A Cognitive Approach To Vocabulary Teaching And Learning In Professional College English

Based on the theories and achievements of the cognitive psychology, this thesis aims to study the important role that"noticing"plays in the process of second language vocabulary acquisition. The noticing hypothesis claims that the salience, the instruction and task demands are the key factors that influence what will be noticed in the process of language learning. Taking these influences into consideration, the author designs a vocabulary teaching model that embodies the cognitive features, and adopts it to an educational experimental research.This study takes 87 non-English major freshmen from the Taiyuan University of Technology, Yangquan College in Shanxi province as subjects. They are divided into the control group and the experimental group in this experimental research. After the carrying out of the questionnaire and the pretest, the experimental group adopts the vocabulary teaching model based on the noticing hypothesis, while the control group adopts the model of grammar translation. At the end of one semester's educational experiment, the author gives the subjects the posttest. The results are analyzed through the usage of the software SPSS15.0. The independent sample T test indicates that there is a significant difference of the two groups'achievements. Moreover, the mean of the experimental group is higher than that of the control group. In this case, the effectiveness of the cognitive approach of vocabulary teaching and learning in the process of English vocabulary learning has been proved.After the analysis, it has been found that the cognitive approach of vocabulary teaching and learning based on noticing hypothesis can activate"noticing"efficiently in the process of teaching and learning. The key point of this approach is that the teacher should instruct students about the deep processing of vocabulary, and help them build up their mental lexicon network. In the educational research, this study has explored the design of inside and outside classroom tasks in accordance with the cognitive regulations, and how to apply the principle of"meaningful learning"to the vocabulary teaching and learning of the professional college English.This thesis explores the important implications of theories of cognitive psychology to vocabulary teaching and learning, testifies their functions in arousing students'interest in vocabulary learning and reinforcing students'ability of self-access. It also provides the reference for English teachers to reinforce the effectiveness of vocabulary teaching, and provides valuable evidence for promoting the process of vocabulary teaching and learning.