Metacognition And English Vocabulary Teaching

This thesis reports an empirical study that examines the relationship between metacognition and achievement on college English vocabulary teaching and learning through experiments with the help of qualitative study and quantitative study. The study is undertaken for the purpose of finding a new mode of vocabulary teaching and learning to help college students learn vocabulary more effectively and improve their ability to use the vocabulary that they have learned.Two questions are addressed in the study: 1) Whether there will be a significant difference in the achievement on vocabulary learning between subjects who learn under the guidance of metacognition and those who learn traditionally. 2) Whether there is a positive connection between the subjects' attitude and ways of learning in vocabulary acquisition. The subjects involved in this study were 105 sophomores of non-English majors who were admitted into Guangxi University in 2004.After eight weeks of observation and study, the empirical result shows that college vocabulary acquisitive effect under the guidance of metacognition is more obvious than that of the traditional way. Furthermore, permanent intrinsic motivation towards vocabulary learning will be produced to promote students to learn autonomously with more enthusiasm. Therefore, it is a positive instruction to introduce metacognition into college vocabulary teaching and learning. It deserves a further study.