Research On The Application Of Meta-cognitive Strategies Into Junior Middle School English Vocabulary Learning

In the process of English learning, vocabulary learning has been an important factor that affects students’ language ability for a long time. Without enough vocabulary, students can’t do well in listening, speaking, reading and writing. Therefore, vocabulary learning is so important that it should be emphasized. But the students can’t learn vocabulary well without proper learning strategies. In recent years, more and more scholars and experts have paid great attention to the development of the students’ autonomous learning ability. The training for learning strategies has been a hot research topic at home and abroad, while the meta-cognitive strategies are learning strategies which promote the improvement of students’autonomous learning ability. Its aims are to guide the students’ learning process by planning, monitoring and evaluating. So it is of great significance and value to have a research on the application of meta-cognitive strategies into vocabulary learning.The thesis intends to explore the practical significance of the application of meta-cognitive strategies into vocabulary learning in junior middle school. The author handed out questionnaires to the students to investigate the situation of applying meta-cognitive strategies to the vocabulary learning initially. According to the analysis of the questionnaires, the author finds out that the students’ awareness of applying meta-cognitive strategies is weak. In this condition, the author has done an experiment on the application of meta-cognitive strategies into students’vocabulary learning. In the experiment, the author chooses two parallel classes which have been taught by the author as the samples:One is the experimental class, and the other is the control class. Then there is a pre-test for both classes. Next, both classes are taught with different teaching strategies:The32students in the experimental class are taught with meta-cognitive strategies while the36students in the control class are taught with the traditional methods. The experimental class receives a12-week training of meta-cognitive strategies including training of planning strategy, monitoring strategy and evaluation strategy. After that, the author has conducted a post-test for the two classes to test the effectiveness of the training. All the data are collected and analyzed by the SPSS software and the analytic methods are Independent Sample T-test and Paired Sample T-test. In the process of the training, the author also conducted an individual interview with some students from the experimental class to know about their feelings about the training.From the analyses of the experimental results, the thesis gets the following findings: First, the training of meta-cognitive strategies strengthens the students’ awareness of applying meta-cognitive strategies effectively. Second, the training of meta-cognitive strategies on vocabulary learning improves the students’vocabulary proficiency evidently. Third, the training of meta-cognitive strategies helps to develop students’ autonomous learning ability successfully.