English vocabulary learning strategies among Malaysian second language tertiary students
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Date
2009
Authors
Mokhtar, Ahmad Azman
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Abstract
This study was correlational in nature where the relationships between vocabulary learning strategies and vocabulary knowledge were studied. The study was also developmental where the cross-sectional method was employed. Two approaches were used in data gathering. In the quantitative approach, the Vocabulary Learning Questionnaire and the Vocabulary Levels Test were used to examine the students’ vocabulary learning strategies and vocabulary knowledge respectively. As for the qualitative approach diary writing and interview protocol were the research instruments. 360 students from five different diploma programs were selected as the samples. Six students were then chosen to participate in the qualitative approach. The research findings revealed that dictionary work, guessing, metacognitive regulation, rehearsal, and translation were the most frequent strategies used in learning English vocabulary. In vocabulary knowledge, majority of the students failed to achieve the passing level in the Passive Vocabulary Test and Controlled Active Vocabulary Test and obtained low percentages at the beyond 2000-word level in the lexical frequency profile analysis. The students, therefore, had poor breadth of vocabulary knowledge. Their depth of vocabulary knowledge was also analyzed. One noticeable feature was the students did not have much problem spelling out the target words. Secondly, their grammatical knowledge was erratic indicating that they knew some word classes better than others. Finally, the students had only partial meaning knowledge and in fact was
nowhere near full productive mastery. In correlational analyses, eleven vocabulary learning strategies had significant correlations with the passive vocabulary knowledge where association had the greatest positive influence, followed by activation strategies, self-initiation, linguistic cues, selective attention, contextual encoding, background knowledge, and word structure. Meaning-oriented had the greatest negative influence, followed by visual repetition, and word list. The correlational analyses also showed that there were ten vocabulary learning strategies which had significant positive correlations with the controlled active vocabulary knowledge where oral repetition had the greatest influence, followed by association, self-initiation, backward knowledge, selective attention, word structure, linguistic cues, activation strategies, and contextual encoding. In terms of vocabulary development, the students’ breadth of vocabulary knowledge did develop although slow. As for the depth of vocabulary knowledge, one noticeable feature was that no obvious changes occurred to the students. The students did not seem to have much problem spelling out the target words. Their grammatical knowledge was weak. The condition was similarly expressed in their meaning knowledge.
Description
PhD
Keywords
Education , English vocabulary , learning strategies