A Study Of Medical English Vocabulary Features And Its Learning Strategies

In the learning of the second language, vocabulary is always considered as the foundation for other skills and only under this groundwork can we further our levels of reading, writing, listening, speaking and translating. For the medical English, professional English of medicine, vocabulary has been considered as the important part of teaching and difficult part of learning. With the development of research on second language teaching and learning, researchers have realized that language learning strategy is one of the crucial factors to foreign language learning. Employing suitable learning strategies, students can improve their foreign language learning efficiency and effectiveness. Knowing what learning strategies students are using, teachers can make relevant adjustment in the teaching methods to promote the teaching effect.Based on the researches of language learning strategies, the study of vocabulary learning strategies of foreign languages has attracted much attention of many scholars. Foreign scholars have built the theoretical framework and the different classifications, which were mainly directed at the learners of English native speakers or at learners, for which English as second language. Since the 1980s, learners in China have carried out their studies on the vocabulary learning strategies of English:some compare the vocabulary learning strategies of good learners to poor learners; some compare the vocabulary learning strategies of the basic English to special English of graduate students; some investigate the vocabulary learning strategies of English majors; and some study the vocabulary learning strategies of non-English majors. The results are also different.Focusing on medical English vocabulary learning strategies, the research has 82 third-year students as the subject. The results of the questionnaire and vocabulary test are analyzed by SPSS and the findings are as follows:the descending order of frequency of the three major English learning strategy categories used by the third-year medical students during their learning of medical English vocabulary is cognitive strategies, metacognitive strategies, and social-affective strategies:there exist significant differences between the good learners and poor learners in using strategies during their learning medical English vocabulary; except strategies of mechanical memory and using mother tongue that are negatively correlated with the test performance, other vocabulary learning strategies investigated are positively correlated to the medical vocabulary test scores.In the last section, pedagogical enlightenments and limitation of the study are discussed.