Association Strategy Training In English Major Self-Taught Students' Vocabulary Learning

In the past twenty years, more and more researchers and teachers began to realize the importance of vocabulary in both communication and learners' language proficiency development and the importance of vocabulary learning strategies (VLS) in learners' vocabulary learning; therefore much research on VLSs has been conducted home and abroad. Most of the research, however, took students in middle schools or colleges as their subjects, whereas till now almost no published research has been devoted to VLS use of self-taught students. Nevertheless, because of their unique features, such as relatively poor language foundation, lack of appropriate learning methods or strategies, and lack of intrinsic motivation and perseverance, etc. (吕淑珍, 2004), self-taught students experience more difficulties in vocabulary learning than regular students in colleges or middle schools. Thus, it is especially important for self-taught students to acquire some appropriate VLSs. Among all VLSs, association strategy (AS) is included by many VLS taxonomies (e.g. Oxford, 1990; Schmitt, 2002; 吴本虎, 2002).as an important kind of VLS. However, common though ASs seem, relatively little research has been done on their effectiveness, or in other words, the effects of AS use on learners' vocabulary learning outcomes.Having seen this situation, the present researcher administers an 8-week experiment in two parallel classes of English major self-taught students in an attempt to answer the following questions:1) Can association strategy training (AST) increase English major self-taught students' AS use in their English vocabulary learning?2) Do English major self-taught students frequently use ASs after AST? If yes, then3) What are the effects of frequent AS use in English vocabulary learning on English major self-taught students' immediate and delayed vocabulary learning outcomes?4) Do good and poor English major self-taught students differ in immediate and delayed vocabulary learning outcomes after frequent AS use?...