A Survey Of The Present Situation Of English Vocabulary Learning Strategies Used At Junior High Schools

The basic goal of modern education is to teach students how to learn,which is the need for lifelong learning and is also the need of knowledgeinformation explosion times. Under the guidance of this basic goal, the aim ofEnglish teaching has also increased new content. English teachers havestarted to show concern about helping the learners to develop not only Englishskills but also English learning strategies. Language acquisition begins withvocabulary. Vocabulary learning is very important and runs through thewhole process of language learning. Famous linguist McCarthy (1990)pointed out that “no matter how good individual grammar is, no matter howbeautiful his voice is, he can not use this language to communicate withothers, if he doesn’t have enough vocabulary to express his feelings orunderstand other’s opinions and ideas.” Therefore, the status of vocabulary inforeign language acquisition and foreign language teaching is undoubtedlyimportant..Our Junior High School English Curriculum Standards that hasconcluded that vocabulary teaching is an important part of English teaching,and pointed out that teachers have to teach students the knowledge of Englishvocabulary and students need to master at least1500-1600words and200-300idioms phrases, and it has required that teachers should change the traditionalteaching methods in foreign language teaching, and strengthen the instructionof learning strategies to improve students’ self-learning ability. However,students’ vocabulary learning strategies and methods can’t be improved withthe increasing demands on vocabulary, and there is still a lot ofmisunderstanding for some junior high school teachers and students in theunderstanding of vocabulary learning strategies. Teachers think that it isimpossible and unnecessary to give vocabulary teaching and studentsthemselves should be responsible for their vocabulary. Students do not payattention to vocabulary learning because the increase of textbook vocabularyand test scores are not measured by the size of vocabulary directly. This practice has led to slow progress in English learning. In addition, the study ofvocabulary learning strategies has been mainly more focused on universitystudents and high school students, but few studies are related to the juniorhigh students.It is still an urgent problem that learners don’t know how to learn andmaster vocabulary effectively. Scholars at home and abroad have conductednumerous studies on learning strategies, and meta-cognitive strategies play acritical role. They emphasize cognition, communication, control, planning,resource and emotion in learning. Meta-cognitive strategies with whichlearners integrate and regulate their own learning process which are thepremise of other strategies. However, meta-cognitive strategy training in theteaching practice is still rare. In this paper the author points out theimportance of vocabulary and expounds the definition and classification ofvocabulary learning strategies. The vocabulary learning strategies this papertries to study include beliefs in English vocabulary learning, meta-cognitivestrategies，cognitive strategies and social/affective strategies. According tothe factors that influence the use of learning strategies and the facts of Englishvocabulary teaching and learning in junior high schools, this research focuseson the following research questions:1）What are the general beliefs ofvocabulary learning strategies held by junior high school students?2）What isthe frequency of use by the students in their language learning?3）Are theredifferences in beliefs and strategies using between the high-achievers and thelow-achievers in English learning?Then the author used SPSS to analyze the data and drew the conclusion:1）The vocabulary learning beliefs “words should be memorized” is morepreferable than the belief “words should be learned through context” and“words should be learned through use” among the investigated students;2)The current situation of using vocabulary learning strategies by those juniorhigh school students is not satisfactory, which suggests their use is at themedium level.3) Beliefs and Meta-cognitive strategies were differentsignificantly between the high-achievers and the low-achievers. But there are no significant differences in the use of cognitive and social strategies betweenthe two groups.From the above findings, the paper put forwards some suggestions: First,it is necessary for teachers to help learners to form the right beliefs invocabulary learning. Second, teachers should do some vocabulary learningtraining such as planning, evaluating of vocabulary learning. Third, in thisstudy learners can employ effective vocabulary learning strategies to improvetheir vocabulary autonomous learning.