A Survey And Research Of English Vocabulary Learning Strategies Adopted By Chinese English Majors

Vocabulary learning is of tremendous significance in the process of foreign language learning, or rather, it plays a leading role in this process. However, with regard to the research about vocabulary learning strategies, it has been ignored for quite a long time and it was until 1970s that further researches started to be carried out. As to the researches within this field, it mainly concentrated on the studies about the methods, strategies, behaviors adopted in the learning process. During the recent years, though there has been an increasing number of essays and works on vocabulary learning strategies, it still has quite few researches in several aspects of this field, especially the studies about the vocabulary learning strategies among English majors.With regard to researches on learning strategies, it can date back to the early 1970s when a large number of researches affirmed the positive effects of some language learning strategies on the learning process(Rubbin,1995; Oxford, 1990)? In China, a few of scholars made some researches on learning strategies,such as Wen Qiufang(1995), Ma Guanghui(1997),Wuxia, WangQiang(1998).As a significant as well as an indispensable part in foreign learning.the researches on relevant strategies have been attached much more importance. In recent years,there has a wide range of studies on vocabulary learning strategies adopted by Chinese students. However,the majority of the researches mainly centered on general undergraduates or postgraduates, which showed some shortcomings in researches among English majors in terms of vocabulary learning strategies, which thus leaves much space for this paper to do the relevant research to fill the blank.This thesis would make the investigation and study based on relevant researches accomplishments achieved by linguistics at home and abroad, taking 55 sophomores and 53 first year students majoring in English from North-West Universities for Nationalities as case study, to make a survey about vocabulary learning strategies.it tried to get a better and more comprehensive understanding of such as aspects as English major's views on vocabulary learning, the learning strategies and relevant applications, to enable teachers to take corresponding measures to instruct students in English teaching and learning, to ultimately enhance the accomplishments and performance of English majors in vocabulary learning.In this dissertation, it tried to present a comparatively panoramic view of the general situation about part of Chinese English majors'concepts of vocabulary learning and corresponding strategies through calculating the mean value and standard deviation; in addition, it would attempt to find out which ideas and strategies were closely associated with or in direction proportion to their performance in vocabulary; besides, it would also make a comparison between the successful learners and less successful learners on vocabulary learning concepts and strategies adoption through the independent sample T Test.with regard to the data, it as gained through a questionnaire about vocabulary learning strategies adapted from a questionnaire of Gu & Johnson (1996) and a test on vocabulary test selected from relevant tests in Nation (1990) In this thesis,it would take advantage of SPSS 11.5 to analyze the data, and according to the findings and results, it revealed the following aspects,for one thing, English majors tended to learning vocabulary through applying them to specific and practical contexts; for another, the participants preferred to advantage of a variety of vocabulary learning strategies and among the 23 kinds of strategies the most frequently adopted approaches were oral repetition,the three strategies on dictionary usage and selective attention, and the least ones were association, problem clarification, auditory encoding strategies, classification and cooperation strategies; in addition,it was in negative correlation at 0.05 level between the belief that memorizing words thorough rote learning and the performance in vocabulary, while it was in positive correlation at 0.05 level between application and learning words in specific contexts. Besides,there were 7 strategies were in positive correlation with performance in vocabulary test,such as guessing words'meaning according the context in a narrow sensc,figuring out the words' meaning from a wider context, looking up dictionaries, analyzing the internal structure of a word, coding strategies, selective attention and using a word list to learn vocabulary. What's more, the group made up of students with higher scores preferred to learn vocabulary through the usage and putting them into contexts.as to the two groups, the students showed distinct differences in selection of the following strategies, such as wide use of dictionaries, application-oriented note taking and self-monitoring strategies.Therefore, in this thesis, it would try to provide some enlightenment and recommendations to vocabulary learning and teaching practice, at the same time the author would point out the deficiencies and restrictions in this research, base on which some corresponding suggestions would be put forward tentatively for further studies in future.As to the thesis, it was made up of five major parts. As for the first part,it was a brief introduction, mainly illustrating the research background, the current situation of vocabulary learning among English majors as well ad the research purposes and significance.In the second part, it was a literature review, interpreting the definition of the learning strategies, the three most effective and influential learning strategies classifications as well as relevant theories about vocabulary learning strategies.with regard to the third part, it was about the investigation about vocabulary learning strategies among English majors, including the research objectives, hypothesis, research respondents,tools, procedures, investigation results as well as data analysis.in the fourth part, it would concentrate on the discussion about training and practicing of vocabulary learning strategies among English majors. As to final part, it would make a general as well comprehensive summary about the whole thesis.