An Investigation Into Vocabulary Teaching And Learning Strategies In Senior Middle School

This research attempts to explore the English vocabulary teaching and learning strategies using status in some Chinese senior middle school. The similarities and differences in English vocabulary strategies use among students of three levels are explored. And the correlations and mismatches of the teaching and learning strategies will be studied. The survey was done through three ways. The author did class observation and interviewed 23 teachers and some students in a senior middle school. And the questionnaires based on the findings of some scholars, such as O'Malley and Chamot (1990), Oxford (1990), Wen Qiufang (1996) and so on, were administered to 117 students in the senior middle school. Students'vocabulary learning strategies were investigated at meta-cognitive, cognitive and social/affective levels. By using SPSS, the results reveal the following major findings:1)Most of the investigated students incline to regard vocabulary learning as a monotonous and mechanical task. Generally speaking, they adopt a variety of vocabulary learning strategies in vocabulary learning;2)Reading and written repetition, oral repetition and some other mechanical strategies are the most commonly used memorization strategies. Other frequently used strategies include semantic association, word formation, grouping and so on;3)Students of three score levels use some similar vocabulary leaning strategies. However, there are also some significant differences in their using of some learning strategies in vocabulary learning;4)The strategies teachers often use are connecting, displaying, interacting and so on;5)There are some correlations between teachers'teaching strategies and students'learning strategies.