A Comparative Study Of Vocabulary Learning Strategy

Vocabulary plays a significant role in English teaching and learning. Without vocabulary, the basic abilities of English:listening, speaking, reading and writing will encounter great difficulties. However, many students complain that there are too many words in English and it's difficult for them to remember all. And they forgot the words quickly. Many experts and teachers from both abroad and home have made great contribution to vocabulary learning strategies. But, they pay much attention to university students. The present study aims to explore the vocabulary learning strategies adopted by senior high school students and shows the differences in vocabulary learning strategies adopted by senior one students and senior three students and also presents the correlation between vocabulary learning strategies and vocabulary size. The students surveyed are from the Middle School Attached to Tianjin University. The data is analyzed by SPSS (16.0 for window).The major findings are as follows:Firstly, most of the sampled students believe that the vocabulary should be learned through different ways. Vocabulary can be learned by rote. Vocabulary can be learned through context. Vocabulary can be learned through application.Secondly, the sampled students adopt a variety of strategies to learn vocabulary. The two group students take on significant differences only on two strategies: rehearsal and organization.Thirdly, several strategies are positively and significantly correlated with vocabulary size. They are planning, organization, inferencing, deducing, cooperation, questioning for clarification and self-talk. And rehearsal is negatively correlated with vocabulary size, but not significantly.