Research On Vocabulary Learning Strategies Of Senior School Students

Vocabulary plays the basic part in English learning. But at present the traditional English teaching methods have led to inefficient language learning in senior middle schools. The students have much difficulty in written as well as oral English because of the lack of correct and effective English vocabulary learning strategies. Vocabulary learning is considered as the greatest barrier to further English learning. Nowadays most researches on vocabulary learning strategies are conducted in universities, only a few in high school. Exploring effective English vocabulary learning strategies is the best way to improve the students English in high school education. Based on such a background, the paper aims at exploring different vocabulary learning strategies and analyzing which strategies are beneficial to high school students.The paper is conducted mainly in the form of the questionnaire which is based on the classification of O'Malley & Chamot's vocabulary learning strategies. According to the data which are collected in the questionnaire, the paper presents the different vocabulary strategies used by different high school students, analyzes the differences in three aspects, that is, metacognitive strategies, cognitive strategies, and social strategies. The paper finds that high school students employed a variety of vocabulary learning strategies ranging from metacognitive to cognitive strategies, but the overall levels of metacognitive strategies and social strategies are low; significant difference is shown in the usage level between good learners and poor learners; significant grade difference is also shown and the growing tendency with the rising grade is found in the level of learning strategies, especially the metacognitive strategies. Finally the paper provides some creative measures to help develop students' learning strategy.Some suggestions have been proposed on the basic training principles of English vocabulary learning strategies and the training methods based on the findings of the research. High school students should both use a variety of strategies and put their hearts into learning them and the English teachers ought to change their educational notions and enhance the training principles of English vocabulary learning strategies. Only with the correct learning strategies, can the students really enlarge their vocabulary, enhance their English learning competence and improve their English.