On The Relationship Between Chinese High School Students' Vocabulary Learning Strategies And Vocabulary Size

Vocabulary learning is essential for learning a new language.Vocabulary learning strategy is a key factor affecting the efficiency of language learning.It is important to examine the students' vocabulary learning strategies to help them find the most suitable strategies to enhance their vocabulary learning effectiveness.This study intends to find out the vocabulary strategies employed by senior high school students in China so as to find out the relationship between their vocabulary size and their vocabulary learning strategies use.98 students from two classes of Grade 3 at a senior high school in Wenzhou,Zhejiang were chosen for the study.The study consisted of a vocabulary learning strategies questionnaire adapted from Oxford's vocabulary strategies questionnaire(1990)and two tests--the receptive and productive vocabulary size tests adapted from Schmitt's receptive vocabulary size test(2001)and Laufer and Nation's(1995,1999)respectively.The major findings are:(1)the usage of vocabulary learning strategies is comparatively frequent in senior high school students;(2)significant correlation exists between students' receptive vocabulary size and the overall vocabulary learning strategies.Among the six sub strategies,the cognitive strategies,memory strategies,compensation strategies and social strategies are also correlated with the receptive vocabulary size;(3)the productive vocabulary size is only correlated to social strategies;(4)the two groups with large and small productive vocabulary size are significantly different in their use of social strategies,meta-cognitive strategies,memory strategies and cognitive strategies;(5)the students' vocabulary learning beliefs are correlated to their vocabulary learning strategies,their gender plays no difference.Finally,implications for English teaching and learning are given based on the results of the study.High school English teachers should choose the contributive vocabulary learning strategies when training the reading,listening,writing and speaking skills of their students.