English Learners' Vocabulary Learning Strategies: A Research Based On DMU Sophomores

Vocabulary learning is central to language acquisition since it is the fundamental element of every aspect of the target language acquisition. Learners' vocabulary learning strategies refer to specific approaches, methods, behaviors, steps, or techniques that the learners (often intentionally) use to improve their progress in acquiring the target language.Research on learning strategies commenced in the early 1970's. Most of the early studies in this aspect focused on the approaches and actions/techniques that the "good" language learners used to improve their progress in developing the second language skills. The early studies revealed that learning styles, personality-related variables and demographic factors would influence the learners' learning strategies. A variety of vocabulary learning strategies were observed, analyzed and classified. The classification of Oxford and that of O'Malley& Chamot were generally accepted and highly evaluated. Oxford drew a distinction between the direct and indirect strategies. The former group was composed of memory strategies, cognitive strategies and compensation strategies. The latter group included metacognitive strategies, affective strategies and social strategies. Another contribution of Oxford in this field was her SILL (Strategy Inventory for Language Learning) which gave detailed descriptions of the learning strategies. In O'Malley and Chamot's classification, metacognitive strategies, cognitive strategies and social/affective strategies constituted the framework. Both of these two classifications were valid and comprehensive. Speaking of the research methods of vocabulary learning strategies, oral interviews, written questionnaires, observations, verbal reports, diaries, dialogue journals and recollective studies were proved to be scientific and appropriate methods.The purpose of this paper is to investigate the existing status of Dalian MaritimeUniversity sophomores' vocabulary learning strategies and attempt to figure out theIImost efficient strategies for them. The research is composed of two surveys on DMU sophomores. One is an on-the-spot investigation to depict the actual adopted strategies of the participants. In this investigation, verbal reports, particularly, the think-aloud method is vastly utilized. Oral interviews, observations, diaries and dialogue journals are also of great help. The other survey is an overall investigation on the participants' general vocabulary learning strategies. In composing the questionnaire of this survey, I mainly adopt O'Malley and Chamot's classification, with the help of SILL's descriptions and some refinements on the basis of Chinese students' learning characteristics. Written questionnaires and recollective studies are the chief research methods. With the statistical software SPSS, I analyze the research results and obtain the following conclusions: 1) English learners adopt a large number of learning strategies in coping with vocabulary, and most of these strategies are significantly correlated with the learners' vocabulary proficiency. 2) Great differences lie in the vocabulary learning strategies used by the good and poor learners respectively. 3) Rote or simple rehearsal is still the mainly used vocabulary learning strategy. 4) Exercise, inquiry and analysis have been proved to be the most efficient vocabulary learning strategies. 5) Learners pay insufficient attention to the correlation between the newly acquired vocabulary and the words they've mastered. 6) Metacognitive and social/affective strategies are vital but rarely applied in real situations.