An Experimental Study On Word Mnemonic Strategy Training In Primary English Learning

With the development of the international situation and the continuousdevelopment of China’s reform and opening-up, foreign language has become animportant means of obtaining world information of tech-science, culture etc., improvingthe nation’s quality of science and culture, enhancing international contact andcooperation. In this situation, foreign language has become a necessary part in China’sschool teaching. With the increasing demands for foreign language talents, parents andstudents attach more and more importance to foreign language learning.According to “the Outline of Basic Education Curriculum Reform”, it is the focusof basic education course reform to make students proactively learn, to advocate ateaching mode of making students proactively participate and take pleasure in exploring,and to cultivate students’ abilities of obtaining new knowledge.“Give a man a fish andhe eats for a day. Teach him how to fish and he eats for a lifetime”. Teaching learnershow to learn is the teaching key, the meaning of which, to some extent, even surpassesthe value of the course knowledge input.Primary school time is a period of strong plasticity and the best time to learn aforeign language for children. Making them learn English well is good for increasingtheir language ability, keeping their eyes open to the outside world, cultivating theircomprehensive qualities and making them a good base for their further middle schoolEnglish learning. According to the New Primary English Syllabus, the pupils arerequired to access to（including listen, say, know and read）about1200words, and spell450frequently-used words. The basic vocabulary may be hard to learn. But many of thevocabularies will be used to define more difficult words in later stages of Englishlearning. Moreover, many of the vocabularies found in the lessons for beginners will beused to write and speak English in future months and years. It is important to make agood start in the basic and useful words.Traditional curricula have tended to concentrate on imparting knowledge and skills,but have neglected to teach how to learn instead. Traditional word teaching is limited tothat teachers lead the reading and students copy words repeatedly. That is by rote. Eventhough students can remember the words, they forget them soon. The traditional wordteaching mode makes students feel that English learning is boring. It can’t arouse theirinterests in English, even decreases their confidence in English learning.About this topic, starting with word mnemonics, the present writer makes a one-year-long experimental study and discusses the effectiveness of word mnemonicsstrategy training on primary English learning. Compared with the previous studies andthe vocabulary mnemonics in other places, the characteristic of this thesis lies in thatsome English word mnemonics especially for pupils have been extracted and aone-year-long heuristic strategy training has been carried out in small after-schoolgroups, which effectively overcomes the disadvantages of ordinary short-termvocabulary mnemonics course and increases the long-term effects of such training andits transferability to other subjects. However, providing some appropriate wordmnemonics to pupils is only the starting point of the thesis. The intention of the thesis isto provide primary English teachers a mind and method, to make them think about andresearch more primary English word teaching, establish correct teaching philosophyaccording to their own teaching, find the combining point of exam-oriented educationand education of all-round development, establish a creative mind and research moreappropriate word teaching methods so as to make pupils overcome the word difficultiesat the beginning of learning English and to arouse and develop their interests in English,further more, to make China’s English education attain a yet higher goal.As Vivian Cook said:“An Englishman or an American has no more right to tell anEgyptian how to teach English than does a Japanese”. In this thesis, the present writerhas explored some English word mnemonics especially appropriate for pupils，such asletter-coded mnemonics， association mnemonics, add-delete-change code mnemonics,etc.. And the experiment has been carried out in after-school English teaching for oneyear. The result shows that the use of the English word mnemonics suitable for Chinesepeople and the strategy training of word mnemonics, are indeed helpful for increasingthe learners’ English marks, and for developing their interests in English. It helps thelearners know how to learn as well. It is very popular among the learners. Theexperiment has got a significant result. Therefore, the present writer thinks that thestudy has good social and economic benefits.