English Vocabulary Learning Strategies

This thesis reports on an investigation about EFL senior middle school students' vocabulary size, their beliefs on vocabulary learning, their applying of vocabulary learning strategies and the vocabulary learning strategies used by the more successful EFL senior middle school students in the remote area of Yunnan by means of vocabulary tests, questionnaires and interviews. 106 participants were from Senior Grade Three of Kaiyuan No.4 Middle School. Analysis through SAS (Statistical Analysis System) on collected data has revealed the following circumstances of their vocabulary learning.Firstly, after two years' English learning, 87.7% of the Senior Grade Three students' vocabulary size in the remote area at present is below 50%, compared with the requirements in the Standards for English Course (Degree 8). Secondly, the senior middle school students have developed relatively reasonable beliefs on vocabulary learning. However, their choice of vocabulary learning strategies suggests that on the one hand, they still lack awareness and the capacity of planning for, self-monitoring and self-evaluating their vocabulary learning; on the other hand, they haven't found a proper strategy to take the place of Repetition. Therefore, the results show their beliefs disagree with their actual experience. Thirdly, the senior middle school students' average use of the vocabulary learning strategies is at a medium level. They prefer cognitive strategies to metacognitive and social/affective strategies, and use social/affective strategies least. Finally, the data from the interview has revealed that there is a significant difference between the successful learners and the less successful learners in the choices vocabulary learning strategies. The successful learners apply more vocabulary learning strategies, especially the metacognitive and cognitive strategies. Thus they are more active and all-round in their choices of strategies than the less successful ones.From the above findings, the thesis put forward some pedagogical implications. First, it is necessary for teachers to help learners to form the right beliefs on vocabulary learning, to check how much vocabulary size they have before they start their learning in senior middle school, to help them to identify their own staged goals for vocabulary learning each termaccording to individuality. Secondly, teachers should raise learners' awareness of using vocabulary learning strategies and train them in the vocabulary learning strategies in order to facilitate learners' vocabulary learning. By doing so, learners can apply effective vocabulary learning strategies to improve their vocabulary learning and achieve autonomy in vocabulary learning.