Technical School Students' Vocabulary Learning Strategies

Language learning strategies have always been an important question concerned by many linguists. Vocabulary is the fundamental part of language learning. Vocabulary learning strategies also attract much attention. As for Chinese technical school students, vocabulary is a big problem in their English study. Therefore technical students'vocabulary learning strategies are a question that deserves exploring. This study uses a questionnaire, which bases on the classification of learning strategies of O'Malley and Chamot, to investigate 116 technical school students about their vocabulary learning beliefs and vocabulary learning strategies. Furthermore, the results are analyzed and discussed. The results are the following: First, on one hand the students have a firm belief that words should be studied and used, on the other hand they also tend to believe that words can be acquired and memorized. Secondly, there is a lower response to the usage of learning strategies. Thirdly, there is a higher response to the helpfulness of learning strategies. Fourthly, Dictionary Use, Repetition and Note-taking are the most frequently used strategies. While Word Formation, Contextualization and Keyword are the least used ones. Fifthly, Dictionary Use, Repetition and Note-taking are considered the most helpful strategies. While Contextualization, Social Activities and Keyword are considered the least helpful ones. Sixthly, there are congruity and incongruity between the usage and helpfulness of the strategies. Through analysis, the paper also draws some implications for technical school English teaching. For examples, introducing and trying more learning strategies during vocabulary teaching; helping the students establish a multi-dimensional and inter-related vocabulary network of their own; helping students gain control and management over their own vocabulary learning and becoming autonomous vocabulary learners and so on. There are five chapters in this paper. Chapter One provides a brief introduction that states the purpose and the layout of the paper. Chapter Two reviews the main theories and the related researches in the field both of language learning strategies and vocabulary learning strategies. Chapter Three presents the research questions of the paper. It illustrates the method adopted in this study, consisting of the design of the questionnaire, the description of the subjects, the procedure and the data analysis. Chapter Four is about the analysis of the research results. Firstly, the students'beliefs and overall pattern of vocabulary learning are examined. Secondly the most and least used and helpful strategies used by the students are discussed followed by a comparison between the usage and helpfulness of the learning strategies. Finally the standard deviation is briefly talked about. Chapter Five is the conclusion of the whole research. It sums up the findings of the research and provides some suggestions for the future English teaching of the technical school.