A Study Of Normal University Third Year English Majors' Vocabulary Learning Strategies

Research related to language learning strategies has prospered since the 1980s. The importance of language learning strategies, especially vocabulary acquisition in language learning has been proven and emphasized worldwide. Learners' language learning strategies are one of the key dimensions for successful language learning. EFL should be taken not only as a subject in school, but also as a prerequisite essential competency in society. In China, the normal universities' education system has a long history and plays an important role in cultivating highly professional middle school English teachers. However, due to the education system with entrance examinations, most of the excellent students do not choose to attend normal universities, only those who do not perform well in the examinations would study in normal university. English vocabulary learning is difficult both for English and non-English majors. They are required to acquire the vocabulary learning strategies not only for their own learning but also for guiding their future students to obtain good achievements with some strategies.There has only been limited research focusing on this specific topic, especially for the normal university students majoring in English, though more and more articles about the vocabulary learning strategies have been published in resent years. This paper researches the vocabulary learning strategies employed by English majors in Linyi Normal University and the interrelationship between their learning strategies and their achievements. It is expected that investigation of the variables can reveal their influences on learners' vocabulary development and subsequently provide some insights into both vocabulary learning and teaching. This is the reason why the author conducted this study.The three research questions addressed in the study are:1. What are the beliefs and strategies adopted by Chinese normal university English majors in their vocabulary learning process? What are the most and the least popular beliefs and strategies?2. Are there any correlations between learners' vocabulary learning beliefs and strategies and their vocabulary test achievements? If there are, what are they?3. Are there any similarities and differences between successful learners and unsuccessful learners in adopting vocabulary learning strategies? If there are, what are they?The participants were 104 Chinese third-year normal university English majors. They were given a vocabulary test and a questionnaire concerning vocabulary learning strategies and 8 of the participants were selected to have an interview.The study made the following findings.First, a general statistical description showed that students tended to agree with the belief that vocabulary should be learned by use. The frequently adopted strategies are: three dictionary strategies, two contextual guessing strategies, two note-taking strategies, two metacognitive strategies oral repetition strategy and contextual encoding strategy; while use of word list, visual repetition, association, visual encoding, auditory encoding, auditory encoding, use of word-structure, semantic encoding strategies and activation strategies are the least commonly used ones.Second, the correlation analysis revealed that "the words should be memorized", "the use of word lists", "visual repetition" were negatively correlated with their vocabulary learning achievements. Of all the other variables, the use beliefs, selective attention, self-initiation, contextual guessing, dictionary strategies, note-taking strategies and activation strategies were positively correlated with the dependent variable. There is no correlation between oral repetition, association, visual encoding, semantic encoding, contextual encoding and vocabulary learning achievement.Third, significant differences did exist in the employment of vocabulary learning strategies between successful and unsuccessful learners. Successful learners more frequently used contextual guessing strategies, note-taking strategies and activation strategies, while the unsuccessful learners were found to use the same strategies at a lower frequency. Both successful learners and unsuccessful learners tended to use dictionary strategies frequently, but seldom used encoding strategies. And unsuccessful learners used visual repetition strategies more than the successful learners did.The findings of this study revealed that the development in vocabulary knowledge depend on how learners understand the nature of vocabulary learning and how frequently they use learning strategies especially those elaborated strategies such as contextual guessing, note-taking and dictionary strategies. One implication is that it is advisable for them to try a variety of strategies in their vocabulary building process and to overcome the difficulties they meet in using these strategies in order to form a good vocabulary learning habit. And the other one is that it is advised for the teacher to provide these third-year English majors in normal university with guidance on the use of different kinds of vocabulary learning strategies and examples so that gradually, they can use these strategies by themselves and can guide their students in their vocabulary learning when they become teachers.