An Experimental Research On High School English Word Memory Through Letter Chunks Associated With Their Pronunciation

Although currently there has been a lot of researches on English word memory, butresearches is still needed on effective mnemonic strategies for memory of English wordsthrough association of the sound, form and meaning. To meet the needs of Chinese students tomemorize English words, we should try to reduce the difficulty in Chinese students’memorizing English words by means of taking advantage of the characteristics of regularityin English words pronunciation and through letter chunks associated with their pronunciation.The letter chunks associated with their pronunciation refer to blocks of letters with highfrequency appearing in English word formation, which consist of two or more letters and havea fixed pronunciation rule. High school students in their English learning can make use of theintermediate of letter chunks associated with their pronunciation to solve the memory ofsound, form and meaning of English words at the same time and improve the efficiency of theword mnemonic.The related mnemonic strategy literature was summarized early in this study and, underthe guidance of the chunking theory and the information processing theory, memory strategieswere developed based on letter chunks associated with their pronunciation. After initialinvestigation and research, the author selected two parallel classes of Grade Two from anordinary high school in Zhangzhou Fujian and carried out the experiment for nearly asemester in order to prove the validity and practicability of such strategies. For the result ofthe experiment, the author carried on detection and analysis with SPSS, and the resultsindicated that the mnemonic strategies of letter chunks associated with their pronunciation iseffective for senior high school students’ English vocabulary memorization. The conclusion ofthis study can be summarized as follows:1. The mnemonic strategies of letter chunks associated with their pronunciation canobviously promote the memory of sound, form and meaning of words simultaneously.2. The mnemonic strategies of letter chunks associated with their pronunciation cansignificantly facilitate the memory for distinguishing English words that may be easilyconfused. 3. The mnemonic strategies of letter chunks associated with their pronunciation have apositive role in promoting senior high school students’ comprehensive ability in theirvocabulary expansion.