An Empirical Study Of Teaching English Modal Verbs To Chinese English Learners: From Cognitive Linguistic Perspective

Modal verbs, as the main form of modality expression, are important grammar points for language learners in non-English speaking countries. The polysemy of modal verbs imposes an additional cognitive burden on modality for learners. In the traditional dominant way of grammar teaching, language instructors invariably explain semantic meanings of them by listing each term in an isolated way. The mechanical listing way leads to fuzzy understanding, passive memorizing and inflexible using. Therefore, how to help language learners get a better understanding and flexible using of them becomes one of the significant issues that cognitive linguists are concerned about. An enormous amount of current research effort goes into the interpretation of modal meanings or teaching applications by cognitive linguists. However, attention to experimental research on teaching modal verbs has not been distributed equally enough at home.Thus, based on cognitive semantic meanings of modal verbs, this study conducts a teaching experiment on modal verbs from the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics among non-English major undergraduates in Sichuan. Firstly, the polysemy of modal verbs is explored in detail by Cognitive Linguistic theories(CL theories), including prototype category, conceptual metaphor and image schema. Then, the contrastive empirical study is rigorously conducted by traditional grammar teaching method with prescriptive language view and cognitive teaching method under the guidance of Cognitive Linguistics. By analyzing experimental statistics and contrasting teaching feedbacks, this study aims to test the feasibility and effectiveness of adopting CL theories in modal verbs teaching.And the teaching experiment gets two research findings: firstly, participants in the teaching experiment grasp modal verbs poorly, and it indicates more attention need to be paid to modal verbs in grammar teaching. Secondly, statistical data shows that the experimental class adopting CL theories does make palpable progress in understanding modal verbs and it has a statistical significance. The empirical results provide an impressive support for that CL theories do make favorably positive effects on modal verbs teaching. The empirical hypothesis turns out to be correct, namely, the experimental class that adopts cognitive approach performs better than the controlled class that are taught in traditional grammar approach in terms of understanding modal verbs. Research findings inspire us: based upon body experiences, Cognitive Linguistics is committed to explore hidden cognitive motivations of language, which does language learners great help to understand language. Therefore, cognitive mechanisms should be made full use of by language instructors during teaching process, which not only can help language learners grasp language, but also improve teaching efficiency.