An Empirical Study On The Effectiveness Of The Strategic Training In Vocabulary Learning In Junior High School

It is known to all that language contains three basic components—pronunciation,vocabulary and grammar, among which vocabulary is the most important one.Vocabulary learning is throughout the whole process of language learning and it directlyinfluences the development of the language learners’ listening, speaking, reading,writing and translation abilities. Its importance can be manifested by a statementproposed by a famous British linguist, D.A. Wilkins (1972), who claimed that withoutgrammar, very little can be conveyed while without vocabulary, nothing can beconveyed. According to New English Curriculum Standard（2011）, students are required to learn to use1500-1600words and200-300idioms or collocations when graduatingfrom junior high school. However, the English vocabulary learning has always been anobstacle for Chinese students especially for the beginners as they are relatively lack ofcorresponding vocabulary learning strategies to help them learn the words. The NewEnglish Curriculum Standard (2011) also points out that helping students develop somelearning strategies which are suitable for themselves in secondary stage is a veryimportant task for teachers. The related studies done at home and abroad concerning thevocabulary learning strategy and its training indicate that vocabulary learning strategieshave a positive impact on students’ English learning and they can improve and facilitatestudents’ vocabulary learning. Therefore, it’s necessary to conduct strategic training invocabulary learning. However, most of the studies done at home take college students,postgraduates or senior high school students as their subjects and among them thedescriptive studies are much more than empirical studies, not to mention the empiricalstudies which take junior high students as its subjects. Based on the current situation, theauthor believes that it’s necessary to conduct an empirical study on the strategic trainingin vocabulary learning which takes junior high school students as its subjects. The authormainly has two aims concerning the present study: On one hand, the author hopes totestify the effectiveness of the strategic training in vocabulary learning. On the otherhand, the author hopes the students can develop relatively right beliefs on vocabularylearning and can grasp some effective strategies which are suitable for themselvesthrough the present training.The present study takes97Grade8students from Class7(the experimental group)and Class8(the control group) of YuYing Middle School in Yan’an as its subjects. Theauthor conducted a four-month strategic training in vocabulary learning program inwhich both quantitative approach and qualitative approach are adopted. In the study, theauthor tries to find the answers to the following questions:1. what are the main obstaclesthe students in YuYing Middle School encounter in their English learning? What aretheir needs and suggestions for their English teacher?2. What is the current situation ofthe overall patterns of the vocabulary learning beliefs and vocabulary learning strategiesemployed by the Grade8students in YuYing Middle School in Yan’an?3. After thestrategic training in vocabulary learning, the author tries to find answers to the following questions: a. Are there any obvious changes on the vocabulary learning beliefs andvocabulary learning strategies employed by the students? If there are any changes, whatare they? b. Whether the strategic training in vocabulary learning can improve thestudents’ performance on English vocabulary test and English test? c. Whether strategictraining in vocabulary learning can enhance the students’ confidence and awareness ofemploying vocabulary learning strategies in their vocabulary learning and Englishlearning? d. After the training, what kinds of strategies are mainly adopted? Whatstrategies are commonly considered to be the most effective ones? What strategies aremost and least frequently adopted? The results show that significant changes have takenplace on the students’ beliefs on vocabulary learning and vocabulary learning strategiesemployed by them after the strategic training in vocabulary learning. The students’performance on the English test and vocabulary test has improved and their awareness toadopt vocabulary learning strategies has been greatly raised and their confidence inlearning vocabulary has been greatly enhanced. After the strategic training in vocabularylearning, the planning, grouping, association and cooperation strategies are the mainlyadopted strategies. The grouping and association strategies are considered to be the mosteffective strategies and association is the most frequently adopted strategy while theself-talk is the least frequently adopted strategy.At last, the author summarized the major findings and made a conclusion on thepresent study and some pedagogical implications together with the limitations as well asrecommendations for future research are put forward at the same time. The conclusion isthat the vocabulary learning strategy training is effective and there is an obvious changeon the vocabulary learning beliefs and strategies employed by the students. The studentshave developed relatively right beliefs on vocabulary learning and grasped someeffective strategies which are suitable for themselves through the present trainingprogram. Several pedagogical implications are offered by the author, one of them is thatthe vocabulary learning strategies should be trained systematically and it should beintegrated with daily teaching. Several limitations are pointed out by the author such asthe sample size is relatively small, the time is not enough and the methods for researchare limited and so on. Meanwhile, the author also provides some recommendations forfuture research such as involving more subjects from different junior high schools withdifferent English levels and involving more methods in the future research and so on.