Research On The Effect Of The Metacognitive Strategy Training On The English Vocabulary Learning For Junior High School Students

Effective English vocabulary learning is capable of assisting students to improve their language competence;meanwhile,it contributes to the richness and accuracy of students5 ideological expression.Generally speaking,because of insufficient awareness on metacognitive strategy,the abilities of self-planning and self-monitoring are not powerful enough forjunior high school students to undertake efficient English vocabulary learning.Metacognitive strategy training(MST)is a teaching method which concentrates on the cultivation of students' self-planning,self-monitoring and self-evaluation strategies to improve students',self-learning abilities.It attaches great importance to the students,enthusiasm stimulation and attitudes improvement towards vocabulary learning so that the vocabulary learning for learners can be stepped up ultimately.Therefore,for the sake of exploring the effectiveness of MST on the English vocabulary learning for junior high school students,this study attempts to answer the following three questions:(1)Which aspect of vocabulary learning can be influenced by metacognitive strategy training for junior high school students?(2)What are the in:fluences of metacognitive strategy training on the students' autonomous vocabulary learning ability?(3)What are the advantages of applying metacognitive strategy training on the English vocabulary teaching?Based on the theoretical foundation including the relative theories of metacognition and autonomous learning theory,the experimental design of comparison group was adopted in this experiment.The author selected 95 students from two parallel classes of junior high school to participate in the experiment.Class one was the experimental class(EC)with 46 participants,class two was the control class(CC)with 49 participants.The experiment lasted for sixteen weeks.In terms of vocabulary teaching,the students in EC were trained by the metacognitive strategies(MS)under the Task-Based Language Teaching(TBLT)method while students in CC were instructed by the TBLT method only.Research instruments included tests,scales and interviews,tests and scales were mainly used to test students' vocabulary proficiency as well as AVLA before and after the experiment.In the meantime,the author used SPSS 20.0 to analyze the data of tests and scales.Additionally,the author conducted a semi-structured interview with 12 students in EC who had been classified into three vocabulary learning levels:high,medium and low after the experiment.The interview results were analyzed by computer software NVivo 10 so that it is possible to for the author to explore the students'suggestions to future implementation of MST in English teaching.This study draws the following conclusions:First,MST can improve students'vocabulary learning,mostly in the aspect of making English vocabulary learning plans and selecting correct vocabulary learning strategies.Second,under the TBLT method,MST significantly improves students' AVLA,among which the most significant impact is on students at the medium level.Third,the superiority of proceeding MST principally focuses on reducing teachers'burden and increasing students,learning efficiency.Although limitations exist,this study has some implications to the English vocabulary teaching,it is worth finding out more merits of MST in English teaching for later scholars.