An Investigation On Senior High School Students’ English Vocabulary Learning Strategies

Vocabulary, one of the three elements of a language, is the building block of any language. It has a close relationship with phonetics, grammar, and discourse, and it plays a fundamental role in a language. Without words, one cannot express his or her thought. Vocabulary learning runs through the whole process of language learning. It is the basis of all language skills. For English learners, vocabulary guarantees a further study of language learning.Concerning vocabulary, Senior High School English Curriculum Standards (Hereinafter referred to as Standards) requires students in senior high school to master 3300 or so words and 400～500 set collaborations and idioms.However, the real fact of vocabulary learning in senior high school proves that students are weak in contextualizing their vocabulary; they cannot find right expression to express what they really mean. Besides, monotonous sentence structures exist widely in their writing or oral expression. The existence of all those problems has a direct relationship with their poor vocabulary. What’s more, many differences in adopting of vocabulary learning strategies lay between successful students and unsuccessful students. Naiman et al (1978) and Rubin (1981) come to the conclusion that the most obvious differences between the good language learners and the weak ones are their differences in learning strategies. The successful language learners tend to combine many ways to analyze, memorize and apply some grammar points. Ahmed (1989) also discovers that the successful learners usually adopt more vocabulary learning strategies to master English vocabulary than those unsuccessful ones. Besides, the successful language learners can apply those strategies in other fields skillfully. Therefore, researches on vocabulary learning strategy are of great importance.In order to answer following questions concerning the overall condition of vocabulary learning strategies the seniors school students adopt and help the students to facilitate students’ English learning, the author of the present thesis has chosen this theme. In this study, the author issued some questionnaires and conducted some interviews in Lixiang Middle School, Ku Er Le City, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region to find out the use of English vocabulary learning strategies of senior high school strategies.98 senior high school students there from grade3 are randomly chosen to answer the questionnaire. The questions are:1. What attitude do senior students take towards vocabulary learning strategy?2. What are kinds the differences exist between successful language learners and unsuccessful language learners in terms of vocabulary learning strategies?The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One consists of background, purpose and significance of the study. Chapter Two is the literature review. This part presents the definition and classification of both learning strategies and vocabulary learning strategies. It also includes relevant studies at home and abroad. Chapter Three are the subjects, methods and the process of study to find out the use of vocabulary strategies in senior high schools. Chapter Four is the result and discussion. Chapter Five summarizes the overall use of vocabulary learning strategies in senior high schools and put forward pedagogical suggestions to teachers.