，届时展示的只能是其中的一组，如何充分调动非演示组的积极性有待进一步的研究。
5)由于学时有限，计辅PBL 模式教学中所能完成的项目十分有限，用于教学的项目若是经过多方论证，最能集中体现学生在商务活动中所需的素质和技能，项目的含金量自然更高，但是这样一来，学生的自主性、创造性以及自身的需求必然会受到一定的影响，两者如何平衡还有待进一步探索。
本研究表明，计辅PBL 模式总体上有助于商务英语教学实现其特有的教学目标，但在实施过程中尚存在一些需要进一步探索的问题，希望有关学者能共同做更深入的探讨。
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表2PBL 和一般课堂教学法教学效果评价的比较
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Table 5shows that there is no significant difference between the successful learners and the unsuccessful learners in identical cognitive strategies employment.
This finding coincides with Abraham and Vann (1987)who dis ?covered that the strategies considered as useful are often employed by both successful and unsuccessful language learners.It is also in line with Ma (1997)who found no significant difference between successful and unsuccessful language learners in terms of identical strategies use,although some significant difference is found in repe ?tition strategy use.
What accounts for the absence of significant differences in identical strategies employment by successful and unsuccessful English learners?
Firstly,the variables that affect the selection of a strategy are not only English proficiency,but language tasks,pedagogical in ?structions,personal factors like motivation and self-esteem,and so on.Secondly,in formal learning settings,the learners receive uni ?form instructions,leaving little room for free style learning.The ab ?sence of a statistically significant difference in the quantities and types of strategy employment does not mean that there is no differ ?ence in the quality of strategy use.It is found that successful attain ?ment does not only depend on the quantities of strategy use but also the quality of strategy use.
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