An Action Research On Learning Strategies Training For Junior Middle School Students’ Ability To Learn English Vocabulary

Enlarging vocabulary is of vital importance in development of students’ English abilities. Anadequate amount of vocabulary, as the prerequisite of improving the English learning efficiency, canfinally enhance the comprehensive ability including listening, speaking, reading, and writing. NationalEnglish Curriculum Standard for Compulsory Education in China requires teachers change thetraditional teaching methods and help students improve their autonomous learning ability by adoptingEnglish learning strategy training.This thesis is concerned with an action research on development of junior-middle-school students’ability to use learning strategies of English vocabulary. Vocabulary learning is of vital importance inEnglish learning process. Yet, according to the author’s observation and investigation, the students’knowledge about vocabulary only stayed at remembering level, and they did not pay much attention toits using. Their entire frequency of using strategies is low, and rote memorizing plays a dominant role inthe learning process while use of learning strategies stays at low level in frequency, and in most cases,occurring involuntarily.This situation affected the students’ English learning efficiency to great extent. So the authorintended to make a change from the ways of learning by an action research to offer students learningstrategies training in order to improve their ability to learn vocabulary and use strategies independently.In this research, students participants came from Class1, Grade8, No.47Middle School in Hefei. Afteran investigation of their knowledge about vocabulary learning strategies, the author designed a researchplan and implemented it by training on the use of the vocabulary learning strategies in this class. Thecorresponding tests were used to examine students’ ability to use strategies, as well as their improvementon identifying, memorizing, and using English words and expressions. Besides, the students’ reflectingquestionnaire were collected as feedback to find out whether their awareness of using strategiesimproved.After18weeks’ training, the students’ achievements proves that the training was effective onimproving the learners’ ability to use strategies, and their ability to identify, memorize, as well as usingvocabulary were improved. Their feedback in the form of questionnaires, together with the author’sobservation, also proves that the students’ awareness of using learning strategies has been raised.