This chapter has presented the general situation of English vocabulary learning and the introduction of English vocabulary learning strategies in a clear and comprehensive way. These strategies are embedded in the questionnaire with the purpose of finding their application in English vocabulary learning.
2 Investigation
English vocabulary learning strategies can facilitate the learners’ efforts in learning and using of English vocabularies. In order to find out the differences in the use of vocabulary learning strategies between the high-score group and the low-score group, we have made an investigation of the use of these strategies shared by the Senior Middle School students in Shaodong No.1 Senior Middle School, Hunan province.
2. 1 Subjects for the investigation
On December 28th, 2007, 135 students of Grade 3 in two intact classes from Shaodong No.1 Senior Middle School, Hunan province was randomly chosen as subjects. They are chosen because, first of all ,they have nearly finished all their curriculum in Senior Middle School and developed their personal learning strategies. Secondly, they are anxious to expand their vocabulary so as to get a satisfactory score in the College Entrance Examination. Last but not least, they need to develop learning autonomy because after class, they will undoubtedly have to cope with their language learning tasks without the help from teachers. As a result, it is of great help for them to take part in this survey and develop effective vocabulary learning strategies at the time being.
2. 2 Instruments for the investigation
There are two instruments for the survey: English vocabulary test paper and a questionnaire of English vocabulary learning strategies. Students were asked to complete both the vocabulary test paper and the questionnaire during class time with the presence of their English teachers. It was first made clear to the students that objectivity was the priority as the investigation would be used for educational research and meant to help them become better learners of vocabulary. The test paper were collected together with the questionnaire.
2. 2. 1 English vocabulary test paper
All the 25 multiple-choice questions selected from the website (
http://down.ce100.com) meet the standard of College Entrance Examination Test. They cover aspects from sentence pattern, word-building knowledge, collocation to words distinction, which means to test learner’s vocabulary size. The time limit for this part is 20 minutes.
2. 2. 2 English vocabulary learning strategies questionnaire
The questionnaire, with 30 statement in total, is divided into two parts: the first part is personal profiles; the second part probes into the use of vocabulary learning strategies, which consist of three major types, namely, cognitive strategies, metacognitive strategies, and socioaffective strategy, each entailing several sub-strategies. Students were required to scale their vocabulary learning strategies truthfully and report on a scale of one to five on how often they use each strategy. The choices are: 1=never use it, 2= Seldom use it, 3= Use it sometimes, 4= Use it frequently, 5= Use it all the time.
2. 3 Data collection
123 questionnaires were collected, of which 115 were valid. These students were divided into high-score group and low-score group according to their scores in the vocabulary test. The 28 top students whose score was equivalent to or above 15 were designated as the high-score group, those 33 bottom students whose score was equivalent to or below 11 were the low-score group. (the full mark is 25) Then the average mean score for each of the 30 sub-strategies on the frequency of use was calculated, trying to analyze the comparison in the use of vocabulary learning strategies between the high-score group and the low-score group. If the average mean score varies between 4.5 and 5, it indicates the very strategy is always used by students. If it varies between 3.5 and 4.4, the strategy is used frequently by students. If it varies between 2.5 and 3.4, the strategy is sometimes used by students. If it varies between 1.5 and 2.4, the strategy is seldom used by students. If it varies between 1.0-1.4, the strategy is never used by students.
3 Result and analysis
After the data processing and classification, we find that the high-score group and the low-score group are different in the frequency of using English vocabulary learning strategies. The high-score students use English vocabulary learning strategies more frequently than the low-score group. The result is based on the analysis of the following comparisons of the English vocabulary learning strategies.
1) The comparison in cognitive strategies
Table 1 The comparison in cognitive strategies
Cognitive strategies
Number in the questionnaire The high-score group
Average mean score The low-score group
Average mean score
No.3 3.22 2.84
No.2 3.07 2.79
No.12 2.57 3.45转贴于 酷文网-论文下载中心 http://www.coolwen.net
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