On Gender Differences In English Vocabulary Learning Strategies Among Junior High Students In The Western Rural Area

Vocabulary is the basic unit of language, and it is essential for foreign language learning. However,most students feel that vocabulary learning is the most difficult task for them. Many scholars have didrelated research about the factors affecting the selecting of vocabulary learning strategies, but there arerarely studies on the similarities and differences in vocabulary learning beliefs and strategies amongdifferent gender. This paper studies on this point, which will provide reference for the further research onvocabulary learning.In this paper, the author took junior high school students in western rural area as the research subject,Gu&Johnson’ vocabulary learning questionnaires and interviews as the main research instruments.According to the opinion of Wen Qiufang(1996), researchers should first study students’ learning beliefs inorder to investigate students’ learning strategies. The questionnaire includes two parts: the questionnaire tosurvey students’ learning beliefs and the questionnaire to investigate students’ learning strategies.Measuring students’ vocabulary learning beliefs is from three dimensions: rote learning, context andapplication, measuring students’ vocabulary learning strategies is from meta-cognitive strategies, cognitivestrategies and social/affective strategies these three dimensions, aiming at surveying the situation ofvocabulary learning strategies among junior high students, exploring the similarities and differences amongdifferent gender in vocabulary learning beliefs and vocabulary learning strategy.The results show that: in the three kinds of beliefs: rote learning, context and application, studentsgenerally considered rote learning is not conducive to vocabulary learning, words can be efficiently learnedin the context and application, while in daily learning, they are more likely to use rote learning, inmeta-cognitive strategies, cognitive strategies and social/affective strategies, the frequency of thestrategies used by students is low, the cognitive strategies are used more frequently than the use ofmeta-cognitive strategies and social/affective strategies; Among rote learning, context and application, thebelief of male students on rote learning is higher than female students, but the belief of male students oncontext and application is lower than female students, and there is no significant difference in learningthrough context, in the meta-cognitive vocabulary learning strategies, the frequency of male students islower than female students, in the using of cognitive strategies, the frequency of male students is also lowerthan female students, but there is no significant difference, while in social/affective strategies, the frequency of male students is higher than female students.In view of the above study, the author suggests that in the actual teaching, teachers should leadstudents to form the right learning beliefs, strengthen their training of vocabulary learning strategies,especially meta-cognitive strategies and social/affective strategies, in training, teachers should also payattention to the gender differences between male students and female students in terms of vocabularylearning, and design different exercises aiming at the gender difference in vocabulary learning and training.Students should appropriately select vocabulary learning strategies in the process of vocabulary learning, sothat improve the autonomical ability in vocabulary learning.