Effect Of Gender And Academic Major On Chinese Students' Use Of Vocabulary Learning Strategies

In recent years, researches on vocabulary learning strategies (VLS) are widely undertaken by many experts in foreign countries, and some significant achievements have already been obtained. However, the subjects of these studies are mostly those learners whose first and second language belong to the same Indo-European language family, and relatively little research has been made on Chinese students'use of VLS. Moreover, most researchers think that students'use of VLS relate to one's cognitive style, personality, or hemispheric preference, but neglect cultural and educational factors in the use of VLS.To change such situation, this study aimed to look at a sample of students from the 10 different departments in a Chinese university to explore their VLS use. The current study examined the effect of two variables (gender and academic major) on students'VLS use, and offered interpretations from social and educational perspectives.The study adopted both quantitative and qualitative methods. On the one hand, questionnaire was used for the quantitative purposes; on the other hand, semi-structured interview was used for the qualitative study. The subjects were 225 second-year students, who were selected from the 10 different departments in Nanchang university. 210 of them responded the questionnaire, which was adapted from that of Gu and Johnson (1996: 673-679). With the help of statistical software SPSS 12.0, descriptive analysis, and T-test were used to analyze the responses of the questionnaire. In terms of the quantitative data, 12 of subjects were chosen as interviewees. Interview excerpts were applied to support to the data and obtain certain explanation.The data provided by the current study indicated: (1)Chinese students are generally in favor of the belief that words should be learned through use and context; (2) Chinese students employ a wide range of strategies to learn English vocabulary. Among the three categories, cognitive strategies are the most frequently used category, followed in order by social/affective strategies and metacognitive strategies .(3). Males show an explicit tendency to hold the belief that words should be learned through use and context. Cognitive Strategies and metacognitive strategies are more used by females, whereas males use more social/affective strategies .The two groups show significant differences in the following strategies: Guessing strategies, rote learning, note-taking and self-encouragement strategies. (4) Social science students most strongly believe that words should be memorized. They reported more use of cognitive strategies and meta-cognitive strategies than science students. The two groups show significant differences in the following strategies: self-evaluation, rote learning and activation.On the basis of the findings in this study, the researcher presents some valuable implications. As for language learners, firstly, learners do not see vocabulary as items in isolation, but try to learn new words through context and use. Then, students should select appropriate strategies according to different gender and academic majors in the use of VLS .As for language teachers, teachers should teach students some VLS and help them how to use those strategies appropriately inside their classrooms. Furthermore, teacher should keep in mind students'differences in strategy use and help students to experiment with different VLS.