A Study On Cognitive Factors Affecting Chinese College Students' English Input

"Input -intake- output" are three steps which a foreign language learner must go through. Language input is always carried ahead of output and must be more than output. According to Krashen's Second Language Acquisition theory, comprehensible input is the key step to acquire a language. If we want to have the learners get more comprehensible language input and improve their study efficiency, we must enlarge their quantity of language input and improve the quality of the input as well. There is still a process for the language materials input to be taken in after being noticed by the learner. The transforming from input to intake is full of the learner's structural activities, including assimilating and accommodating.Different language learners with different culture background have different kinds of learning styles. Chinese students' learning styles reflect Chinese culture. This thesis first discusses the following factors affecting language input from the viewpoint of cognition: physiological and psychological factors which affect listening and reading, the individual learner's cognitive learning styles, cognitive strategies and meta-cognitive strategies. Then after an investigation and Analysis on Chinese College Students' Cognitive Status Quo in English Input, the thesis concludes with the practical implications in Chinese classroom for the purpose of improving the quality and quantity of input in English study and teaching in China.The body of this thesis consists of four chapters.Chapter One analyzes the process of listening comprehension and reading comprehension from physiological view and psychological view, and the physiological and psychological factors on the effect of listening and reading; Then Chapter Two describes various cognitive ways shown by the different learners in language input according to their different cognitive styles. It mentions that different cultures may cause different cognitive styles and cognitive styles may also affect the choosing of the concrete cognitive strategies and meta-cognitive strategies in listening and reading. Meta-cognition is considered as the most advanced and most chief decisive factor in the information processing. In Chapter Three, a research was carried to find the present status of Chinese college students' English input. We find that Chinese students have various cognitive styles in their learning, but they are mainly learners of taking in information through way of eyes or visual-kinesthetic channel. Most students lack the awareness of using meta-cognitive strategies and cognitive strategies in their study. Chapter Four gives three implications for Chinese teachers in classroom teaching to help students expand or even change their cognitive styles through practicing and using language learning strategies.