A Study Of The Use Of English Vocabulary Learning Strategies For Junior High School Students

Language is the instrument of communication and vocabulary is the building material of a language. The increase of vocabulary will provide advantages for the students'language practice and hence improve their language use. In China, the Nine-year Compulsory Education English Curriculum Standards (2001) clearly argues that vocabulary teaching and learning is one of the important parts in English study and that teachers should teach students some vocabulary knowledge including vocabulary learning strategies in a planned way. Junior high school students are required to master vocabulary of at least 800 words and recognize 400-500 of others while doing reading comprehension.Since the 1970s, many scholars have focused their research on how to optimize learning strategies to improve vocabulary learning efficiency. By using a student questionnaire of vocabulary learning strategies including meta-cognitive, cognitive and social/affective strategies, the writer conducts a survey and tries to find out 1) the frequency of vocabulary learning strategy use; 2) the differences in strategy use between boy students and girl students; 3) the differences in strategy use among the students in different grades; and 4) the correlation between strategy use and learning achievement.The subjects are 265 junior high school students from three grades in Foreign Language School Attached to Guangxi Normal University. The questionnaire is designed by means of five-point scale. The analyses of the data are revealed by using SPSS 13.0. The data from the investigation illustrate the result as follows: 1) social/ affective strategies are used more than meta-cognitive and cognitive strategies. 2) girls use meta-cognitive strategies, cognitive strategies and social/affective strategies more than boys. 3) there isn't much difference among the three grades concerning the use of meta-cognitive, cognitive and social/affective strategies. 4) meta-cognitive and cognitive strategies have a positive correlation on students'learning achievement while social/affective strategies don't. Then some suggestions are given to the teachers on how to help the students improve vocabulary learning efficiency.English vocabulary learning is a complex but important process. Therefore, it is vital and timely to offer junior high school students some instructions for vocabulary learning strategies because it meets junior high school students'needs, conforms to their psychological characteristics, and develops students'self-reliant ability and overall quality.