An Investigation Into Vocabulary Learning Strategies Employed By Chinese Non-English Major Graduates

The present research attempts to explore the overall pattern of English vocabulary learning strategies used by some Chinese graduate students of non-English majors. In addition to it, the employment of specific memorization strategies, the different vocabulary learning strategies employed by good learners and poor learners among the investigated graduate students, and both similarities and differences in English vocabulary strategies use between graduate students of the humanities and graduate students of sciences are explored as well. A questionnaire, adopted from Gu and Johnson (1996), and a vocabulary test were administered to 236 graduate students from three universities. Students' vocabulary learning strategies are investigated at meta-cognitive, cognitive and social/affective levels. By using SPSS, the analyses of the data reveal: (1) the investigated students tend to view vocabulary learning as a kind of monotonous, mechanical task from which they derive little pleasure or sense of success. Generally speaking, they employ a variety of vocabulary strategies at cognitive, meta-cognitive and social/affective levels; (2) Oral plus visual repetition and oral repetition predominate all memorization strategies. Other commonly used memorization strategies include semantic association, contextualization, word formation, and grouping; (3) Good learners among the investigated graduate students apply more frequently association and grouping strategies than poorstudents. Meta-cognitive strategies and social/affective strategies are also paid more attention by those good learners; (4) Graduate students of the humanities and students of sciences use some similar vocabulary learning strategies. However, there exist indeed some significant differences in using some cognitive vocabulary learning strategies in their vocabulary learning.Finally, the pedagogical implications of the research are suggested.