Abstract
This paper reports on the study of the strategy use of Chinese English majors in vocabulary learning; the individual differences between effective and less effective learners in employing vocabulary learning strategies and the relationship between their strategies and their outcome in English learning. In this research, 118 junior English majors in Jiaying University were investigated. The participants were asked to take a vocabulary test and complete a vocabulary-learning questionnaire.
The data collected dealt with through SPSS (the Statistical Package for Social Science) indicates that there is significant differences between effective and less effective learners. Effective learners use strategies more frequently and flexibly, while less effective learners turn out to be rote learners. They employ repetition strategy more often and they rely more on mother tongue, Chinese, in vocabulary learning. Thus translation strategy was extensively used among them. The result also shows that seven strategies, namely applied, categorization, self-monitoring, cooperation, media, elaboration and dictionary strategy are positively correlated with the vocabulary test scores and the Test for English major (Grade 4) scores. However, repetition of new words was the strongest negative predictor of the two tests.
The above findings have certain implication for both learners and teachers.
Key Words: vocabulary-learning strategies English majors individual differences correlations
