A Study On Vocabulary Learning Strategies Among Non-English Major Freshmen And First-year Postgraduates

Since the 1970s, the field of SLA has seen a newly emerged interest in the study of language learning strategies. Vocabulary learning strategies as a subclass of language learning strategies have drawn much attention. However, systematic studies on vocabulary learning strategies as a whole are few. This paper compares vocabulary learning beliefs and vocabulary learning strategies between 100 freshmen and 74 first-year postgraduates at Xidian University. Through the instruments: questionnaire, language proficiency test and vocabulary proficiency test, this paper reveals: 1) With regard to vocabulary learning beliefs, freshmen show a stronger belief in Acquisition Belief, next is Learning Belief; the postgraduates agree more with Learning Belief and next is Acquisition Belief. Both of them disagree with Memory Belief. T-test shows that no significant differences exist in the three Beliefs except in Learning Belief. 2) With regard to learning strategies, the postgraduates use the learning strategies as a whole a little more frequently than the freshmen. Both of them report using the strategies as medium level. Among the five broad categories, only the category of Determination Strategy shows significant difference. The postgraduates use Social, Memory and Metacognitive Strategy a little more frequently and the freshmen use Cognitive Strategy a little more frequently. For both of them, the most-used category is Cognitive Strategy; the least-used is Social Strategy. (3) It is found something common in the most-used and the least-used individual strategies between them: the most-used strategies are those involving shallow processing; most of the least-used strategies involve deep processing or belong to Social Strategy. (4) T-test shows that 11 individual strategies exhibit significant differences which belong to three categories:Determination Strategy, Memory Strategy and Cognitive Strategy. T-test results show that the freshmen use those strategies involving shallow processing or rote learning much more frequently, while the postgraduates use the strategies involving word knowledge and deep processing much more frequently.Through the analysis on the data from the freshmen and the postgraduates, it is found that although similarities exist in their use of strategies, due to different language proficiency, differences exist. This paper analyzes these findings respectively. Some practical suggestions are provided to teachers of English, college students and textbook designers in the hope to improve teaching and learning vocabulary.