A Survey Into Chinese Senior High School Students’ English Vocabulary Learning Strategies

Words are the building material of languages. A language can not exist without words.That is to say, vocabulary learning plays a crucial role in the whole language learning system. In recent years, people become more and more aware of students’ autonomy in foreign language learning, which activates the research of vocabulary learning strategies. At the same time, people pay more attention to vocabulary than before in language learning, and a bulk of literature is more focused on the vocabulary learning strategies used by learners.Many foreign scholars made a breakthrough in the area. Their common goal is to get to know what the most effective strategies for vocabulary learning, thus provides the basis for improving the learning efficiency in language. Many domestic scholars have made great achievements in this field. But their research subjects are generally undergraduates of English major or non-English majors. However, high school students generally feel that vocabulary learning is a big difficulty in learning English, So finding out the overall situation of thigh school students’ use of vocabulary learning strategies is a quit necessary exploration.Based on the theories and perspectives of Gu, Johnson (1996), Oxford (1990) and Horwitz (1988), this dissertation carries out an investigation of vocabulary learning strategies of126students in a senior high school of Wuhan City, Hubei Province owing to the fact that there is a gap in the studies on vocabulary learning strategies among learners of all levels, especially there is lack of studies on selection and employment of vocabulary learning strategies among senior high school students in China.The results of the survey found that although the students are able to use multiple vocabulary learning strategies in vocabulary learning, but none of the scores in mean strategies is above4. Girl’s vocabulary learning strategy use frequency is generally higher than boys;students of high scores are better at using strategies than the ones with low scores. In addition, the data collected by questionnaires and interviews indicated that senior high school students in this study employed a variety of vocabulary learning strategies, among which rote learning strategy was found most frequently used for the purpose of examinations.The survey results on vocabulary learning and teaching has certain reference value and implication for future English vocabulary teaching and learning. On the one hand, students should be more focused on the planning and management of English vocabulary learning,and try to use different learning strategies to get better result in process of English vocabulary learning. On the other hand, teachers should select appropriate learning strategies and take more efforts to cultivate students’ ability of autonomic-learning and self-management in the future.