An Analysis On English Vocabulary Learning Strategies Employed By Senior High School Students

The three elements of language are phonetics, grammar and vocabulary. Among them, vocabulary is the most fundamental one. In the vocabulary learning process, vocabulary learning strategies play an important role. Many abroad researchers have made great program. Their purpose was to know which strategies were better for the vocabulary study so as to provide efficient evidence for the whole language learning. Many domestic researchers also made a series of studies and obtained great achievements in this field, but most of the studies aimed at the college students, few studies focused on middle school students. At present, vocabulary learning is rather difficult for the senior high school students. In the process of vocabulary teaching, exploring and summarizing effective vocabulary learning strategies can help students learn vocabulary effectively.The major purpose of the study is to explore the vocabulary learning strategies employed by the senior high school students. The subjects are 160 students from the Gao’an Middle School. The author designed a vocabulary learning strategies questionnaire based on Gu and Johnson’s (1996) latest version of the questionnaire VLQ5 and the vocabulary size test was selected from the Vocabulary Levels Test (Nation 1990). With the help of SPSS 16.0, descriptive analysis, correlation analysis and independent samples t-tests were used to analyze the data.Several findings are revealed from the study:firstly, senior high school students have changed the traditional belief, they held the belief that words should be learned by using or acquiring from context. They can use a variety of vocabulary learning strategies ranging from meta-cognitive, cognitive to social/affective strategies, but the overall level is low. Secondly, all the meta-cognitive, cognitive and social/affective strategies have positive correlation with students’vocabulary proficiency. Furthermore, most of them are significantly positive correlated. Thirdly, the vocabulary proficient learners employ more strategies than the less proficient learners in the three main vocabulary learning strategies and use them at a higher frequency than the less proficient learners.On the basis of the study, some implications are put forward for vocabulary learning and teaching. Firstly, teachers should guide students to form positive vocabulary learning method. The reasonable using of vocabulary learning strategies can not only improve students’ vocabulary quality and quantity, but also facilitate the whole English learning. Secondly, for different students, teachers should use different teaching method, develop effective teaching programs to enrich the cultural atmosphere.