A Comparative Study On English Vocabulary Acquisition Between Urban And Rural Junior High School Students Based On Metacognitive Strategies

Since the 20 th century,metacognitive strategies and second language vocabulary acquisition have attracted the attention of scholars at home and abroad.Previous researchers mainly focus on college students or high school students who pay little attention to junior high school students and hardly do urban-rural comparative study on English Vocabulary Acquisition combined with Metacognitive Strategies.English vocabulary is the foundation,junior high school students are in the basic stage of learning,and metacognitive strategies focus on students' learning methods and self-learning ability.This study attempts to realize the present situation of metacognitive strategies in English vocabulary learning to urban and rural junior middle school students,and to compare the differences and causes of the use of metacognitive strategies between urban and rural junior middle school students in different grades and different vocabulary levels.This paper is guided by metacognitive strategy theory and second language vocabulary acquisition theory.Questionnaires and interview outlines include students' English vocabulary concepts and four dimensions of metacognitive strategies:planning strategy,selection strategy,monitoring strategy and evaluation strategy.A vocabulary test paper is designed according to Paul Nation 2007 version 14 thousand vocabulary testing tool.680 junior middle school students in Xinhua county in Hunan province are selected as the research object to do the questionnaire of metacognitive vocabulary strategies and the vocabulary proficiency test,and 48 students and 12 teachers are interviewed.Students are evenly split between urban and rural areas.The data collected are analyzed by Descriptive statistics,one-way ANOVA,correlation analysis and independent-sample t-test.The following three questions are explored:(1)How about the use of metacognitive strategies in English vocabulary acquisition between urban and rural junior middle school students?(2)Are there any differences and similarities in the use of metacognitive strategies in English vocabulary acquisition in different grades?(3)Is there any correlation between junior middle school students' metacognitive strategies and their English vocabulary proficiency? If so,what is the correlation?Through investigation and statistics,the following conclusions are drawn:(1)Urban and rural junior high school students generally use metacognitive strategies to acquire English vocabulary.From four dimensions,urban junior high school students are at the middle level,while rural junior high school students are at the lower level,and rural students' usage in all dimensions is lower than urban students.(2)Students in urban and rural areas tend to choose strategies and monitoring strategies,and there are obvious differences between planning strategies and evaluation strategies.(3)There are differences in the use of metacognitive strategies in vocabulary learning between different grades in urban and rural areas.With the growth of grades,the frequency of metacognitive strategies is higher.(4)There is a positive correlation between urban and rural junior middle school students' metacognitive strategies and their English vocabulary proficiency.There are also significant differences between high-level and low-level in the use of metacognitive strategies,which indicates that the enhancement of metacognitive strategies can promote English vocabulary acquisition to a certain extent.Some suggestions have been given on the specific application of metacognitive strategies in English vocabulary teaching and learning for urban and rural junior high school students,so teachers can guide students' metacognitive strategies properly in future English vocabulary teaching to narrow the gap between excellent students and underachievers and between urban and rural junior high school students in English vocabulary level,and further promote the urban and rural education.Finally,only two middle schools are chosen in Xinhua county as the research object,which can not represent the overall situation of urban and rural areas in China,and the gender ratio is not taken into consideration,so there are some limitations.