1.1 Background of the Study
The idea of cognitive style comes from general psychology(Ellis, 1992:499). Theories of learning have been conducted over the last century as a result of numerous experiments, with animals. Behaviorism is a principle of scientific method, based on the belief that animals can not know anything they have not experienced. On the contrary, cognitive psychology is related to the way human beings think and act. Cognitive psychology pay attention to the mental processes that are concerned about learning. And in the following years, cognitive psychology has had influence on second language learning and teaching.
Inpiduals who learn a foreign language or second language differ greatly in their rates of acquisition and in their final attainment. Since all inpiduals are unique ,their cognitive styles are also different from each other. Hen7.67ce, it is important to study the cognitive style which means to find the differences of the learners about learning a second language. Generally speaking, cognitive style is a term used to refer to the manner in which people perceive, conceptualize, organize and recall information. The cognitive style has received the most attention in literature, begin with Naiman et al.(1978), who discovers a link between it and second language achievements, is field-independence and field-dependence.
Current researches in English education suggests that every teacher should acknowledge and understand the students’cognitive styles. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the influence of FI and FD on second language learning, especially oral English.
1.2 Significance of the Study
The study can provide useful insights into oral English improvement for teachers and learners. Knowing how FID cognitive style may influence learners’oral proficiency through the application of different strategies, teachers can also help students enhance oral English abilities by enriching students’cognitive style with optimum use of strategies. Learners can also have a better understanding of their own preference t oral English and find a more suitable way for themselves.
However, if the students are not accustomed to the teacher’s teaching style, the students will lose interests, act slowly to learn and think and even give up studying with a poor mark in the test. On the contrary, if the students are accustomed to the teacher’s teaching style, the students will act positively, likely to think and learn with a good mark in the test. Only when the teacher and the students acknowledge each other’style can promote the students’oral abilities. Thus, with some ideas about students’cognitive styles, teachers can be more sensitive to the different students’styles and provide appropriate teaching methods.
This thesis is aimed to study the influence of cognitive style, that is to say,FI and FD, on second language learning(SLA) of English majors. The author of this thesis hopes to help teachers to understand more about the students and find out appropriate teaching methods to help students know their cognitive style so that they can learn well.
II. Literature Review
In this part, the author mainly talks about some literature items so that the readers can understand the literature information, for example, the concept of field-independence and field-dependence.
2.1 Field-independence and Field-dependence.
Field-independence and field-dependence are one pair of mutually opposite cognitive styles in language learning. They are called cognitive styles because they are the features in human bing’s psychological process of information processing.
2.1.1 Definition of Cognitive Style
In foreign and second language acquisition researches, considerable importance has been attached to inpidual differences, among which terms such as cognitive styles are mentioned again and again. Before talking about cognitive style, it is necessary to talk about the concept of style. The concept “style” is used in a variety of contexts: in the media, and in many academic disciplines including psychology. As an idea or a notion in educational psychology, a style has been an important and popular expression of inpiduality in the learning context. According to Brown (2002), a style is a term that means to consistent and enduring tendencies or preferences within an inpidual. That is to say, styles are general characteristics of intellectual functioning and personality type that differentiate you from others. Riding (1998) has also noticed, style has a physical basis and does control the way in which inpiduals respond to the events or ideas they experience. Hence, every person has his or her own style. 场独立场依存的认知风格对大学英语口语的影响(2):http://www.751com.cn/yingyu/lunwen_17142.html