A Research Analysis Of English Vocabulary Learning Strategies In Senior Middle Schools

The amount of vocabulary that one masters will certainly affect his English level. Vocabulary learning is one of the more difficult tasks for senior middle school students. This thesis aims to study vocabulary learning strategies used by Liaoning senior middle school students and what teachers do to help students use strategies effectively. The result will be the discovery of ways to improve students' awareness of using strategies.Vocabulary learning strategy is a popular topic in the study of Second Language Acquisition (SLA). Hence a substantial amount of researches has been made by language learners and language teachers. The researchers focus on the classification of vocabulary learning strategies, the description of strategy and strategies of particular groups of learners, and some researches go to the theoretical framework for evaluation and training of the strategies. From the previous researches, we know that strategies can be put into three categories:cognitive strategy, meta-cognitive strategy and social/affective strategy.This thesis reports on an exploratory study of 220 subjects'use of the three vocabulary learning strategies employed by the sampled students to examine the two schools'current use of vocabulary learning strategies by analyzing the research data obtained through a questionnaire.The data analyses show:In general, the investigated students use various vocabulary learning strategies at cognitive, meta-cognitive, and social/affective levels. From the highest to the lowest, the frequency of the three broad categories is:cognitive strategy, meta-cognitive strategy and social strategy.Among all cognitive strategies, strategies of taking notes in class, using English-Chinese dictionary, "using vocabulary section in my textbook", "paying attention to pronunciation of the words and correcting it myself "and "paying attention to formation of the words" are the most frequently used strategies by the sample students.The cognitive strategies considered as the least frequently used strategies include "practicing or using words, expressions or idioms that I have learned in class by keeping a diary". Meta-cognitive strategy is seldom used by the sampled students. The least frequently used social strategy in the overall corpus of strategies are:"I learn or consolidate words through study- groups outside the classroom", "I learn or consolidate words by practicing with a partner in class", "I learn or consolidate words by working with others", and "I ask my teacher to check the self-made word card or vocabulary card to make sure it is correct".The data analyses also show that significant gender difference exist in using meta-cognitive strategies. The thesis analyses suggest some pedagogical implications of the research.