A Study On English Vocabulary Learning Strategies Using Of Jingzhou Middle School Students

It is universally acknowledged that vocabulary is an elementary component of a language, which is essential to communication and plays an important role in language learning. In the width and depth of vocabulary learning, higher requirements have been raised in the English Curriculum Standards for Senior Middle School, and senior middle school students have to learn more words and be able to use them. However, a great many students find it rather difficult to learn English words and feel mentally stressed. Some count on the textbooks alone to learn words, some have no effective ways to memorize them, and others get fairly confused about how to deal with them. Therefore, it is of great significance for us teachers to research vocabulary learning strategies (VLS) and help enhance students' lexical competence.This thesis is written in order that we have a better understanding of what VLS are and how they have been used. It elaborates the theories of vocabulary learning, the definitions, classifications and related studies of language learning strategies. After that, the classifications and related studies of VLS are analyzed. Nevertheless, most of the previous empirical researches are limited to college students, and fewer are found on middle school students. Based on such a background, an attempt has been made to define VLS and put forward the system of VLS for senior middle school students. VLS refer to the approaches, techniques and procedures that learners adopt in order to learn English words efficiently, and they consist of five parts, namely meta-cognitive strategies, resource strategies, cognitive strategies, memory strategies and activation strategies.In accordance with this system, a questionnaire is designed and 521 Grade One students in Jingzhou Middle School have been investigated. The data have been collected and processed by means of the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS 13.0). The findings are as follows:1. The students use activation strategies less frequently than the other four, and it is necessary for them to expand their learning channels, deepen their memory for words and use English words in varieties of contexts as often as possible.2. Of the students surveyed, girls employ 90% of VLS just a little more frequently than the boys, and significant gender difference is shown in just 35% of the strategies using, especially in resource strategies and cognitive strategies using.3. Students graduating from urban junior middle schools employ 65% of VLS slightly more frequently than those from rural junior middle schools, and significant difference is shown in only 27.5% of the strategies using, especially in resource strategies and memory strategies using, but there is no distinct difference in cognitive strategies using.4. Of all the 40 VLS, 87.5% are positively correlated with the English scores of the students.5. Students with higher scores, usually using strategies in learning words, employ 92.5% of VLS far more frequently than those with lower scores, and significant difference is shown in 60% of the strategies using.