An Empirical Study On Vocabulary Learning Strategies Training To First-year English Majors

Since knowing words is the key to understanding and being understood,vocabulary learning becomes the important point of language learning.Since 1950s,many scholars and teachers have done a variety of researches and achieved a lot to help language learners improve their vocabulary learning efficiency.They have not only explored the definition,description and classification of vocabulary learning strategies but also carried out some vocabulary learning strategies training.However,the researches concerning about vocabulary learning strategies training in China are in the preliminary stage with small number and narrow scope of the relative researches.What is more,most of the researches on adult English learners'vocabulary learning strategies choose non-English majors as their subjects.Maybe researchers believe that English majors are successful language learners who are in full awareness of vocabulary learning strategies.But is that the case?Especially,are those freshmen in English department who have just passed the entrance examination to university in full awareness of English vocabulary learning strategies?Does vocabulary learning strategy training have good effects on them?This paper aims at answering these questions above with an empirical study and attracting scholars'attention to this field.This research chooses 60 English majors who are from two intact classes in Foreign Language Department,Xichang College,Sichuan province as its subjects.30 of them in one class form the control group while 30 of them in the other class form the experimental group.The experiment lasts a whole semester.First,all of the subjects are given vocabulary learning strategy questionnaire and vocabulary knowledge test to do. The questionnaire is mainly based on O'Malley and Chamot's(1990)classification of learning strategies,with reference to Gu and Johnson's(1996) strategies.And the vocabulary knowledge test consists of vocabulary level test and productive level test which are selected from Nation's(2001) Vocabulary Levels Test and Productive Levels Test.Having analyzed the result of questionnaire,the author performs a vocabulary learning strategy training on the experimental group for one semester.The training program involves strategy awareness training and long-term training,with the latter adopting the Strategy-based Instruction model proposed by Weaver & Cohen in 1997. One semester later,the same questionnaire and a new vocabulary knowledge test are used to assess the effect of strategy training.The findings show that strategy use frequency of the experimental group increases obviously comparing with the control group and the vocabulary knowledge test scores of the experimental group are significantly higher than that of the control group.That means the first-year English majors are not as aware of vocabulary learning strategies as expected by some researchers.It is necessary and effective to give them vocabulary learning strategy training.This research explores the first-year English majors'vocabulary learning strategies, which will offer them better understanding about their own vocabulary learning strategy pattern to help them learn vocabulary better.It also provides English professional teachers with a referable vocabulary training model.Besides,it sheds light on further studies for researchers and textbook compiling for textbook writers.