Vocabulary Learning Strategies Employed by Undergraduate EFL Jordanian Students

Reem Ibrahim Rabadi

doi:10.5539/ells.v6n1p47

Abstract

<p>The present study investigates the various vocabulary learning strategies (VLSs) used by undergraduate Jordanian students majoring English Language and Literature in Jordanian universities. The five categories of the vocabulary learning strategies (Memory, Determination, Social, Cognitive, and Metacognitive) were used in this study following Schmitt’s taxonomy. For this purpose, a questionnaire containing forty items selected from Schmitt’s (1997) Vocabulary Learning Strategies Questionnaire (VLSQ) was administered to a pool of 110 Jordanian students majoring in English Language and Literature from eight Jordanian universities. This testing instrument was used to reveal the types of vocabulary learning strategies used by the participants, to discover the most and least frequently used VLS employed by them, and to know the main patterns of variation of the participants’ choice of VLSs if they are high, medium, or low VLS users. The descriptive analysis of the study showed that Jordanian EFL learners were “medium” strategy users overall. With regard to strategy categories, the results revealed that Memory strategies were the most frequently employed by them and Metacognitive strategies were the least frequently used strategies among them. Although the participants were medium strategy users, the results of the VLSQ revealed that some individual strategies were employed at a low level. This result leads to adopt the learners’ individual vocabulary learning strategy as an important variable in future research. The findings of this study will be advantageous to language instructors to improve effective vocabulary teaching techniques and curriculum designers to provide learners with preferable vocabulary learning strategies.</p>

Highlights

Communication without vocabulary is considered meaningless, so vocabulary acquisition is the heart of language acquisition as Laufer (1986) refers to this term. Burton (1992) adds that language learners would be self-confident when they are able to use acquired vocabulary effectively and have a good individual store of lexis. Davies and Pearse (2000) suggest that vocabulary in communication situations is usually more essential than grammar as it is annoying for language users when they cannot communicate effectively due to the lack of needed vocabulary
A questionnaire containing forty items selected from Schmitt’s (1997) Vocabulary Learning Strategies Questionnaire (VLSQ) was administered to a pool of 110 Jordanian students majoring in English Language and Literature from eight Jordanian universities
The obtained data from the second part of the VLSQ was analyzed by using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 20

Summary

Introduction

Communication without vocabulary is considered meaningless, so vocabulary acquisition is the heart of language acquisition as Laufer (1986) refers to this term. Burton (1992) adds that language learners would be self-confident when they are able to use acquired vocabulary effectively and have a good individual store of lexis. Davies and Pearse (2000) suggest that vocabulary in communication situations is usually more essential than grammar as it is annoying for language users when they cannot communicate effectively due to the lack of needed vocabulary. Davies and Pearse (2000) suggest that vocabulary in communication situations is usually more essential than grammar as it is annoying for language users when they cannot communicate effectively due to the lack of needed vocabulary. This is in consistence with Ellis’ (1994) statement in which lexical errors could block comprehension more than grammatical errors. As stated by Rubin (1987) and O’Malley and Chammot (1995), language learning strategies are any set of activities, strategies, procedures, notions that language learners use to assist in the knowledge, storing, recovery and usage of language This approach seems reasonable for language instructors to help language learners to use vocabulary learning strategies so they can be independent vocabulary learners (O’Malley & Chamot, 1995).

Methods

Results

Conclusion