A Study On English VLS Used By Non-English Majors In Military Academy

The present paper takes the 100 juniors of two natural classes in The Second Flight Academy of Air Force as subjects. By means of questionnaire, interview and case study as well as the powerful data analysis software SPSS, the author investigates the subjects' VLS use situation and draws conclusions as follows:1. The overall pattern of the subjects'VLS use:firstly, as a whole, the subjects' use of VLSs is not good enough and falls into the "medium level". Secondly, as to the three strategy dimensions, the subjects use cognitive strategy most followed by meta-cognitive strategy and social/affective strategy least. Thirdly, the subjects use a much wider range of the strategies mentioned in the study despite in generally low frequency.2. Conclusions about the comparison in VLSs use between good and poor subjects are: firstly, the good learners outperform the poor learners in all three strategy dimensions and all their sub-strategies expect "repetition". Secondly, advanced learners differ the most greatly from the weak learners at "grouping", "contextualization", "elaborate dictionary use" and "usage-oriented note-taking" strategies; there is little distinction in "word list", "dictionary use for comprehension" and "social activities" strategies. Thirdly, they have different preferences as to the three dimensions.3. The impact of VLS training on the choice and application of strategy:among all the sub-strategies, "rehearsal", "repetition" and "dictionary for comprehension" have been negatively affected by training, which means these strategies are now used less and less often than before. "Association", "imagery", "immediate context" and "social activities" have little increase in mean values, meaning the training doesn't work well on them. The rest strategies all have been improved more or less to a notable degree.4. Based on the previous conclusions along with the author's teaching experiences, some pedagogical suggestions for learners and teachers alike are put forward:as to learners, they should pay more attention to vocabulary, try to improve autonomy of study and cultivate strategic awareness and acquire useful strategies. As to teachers, they should change their roles, raise the status of vocabulary and conduct strategy training.