A Study Of Vocabulary Learning Strategies Of English Majors In Quizlet Environment

Being the basic part of language learning, vocabulary greatly influences listening, speaking, reading, writing as well as the communicative competence. With the popularity of computers and the Internet, a lot of English vocabulary learning softwares emerge at the right moment. Compared with traditional vocabulary learning, using softwares to learn vocabulary not only breaks through the limitation of time and space but also makes vocabulary learning more personalized. The previous studies on vocabulary learning strategies are mainly conducted in traditional classroom-type learning, and their results may not be applied to computer-assisted vocabulary learning. Therefore, this study tries to shed light on the vocabulary learning strategies in the environment of Quizlet which is a kind of online digital flashcards for vocabulary learning.This study took 27 juniors majoring in English as the research participants, and the research questions were (1) What kind of vocabulary learning strategies do the English majors prefer to choose when they use Quizlet to learn vocabulary? (2) What are attitudes that they hold to Quizlet-assisted vocabulary learning? And what is their experience of the whole learning process? (3) Is there any correlation between vocabulary learning strategies and vocabulary test result?(1) The strategies’ questionnaire result indicates that the overall levels of the participants’ vocabulary learning strategies are relatively high, and most of them can employ several different kinds of strategies. From the aspect of three dimensions for vocabulary learning strategies, the metacognitive strategies have higher frequency than cognitive strategies, and social/affective strategies are less frequently used. What’s more, the top five frequently used vocabulary learning strategies are vocabulary exercise and games, sharing, contextualization, looking up dictionary, self-monitoring, while the five least frequently used vocabulary learning strategies are keyword, association, reward encouragement, cooperation, advance plan. (2) Student’ attitudes towards Quizlet are studied from how listening, speaking, reading and writing assist vocabulary learning. The results show that students hold positive attitudes towards listening and reading, while the assistance of speaking and writing in vocabulary learning needs to be improved. Students’ experience of Quizlet is studied from the perspectives of usability, usefulness, and enjoyment. Overall, students are satisfied with these three perspectives, but there are still some imperfections in Quizlet which needs immediate improvements. For instance how to better use Quizlet to stimulate students’ interest in vocabulary learning. (3) The correlation between vocabulary learning strategies and vocabulary achievement are analyzed by SPSS, and the results show that the strategies of pronunciation rules, translation, question for clarification, and reward encouragement are strongly correlated with the vocabulary test scores. What’s more, the strategies of self-evaluation, selective attention, association, contextualization, and affective control are correlated with vocabulary achievement.According to the above research results, this study proposes that English learners should employ different vocabulary learning strategies consciously. Meanwhile, teachers can introduce some vocabulary learning tools to activate students’ interest in vocabulary learning, and deliver more systematic training on vocabulary learning strategies for students. Finally, in view of the shortcoming in Quizlet, the designers shouldn’t confine vocabulary learning to the words’definitions, and more opportunities should be provide to vocabulary application. In order to make the target words’ information accessible to learners, the Quizlet should be linked to e-dictionary. Finally, Quizlet can open a platform convenient for learners to communicate with each other.