Abstract
The primary purpose of this research is to investigate the vocabulary learning strategies employed by the undergraduate students of Sardar Bahadur Khan Women’s University (SBKWU) and University of Balochistan (UOB), Quetta, Pakistan. A quantitative design was employed in this study to answer the two research questions of the present study. The quantitative data was obtained from the responses of 180 undergraduates in a questionnaire adapted from the study by Noor and Amir (2009) on vocabulary learning strategies proposed by Gu and Johnson (1996). The questionnaire comprised of 45 close-ended items on four broad vocabulary learning strategies, metacognitive regulation strategy, cognitive strategy, memory strategy, and activation strategy. Descriptive statistics was run in SPSS to obtain the results. The independent-samples t-test was run to test for statistically significant differences if any in the use of vocabulary learning strategies across the undergraduates of two universities. However, cognitive regulation strategy, and activation strategy emerged as the most influential source of learning new English words. The findings also revealed that there were no statistically significant differences found in practicing vocabulary learning strategies between undergraduates of SBKWU and UOB. The findings of the study have implications on enhancing teaching and learning by acquainting students with vocabulary learning strategies that can enhance their vocabulary in English language and can result to boost up their proficiency in this language. Keywords: Vocabulary development, learning strategies, gender difference
Highlights
Nowadays, English language has become the most dominant language among all the languages of the world and is being learnt, read and spoken widely throughout the world (Jenkin, 2006; Parkir, 2000; Kachru & Nelson, 1996)
The findings revealed that self-motivation for memorising words of the target language, word organization, and authentic language use emerged as the most influential vocabulary learning strategies practiced by the EFL learners
Keeping in view the importance of the vocabulary in second/foreign language learning, this study investigates which of the four vocabulary learning strategies are preferably employed by the undergraduate students of University of Balochistan, Quetta (UOB) and SBK Women’s University, Quetta (SBKWU) proposed by Gu and Johnson (1996)
Summary
English language has become the most dominant language among all the languages of the world and is being learnt, read and spoken widely throughout the world (Jenkin, 2006; Parkir, 2000; Kachru & Nelson, 1996). A number of researchers have agreed to acquaint students to learn vocabulary learning strategies in order to have command over all the skills of the target language (Read, 2000; Schmitt, 2000; Cunningworth, 1995). The issues pertinent to the vocabulary learning strategies employed by students and how vocabulary can be taught need to be seriously addressed in order to enable L2 learners to command over the target language (Nassaji, 2003; Catalan, 2003; Hatch &Brown, 1995). Despite the key role of vocabulary in the academic achievement of L2 learner, vocabulary acquisition is given a little attention in the curriculum designed in the Asian universities (Fan, 2003). As vocabulary knowledge, which is a key to learn the target language effectively, is dependent on vocabulary learning strategies, ineffective learning strategies create an effective vocabulary knowledge that causes students’ failure in a foreign or second language acquisition (Fan, 2003)
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