Study On The Chinese Vocabulary Learning Strategies Of Korean Adults

It is widely accepted that the learning of language includes activities such as listening,reading,speaking and writing.The learning of vocabulary is one of the activities.In the post-elementary stage,the learner's vocabulary size affects the development of their language skills directly.Therefore,Korean adults learning Chinese as a second language who focus on the improvement of communicative ability and the result of HSK tests would put more emphasis on the learning of vocabulary.However,the improvement of the capability of using a target language is restricted by many factors,which includes the individual difference between learners,the external environment and the media language used in teaching and etc.As for the biological factor,the older the learner is,the more inflexible his/her brain and its mechanism would become,the more difficulty they may have in learning all kinds of skills,which include a new language.From the angle of vocabulary learning,we have to take into account that the vocabulary of Chinese is very big,while the Korean adults learning Chinese are still striving to enlarge their vocabulary and seeking efficient ways to memorize them.This research is based on the theory of strategies in vocabulary learning and related evidences.We conducted a survey involving 85 subjects including the Korean students studying in Shanghai,some Korean housewives living in Shanghai and some other Korean adults.We use survey as the main methodology and interview as a supplementary one.The survey includes two parts: “questionnaire of vocabulary learning strategy” and “questionnaire of overall situation of vocabulary learning”.The former is created on the basis of Oxford's “Strategies in Language Learning”(SILL),tailored to fit our aim with 33 questions with a focus on vocabulary learning.The latter includes two parts,investigating into the subjects' personal information and their overall situation in vocabulary learning.This part includes 18 questions.Through a investigation on Korean adults living in Shanghai with a Chinese proficiency at or above intermediate level,we get to know the strategies used by them in vocabulary learning and their actual situation of learning vocabulary.The individual differences of them in vocabulary learning strategies are also explored.We also investigated into the advantageous strategies used by some successful learners through interview,hoping that may help more future learners of Chinese vocabulary.We hope the findings may help the Korean adults learning Chinese vocabulary and the teaching of Chinese to Korean adults studying in target-language environment.