A Study Of English Vocabulary Learning Strategy Training Of Senior Graders In Rural Areas Of Western China

The present study attempts to explore the impact of strategies-based instruction on English vocabulary proficiency and English overall proficiency levels, based on the data obtained from a study conducted at No.2 Middle School of Huanxian. More specifically, in this study, 129 English learners at the Middle School of Huanxian are from two classes, one class is the experimental group (EG) (N=67), the other class is the control class (CG) (N=62). The participants in the experimental group received the regular fifteen-week strategies-based instructional treatment, while the comparison students did not receive the regular fifteen-week language course. Both groups filled out a pre-post questionnaire and finished a pre-post test in English vocabulary and overall English proficiency before and after the experiment. Twenty-four of the experimental and comparison group students also provided verbal report data and represented their diaries while they filled out the post-test strategy checklists. The qualitative and quantitative data analyses showed that the students receiving the training of certain strategies included on the strategy checklists made a more significant improvement in vocabulary learning than the ones without receiving such training. Concurrently, vocabulary learning strategy training was so effective to the increase of overall English proficiency. The improvement of English vocabulary proficiency was found to be more significant than the increase of overall English proficiency. The study also drew the conclusion that higher-level students tended to frequently use meta-cognitive strategies and deeper-scale cognitive strategies, like deeply-mastering strategies, classification strategies, guessing strategies and so on, whereas lower-level students tended to frequently use shallower-scale cognitive strategies, like repetition strategies, vocabulary list strategies and so forth. Meta-cognitive strategies were seldom employed by lower-level students. There is no significance between males and females in VLS.The purpose of our education is to develop self-directed or independent learners. The purpose of teaching takes place in students themselves and ultimate goal of teaching is to make students learn. In this case, teaching students how to learn and how to monitor their learning process is of great significance. The specific vocabulary learning strategies proposed in this study for graders of a senior middle school could help teachers and students to achieve this purpose. Besides, the study would also help students change their opinions and attitudes to learn English vocabulary, and accordingly, improve their vocabulary learning outcomes and finally help them lay solid foundations for learning in all theirlifetime and sustaining developments. As the vocabulary learning strategies are laid within a strong theory framework—"depth-processing theory", the classroom training models of vocabulary learning strategies would provide more scientific training models in class for rural elementary and middle schools.