A Study On High School Students' English Vocabulary Learning Strategies

Vocabulary, as one of the three elements (pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar) of language, is fundamental to the development of language proficiency. In English learning how to master more English vocabulary is becoming more and more important. Since the 1970s, the research concern in language teaching and learning has shifted from teaching methodology to learner characteristics. And many learning strategies have been identified and classified, among which, vocabulary learning strategies have been widely researched. Meanwhile, vocabulary learning strategy training begins to draw the attention of some researchers in the hope that better training of such strategies will help learners improve their ways of vocabulary learning.The focus has gradually shifted to the vocabulary learning strategies learners employed. Many researchers abroad have made great progress. As for in China, large numbers of researchers have also made explorations in this field and some significant achievements have already been obtained .However, most of the previous related studies are mainly concerned with English majors and non-English majors at a couple of key universities. Up till now, few researches have been done on the senior high school students. While in senior high schools, vocabulary teaching and learning has always been"Time consuming and low efficiency". In view of the above-mentioned facts, English learning strategies have always been the main concern of linguists. As an important part of English learning strategies, English vocabulary learning strategies have attracted more and more attention.This study aims at vocabulary learning strategies and mainly deals with English vocabulary leaning in high schools. By conducting an experiment, the author tries to find out how to help high school students to learn English vocabulary more effectively and efficiently. It involves an experimental group and a control group of Grade One students in Zhanhua No.1 Middle School undergoing a five-month training project. The training covers selected metacognitive strategies and several cognitive strategies for vocabulary learning. Based on the training model proposed by O'Malley and Chamot (1990), the present four-step strategy instruction model is formed. From the results of the survey, the author finds the students employ a narrow range of vocabulary learning strategies---only rote strategies. In other words, they lack proper and effective vocabulary learning strategies. Neither the mnemonic devices so much valued by some psychologists nor the semantically based strategies favored by some linguists (e.g. guessing and decoding strategies) enjoyed much popularity among them. The reason is that they do not know how to use these strategies though they might know about them.Students in the control group memorize those words by using the rote strategies they tend to use; while those in the experimental group use some effective vocabulary learning strategies discussed. In addition, the students in the experimental group were also given sample sentences of important words and did various kinds of vocabulary exercises in context or word formation or others. After the five months'experiment, we can conclude that with the teacher's instruction and training, the VLS should be reinforced as it can improve students'vocabulary greatly. From the analysis of the experiment, we find that, VLS is effective and efficient in remembering new words. There was a statistically difference between the mean scores of the students both in vocabulary and reading comprehension between the control group and the experimental group, and that there was a significant improvement of student performance in the experimental group. The result of the post-test has shown that the students in the experimental group benefited from effective vocabulary learning strategies;Therefore, this paper presents that in English teaching of high schools, vocabulary teaching and learning should be carefully considered, and the students should be trained with effective vocabulary learning strategies; and with an increase in vocabulary knowledge, they can reduce the English learning burden and greatly improve their English. The study has provided positive implications for classroom teaching in vocabulary, and more attention is to be called on for further studies.