Research On Non-English Major's Self-Regulatory Capacity In Vocabulary Learning

As one of the most active factors in the individual differences, learning motivation is always considered as the focus and difficulty in second language acquisition. The L2 motivation research in the recent years focused on how to increase learners'motivation, or motivational strategies. However, in the process of learner-centered language teaching, how to exercise the initiative of the student and help them grow into strategic learners plays a greater role. Moreover, the symbolic character of a strategic learner is to possess the self-regulatory capacity that fuels the efforts to search for and then apply personalized strategic learning mechanism to realize the self-motivation.Transferring the theoretical construct of self-regulation from educational psychology to the area of second language acquisition, Wen-ta Tseng, Zoltan D?rnyei and Norbert Schmitt ( 2006 )'s"Self-Regulatory Capacity in Vocabulary Learning"scale, which has comparatively high reliability and validity, established the foundation for the empirical study in this wholly new domain. The domestic counterpart mainly focuses on the dimensions of self-regulatory capacity in foreign language learning and its correlation with English achievement, while there are rare ones referring to the specific area of vocabulary acquisition. Under this situation, the present study combined the process-oriented motivational theory and self-regulatory capacity of student and situated the research field in the specific vocabulary learning aspect with the purpose to explore the current situation of non-English major's self-regulating capacity in vocabulary learning and discuss the possible influencing factors.Through random cluster sampling, the present study selected 329 non-English majors from the sophomores of Shandong Agricultural University. All of the subjects came from eight colleges, such as economic management, equipment and electric engineering, information science and food science. All of the quantitative data came from questionnaires and CET-4 achievement in Jun., 2008. With help of SPSS 11.5, reliability analysis, descriptive statistics, Person correlation analysis and independent samples t tests were computed with the target samples. After the preliminary analysis and summary, the interview questions were designed and 20 samples were selected randomly from the subjects to conduct the semi-structured interviews. The whole process was recorded by MP3, which was used to explore the main factors influencing the self-regulatory capacity in vocabulary learning of non-English majors.The quantitative data indicated that there is great individual difference in non-English major's self-regulatory capacity in English vocabulary learning. About 58.7% of the subjects got the score of the overall SRCvoc scale that is higher than the average score. The results of the Person correlation analysis showed that the non-English major's self-regulatory capacity in English vocabulary learning has significant correlation with their perceived English level, the interests in English and vocabulary learning and self-efficacy and CET-4 score (mainly writing score). The findings of multiple regression indicate that emotion control dimension of SRCvoc is a significant predictor of CET-4 score. In addition, although the independent sample t test displayed that there's no gender difference in non-English major's self-regulatory capacity in English vocabulary learning, the comparison of the means implied that when talking about every specific dimension, male students were much higher than female ones in terms of the self-regulatory capacity in English vocabulary learning. Moreover, qualitative data suggested that L2 motivation, learning strategy, personality and environmental elements are the main factors influencing the self-regulatory capacity in English vocabulary learning of non-English major.The results of present study provide important implications for both college English teaching and learning in China. On one hand, the teachers should endeavor to motivating the L2 motivation of students and providing assistance and direction timely according to the real situation of the self-regulatory capacity in English vocabulary learning of students, which will ensure the objective guarantee and support, and on the other hand, the students should evaluate their practical capacity personally and enhance their self- confidence, self-striving and self-discipline in learning actively and consciously under the instruction of teachers, which consequently prompt the development with great span of the self-regulatory capacity and ultimately the comprehensive capacity of English learning.