A Study Of English Vocabulary Learning Strategies Used By Ethnic Minority Students In Xinjiang, China

This thesis explores the English vocabulary learning strategies used by ethnic minority students in Xinjiang region. It intends to find the similarities and disparities between Han and ethnic minority students in strategy use and the major factors influencing the choice of strategies by ethnic minority learners. It is based on three hypotheses. First, it is hypothesized that, when compared with Han students, ethnic minorities have their own features in their use of vocabulary learning strategies. Second, the strategies used by ethnic minority students are influenced by their Chinese language (the L2 for ethnic minorities) learning experience, as well as their native language. Third, compared with Han students, ethnic minority students with multilingual backgrounds use more learning strategies. Based on the above hypotheses, 200 second year non-English majors from four universities in the Xinjiang region were selected as subjects. Among them, 100 students are ethnic minorities and the other 100 Han students. By analyzing the responses to the questionnaire and the quantitative and qualitative data, the present study finds: 1) subjects commonly accept the beliefs that vocabulary should be learned in context and by practicing and they take a negative view on the belief that vocabulary should be learned by rote-rehearsal. 2) Among the two generic categories of vocabulary learning strategies, the learning strategies are used more frequently than the management strategies. 3) The ethnic minority students use almost all the strategies in higher frequency than the Han students. 4) The significant differences between the ethnic minority and Han students are shown in the following specific strategies: adjustment strategy, selective attention, guessing strategy, dictionary for content, visual repetition, association strategy and Chinese language dependence strategy. Through the analysis of the results and findings in this research, the author discusses and expounds the major factors affecting ethnic minorities' use of English vocabulary learning strategies. This study aims first to help ethnic minority students to make efficient use of learning strategies in their English vocabulary acquisition and then to offer some implications for teachers teaching ethnic minority students English in Xinjiang, P.R.C.