A Study Of Non-english Majors’ Vocabulary Learning From The Perspective Of Metacognitive Strategies

Non-English major students in China usually have3to4hours’ English lessons eachweek when they are freshmen and sophomores. English is not their major, so few of themcan use free time to learn English. Even a lot of them did not make any efforts until thefinal exam. So it’s clear that those students can’t make any achievements in English. Theircommon complaint is that it’s hard for them to learn English well. They think vocabularylearning is even harder.The study of vocabulary learning in the second language acquisition covers a widerage. Since1990, the focus of vocabulary learning research transferred from criticalthinking to forming a theory. Scholars both abroad and at home made many attempts, suchas to study on vocabulary learning strategies, vocabulary classifications, the depth andwidth of the vocabulary knowledge and production of words and expressions.Metacognition was first used by American psychologist Flavell in1976. According toFlavell, Metacognition is thinking about thinking. Metacognition includes metacognitiveknowledge and metacognitive experiences. The concept of Metacognitive strategies wasfirst put forward by Housenfield in1977. After him, some other scholars also studied onmetacognitive strategies. In1990, O’ Malley and Chamot divided learning strategies intothree parts: matacognitive strategies, cognitive strategies, and social/affective strategies.O’Malley and Chamot proposed that metacognitive strategies is a superior learningstrategy, it is like a director who can help students to find right directions in the process oflearning.In this thesis, O’Malley and Chamot’s opinion on metacognitive strategies is served asthe main theory of the research. According to non-English major students’ presentsituation, the author studies and analyzes how metacognitive strategies are applied intosophomores’ vocabulary learning. The author wanted to find out the answers to thefollowing questions.1. Is there a correlation between the use of metacognitive strategies and non-English majors’ vocabulary learning?2. Can the students who make morefrequent use of metacognitive learning strategies achieve a better performance onvocabulary learning than those who make less use of those strategies?The first part of the thesis is a brief introduction, including the research background,research questions, the significance of the study and the outline of the thesis. In thesecond part, the author reviews the literatures related, including some previous theoreticaland empirical studies in the field of vocabulary learning and metacognitive strategies. Thethird part is research methodology: mixed research method. Among the research methods,questionnaires and vocabulary proficiency tests are served as the main research methodsin this thesis, and interview is regarded as the supplement method. At the beginning of asemester, the author tested students’ vocabulary proficiency, and handed out aquestionnaire to identify their vocabulary learning strategies among students of fourclasses from two different colleges. Then, the author chose two from the four as theexperimental classes and introduced metacognitive strategies to them in vocabularylearning. After one semester, another questionnaire and the vocabulary proficiency testwere given. As the supplement method, the author interviewed students from high-scoregroup and low-score group in two experimental classes. Then the author collected the dataand made the analysis. The fourth part includes major findings of the research. And in thelast part, the author makes a summary of the whole thesis, presents limitations,implications and gives suggestions for further research.