| Junior middle school is the critical period for foreign language learning.The cultivation of students’ comprehensive English ability is based on vocabulary learning.English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education（2022 edition）presents that students’ effective use of learning strategies not only helps them grasp the learning direction,adopt scientific approaches and improve learning efficiency,but also helps them form the ability of autonomous learning and lays a foundation for lifelong sustainable learning.Vocabulary learning strategies are conducive for students to acquire and master more vocabulary and improve learning efficiency and effect.If junior high school students can master appropriate and effective vocabulary learning strategies at this stage,they will lay a good foundation for their future foreign language learning.However,the emphasis on teaching and learning vocabulary learning strategies is still insufficient.Many scholars at home and abroad have conducted researches on vocabulary learning strategies from multiple perspectives,but most of the research subjects are graduate students,undergraduate students or senior high school students,and there are few researches on junior middle school students.Besides,most of the researches on junior middle school students are survey and comparative studies,and there are few correlation studies.In addition,the researchers examine the correlation between vocabulary learning strategies and vocabulary learning performance from the perspective of vocabulary breadth or vocabulary depth.Therefore,this study comprehensively explores the correlation between vocabulary learning strategies and vocabulary proficiency from both vocabulary breadth and depth.Through conducting the research on vocabulary learning strategies,the paper aims to put forward some practical suggestions on vocabulary strategies instruction,with an attempt to strengthen student’ application of vocabulary learning strategies so as to improve the effect of English vocabulary learning.Therefore,taking the eighth grade students in a middle school as research subjects,this study adopts vocabulary learning strategies questionnaire,vocabulary test and interview to investigate the overall situation of English vocabulary learning and strategies application.Besides,the study examines the effect of strategies students apply on their vocabulary learning performance.In addition,the study explores the similarities and differences in the application of vocabulary learning strategies between students with good and poor learning performance.Therefore,this study seeks the answers to the following three questions.（1）What is the overall situation of English vocabulary learning and English vocabulary learning strategies application of junior middle school students?（2）Is there a significant correlation between English vocabulary learning strategies and vocabulary proficiency? If so,which strategies application are significantly related to students’ vocabulary proficiency?（3）What are the similarity and discrepancy in English vocabulary learning strategies application between students with high and low vocabulary proficiency?Through the research,the following conclusions are drawn.1)Students’ vocabulary proficiency is not equal,with a big gap between students in high and low vocabulary proficiency.Students have difficulties in collocation,polysemy,accurate and appropriate use of vocabulary.Junior middle school students sometimes apply vocabulary learning strategies at medium frequency level in vocabulary learning.Meta-cognitive strategies are the most frequently used followed by cognitive strategies,meanwhile resource strategies are less frequently used with social/affective strategies as the least frequently used.Among the sub-category strategies,students often use selective attention,word guessing,self-motivation,context,and repetition strategies and the least used one is cooperative learning strategy.2)Cognitive strategies has the highest correlation with vocabulary proficiency at medium level followed by meta-cognitive strategies,while social/affective and resource strategies show low correlation with vocabulary proficiency.Speaking specifically,word guessing has the highest significant correlation with vocabulary proficiency followed by application,context,active learning,selective attention,self-supervision and self-motivation strategies.Besides,planning,grouping,association,dictionary lookup and resources strategies has significantly low correlation with vocabulary proficiency.While repetition and cooperation strategies show no significant correlation with vocabulary proficiency.3)Students with high vocabulary proficiency apply vocabulary learning strategies more frequently than students with low proficiency.High score group students often use meta-cognitive,cognitive,resource and social/affective strategies in high frequency,while students in low score group sometimes use these strategies in medium frequency.Speaking specifically,compared to low score students,high score students,with higher learning enthusiasm,have stronger sense of employing meta-cognitive strategies namely self-supervision,selective attention and active learning,and deep processing cognitive strategies like word guessing,context,association,grouping,and application.Both low and high score students do not attach importance to make learning plans and use dictionary,and lack the awareness of cooperating learning and acquire learning resources from multiple channel.In short,junior middle school students definitely use some strategies in vocabulary learning.However,they are still not mature enough to use strategies effectively.In view of these problems,this paper present following suggestions for teaching: fully stressing the subjectivity of learners,conducting vocabulary learning strategies training,cultivating students’ awareness of using diverse vocabulary learning strategies,strengthening students’ effective application of various strategies and guiding leaning strategies according to individual differences. |
