An Empirical Study On English Vocabulary Learning Strategies In High Schools

Vocabulary is generally accepted as one of the three components of language (the other two being phonetics and grammar).And vocabulary learning is held to be the central task in the early stage of foreign language learning. Many foreign language learners, however, are doing their job with a disastrous efficiency and their language skills, including reading, listening, speaking, writing and translating, are rarely satisfactory. Faced with the alarming situation, foreign language teachers and educators, apart from linguists, come to realize that it is absolutely imminent to improve vocabulary learning by foreign language learners. So they shifted the focus from how to teach to how to learn.People began to study vocabulary learning strategies in the middle of 1970's. Scholars abroad such as Oxford and Cohen put forward theories concerning how to implement learning strategies to better our foreign language learning. In the theories of language acquisition, language learning strategies refer to the specific action steps or skills that students, in developing second language or foreign language skills, undertake to promote the learning. Language learning strategies are believed to be able to help internalize, store or use the foreign language or the second language. This thesis conducts an investigation into the English-learning strategies used by some senior students from the First Middle School of Changsha. The investigation is intended to seek answers to the following questions: And it is intended to reveal the methods to help students learn English words with greater efficiency and better result.1. What are the subjects' beliefs on vocabulary learning?2. What is the subjects' overall pattern of vocabulary learning strategies?3. What specific vocabulary learning strategies are employed by the subjects?4. Are the vocabulary learning strategies used by high-proficiency subjects different from those used by low-proficiency subjects?5. Are the vocabulary learning strategies used by the subjects correlated with their vocabulary size?Our research, since it is based on the present situation of the basicstage of English teaching and the characteristics of English vocabulary learning of senior middle school students, enjoys the advantage of being both valuable theoretically and meaningful practically.After making the investigation and research, we can arrive at some tentative conclusions:1. High school students are still in the stage of vocabulary expansion and they have learned to effectively implement such cognitive learning strategies as management, repetition, word-list, association and context in their English learning. But it is found that they have not master the metacognitive learning strategies so far; they can not conduct effective management, monitor and evaluation of their vocabulary learning. Students can not use a variety of strategies for vocabulary learning.2. Students with different vocabulary sizes tend to use different vocabulary learning strategies with different frequencies.3. Vocabulary size is in a positive proportion with the results of English tests.4. Learners of different genders will use vocabulary learning strategies differently.In short, we get to know the present situation of the use of the English vocabulary learning strategies for senior high school students, and realize that a number of problems do exist in the implementation of these learning strategies. many students have not mastered several effective vocabulary learning strategies; teachers have not fully realized importance of vocabulary learning strategies in class and the thorough understanding of students' difficulties in expanding their vocabulary Teachers and students should be fully aware that effective vocabulary learning strategies can improve the ability to apply vocabulary appropriately. They are also expected to understand the importance of cultivating students' autonomous study. Some suggestions for adjusting and improving the teaching and learning have been presented in the thesis so as to really fulfill the purposes of education and enhance the quality of teaching.