A Study Of Vocabulary Memory Strategies Used By Senior One Students With Different Score Intervals

Vocabulary plays a critical role in second language acquisition.Vocabulary memory strategies refer to the application of methods, skills and memory rules, to maintain and extract information. Although there are a lot of researches on VMSs, most of the previous subjects are college students, and pay little attention to the senior high school students. The reality of vocabulary teaching in high school is still far from satisfactory. A majority of students still memorize words in traditional ways like repeating and rehearsal.The result of those kinds of approaches is time-consuming and inefficient.Besides, it is believed that students with different learning proficiency may be different in selecting of memory strategies. Therefore, it is necessary to study their difference and find out their difficulty.Based on a detailed literature review on the theories and researches of famous scholars, the paper has classified the vocabulary memory strategies.And the research questions are as follows: 1. What are the general features of Chinese Senior One students in employing memory strategy for their vocabulary learning? 2. Are there significant differences between students with different score intervals? 3. Is learner’s use of memory strategiescorrelated with their vocabulary acquisition performance?The paper reach to the following conclusions:1.The most frequently used memory strategy by Senior One students is repetition strategy, followed by word formation strategy and block memory strategy. However, strategies like key-word memory strategy are seldom applied by students, and neither nor contextual memory strategy and word list memory strategy.2. The differences between students with different learning proficiency:firstly, the higher students’ proficiency is, the more frequently they tend to use the following strategies: activation memory strategy, contextual memory strategy, meta-memory strategy, etc. Besides, high achievers prefer to use more advanced and complicated memory strategies while low achievers students tend to use less efficient, unskillful, and mechanical memory strategies when memorizing words. Thirdly, strategies like word formation analysis, meta-memory strategy, activation strategy and contextual method exist great difference between students in different score intervals. Finally,students’ strategies using actuality among low achievers are far from satisfactions.3. The correlation between VMSs and vocabulary acquisition performance:Firstly, pronunciation strategy, contextual strategy, activation strategy, word formation analysis strategy and association strategy are significantly correlated to vocabulary acquisition performance. Secondly, repetitionstrategy and word list strategy are negatively correlated to vocabulary performance. Thirdly, block strategy and key-word memory strategy need to be treated respectively and teachers should give appropriate guidance.The structure of this study: Chapter one gives a brief introduction about the whole study. Chapter two makes some literature reviews, including the definition and classification of VMSs, some psychological related theories,and relevant studies at home and abroad. Chapter three is about the research methodology. Chapter four focuses on data analysis. Chapter five summarizes the major findings of the study, and proposes pedagogical implications from both theoretical and practical aspect. The limitations of this study are also presented in this part. The last chapter also provides some further directions,recommendations and suggestions for future study.