A Study On The Use Of English Vocabulary Learning Strategies By Students In A Chinese Senior Middle School

Since the 1970's, research concerns in the field of second language teaching and learning have shifted from methods of teaching to learner characteristics. With this shift in emphasis, many researchers both at home and abroad began to pay attention to the study of language learning strategie(sLLS). Vocabulary, the essence of a language, has widely drawn numerous scholars'attention.The present study, by reviewing the relevant studies on language learning strategies and vocabulary learning strategies (VLS) in the last three decades, investigates the students in the use of VLS in a Chinese senior middle school. The present study attempts to explore (1) the overall pattern of English vocabulary learning strategies used by some Chinese high school students; (2) VLS used by male and female students; (3) differences in the use of VLS between high proficient students and low proficient students; (4) correlation between VLS use and vocabulary proficiency.The subjects of the present study are 150 second year senior middle school students form NO 19 Middle School in Nan Chang. By means of the questionnaire and vocabulary size test, all the quantitative data are analyzed by SPSS 11.5. First, descriptive Statistics shows the overall pattern of students'VLS. Second, Independent Sample T-test is used to compare the differences in employing VLS between male and female students and what strategies the high achievers use compared with the low achievers. Finally, Correlation Analyses is used to examine the relationship between vocabulary use and vocabulary outcomes.Several findings are revealed from the present study. Firstly, most high school students believe that word should be learnt by using and studying. Secondly, students employ various strategies to learn English vocabulary, but all at medium level. The more frequently used strategies are self-initiation, guessing, dictionary use and rehearsal strategies, and the least used strategies are encoding strategies and activation strategies. Thirdly, male and female students differ greatly in the use of metacognitive strategies, guessing, dictionary use, note taking, visual repetition, word-structure and encoding strategies. Next, high proficient students used almost all the strategies more frequently than low proficient student. Finally, most vocabulary strategies have high correlation with the students'vocabulary achievement.On the base of the above findings, the author provides some suitable implications for vocabulary learning and teaching. First, teachers should help their students realize the importance of vocabulary learning strategies. Second, help students make use of metecognitive strategies such as making up their plans on vocabulary learning. Then, teachers must be aware of the differences in VLS use by different gender and proficiency, and provide a variety of instructional techniques to cater for the needs of different groups of students. Finally, students should make full use of various encoding strategies such as imagery, association, word-structure strategy and activation strategies such as put words into practice.