A Study Of English Vocabulary Learning Strategies In Senior High Schools In Underdeveloped Areas Of Guizhou Province

In recent years, great changes have taken place in English teaching and learning field. The strategies employed by the learners in the English process has evoked people's great concern. The increased importance has been attached to vocabulary as a component of languages. The focus of researches on methods of teaching vocabualry has been gradually shifted to the vocabulary learning strategies the learners employed as well. Many researchers abroad have made great progress in the researches of the field. In China, many researchers have also made explorations in this field and have made some achievements, but very few of them are concerned with the vocabulary learning strategies of senior high school students in the poor rural areas as their subjects. However, few researches are made on high school students. And none of the study of Vocabulary Learning Strategies was carried out about senior high school students in poor counties of Guizhou province. While, in senior high schools, the students hold the common belief that vocabulary learning is a big obstacle in English learning. Moreover, about 3000 words and 400-500 phrases should be mastered according to Senior High School English Curriculum Standard if they want to take part in the entrance examination to colleges or universities. Therefore, the vocabulary learning strategies (VLS) concerning senior high school students, especially who are in poor areas of Guizhou, should be more valued. Therefore, the present author gave students 12-week VLS training and study the correlation between learning strategies and learning effect.The ultimate aim of the study is to find effective ways to help senior high school students in such poor areas of Guizhou to achieve good results in their vocabulary learning so as to build a solid basis for their intercultural communication competence.To fulfil the aim, the present author first investigated the current situation of vocabulary learning strategies and gave them a vocabulary size test in Nayong No.1senior high school, Guizhou province. After the VLS training, the author gave them another vocabulary test. The instruments involve one questionnaire adopted from the O'Malley and Chamot, two vocabulary test papers designed by Nation. The present study attempts to provide answers to the following research questions:1. What are the subjects'beliefs on vocabulary learning before and after the vocabulary learning strategies training respectively?2. What is the subjects'overall pattern of vocabulary learning strategies before and after the vocabulary learning strategies training respectively?3. What are the discrepancies of the subjects'vocabulary size before and after the vocabulary learning strategies training?4. What vocabulary learning strategies used by the subjects correlate with their vocabulary size after the vocabulary learning strategies training?110 students from Nayong No.1 Senior High School responded to the questionnaire and completed the vocabulary tests. Data were collected and processed by means of SPSS 13.0. The major findings of this study are as followings:1) The vocabulary learning belief'vocabulary should be learnt through application'is more emphasized by the investigation of senior high school students in Nayong County, Guizhou province. Meanwhile, they attach great importance to rote learning.2) Senior high school students employ a variety of vocabulary learning strategies ranging from Metacognitive, Cognitive to Social/affective strategies. The Vocabulary Learning Strategies employed by the students before and after the Vocabulary Learning Strategies training are different. After the VLS training, the cognitive strategies are still most frequently used, followed by metacognitive strategies and social/affective strategies. Of the three strategies under metacognitive strategies, self-monitoring is the most frequently used strategy. While under cognitive strategies the most frequently used one is guessing and repetition, while the least frequently one is dictionary use.3) Discrepancies of VLS training on students'Vocabulary Learning Strategies use and their vocabulary size are significant. Before the training, students'average vocabulary size is just 1469, and the percentage of low scores is relatively high. While, after the VLS training, many students'vocabulary size increased and their average vocabulary size amounted to 1838 words, which shows that the Vocabulary Learning Strategies training can help improve the students'vocabulary test scores; although we should take into the consideration the fact that without the VLS training the students'vocabulary will grow after learning for a period of 12 weeks.4) This study proves that Vocabulary Learning Strategies correlate with the vocabulary size. All the cognitive strategies used by the students positively correlate with their vocabulary size, except'dictionary use'.According to the results, it is necessary for teachers to help students to build up more vocabulary learning strategies, conducting them to use metacognitive and dictionary use strategies as much as possible. To some extent, teachers give some other training of vocabulary learning strategies to them, such as imagery and key word strategies and so on. It is hoped that this study can serve a basis for further study in learning strategies for different language learning tasks and at different stages of learning.