Use of Cognitive Learning Activities to Enhance Vocabulary Acquisition of Engineering Students

Abstract

The proficiency in English language has become a necessity in the modern world. The competency of using the language efficiently lies in the right choice of words. Learning words and improving vocabulary skills have become peremptory among the tertiary level students that they cannot exempt themselves from learning it. A large vocabulary collection allows the students to regulate and organise their thoughts with clarity. In order to facilitate effective use of words, many techniques, approaches and strategies have been devised by teacher-researchers to help the learners not only in acquiring wide vocabulary but also to have active vocabulary. Authors on realizing the importance of facilitating tertiary level engineering students not only to acquire wider vocabulary but also make them to understand, retain and use the learnt word appropriately have attempted to use cognitive learning activities in classroom. The paper registers methods and implications of cognitive learning activities on enhancing vocabulary of a set of 55 engineering college students. According to oxford English dictionary, Cognition is "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". This brings about many aspects such as attention, memory, reasoning, problem solving, decision making and production of language. The ultimate aim of incorporating cognitive learning approach through learning activities in a classroom gears up them to remember, understand, retain, apply, evaluate, and create. The researcher tried to bring out the classroom learning activities that enabled the students to develop learning strategies that instigates autonomous learning.