Vocabulary Memorization Strategies among Arab Postgraduate English Foreign Language Learners

Abstract

Many studies have investigated vocabulary memorization strategies in the EFL context, but few researches have been conducted on the types of memorization strategies used by the Arab students in Malaysia. Thus, this study investigates the types of vocabulary memorization strategies employed by the Arab students in the Intensive English course at UUM. The aims of the study were to investigate vocabulary memorization strategies used by the Arab students and to examine the most and the least frequent strategies employed by the Arab students in learning and memorizing vocabulary. The samples of the study were 65 postgraduate Arab students from different colleges; COB, CAS and COLGIS at UUM. One instrument was used in this study, which is a questionnaire. The questionnaire was adapted from Li (2004) which is based on Oxford’s taxonomy (2003). The results indicated that the Arab students use different strategies in learning and memorizing vocabulary. Reviewing well strategies were found to be the most preferred strategies in contrast with Employing actions which was found to be as the least category employed by the Arab students. Writing words repeatedly a strategy from Reviewing well category was found to be the most strategy used by the Arab students in the Intensive English course while the Associate sounds of words with similar English from Employing actions category was the least strategy used by them. The findings revealed that Arab students see vocabulary memorization strategies help them in learning the English language and consistent with their cultural and educational background. Keywords: vocabulary memorization strategies, UUM, Intensive English course, Arab students