The Vocabulary Acquisition Learning Strategies In A Chinese Context

The concept of learner autonomy is extensive and complex. In the educational field, it comes from the education policy debates over foreign-directed learning in schools and universities the late60s of the20th Century in Europe and the USA. Since the late70s of the20th century the area of teaching and learning of foreign languages was also affected by these influences. The aim of this study is to determine how the issue’learning strategies’is used in Chinese universities on the example of a foreign language teaching at Zhejiang University. To this purpose, the opinion and attitudes of German as foreign language teachers about the using of learning techniques for vocabulary acquisition was investigated.For the second empirical research textbooks are analyzed in relation to the learning strategies for vocabulary acquisition. For this purpose the list of criteria was created based on literature review about learning strategies for vocabulary acquisition. The additional objective is to investigate whether and how the textbooks support the teachers in teaching of the learning strategies. In the present work I focus exclusively on the learning strategies for vocabulary acquisition. For the purpose of realizing the goals of the master thesis were on the one hand, foreign language teachers at Zhejiang University were surveyed with the help of interviews on their altitudes to Funk’s (1994) set of criteria for vocabulary work. In the next step based on these questions, the textbook "Studienweg Deutsch’, which found in Germanic studies widespread use, is analyzed in relation to the teaching of learning strategies for vocabulary acquisition.As the analysis of interviews with teachers showed the teachers have a positive attitude towards the teaching of learning strategies in the classroom. They use the opportunities to focus on the learning strategies during the classes. At this point it should be mentioned that according to the results of the interviews, almost all teachers use the vocabulary learning techniques, but they do not explicitly name themAnother result of the present work is that Chinese students have enormous time pressure. External workshops on learning strategies are also important for the students, but not to implement due to time constraints. In that case, such additional information that will facilitate learning, have to be also issued as part of the lesson. In addition, the events on learning strategies, which are offered outside the classroom, are not adequate to the goals of autonomous learning and do not bring the desired results.The results of teacher interviews show that with the students of German Studies and participants in the DSH-courses efficient learning are often discussed in detail. The first group has German as his main subject and for the DSH courses is more time available. Students from the diploma program, who has chosen German as their minor subject, are partially neglected. This is mostly explained by time pressure.The analysis of teacher interviews show, that the teachers discuss this issue explicitly only when they are offered explicitly in the textbook. Usually they take only the lessons’to learn learning’as an opportunity to discuss the learning behavior of learners and to encourage them to reflection. But the teaching in blocks is unproductive for the teaching of learning strategies. Because research studies on this topic have shown that learner integrate strategies better into their learning behavior when they are connected with the content in the classroom and are repeated again and again. A single instruction sequence for learning strategies would therefore not contribute to the autonomous learning behavior of learners positively.As it can be seen from the analysis, the issue of learning strategies has found access to the textbook concept. It is interesting to note that previous editions of the book series ’Studienweg Deutsch’have no special chapters about learning strategies. It is a good development, that textbook authors pay attention to such important issue. Especially in the...