A Study On VLS Of Chinese Senior Students

The subject of learning strategies has been carefully examined in recent years due to thewide recognition among researchers of the role of learners' autonomy in language learning.Interest in vocabulary learning studies has also been revived because of the increasedimportance attached to vocabulary as a component of language. Much research has been donein this field and many researchers in the world have made significant progress. Their commonpurpose is to determine which strategies are best for vocabulary expansion, and which showevidence of efficiency in language study. However, most of the related studies are conductedamong western learners, while few deal with the Chinese learners, who comprise most of theforeign language learners in the world. In China, the previous related studies, especiallyvocabulary learning are limited to college students, less research has conducted aboutvocabulary learning by senior high school students. Vocabulary teaching is generallyconsidered time-consuming and inefficient in high schools. And in fact, vocabulary weaknessis a big obstacle in students' reading and writing, since it is always thought to be difficult tolearn and a heavy mental pressure in the learning process. In addition, the newly-issuedSenior High School English Curriculum Standards has set a higher requirement of vocabularyfor senior high school students. It has listed 3,500 words excluding expressions and phrases.Therefore, studies on VLS are especially needed considering that millions of high schoolstudents in China are eager to achieve this goal and enrich their vocabulary.Motivated by the research demand and to meet the need to comply with Senior HighSchool English Curriculum Standards, I pursue this study, which aims to explore: (a) learner'sbeliefs and strategies of vocabulary learning adopted by senior high school students toenhance their English learning competence and to improve its quality as well;(b) the sharedfeatures and variations among the students;(c) the relationship between English proficiencyand the adoption of vocabulary learning strategies.The Vocabulary Learning Beliefs Scale used in this study was developed by GuYongqi and it has three features: 1) Words should be memorized;2) Words should beacquired in context;3) Words should be studied and put to use. A Vocabulary StrategiesQuestionnaire designed by Oxford with 37 items including Metacognitive Strategies,Cognitive Strategies and Social/Affective Strategies is a second instrument that proveduseful.Data was collected and processed with SPSS. The main findings of the research are asfollows:1.Participants, both male and female, score the lowest on memory belief while high onpractice belief.2.Chinese senior high school students do employ a variety of vocabulary learningstrategies ranging from metacognitive to cognitive strategies, and also they have their ownfavorite strategies, but the overall level of learning strategies in English vocabulary is not veryhigh.3.Significant gender difference is shown in Metacognitive Strategies and Social/AffectiveStrategies. Successful language learners did better in the use of some strategies than lesssuccessful language learners.4. English proficiency is correlated with the use of vocabulary learning strategies.The possible factors which influence the build-up of vocabulary learning belief and thechoice of strategies, are analyzed from several perspectives. And the insights gained from thisstudy are that teachers should put more emphasis on strategy training and learner trainingshould be an inevitable part of second language education. At the same time teachers shouldtake the responsibility for helping students build up proper learning belief.The findings concur with the previous related studies conducted by some experts in thisfield The findings concerning the overall pattern of VLS in this study are generally in linewith those of Gu and Johnson's study (1996). The finding that repetition appears to be themost popular memorization strategy is in consistent with that of Hogben and Lawson 's study(1996) in which they claim that repetition in certain form is the most frequently used strategyused by EFL students compared to other memorization strategies. Also the findings thatsuccessful learners adopt a wider range strategies than less successful learners concur withwith those of Oxford 's study (1989). But in the process of the research, the author cites a newfinding, that is, males do better than females in the employment of metacognitive strategies,which is slightly different from the studies by Huang Bing and Cai Hansong (2001).