Research On Non-English Major Students' Vocabulary Learning Strategies

College English Curricular Requirements (Requirements hereafter) has been drawn up officially since 2004 ( formally settled down in 2007) to provide colleges and universities with the guidelines for English instruction to non-English major students. Nowadays the new model has been gradually considered, recognized, practiced and accepted. The ultimate target of Requirements lies in the improvement of English ability including listening, speaking, reading, writing, and translating accordingly and in a balanced way. It is satisfactory in a certain degree that there is no longer any apparent failure among the five comprehensions above, especially the comprehensions in listening and speaking which are the weakest in the chain gradually improved in the new model. However, for recent four years or so it is become quite difficult for non-English major students to get a larger breakthrough while they come to a certain level of achievements. An alarming phenomenon is indicated obviously by the scores of several recent College English Level Tests that while the general trend of the test passage rises from 53%, 61%, 76%, 78%, and the latest 86%, the individuals'scores (a full mark 710) range from 300 to 450,which is far from the deadline of the excellent achievement with the score of 550. To our discontent according to the analysis of the test results and content, vocabulary is an outstanding barrier to learners which undoubtedly leads to a lot of problems, for instance, students sometimes either cannot recognize or frequently misspell words with listening comprehension, or misunderstand reading materials, or mistranslate sentences, or have a low competence in writing because of a small vocabulary. Vocabulary is the foundation of language learning. As for the Second Language Learning learners, to grasp a certain vocabulary is of great necessity. While a majority of difficulties met by college students during English learning derive from the lack of vocabulary, thus impacting the improvement of ability to listen, speak, read and write. Thus, it is pressing and vital time to have a specialized research on vocabulary and vocabulary learning strategies which talks about how to master words, once again but under the new model. Emerging is the vocabulary learning strategy recently, which is committed to the improvement of language learning in each way of comprehension by means of solid foundation of vocabulary through all kinds of methods. Then, what and how are the improvement effects of vocabulary learning strategy? In order to help college students have a good command of vocabulary and improve English comprehensive level, this thesis makes a survey and analysis on the vocabulary learning strategies of non-English majors under the new teaching mode. Since 2008 the selected students in Hebei University of Science and Technology have been required to be engaged in the study for by questionnaires, interviews and tests with equal validity and reliability into two groups to analyze the relationship between strategies and effects. For two years a experimental group has been deliberately trained vocabulary strategies and been more engaged in the practice. In the study, s under the autonomous model, while a control group has just been told the importance of the autonomous study without any guidance of vocabulary learning strategies. The results were dramatic: after the intervention, the experimental group's vocabulary enlarged and was mastered sound and good which naturally leads to a final higher score; while the control group lost a lot interest and in the end has little even less improvement although the two groups have been under the same autonomous learning system. This study provides evidence of the benefits of emphasizing on vocabulary learning strategies under the new autonomous learning model in order to get a breakthrough and improve English learning largely in the edged. At the beginning, the freshmen were interviewed and tested and the same things were done again two years later. The results were input into SPSS to be compared in order to analyze the relevance of strategies and learning achievements, as well as the changes of use of vocabulary learning strategies. The significance of the research includes: 1) What kind of relationship between non-English majors'vocabulary learning strategies and academic achievements?2) After the experimental practice what are the difference between the academic achievements and the formal ones? 3)Which vocabulary strategies are more frequently employed by high efficient students? The research divided the subjects into two groups to compare and contrast through methodology of quality and quantity,including:Testing, Investigating, Interviewing, and Analyzing. The measuring tools include: Foreign Language Learning Ability Test / FLLAT; College English Test Band Four/cet-4; Vocabulary Learning Strategies Questionnaires; and learning log. Microscopically, the results show that there are positive relevance between academic achievements and the employment of Vocabulary Learning Strategies. Macroscopically, the results indicate that the choices of strategies vary from person to person. What should be paid attention to is the significance of Social Strategies. Other findings include: the use of Vocabulary Learning Strategies rises from the practice of learning activities, develops with learning process, changes according to different criteria, and at last come into being after a dynamic promotion.This paper places dramatic significance for language learning, learning method transformation, as well as teaching practice. This study provides evidence of the benefits of emphasizing on vocabulary learning strategies in the hope that college students can make full use of vocabulary strategies to get a breakthrough and improve English learning largely in the edged.