A Study On Grade Seven Students’ English Vocabulary Learning Strategies

Vocabulary as the basic element of a language is very important in language learning. Without vocabulary we cannot even communicate with others correctly. And language learners who are poor in vocabulary may feel difficult to read and write well, they will also feel hard to understand what others speak and cannot express themselves correctly and idiomatically. However, English vocabulary learning has become a hard and difficult task for many Chinese learners. Researches on foreign language teaching indicate that effective vocabulary learning strategies can facilitate vocabulary learning. And the accumulation of the vocabulary of the learners’ is also very important in developing and improving their reading and listening comprehension. So it is necessary for teachers to help learners choose suitable learning strategies to learn vocabulary, and enable them to well memorize, understand and use vocabulary, then their English level will be improved.Since the1970s, many researchers have carried out studies on vocabulary learning strategies both in China and in the West. But the subjects of these studies are mainly college students, about their vocabulary learning. The studies on middle school students, especially the Grade Seven students are seldom concerned.In order to learn about the conditions of vocabulary learning of the Grade Seven students and help the students to learn vocabulary more effectively, the author chose this theme. In the study, the author adopted a questionnaire, an interview and two tests to investigate the Grade Seven students’ vocabulary learning strategies.88students from two separated classes were involved in the study to answer the questionnaire. They were divided randomly when they entered Grade Seven. The survey results showed:They relatively a little bit frequently use cognitive strategies, followed by social/affective strategies, and the meta-cognitive strategies are seldom used. Under cognitive strategies, repetition and wordlist are frequently used strategies, while other strategies such as association, word formation and guessing are not frequently used. In order to solve the problem reflected in the research, the author conducted the vocabulary learning strategy training, and hoped to improve their efficiency of learning vocabulary. After a term’s training, students memorize words more efficiently and they can better understand and use vocabulary.In a word, it is necessary and important to train the Grade Seven students’ vocabulary learning strategies. The author hopes that this study will offer some useful information for further studies.