Research On Vocabulary Learning Strategies Of Senior High School Students After The Implementation Of Newly-issued English Curriculum Standards

The newly-issued Senior English Curriculum Standards has many distinctive features compared with the former ones; and one of the most distinctive features of it is the increase of vocabulary: students are required to master at least 3000 words in addition to a quantity of useful expressions and vocabulary learning strategies. According to the requirement, it is urgent to find a solution to optimize students' learning strategies and develop students' autonomous learning ability. However, foreign language instruction in our country still neglects the training of learning approaches and learning strategies. As a result, students do not know how to learn effectively and hence have a low learning efficiency; some students even show a negative attitude towards English learning. Therefore, as the top priority of English learning, the research on vocabulary learning strategies is significant to both senior high school students and teachers.The thesis aims to investigate vocabulary learning strategies employed by students in Fushun senior high school. After three years' implementation of newly-issued Senior English Curriculum Standards, it is meaningful to investigate the characteristics of vocabulary learning strategies used by senior high school students, to detect whether there is difference in strategy use among different grades, and to examine the correlation between their vocabulary learning strategy employment and vocabulary achievement. At the same time, it is worthwhile to analyze the agreement and disagreement between the use and helpfulness of the strategies. After the analyses of data, the researcher yields the following main findings:1. In general, senior high school students sometimes employ vocabulary learning strategies except for the cognitive strategies. Among the five vocabulary learning strategies investigated, cognitive strategies are employed most frequently, and are followed by memory, determination and social strategies. The least frequently used strategies are metacognitive strategies.2. Generally speaking, there is a higher response in the perception of helpfulness than the use of vocabulary learning strategies. However, there is an incongruity between the use and perception of helpfulness of some particular strategies.3. Statistical analysis results show that there is no clear trend of increase among the three grades in the use and perception of helpfulness of vocabulary learning strategies. Besides, there are significant differences among the three grades in determination, social and cognitive strategies in the use of vocabulary learning strategies. And there are significant differences among the three grades in the perception of helpfulness of social strategies.4. All the five vocabulary learning strategies significantly correlate with vocabulary achievement. And vocabulary learning strategies as a whole possess a moderate predictive power on English achievement.In the end, the conclusive part discusses pedagogical implications and limitations of the present study. And the thesis also gives suggestions for further study.