THE CORRELATION BETWEEN STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY LEARNING STRATEGIES AND THEIR VOCABULARY SIZE

Abstract

The research aimed to finding out the types of vocabulary learning strategies (VLS) used by students of SMK Negeri 4 Makassar, the differences of vocabulary learning strategies used by the students of SMK Negeri 4 Makassar based on their field of study, and whether or not the significant relationship between vocabulary learning strategies and vocabulary size of the students of SMK Negeri 4 Makassar. The research applied correlational research design. Three classes different from three majors; accounting, administration, and tourism, were chosen as the subjects of this research obtained through random sampling technique from the population that consisted of 156 students in the academic year 2016/2017. There were 82 samples in this research. The result of this research was accounting students used metacognitive strategies frequently (m=3.39), administration students tended to use determination strategies (m=3.32), and tourism students applied social strategies frequent (m=3.37), and (3) there was a significant correlation between students’ VLS and vocabulary knowledge based on result where r = .225 categorized as low degree of correlation and p = .042 where p<α (α=.05), it means H0 was rejected. Therefore, the result indicated that VLS used of students of SMK Negeri 4 Makassar had correlation with their vocabulary knowledge. The students used vocabulary learning strategies respectively from the most frequent to the least frequent; they are metacognitive strategies, determination strategies, social strategies, memory strategies, and cognitive strategies.