A Study On Vocabulary Learning Strategies Of Students In Technical Colleges

'Learning strategies are techniques, approaches or deliberate actions that students take in order to facilitate the learning, recall of both linguistic and content area information.'(Chamot, 1987). The research into this area began in 1970s. With about 3 decades' development, it infiltrated into every aspects of language learning. Vocabulary, as a basic unit of language, is not only a necessary language learning part, but also a common obstacle.Nation (1990), Cohen (1990), and Oxford (1990) did a lot work on the definition and classification of vocabulary strategy; Pressley et.al.(1982), Hogben and Lawson(1994), Hulstijin(1992,1997)worked much in key-words strategies; Clarke and Nation(1980), Nagy(1985), Mondria and Wit-De Boer (1991) researched in the contextual and guessing strategies; and Nober Schmitt listed taxonomy of vocabulary strategies according to Cook and Mayer's distinction of vocabulary activities.Since Huang published 'An investigation of learning strategies in oral communication that Chinese EFL learners in China employ', the English learning strategy researches have made a big progress. The research into vocabulary learning strategy, as an important part of the language learning strategy research, has many achievements. But the research focused on undergraduates or postgraduates, and seldom on technical college students. As a big part of China high institution education, technical colleges cultivate many high technicians, so the students' English level is also important to researchers.This study aims to explore the following questions:(1) To identify the present situation of the vocabulary strategy using in a technical school;(2) To compare the good learners' vocabulary strategy with the bad learners;(3) To see the difference of vocabulary strategy using in different grades;(4) To see the difference of vocabulary strategy using between English majors and non-English majors.