| Retrieval practice effect refers to,in a given period of time,more lasting memory retention and better knowledge transfer will emerge if one learning material is learned by retrieving(test)once or more compared to repetition.Retrieval practice effect was discovered in the early 20 th century.It had not been heeded until the last 10 years.The US experts Roediger and Karpicke recently found that retrieval practice is not only superior to repetitive learning,but also better than the strategy of elaborate processing(e.g construction of concept map).There is evidence from FMRI and other technologies.At home,psychology professor Bai Xuejun and professor Zhou Aibao got other variables involved in and conducted related experiments,mainly through recognition and recall(contrasting with constructing concept map)in the form of laboratory research.This study,holding retrieval practice effect,discusses what types of retrieval are more efficient.A division based on the retrieval difficulties and retrieval cues' diversity is given: the high difficulty of retrieval with low retrieval cues(recall and dictation);and the low retrieval difficulty with more retrieval cues(multiple choice,media presentation,etc).Based on the above assumption,the paper attempts to answer the following questions:1.Can low retrieval cues do better than high retrieval cues in promoting vocabulary retention of junior high school students?2.Is immediate feedback superior to delayed feedback in promoting vocabulary retention of junior high school students?3.Does retrieval practice have a deeper effect on low level learners?In this study,two variables(retrieval clues and feedback timing)were manipulated to investigate the retrieval practice effect in real classroom setting.91 participants were selected from two eighth-grade parallel classes in the Sixth Middle School of Minqin County.Class A accepted low retrieval cues' treatment,while Class B accepted high retrieval cues' treatment.Pretest showed that the two Classes almost had no difference in age,gender,level of English proficiency and language learning experience.During the experiment,Class A emphasized the use of strategies like dictation and recall-trying.In the new lesson,the teacher helped students construct knowledge through verbal and nonverbal input to minimize media presentation.Teacher-student interaction was frequent in the classroom.And there was certain difficulty in exercise design.Class B consolidated the new words through targeted exercises.Media presentation andwithin-students interaction like group work were highlighted in new lessons.The exercises were relatively simple due to the dominance of objective questions.Both classes were divided into two groups,a half of whom were treated with immediate feedback towards partial exercises within two hours.The other half were treated with delayed feedback 24 hours later.Finally,the three questions in this study were answered through vocabulary tests and a questionnaire.SPSS17.0 and Excel were used to analyze the data and the major findings were as follows: 1)the effects of different retrieval cues did not reach statistical significance,but the average score of low retrieval cue group was higher than that of high retrieval cue group;2)the two feedback timing had no significant influence on the retrieval practice effect;3)the progress of low level students in both retrieval conditions was greater than that of the high level students.The questionnaire revealed the satisfaction of students towards retrieval-based teaching was high and retrieval strategy was used frequently.This study shows that retrieval-based teaching can improve junior high school students' English vocabulary retention and optimize their learning strategies.Media presentation,questioning techniques,teacher-student interaction,and practice design all should focus on promoting students' retrieval of information.In theory,retrieval-based learning provides a powerful support for the Output Hypothesis. |
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