A Study On Gender Differences In English Lexical Chunk Learning Strategies Used By Rural Middle School Students

Rural middle school students generally face the plight of vocabulary acquisition.They are accustomed to recognizing and memorizing vocabulary and have trouble using vocabulary in actual communication.Learning Lexical chunk,an excellent language teaching unit that combines grammatical and lexical elements,can improve English learners’ ability to express themselves like native speakers.At the moment,lexical chunk research is primarily concerned with investigating its pragmatic functions and characteristics by using corpora,delving into its complex psychological processing mechanism,and incorporating the Lexical Approach into college and even higher-level teaching practice.A few studies focus on lexical chunk learning strategies and the influencing factors.Given this,this study intends to examine the gender differences in lexical chunk learning strategies(LCLS)used by young learners to provide references for optimizing English lexical chunk teaching in rural junior middle schools.Based on the theory of lexical chunks,vocabulary learning strategies,and individual differences,the current study focuses on finding out the gender differences in the LCLS used by 287 8th grade students in a middle school in the Jinning District,Kunming,including 136 boys and 151 girls.The questionnaire with good reliability and validity was adapted from Gu & Johnson’s VLQ(1996).Based on this questionnaire,the research questions focus on the following aspects:(1)The existing circumstances of LCLS used by students in a rural middle school;(2)Gender differences in using LCLS;(3)Gender differences in the use of LCLS by male and female students with different English proficiency.This study adopted quantitative and qualitative analysis methods through the combination of questionnaires and semi-structured interviews.When all the data were collected and recorded,SPSS 22.0was used for data analysis.The findings reveal that:(1)Most rural middle school students(82.9%)used LCLS at or above medium frequency,17% of students rarely use them.The most frequently used main strategies are metacognitive strategies,followed by social,cognitive,memory,and determination strategies.Self-initiation strategies,asking classmates for meaning strategies,and using linguistic cued/immediate context strategies are relatively frequently used.(2)Gender differences statistically exist in the rural junior middle school students’ use of nearly all LCLS except usage-oriented note-taking strategies and association strategies.Besides,females apply all strategies more frequently than males.In addition,female students use the following strategies frequently: linguistic cued/immediate context strategies,verbal and written repetition strategies,semantic encoding strategies,asking-classmates-for-meaning strategies,metacognitive strategies,and the two corresponding sub-strategies.Male students are medium-strategy users when using all strategies,and there is no frequently used strategy among them.(3)At the four English levels,significant gender differences exist only in the strategies used by excellent English-proficiency male and female students and poor English-proficiency males and females.Males and females at excellent English levels show significant differences in applying extended dictionary strategies,usage-oriented note-taking strategies,and flashcard strategies.However,male and female students with poor English proficiency differ in using all main strategies except social strategies and three sub-strategies: linguistic cued/immediate context strategies,activation strategies,and verbal repetition strategies.Based on the research findings,the major conclusions and teaching inspirations for this paper are as follows:(1)Rural middle school students do not use LCLS frequently in LC learning;hence,it is necessary for teachers to promote the diversification of LC learning activities in order to encourage students to use LCLS.Although 82.9% of rural middle school students use those strategies at medium frequency,there are still 17% of students who rarely use LCLS.(2)Because female students employ more strategies in LC learning than male students,English teachers should increase the variety of exercises available to male students in order to encourage them to fully utilize LCLS.(3)The use of LCLS differs significantly by gender between excellent English-proficiency boys and girls and poor English-proficiency boys and girls.Students use LCLS more frequently as their English proficiency improves.As a result,high-level students and low-level students of different genders should be assigned different tasks to assist them in learning lexical chunks.Teachers should also encourage high-level students to help lower-level students use LCLS to improve their English skills.