An Empirical Study On English Vocabulary Learning Strategies Training For Senior High School Students

The study of the language learning strategies started in the 1970 s.At that time,researches and theories in the field of second language teaching and learning have gradually shifted from examining the methods of teaching to investigating the learning process.And many learning strategies have been identified and classified.More and more research results come into being along with the development of researches on vocabulary learning strategies.Looking into the current situation of English teaching in China,teachers usually lay much emphasis on the introduction of language knowledge while they seldom guide the students with learning strategies,thus the low efficient results can not be avoided.Training of learning strategies is considered an efficient way to solve such difficult problems.However,it is hard to realize the aim that helping students develop efficient learning strategies in the process of English classroom teaching for senior high students on account of the shortage of practical methods and related textbooks and materials.This study is based on the Krashen's Input Hypothesis,O'Malley and Chamot framework,Schmidt's Noticing theory.The present research attempts to explore the following questions:(1)What's the general situation of vocabulary learning strategies adopted by senior high school students?(2)Is students' acquisition of vocabulary better facilitated by vocabulary learning strategy training?In order to solve these research questions,the author had investigated the current situation of vocabulary learning strategies in Xi'an Xinghua Senior High School.108 students,52 boys and 56 girls in two parallel classes from Grade two were involved in the study.During the experiment,the vocabulary learning strategies training will be used in experimental class and the previous teaching method will be used in control class.The research instruments contains two parts.One of the instrument is Learners' Learning Strategies Use Questionnaire,which is adapted from O'Malley and Chamot and Gu Yongqi.The other instrument in the present study is test paper which aims to test students' vocabulary knowledge consists of degree of familiarity with target words,meaning and sentence making.VKS is employed as a scale of scoring in this study.All the training covers selected for vocabulary learning,then the notebook-taking strategy and grouping strategy were chosen to be trained during a one-month project in the class.Data are collected and processed by means of statistic software SPSS16.0.Conclusions can be drawnthat vocabulary learning strategies employed by senior high students are at the initial stage and it needs to be improved.This experiment adopts SPSS16.0 software to analyze data,and its results are presented as follows:Firstly,The mean frequency of English learning strategies of high achievers and low achievers is 3.41 and 2.90 respectively.The most frequently used strategies are guessing strategies and dictionary strategies,the least are note taking strategies.Generally speaking,compared with low achievers,high achievers employ all the learning strategies more frequently and effectively.Secondly,students' acquisition of vocabulary is better facilitated by vocabulary learning strategies training.Students in experimental class are more familiar with the form of the target words and have a better understanding of target words' meaning.After completing the present study,some suggestions should be given about the further researches.The proper and appropriate use of vocabulary learning strategies training in senior middle school or junior middle should be further explored.In order to learn English easily and conveniently,teachers should use vocabulary learning strategies training advisably,which can be studied in the future researches.