Learning Mechanism Of Adult EFL Learners Viewed From The Perspective Of "Cognition-Knowledge Bilingual Double Structures"

Adults' English learning is an arduous and complicated process, involving not only the knowledge structure and the cognitive structure of the Chinese language, but also the knowledge structure and cognitive structure developed under the influence of the English language in the process of EFL learning. This is what we call the theory of Cognition-Knowledge Bilingual Double Structures (CKBDS)~2. Simply speaking, The CKBDS refers to the Native Language Knowledge Structure (NLKS), the Native Language Cognitive Structure (NLCS), the Foreign Language Knowledge Structure (FLKS) and the Foreign Language Cognitive Structure (FLCS). These four "structures" conspire together and undergo various changes to cross-influence each other in the whole process of adults' English learning.Based on theoretical analysis and experimental investigation, the paper discusses the internal mechanism of adult EFL learners from the perspective of the CKBDS theory. The first chapter sets forth the issues related to the research paper, which, including language, cognition and bilingual, have aroused centuries-old debate among scholars and experts. Moreover, these issues become more complicated and confusing when it comes to talking about adults' foreign language learning which bears more rational, conscious qualities, rather than being of a natural and automatic process as children acquire their mother tongue. Therefore, a deep exploration of these issues concerning adult EFL learning mechanism will provide insightful views on the college English teaching in China.Chapter Two, a literature review of the previous related research, talks about foreign language learning theories from macro- and micro levels. The macro-levels include theories of behaviorism, cognition and mentalist. The micro-levels discuss EFL learning from a specific aspect of language skills. All these theories are proved to be lopsided, without giving a comprehensive outlook of adults' EFL learning, which leads to the coming of the CKBDS theory that will be explored in depth in the chapters to follow.Chapter Three discusses the biological foundation of bilingual phenomena from the aspect of modular theory. Much research shows that there are separate areas in the brain responsible for the language and cognition respectively, and that language is processed by a series of independent yet connected language areas, so is cognition. By so doing, the paper claims that the CKBDS theory conforms to the biological mechanism of the human brain.Chapter Four gives a penetrating analysis of the theory of Cognition-Knowledge Bilingual Double Structures and its inner-relationships, as well as the rationale behind. CKBDS claims that the knowledge structures and cognitive structures based on the two languages are different from each other, and they mutually influence each other in the processes of adults' EFL learning.In Chapter Five, the theoretical analysis is further carried out by two experiments. The first experiment is about the Chinese-English syntactic structure in which the "Chinese-to-English" translation is used as questionnaire. It is believed that in the process of foreign language learning, the learners can hardly dodge the influence from the native language. If the Chinese sentence happens to have the identical syntactic structure with the English sentence, the former will influence the interpretation of the later. Therefore, the first experiment aims to find how adults' EFL learning is facilitated and influenced by their mother tongue, and how the foreign language knowledge develop in adults under the influence of the Cognition-Knowledge Bilingual Double Structures. The second experiment uses Think-aloud Protocols in reading comprehension to explore the relationship between language and cognition, to see how adults' comprehension is influenced by the choice of different languages for thinking in the process of English reading comprehension.Chapter Six explores the psycho-mechanism of adults' English learning from the angle of the CKBDS theory, and a flow chart is developed to give a vivid and schematic description of the operational mechanism of the CKBDS. All these theoretical and experimental analysis have fundamental implications for our college English teaching in China. The implications, fully expounded in Chapter Seven, provide some insights for our current understanding of English teaching in China.The paper reaches to the following conclusions:1) The complexity of adults' foreign language learning lies in the fact that the learners can never ignore the influence of the mother tongue. For adults, the mother tongue plays a mixed role in foreign language learning. It may be cognitively positive, as it can help learners understand the deep concepts conveyed by the foreign material; and on the other hand, it may, to a certain degree, be linguistically negative, as it may interfere with the newly acquired foreign linguistic knowledge.2) CKBDS is a vital phenomenon in adults' foreign language learning, in which, the knowledge structures and cognitive structures based on the two languages cross-influence each other, especially in the initial learning period.3) Adults represent the English language knowledge in their mind with the help of Chinese language; meanwhile, they also access to the Chinese language cognitive structure to have a cognitive understanding of the English material.4) Adults' reliance on the Chinese language for English understanding decreases as their English language knowledge and cognitive ability increase. 5) Once the learners have formed a powerful and strong English cognitive structure, i.e. becoming the advanced bilinguals, they can directly process the English material without resorting to Chinese.