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

The present study attempts to explore the overall pattern of English vocabulary learning beliefs and strategies adopted by some Chinese English majors. The mean and standard deviation of each vocabulary learning belief and strategy are calculated. It also tries to find out which beliefs and strategies are correlated with the students' scores in a vocabulary recall test. In addition, a comparison of vocabulary learning beliefs and strategies adopted by high-achievers and low-achievers is conducted through Independent-Samples T Test. A questionnaire, adapted from that of Gu and Johnson (1996: 673-679) which is designed based on the framework of O'Malley and Chamot (1990), and a vocabulary recall test, which is selected from The Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT) (Nation 1990: 269-271), are delivered to 140 tertiary-level English majors from Shandong University. With the help of the statistical software SPSS 11.5 for Windows, the analyses of the data reveal: (1). English majors are in favor of the belief that words should be learned through use & context; (2). The students report to adopt a variety of strategies in their vocabulary learning processes: Among the 23 dimensions of strategies, oral repetition, the three dictionary strategies and selective attention are the most frequently used strategies while association/elaboration, questioning for clarification, auditory encoding, grouping strategies and cooperation are the least commonly used ones; (3). The belief that words should be memorized is negatively related to the scores at the 0.05 level and the belief that words should be learned through use & context is positively related to the scores at the 0.05 level; 7 of the 23 strategies are significantly correlated with the scores in the vocabulary recall test in a positive way. They are guessing from immediate context, guessing from wider context, looking-up strategies, use of word-structure, contextual encoding, selective attention and use of word lists; (4). High-achievers show an explicit tendency to hold the belief that words should be learned through use & context. The two groups show significant differences in the following strategies: extended dictionary strategies, usage-oriented note-taking and self-monitoring. The presentstudy also provides some tentative implications for English vocabulary learning and teaching practice and provides some tentative recommendations for future research based on the limitations of the present study. At last, the author makes a summary of this study.