A Research On Senior One Students' Vocabulary Learning Strategies

Vocabulary is one of the most important basic elements of the composition of language.Learner's vocabulary restricts their performance in other aspects.As one of the most important research fields in foreign language learning,vocabulary learning has attracted more and more scholars' attention in the past few decades.For English vocabulary learning strategies,many scholars have also conducted deep research.Their common goal is to know which strategies are more effective for students' vocabulary learning and provide the basis to improve the efficiency of foreign language learning.Unfortunately,most of their research is conducted in English or non-English major students in college,there are not many researches on senior one students' learning strategies in the basic stage,especially in terms of vocabulary.Therefore,from the perspective of learners,this paper addresses three questions as follows:1)What vocabulary learning strategies are used by senior one students in English vocabulary learning process?2)What problems do senior one students have in the process of using vocabulary learning strategies to learn vocabulary?3)How do teachers help senior one students use vocabulary learning strategies to learn vocabulary?According to the cognitive theory of “Adaptive Control of Thought”(hereinafter referred to as the ACT theory),the researcher takes 230 senior one students of 5 classes in 3 schools in Xuzhou and 5 English teachers of each class as subjects to carry out a research.Based on the descriptive analysis of questionnaires,the correlation analysis and regression analysis of vocabulary test,the results of interviews and classroom observation,the researcher finds something as follows.Firstly,senior one students are able to use many kinds of vocabulary learning strategies to learn vocabulary.According to frequency of use,the researcher divides these strategies into three groups.Guessing,note-taking,word-formation and dictionary-using are most frequently used by senior one students.These are the strategies that teachers emphasize most and students always unconsciously use them.Image,self-evaluation,association,rote-learning,monitoring and self-motivation are sometimes used by senior one students.These strategies have a closely relationship with their learning habits.Cooperation,planning,context and asking for help are seldom used by senior one students.These strategies except the context strategy have no direct relationship with their achievement' improving,so the teacher put less emphasis on these strategies' teaching.Secondly,most of senior one students hold the view that vocabulary is most difficult to learn in English learning;they have difficulties using vocabulary learning strategies freely and efficiently to learn vocabulary.And the most common problems that students have are oblivion and confusion.Enough exercise and timely reviewing are conducive to consolidating students' newly learned words,which help to ameliorate students' oblivion.As for the problem of confusion,students lack a systematic learning method.They need to learn new words with the previously learned words.Thirdly,the teacher puts much emphasis on their explanation and students' exercise to help students use vocabulary learning strategies to learn vocabulary.Normally,they only teach students cognitive strategies in class,including guessing,note-taking,context,association,word-formation and dictionary-using,but they lack the teaching of meta-cognitive strategy and social/emotional strategy to students.This study shows that although senior one students can consciously use vocabulary learning strategies to learn vocabulary,but they encounter many difficulties in this process.Therefore,teachers should pay more attention to teaching students vocabulary learning strategies,and guide them to choose the most suitable vocabulary learning strategies combing with their own learning characteristics.