The Effect Of Concept-based Language Instruction On The Development Of College English Learners’ Metaphoric Competence

The development of metaphorical competence,that is,the ability to understand and use conceptual metaphors,is crucial to second language teaching,yet there are few empirical studies in China that explore the development of metaphorical competence in English language teaching from a qualitative perspective.How to combine systematic and organized explicit education with the development of metaphorical competence is an issue that should be concerned in the reform of college English.The concept-based language instruction(C-BLI),with its three principles of materialization,verbalization,and internalization,is widely used in explicit teaching.Therefore,this study aims to explore its effects on the development of metaphorical awareness and competence of college students at different levels through the design of conceptual metaphorical teaching.This study followed Vygotsky’s practice-oriented principles,integrating both symbolic and dialogic mediation so as to facilitate participants’ systematic development of metaphorical competence.The symbolic mediation,or pedagogical tools,consisted of visual and physical materials stemming from cognitive linguistics(CL)’s researches.These pedagogical materials were embedded in the instruction,including practical activities which were structured according to the principles of CBLI.The research questions of this study can be summarized into three aspects:1)Does C-BLI help pre-intermediate and intermediate learners generate internalization of conceptual metaphors? Do the effects sustain overtime?(Through pre-,post and delayed post-test data of the two classes)2)How does C-BLI affect learners’ independent development of metaphoric competence of pre-intermediate and intermediate students?(Through observation of focal students’ SCOBAs construction)3)How does C-BLI affect learners’ ability to verbalize the concepts of conceptual metaphors of pre-intermediate and intermediate students?(Through student’s oral and written languaging data)This experiment was conducted over a period of eight weeks with 44 participants.The effectiveness of C-BLI on English conceptual metaphor and cognitive abilities were verified by comparing the learning outcomes of two groups using C-BLI approach,who had different English levels.In addition,this study explored the developmental process of learners’ internalization.NVivo(Version 12 plus)was used to analyze learners’ abilities to construct Schema for Completing Orienting Basis of Action(SCOBAs)on their own and the performances from different groups.Three conclusions were drawn: firstly,C-BLI was effective and sustainable in developing students’ understanding and internalization of conceptual metaphors,and the intermediate level internalized more effectively than the pre-intermediate level;secondly,SCOBAs’ self-construction tasks were effective in developing learners’ selflearning ability,and students in the higher-level group performed better than those in the lower-level group;finally,students’ internalization of conceptual metaphors can be facilitated through oral and written verbalization tasks.At the same time,it was found that different language strategies were adopted by different language-level groups,and teachers should pay attention to the differences whentailoring their learning.