An Investigation And Analysis Of English Vocabulary Learning Strategies Adopted By Non-english Majors In Tibetan Universities

Vocabulary learning plays a significant role in learning English. As D. A.Wilkins, a famous English linguist, once said : “Without grammar, very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed.”. The studies on vocabulary learning strategies, have been highly valued in the field of foreign language education since 1970 s, and such researches have been conducted from various perspectives, as in educational psychology as well as in linguistics. From 1980 s to 1990 s, great achievements have been obtained in the strategy researches of foreign language vocabulary,with the efforts of scholars both at home and abroad. With the in-depth studies, given the real condition that Chinese students learn English as a foreign language,the problem of how to learn English vocabulary effectively has been paid attention to by Chinese scholars.Although abundant fruits have been made in this field in the recent years, such researches should be extended both in depth and breadth.The study is intended to investigate the overall tendency of the non-English majors’ use of English vocabulary learning strategies. The subjects were 522 sophomores from Tibet University, they were all non-English majors.(including Han students, Tibetan students and other ethnic minority students; students both of liberal arts and of science). A questionnaire of Gu &Johnson(1996) and a vocabulary-size test were delivered to the subjects. An interview was also conducted after the participants had finished the questionnaires. The results of the questionnaire and the vocabulary-size test were analyzed by SPSS20.0, and the major findings are as follows. In order to examine the differences in the English vocabulary learning strategies, employed by male students and female students, by Tibetan students and Han students,by liberal arts majors and science majors, by high-score students and low-score students, Independent-Samples T-tests have been conducted. Additionally, in order to gain further insights into the role of VLS in English vocabulary learning, the correlation analysis between “vocabulary learning strategies ”as well as “vocabulary learning concept” and vocabulary-size test score was also performed. Six students(3high-score students and 3low-score students) of different majors took part in the interview after the survey. The research findings are as follows:1) The students involved in the study generally hold the belief that “words should be learned through use”, the most frequently adopted strategies include: two meta-cognitive strategies, two guessing strategies, two dictionary strategies, two note-taking strategies, two rehearsal strategies; while two encoding strategies are the least favored ones by the participants.2)Independent Samples T-tests show that: Differences don’t exist between the two groups(male students and female students) in the adoption of meta-cognitive strategies as well as cognitive strategies; as for the two groups(students of liberal arts and students of science), they are not significantly different in using meta-cognitive or cognitive strategies, although students of science do adopt the strategies more frequently than students of liberal arts. The adoptions of meta-cognitive and cognitive strategies by Han students and Tibetan students differ significantly, Han students tend to use these strategies more frequently than Tibetan students. Furthermore, significant differences did exist in the employment of vocabulary learning strategies as well as learning concept, between high-score and low-score students. High-score group agreed more on the belief that “words should be learned through use” than low-score group;compared with low-score students, high-score students were more active and more assiduous in learning English vocabulary than low-score students, and more conscious of planning, managing their learning activities, while the low-score groups generally lack learning-motivation, tend to pay a passive attitude towards vocabulary learning.3) The correlation analysis between21 independent variables(English vocabulary learning strategies and concepts)and 1dependent variable(English vocabulary size), revealed that: one concept variable “words should be memorized” was negatively correlated with vocabulary size, while the other one “words should be learned through use” was positively correlated with the vocabulary size; there is a positive correlation between two meta-cognitive strategies(“selective attention” and “self-initiation”)and vocabulary size(score); of all the 17 cognitive strategies, there is no significant correlation between “oral repetition” and vocabulary size, “visual repetition” was negatively correlated with vocabulary size(sore), all the other 15 strategies were positively correlated with the vocabulary score.Some implications about English teaching and learning in Tibetan universities, have been elicited according to the research findings. On the the basis of the above statistics, a few suggestions on English vocabulary instructions, that can be taken as reference for students as well as teachers, are put forward, for instance, teachers should conduct strategy-training on vocabulary learning in English classroom instructions; while students are supposed to be engaged in English vocabulary learning activities, with higher motivations, developing their own strategies, and grasping more vocabulary more effectively.