An Experimental Study On Vocabulary Learning Strategies Used By Senior Middle School Students

The number of vocabulary that one masters will certainly affect his English level. And vocabulary learning is one of the difficult tasks for senior middle school students. The thesis aims at studying vocabulary learning strategies used by senior middle school students and what teachers do to help students use strategies effectively, in the hope of exploring ways to improve students' awareness of using strategies.Vocabulary learning strategy is a hot topic in the study of SLA, into which a lot of researches have been made by language learners and language teachers. The researches center around the classification of vocabulary learning strategies, the description of strategy and strategies of particular groups of learners and some researches go to the theoretical framework for evaluation and training. From the previous researches, we know that strategies can be put into four categories : Metacognitive strategy, cognitive strategy, memory strategy and social strategy.The thesis reports a survey of vocabulary learning strategies used by 240 senior students in two high schools in Jade Ring (Yuhuan County). By questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, measures to assess students' receptive and productive vocabulary size, it explores the four categories of vocabulary learning strategies used by the sampled students.The analyses of the data reveal:Generally speaking, the investigated students employ a variety of vocabulary learning strategies at metacognitive, cognitive, memory and social levels. The frequency of the four broad categories is : cognitive strategy > memory strategy > metacognitive strategy > social strategy.Among all cognitive strategies, strategies of taking notes in high school class, using the vocabulary section in your textbook, paying attention to the spelling, using an E-dictionary, doing verbal repetition ranks highest. The strategy of paying attention to the spelling is the most commonly used memory strategy among students.The infrequently used memory strategies include grouping words together within a storyline, using semantic maps, using 'scale' for gradable adjectives, such as, huge >big >small >tiny. The two cognitive strategies considered as the least frequently used strategies are that the sampled students seldom use a picture dictionary or a thesaurus to facilitate their vocabulary acquisition. Metacognitive strategy involving media use, such as "Use the English-language Internet" is seldom used by the sampled students. The least frequently used social strategy in the overall corpus of strategies is "Ask an English teacher to check your vocabulary cards or word lists for accuracy", which was also least frequently used strategies by Schmitt (1997). The other three least frequently used social strategies all involve cooperative learning with others to some degree.The research uses measures to assess subjects' receptive vocabulary size and productive vocabulary size. We arranged the questionnaires again according to different level of subjects' vocabulary size and explores the relationship between the strategies being used and the subjects' vocabulary size. Later, we do semi-structured interviews with subjects at random to know more about the relationship between strategies and vocabulary size. We conclude that 1) students with larger vocabulary size tend to use strategies more intentionally and effectively and 2) the more effectively they use strategies, the larger their vocabulary size will be. So long as they use strategies effectively, they are able to remember new words and phrases. So it is necessary for teachers to help them to use the above mentioned strategies more effectively in and out of class.This research explores explicit vocabulary teaching to the usual inferring activities in L2 classroom. Guessing from context does not necessarily result in long-term retention, but is helpful in comprehension. If L2 students are to store vocabulary effectively, instructors need to help them establish those links and build up those associations. students are asked to integrate the new with the old, while discriminating word meaning. Various studies create a range of 5—16 encounters with a word in order for a student to truly acquire it. Therefore, an important aspect of this gradual learning is that the instructor consciously cue reactivation of the vocabulary. Teachers could choose to systematically teach the important affixes and word roots in the target language although the list would be daunting. it has the potential of enhancing long-term storage.In the thesis, we also do research on what teachers do in class to promote students' awareness of using vocabulary learning strategies effectively, which may include inferring from context, Integrating new words with the old, providing a number of encounters with a word, word unit analysis.After doing the research, we think about pedagogical implications in the area of vocabulary instruction, vocabulary testing and material development. For vocabulary instruction, first, we need to help most of the learners to build positive motivation. Then, we should encourage them to systematize their own learning strategies instead of using these strategies unconsciously or unsystematically, and teachers should integrate more strategy training into the English classes, the last but not the least, teachers should take the responsibility to help them realize the nature of vocabulary. For vocabulary testing we teachers are now using conceptualized testing instead of former tick or cross questions and vocabulary assessment has been integrated into the section of reading comprehension. For material development, we think it is better to provide English explanation of the new words in the vocabulary list, and provide usages of the important words in the vocabulary section. In addition, the word frequency should be referred. Word-building exercises are also desirable in strategy training. And the learning materials should be arranged with certain repetition.This thesis analyzes these findings respectively and suggested some pedagogical implications of the research.