An Investigation Of Vocabulary Learning Strategies Used By Non-english Major EFL Learners

Vocabulary learning strategies are one of the vital components in English learningactivities, which refer to the intentional behaviour and thoughts. It is adopted bylearners during learning in order to have a better understanding of the target words, tolearn and to remember the words in a more effective way. As for the Non-Englishmajor EFL learners, due to their comparatively poor basic English skills andunawareness of how to use various vocabulary learning strategies efficiently andeffectively, most of them are frustrated and disappointed with the results though theyhave spent lots of time on studying. In view of this circumstance, through a vividresearch, the author aims to draw an overall picture of Non-English major EFLlearners’ vocabulary learning strategies and to provide some learning and teachingmethods for both students and teachers.623non-English majors from different departments in Business College of ShanxiUniversity are involved in the survey to complete the questionnaire, and32of themare chosen to accept interviews. The questionnaire employed in this study is adaptedfrom Gu and Johnson’s (1996), which is based on O’Malley and Chamot’sclassification of language learning strategies. Altogether it includes three broadcategories of vocabulary learning strategies (cognitive, meta-cognitive andsocial/affective strategies).By using descriptive analysis and independent Samples T-test, the thesis concludes the following findings:(1) Non-English major EFL learners adopt a widerange of strategies in learning English vocabulary. As for the three broad categories,the most frequently used strategy is cognitive strategy. Next are the meta-cognitivestrategy and social/affective strategy. Of all subcategories in the questionnaire, themost frequently used strategies are repetition, guessing from context, and note-taking.The least used subcategories include social, associating and imagery strategies.(2)High-and low-score students have significant differences in cognitive andmeta-cognitive strategies. High-score students are relatively mature vocabularylearning strategies users. They use vocabulary learning strategies more frequentlythan low-score students, except repetition strategies.(3) Due to the different learningand thinking styles, some differences indeed exist between the investigated studentsof humanities and sciences. The students of sciences are fond of association,grouping and contextualization strategies, while the students of humanities are morelikely to use repetition and note-taking strategies.(4) The female students use thestrategies in higher frequency than the male students except some cognitive andsocial activity strategies, which may be mainly related with the different personalitiesand social characters.Based on the previous conclusions, concrete pedagogical suggestions forEnglish vocabulary learning strategies are put forward, in order to promote the vocabulary learning and teaching in the future.