A Study On English Vocabulary Learning Strategies Used By Pupils

Vocabulary is the building material of the language, and carries out the human's thought activity, and the language has no practical significance without vocabulary. As the linguist Wilkins said, without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed. For foreign language learners, applying the vocabulary learning strategy effectively is the prerequisite of enlarging their vocabulary as well as improving their foreign language level. Vocabulary learning strategies are the action, steps, plans and practices that learners use in order to promote the acquisition, memorizing, extraction and applying of vocabulary.In the year of 2003, the Ministry of Education issued a "full-time compulsory education in senior middle school English curriculum standards (trial version),"which requires pupils to master 600-700 words at the primary stage. By now, the curriculum of English has been carried out in the whole country for 7 years, how about the status quo of pupils in the English vocabulary learning? For these reasons, this thesis was based on the Baoding six representative elementary schools, such as the Primary School Affiliated to Baoding College, Xianxuejie Primary School, Qianweilu Primary School, and aimed to understand the status quo of the New Curriculum Reform in Baoding primary schools and the basic conditions of the pupils in the English vocabulary learning strategies using and analyze problems, this thesis yielded four main findings by a questionnaire survey and a group interview.1. In the vocabulary learning process, pupils have already applied consciously learning strategies which they are more familiar with, but they are obviously not good at applying them.2. Pupils use the metacognitive strategies at a higher frequency, and use the cognitive strategies at a low frequency.3. At the primary stage, boys and girls in the English vocabulary learning strategies do not have a very significant difference. The strategies use frequency of girls is slightly higher than that of boys in general.4. The English vocabulary learning strategies use frequency of 3rd and 4th graders are less used than those of 5th and 6th graders. In general, the higher the grade is, the higher the strategies use frequency is. But the strategies use frequency of 5th graders is slightly higher than that of 6th graders. The conclusive part makes some recommendations for the current English vocabulary teaching practice and lists some limitations of this research and it is open to all criticism.