A Study On The Vocabulary Learning Strategies Among College EFL Students In China

Researches on vocabulary learning strategies are widely undertaken in western countries and some significant achievements have already been obtained. They mostly focus their subjects on those whose first and second language belong to the same Indo-European language family, like English and French. With regard to the English learners in China, this is not necessarily the case, however, as Chinese belongs to Sino-Tibetan language family. It goes without saying that learners' learning strategies are more or less influenced by various factors such as different language environments, cultural backgrounds and modes of thinking. Therefore, do the Chinese EFL learners employ the same learning strategies as those westerners do? Are the worked-out vocabulary learning strategies also available to Chinese learners? In order to make clear about these questions, Chinese scholars and experts have attempted to conduct a number of researches.Gu P.Y started the study in 1994. He claimed the Chinese EFL learners use a wide variety of vocabulary learning strategies and the wide range of vocabulary learning beliefs and strategies are related to both their vocabulary size and general English proficiency. Then in 1996, he established the vocabulary learning strategies and worked out the relationship between learners' strategies and outcomes in learning English. Based on Gu's achievements, other people (Wang Wenyu, 1998; Wu Xia & Wang Qiang, 1998; Liu Jingkai, 1999; Dai Mancun, 2000; Chen Hui, 2001; Ke Wei & Dong Yanping, 2001) carried out further studies and achieved great achievements. However, their studies are mainly concerned with those students in a couple of key universities in China. Up till now, few researches have been done on the students in the second-class universities which are widely referred to as colleges in China. It is no doubt that key university students have a much better command of the English knowledge than those in colleges, so do these students apply the same vocabulary learning strategies as key university students? Do the vocabulary learning strategies benefit them as effectively as key university students?fheretbre, we aim to establish the vocabulary learning strategies used by the EFL learners in Chinese colleges and the relationship between their learning strategies and outcomes. The results of the present study should be considered as better representing the whole situation in China. In order to establish a relatively satisfactory framework for this study, we make a slight revision of the classification of leaning strategies by O'Malley and Chamot (1990), who defined three main types of learning strategies: metacognitive strategies, cognitive strategies and social/affective strategies. 233 sophomores in one college (about half English majors and half non-English majors) are asked to do the questionnaire and the vocabulary size test. The results of these two parts are inputted into computer and SPSS + 10.0 statistical analysis is used to analyze them. Descriptive statistics is obtained to see the overall patterns of vocabulary learning strategies used by the students. Then a T-test is performed to examine the difference in using vocabulary learning strategies between good language learners (GL) and poor language leamers(PL). Finally, a correlation analysis is made to probe how various strategies related to vocabulary size test.The major findings are concluded as follows: (1) Overall, the EFL learners in Chinese colleges emphasize the belief that vocabulary should be learned and applied to use and that vocabulary should be acquired in the context, though they a tend to agree that words can be memorized. (2) the EFL learners in Chinese colleges employ a wide range of strategies to learn English vocabulary. Among the three categories, cognitive strategies are the most frequently used and Guessing and Dictionary under the cognitive strategies are the most frequently used. Of all the strategies listed in the questionnaire, ten most used and ten least used strategies are presented in order of use...