A Study On Vocabulary Learning Strategies Employed By Non-English Majors

? Vocabulary plays a key role in every aspect of English learning, including listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating. Therefore, Vocabulary knowledge is the fundamental bricks to the building of English proficiency. Since vocabulary is the fundamental unit of language, the problems facing us are how EFL students should learn English vocabulary and how teachers should teach vocabulary.The study aims to figure out the general situation of vocabulary leaning strategy use by non-English major college students of first-grade. It attempts to find out whether there are significant differences between high and low proficient students in vocabulary strategy use. In addition, it also tries to investigate whether there are any discrepancies between science majored students and art majored students in VLS use. Finally, the study is to test the correlations between students'depth of vocabulary knowledge and their VLS use. A questionnaire, adapted from Gu and Johnson (1996), was administered to 136 college students. Besides, depth of vocabulary knowledge test produced by Qian (1999) was administered to the students.Students' vocabulary learning strategies were investigated at metacognitive, and cognitive levels. By using SPSS 17, the analyses of the data revealed that, (1) The subjects employed cognitive strategies more frequently than metacognitive strategies. Also, guessing and Dictionary strategies were found to be used most frequently, whereas note-taking, rehearsal, encoding and activation strategies were found to be employed less frequently. (2) High-proficiency students reported significantly more use of cognitive strategies than low-proficiency students, and there were no significant differences in the use of metacognitve strategies. (3) The arts majors and the sciences majors shared similarities and differences in the way they learn English vocabulary. In general, the two groups didn't show significant differences neither in the use of metacognitive strategies nor in the use of cognitive strategies. (4) Self-initiation, dictionary and guessing strategies were highly correlated with vocabulary achievements, whereas note-taking, rehearsal, encoding, and activation strategies did not seem to be potent variables.Finally, several pedagogical implications of the present study are brought out, including the implications for vocabulary teaching and learning. First, the results of this study show that metacognitive strategies are crucial for helping students make conscious, directed, autonomous, and efficient vocabulary learning. Secondly, the findings in this study also show that it is obviously crucial for students to review constantly what they have learnt. Third, the learners should also pay attention to great effect of encoding strategy with deep level of processing, in addition to rote-memory and note-taking. Last but not least, it is proved in this study that activation strategy is very productive and can deepen understanding and application of a word.