A Study Of English Vocabulary Learning Strategies Of Non-English Majors From The Perspective Of Information Processing Theory

Vocabulary is the basic component of language; all kinds of language skills such as listening, speaking, reading, writing and translation all depend on vocabulary to fulfill. Language ability will be greatly impaired without certain vocabulary capacity. As for the Chinese students, most kinds of English learning are conducted in the classroom. Out of the classroom, good English learning environment has not formed. As a result, the numerous English vocabularies are a challenging task for Chinese students in the process of English learning.Recently, many researchers gradually find that it is the vocabulary learning subject that should be concerned in the process of vocabulary learning research. That is, the learner's factor, especially the cognitive and psychological factor. In other words, the learners are the main subjects in the process of second language teaching and the learners'cognitive and psychological factors are the key points during the second language learning process. Cognitive psychology studies human cognitive process from the perspective of the Information Processing Theory. It takes the human cognitive activity process as the course of information processing. Meanwhile, it regards the learning process as the process of inputting, processing, storing, retrieving and outputting information to the brain. And what the Information Processing Theory concerns is how the human choose and process information and make appropriate response in the form of cognitive mode. This theory focuses on the choice of information, memorization and operation. It emphasizes the cognitive process of human being.This thesis involves establishing a series of English vocabulary learning strategies on the basis of the Information Processing Theory and the characteristic of Chinese Non-English majors. And then it employs the empirical research method to justify the effectiveness of these strategies. The empirical research was conducted by dividing the research subjects into experimental class and control class in order to compare the experimental results. In addition, all the data derived from the experiment were analyzed by making use of the SPSS 17.0. From the analysis of the questionnaire survey before the experiment, it can be seen that students only employ some simple vocabulary learning strategies, such as guessing, consulting a dictionary, reciting vocabulary list, etc. However, through the analysis of the testing data after the experiment, it can be observed that students of the experimental class have adopted several effective vocabulary learning strategies, such as the word-formation strategy, imagining strategy and grouping strategy. In the mean time, compared with the control class, the testing scores of the experimental class have been improved generally, especially the low-level students, whose testing results improved the most in the whole class. This experiment justifies the validity of setting up vocabulary learning strategies from exploiting the Information Processing Theory.Therefore, in the practical teaching activities, making full use of the English vocabulary learning strategies proposed on the basis of the Information Processing Theory can greatly improve the students'learning efficiency, effectively facilitate the English vocabulary learning and consequently upgrade the students'English proficiency.