ENGLISH VOCABULARY LEARNING STRATEGIES OF BUI HUU NGHIA HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

CAN THO UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION ENGLISH DEPARTMENT ------ENGLISH VOCABULARY LEARNING STRATEGIES OF BUI HUU NGHIA HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS BA Thesis Field of study: English Lang

CAN THO UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION ENGLISH DEPARTMENT - -

ENGLISH VOCABULARY LEARNING STRATEGIES OF

BUI HUU NGHIA HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

BA Thesis Field of study: English Language Teaching

Supervisor: Ngo Thi Trang Thao, M.Ed Researcher: Ho Thi Kim Thanh

Code: 7062922 Class: NN0652A1

Can Tho, April 2010

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research is accomplished with the enthusiastic help of many people Firstand foremost, I would like to express my whole-heart appreciation to my supervisor,Mrs Ngo Thi Trang Thao, my supervisor for her helpful guidance and valuable adviceduring the time of doing this study She also gave me professional suggestion incarrying out this thesis

Secondly, I also would like to express truthful thanks to my counselor, Mrs.Bui Minh Chau who encouraged my classmates and me to determine on doingresearch Moreover, she gave me much useful advice for finding and choosing myresearch topic

Also, I would like to thank my friends who gave me a lot of useful advice aswell as encouragement when I met some problems during the time of doing this study

Finally, I am sincerely thankful to the students at Bui Huu Nghia high schoolwho provided me with the data for this research

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to identify the vocabulary learning strategies adopted by 216 students at Bui Huu Nghia high school in Cantho city This study attempted to examine the main strategies that Bui Huu Nghia High School students apply to discover new English words' meaning and to consolidate the meaning of English words once they have been encountered The subjects of the study consisted of

68 tenth-graders, 82 eleventh-graders and 66 twelfth-graders at Bui Huu Nghia high school The main instrument used in this research is a questionnaire consisting of 50 items, based mostly on Schmitt’s (1997) taxonomy The first thirteen items were used

to explore the main strategies that students apply to discover English new words’ meaning The rest items were used to consolidate English words once they have been encountered The results of the study show that social strategies are mainly used for finding the meaning of the new English words Furthermore, the use of the strategy

‘asking teacher for an L1 translation’ and the strategy ‘asking classmates for the meaning of the word’ are mostly used among students to find out the meaning of unknown English words Metacognitive strategies are the highest-ranking category used for remember new English words once they have been encountered The strategy

‘studying the sound of a word’ and the strategy ‘written repetition’ are the most popular strategies shared by students to retain new English words Findings of this study imply that most students are quite active to employ vocabulary learning strategies when encountering unfamiliar English words.

Tóm tắt

TÓM TẮT

Mục đích của nghiên cứu này nhằm xác định những chiến lược học từ vựng của

216 học sinh của trường THPT Bùi Hữu Nghĩa tại TP Cần Thơ Nghiên cứu khảo sátnhững chiến lược chủ yếu mà học sinh trường Bùi Hữu Nghĩa thường dùng để tìmnghĩa từ mới tiếng Anh và để ghi nhớ từ Đối tượng nghiên cứu gồm có 68 học sinhlớp 10, 82 học sinh lớp 11 và 66 học sinh lớp 12 tại trường THPT Bùi Hữu Nghĩa.Công cụ chính dùng trong nghiên cứu là bảng câu hỏi gồm 50 mục, dựa trên cơ sởphân loại của Schmitt (1997) Mười ba mục đầu trong bảng câu hỏi dùng để tìm hiểunhững chiến lược chính học sinh áp dụng để tìm ra nghĩa từ mới Những mục còn lại

dùng để tìm hiểu những chiến lược học sinh dùng để ghi nhớ từ vựng Kết quả nghiên

cứu cho thấy những chiến lược thuộc nhóm có tương tác giữa người với người (Social

strategies) được sử dụng chủ yếu để tìm ra nghĩa từ vựng Trong đó, chiến lược ‘nhờ

giáo viên dịch sang tiếng Việt’ và ‘hỏi bạn cùng lớp nghĩa của từ’ được dùng nhiềunhất để tìm ra nghĩa từ tiếng Anh mới Những chiến lược thuộc nhóm siêu nhận thức(Metacognitive strategies) dùng để học từ vựng được xếp hạng cao nhất Trong đó,chiến lược ‘học cách phát âm’ và ‘viết đi viết lại nhiều lần’ được học sinh sử dụngphổ biến để ghi nhớ từ vựng Những kết quả trên cho thấy học sinh khá chủ độngtrong việc áp dụng những chiến lược học từ vựng khi gặp từ mới

Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements i

Abstract (English) ii

Abstract (Vietnamese) iii

List of Tables v

Chapter 1 Introduction 1

Chapter 2 Literature review 3

1 Vocabulary Learning Strategies 3

1.1 Definition of the term vocabulary learning strategy 3

1.2 The Role of Vocabulary Learning Strategies in Language Learning 3

2 Classification of Vocabulary Learning Strategy 4

2.1 Taxonomies of Vocabulary Learning Strategy 4

2.2 Related Studies of Vocabulary Learning strategies 5

3 Conclusion 7

Chapter 3 Methodology 8

1 Research questions 8

2 Research design 8

3 Hypothesis 8

4 Participants 8

5 Instrument 9

6 Research procedure 12

Chapter 4 Results 13

1 Descriptive statistics for the whole questionnaire 13

2 Descriptive statistics for the vocabulary learning strategies to discover new English word meaning 13

3 Descriptive statistics for the vocabulary learning strategies to consolidate English words 14

4 Conclusion 15

Chapter 5 Discussion and conclusion 16

1 Discussion 16

2 Pedagogical implication 18

3 Limitations and recommendations for further research 19

4 Conclusion 20

References 21

Appendices 23

List of Tables

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Vocabulary learning strategies classified by Schmitt (1997) used in thequestionnaire 10Table 2 Descriptive statistics for the mean score of the whole questionnaire 13Table 3 Descriptive statistics of the degree of use of strategies for the discovery of

English new word’s meaning 14

Table 4 Descriptive statistics of the degree of use of strategies for consolidatingEnglish words 15

Chapter 1 Introduction

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter introduces the important role of vocabulary and the necessity of vocabulary learning strategies in learning English language at high school as rationale of the research purposes Thesis organization is also presented in this chapter.

1 General statement of the problems

Nowadays, English becomes one of required subjects in almost all schools,colleges and universities in Vietnam because of its importance as an internationallanguage Vocabulary knowledge is essential when we use a foreign language, andEnglish is not an exception since people are unable to communicate without words.Furthermore, vocabulary plays an important role as we enter the 21th century(Soekmen, 1997) Therefore, vocabulary learning is one of the basic parts of languagelearning Learners are usually aware of the importance of words in a language, so theythemselves might usually realize the fact that vocabulary learning strategies can help

them in their vocabulary learning, including discovering the new words’ meaning and

consolidating English word when they have been encountered

Because vocabulary learning strategies are considered as the useful means oflearning vocabulary, students from elementary schools to universities need strategiesfor their vocabulary learning; especially, high school students, they are standingbetween elementary level and advanced level boundaries These students need toequip themselves with enough vocabulary knowledge when they reach advancedlevel Moreover, all of high school students in Vietnam have to pass a nationalexamination, so equipping sufficient vocabulary knowledge for them is necessary Themore necessary vocabulary is, the more important vocabulary learning strategy is Towhich degree students apply their own ways to find out the new words’ meaning andremember these new words in their mind is an interesting topic for many researcherswho have attempted to study more Some investigations on vocabulary learningstrategies have focused on Asian students (Fan, 2003; Gu & Johnson, 1996; Schmitt,1997) However, there are few studies focus on Vietnames students Furthermore,most of studies carried out basing on elementary students or university students.Accordingly, current research tends to focus on intends to examine high schoolVietnamese students’ vocabulary learning strategies

2 Statement of the aims

This study aims to explore current vocabulary learning strategies situation inhigh school, first and foremost, Bui Huu Nghia high school students, because there is

a need to know current situations of students’ use of vocabulary learning strategies in

Chapter 1 Introduction

high schools With a better understanding of the current situation of students’ use ofvocabulary learning strategies, teachers can then find ways to help students to becomemore autonomous learners with, for example, vocabulary language learning strategytraining since learner autonomy can be enhanced by introducing the learner todifferent vocabulary learning strategies which can be used in developing the learningprocess (Schmitt, 1997) In addition, learning strategies help students to be moreactive and take more responsibility on their own learning Finally, the understanding

of the students’ vocabulary learning strategies use enables teachers design appropriate

materials and activities to help their students improve their vocabulary learning so as

to enhance their lexical competence

3 General organization and coverage of the study

The thesis consists of four chapters In chapter one, Introduction, the important

role of vocabulary, the necessity of vocabulary learning strategies in learning Englishlanguage at high school as rationale of the research purposes and thesis organization

are introduced In chapter two, Literature Review, began with the definition of the term Vocabulary learning strategies and the role of vocabulary learning strategies in

language learning Classification of vocabulary learning strategies and some relatedstudies of vocabulary learning strategies were also reviewed in this chapter In chapter

three, Methodology, a description of the research design, the research questions,

participants of the study, the research instruments and the procedure will be reported.The results and findings about the main strategies that Bui Huu Nghia High Schoolstudents apply to discover new English words' meaning and to consolidate English

words once they have been encountered will be described in chapter four, Results.

Finally, in chapter five, Discussion and conclusion, a discussion of the results,

limitation of the study and recommendations for further research, and conclusion will

be presented

Chapter 2 Literature Review

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter begins with the definition of the term ‘vocabulary learning strategies’ and the role of vocabulary learning strategies in language learning Classification of vocabulary learning strategies and some related studies of vocabulary learning strategies are also reviewed in this chapter.

1 Vocabulary learning strategies

1.1 Definition of the term Vocabulary learning strategy

Over the recent years a number of studies have been conducted on the topic ofvocabulary learning strategies Many researchers have attempted to define of clarify

the term Vocabulary learning strategies Among the definitions, Catalan’s (2003)

seem to be the most appropriate one in language learning situation Taking intoconsideration the ideas of different researchers (Oxford 1990, Rubin 1987, Schmitt,

1997 and Wenden, 1987), Catalan (2003) suggested the following concrete anddetailed definition of vocabulary learning strategies:

Knowledge about the mechanisms (processes, strategies) used in order to learn vocabulary as well as steps or actions taken by students (a) to find out the meaning of unknown words, (b) to retain them in long-term memory, (c) to recall them at will, and (d) to use them in oral or written mode (p.56).

1.2 The role of vocabulary learning strategies in language learning

Words are used to express the meaning of objects, actions and ideas Withoutwords, people may not communicate with others successfully The striking role ofvocabulary knowledge in second or foreign language learning has been recentlyrecognized by theorists and researchers in the field Accordingly, many types ofapproaches (strategies), techniques, exercises and practice have been introduced intothe field to teach vocabulary (Hatch & Brown, 1995) Because of the important role ofstrategies in learning vocabulary, it has been suggested that teaching vocabularyshould not only consist of teaching specific words but also aim at equipping learnerswith strategies necessary to expand their vocabulary knowledge (Hulstjin, 1993)

Firstly, vocabulary learning strategies help students increase a large number ofwords successfully Nation (2001) believes that a large amount of vocabulary could beacquired with the help of vocabulary learning strategies and that the strategies have

Chapter 2 Literature Review

been proved useful for students of different language levels Therefore, the timeteachers spend on introducing different ways of vocabulary learning and practicing tostudents cannot be considered wasted (Oxford & Nyikos 1989) Moreover, Cameron(2001) believes that children may not implement vocabulary learning strategies ontheir own and they should be trained to use the strategies

Secondly, vocabulary learning strategies can help students to take more control

of their own learning and have more responsibility for their studies According Nation(2001) and Scharle & Szabo (2000), the main benefits gained from all learningstrategies, including strategies for vocabulary learning, is the fact that they enablelearners to take more control of their own learning so that students can take more

responsibility for their studies Consequently, the strategies encourage “learner

autonomy, independence, and self-direction” (Oxford & Nyikos 1989, p 291)

Finally, vocabulary learning strategies permit educators and curriculum

designers to match teaching and learning so as to develop students’ potentials in EFL

(English as foreign language) learning as well as to assist students become cognizant

of the ways they learn most effectively (Schmitt, 1997)

In conclusion, vocabulary learning strategies considerably contributed in theprocess of vocabulary learning and enhancement Oxford & Scarcella (1994)implicated the provision of systematic vocabulary instruction to let learner masterspecific strategies to acquire words even outside their classes Accordingly, studentscan decide upon how exactly they would like to deal with unknown words if they areequipped with a range of various vocabulary learning strategies

2 Classification of vocabulary learning strategy

2.1 Taxonomies of vocabulary learning strategy

There are several different ways to classify L2 vocabulary learning strategies.Therefore, different taxonomies of vocabulary learning strategies were developed byseveral researchers Among the taxonomies of vocabulary learning strategies,

Schmitt’s taxonomy of vocabulary learning strategies is typically discussed in this

thesis since his taxonomy seems to be the most detailed and concrete one

Schmitt’s taxonomy might be the most elaborate and extensive classification of

vocabulary learning strategies to date The 56 strategies in his taxonomy have beenorganized in the framework of two systems First, he based his classification on

Oxford’s (1990) work and included four of her categories: social, memory, cognitive

and metacognitive Second, he used a distinction between discovery and consolidation

Chapter 2 Literature Review

strategies offered by Cook & Mayer (1983) and Nation (1990) The former helpsstudents to find out the meaning of a word when encountered for the first time and thelatter aid memorization of the word after it has been introduced Finally, Schmitt(1997) classified the strategies have under two main categories, i.e strategies for thediscovery of a new word's meaning, and strategies for consolidating a word once ithas been encountered and divided these strategies into five sub-categories: Socialstrategies (SOC), cognitive strategies (COG), memory strategies (MEM),determination strategies (DET), and metacognitive strategies (MET)

The first part, strategies for finding out the meaning of new English words’meaning consist of two sub-categories: determination strategies and social strategies

Determination strategies, consisting of nine strategies, include strategies of guessing

from one' structural knowledge of a language, guessing from an L1 cognate, guessing

from context, or using reference materials Social strategies with five strategies relate

to the strategies of asking a help from someone

The second part, strategies for consolidating English words consist of four categories: social strategies, memory strategies, cognitive strategies and metacognitive

sub-strategies Social strategies, consiting three strategies, use interation with other people

to remember vocabulary Memory strategies – mnemonics with twenty-five strategies

involve relating the word to some previous knowledge, linking it to some L2 wordsalready familiar to the learner, and grouping the words according to some categories

In addition, word's orthographical of phonological form, word's affixes, roots and

word classes can used as a mnemonic strategy Cognitive strategies, consisting of nine

strategies, include repetition and mechanical means to study vocabulary

Metacognitive strategies with five strategies involve a conscious overview of the

learning process and making decisions about planning, monitoring, or evaluating thebest ways to study (see Appendix 1)

2.2 Related studies of Vocabulary learning strategies

There are numerous researches relating to vocabulary learning strategies, andsome of th previous researches about this topic in order to find out the similarities aswell as the differences between researches and the current research

Ruutmets’ s (2005) research aim to map the current situation as regards young

Estonian students’ preferences in relation to vocabulary learning strategies For thepurpose, seven interviews were conducted with students of forms three and four and a64-item questionnaire was compiled and administered to 230 students of fifth-grade

Chapter 2 Literature Review

and sixth-grade The results of both the interviews and the questionnaire showed thatthe use of various vocabulary learning strategies is not very wide spread among thestudents All in all, 40 strategies were used seldom or never by students

Yi-Fen (2004) surveyed 625 Taiwan EFL freshmen’s vocabulary learning

strategies at some universities in Taiwan Schmitt’s (1997) vocabulary learning

strategy questionnaire was adopted in this study The aim of this research is toexamine to which degree freshmen used vocabulary learning strategies and thecomparison between males and females in their use of vocabulary learning strategiesand between English-majors and non-English-majors in their use of vocabularylearning strategies The results showed that female freshmen used more vocabularylearning strategies than male ones Also, English-majored students use vocabularylearning strategies more frequently than non-English majored ones In addition, theresults reported that electronic dictionary, written repetition, study the sound of theword, bilingual dictionary (English-Chinese) and verbal repetition are the mostpopular strategies among these students

Lin (2001, cited in Lan & Oxford 2003), using several research instruments(classroom observation, written records, oral interviews), studied the vocabularylearning strategies of seven Taiwanese elementary school students Despite the smallsample size, 73 strategies were identified, which were categorized into metacognitive,cognitive and social-affective strategies The research revealed that the subjects reliedmostly on rote memorization of words, did not have good dictionary use and note-taking skills

Schmitt (1997) conducted a study of vocabulary learning strategiesconcentrating on which strategies learners used and which of them learners found themost helpful and the least helpful Schmitt collected the data for his study usingquestionnaires with a list of 56 strategies and used his taxonomy in the analysis The

participants of Schmitt’s (1997) study consisted of 600 Japanese learners of English

with four different groups: junior high school students (between 7 to 9 years of age),high school students (between 10 to 12 years of age), university students and adultlearners Each participant was provided with a 56-strategy questionnaire and theywere to write down which strategies they use and which of them they found the most

helpful Schmitt’s (1997) study suggested that using a bilingual dictionary and

guessing from context were especially popular among Japanese learners of English tofind out the meaning of unknown words Furthermore, verbal repetition, written

Chapter 2 Literature Review

repetition and study the spelling were rather popular with students to rememberEnglish words

These above studies investigated vocabulary learning strategies at differenteducational levels and led to surprisingly various results Ruutmets’ (2005) results ofboth the interviews and the questionnaire reflected that the use of different vocabularylearning strategies is not very popular among the students Yi-Fen’s (2004) researchshowed that electronic dictionary, written repetition, study the sound of the word,bilingual dictionary (English-Chinese) and verbal repetition are the most employedstrategies among these students Besides, rote memorization of words is mostly used

by elementary students is the findings from Lin’s (2001) study (cited in Lan & Oxford

2003) Schmitt’s (1997) surveys were handed out using a bilingual dictionary, verbal

repetition, written repetition, studying the spelling and guessing from context werepopular strategies to learn vocabulary among Japanese learners of English Theparticipants in these studies are varied; however, there are few surveys on vocabularylearning strategies among high school students (between 16 to 18 years of age).Especially, there are few studies focusing on strategies for discovering new English

words’ meaning and for consolidating new English words Therefore, the aim of the

study is to investigate the main vocabulary learning strategies that high schoolstudents use to find out the meaning of new English words and to retain new words

3 Conclusion

In the chapter, it is clear that vocabulary learning strategies are very essentialfor students to find out the meaning of new English words and to consolidate Englishwords once they have been encountered These strategies also help students becomemore autonomous, independent and self-directed (Oxford & Nyikos 1989) Therefore,teachers can have some suitable ways to help their students in vocabulary learning if

they have a better understanding of the current situation of students’ use of vocabulary

learning strategies

Chapter 3 Methodology

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

In this chapter, the research methodology of the study including (1) the research questions, (2) hypothesis, (3) the research design, (4) the participants, (5) the instrument and (6) research procedures will be described.

1 Research questions

From the background of the previous chapter, vocabulary learning strategieshave become an interesting topic for many researchers during previous years;however, there are few studies on high school participants Moreover, studies focused

on both strategies for discover new English words’ meaning and for consolidate new

English words once they have been encountered are still limited This is the reasonwhy the present study aims to examine the vocabulary learning strategy use of highschool students The present research aims to answer two following questions:

(1) What are the main strategies that Bui Huu Nghia High School students apply to discover new English words' meaning?

(2) What are the main strategies that Bui Huu Nghia High School students apply to consolidate English words once they have been encountered?

2 Hypothesis

From the literature review, it is hypothesis that social strategies are mostly used

by Bui Huu Nghia high school students to discover new English words’ meaning and

cognitive strategies are mostly applied by Bui Huu Nghia high school students toconsolidate English words when they have been encountered

3 Research design

The present study used the descriptive survey method to determine thevocabulary learning strategies employed by Bui Huu Nghia high school students Thissurvey described the natural phenomena without any treatment

4 Participants

The current thesis is accomplished with the involvement of six classes, totally

216 students, in Bui Huu Nghia high school Participants include 137 females and 79males These participants come from two tenth-grade classes, two eleventh-gradeclasses and two twelfth-grade classes that were randomly chosen among 40 classes atBui Huu Nghia high school All the participants are learning seven-year Englishprogram

Chapter 3 Methodology

5 Instrument

Schmitt’s (1997) taxonomy of vocabulary learning strategies is focused on the

chapter The present thesis has been carried out based on Schmitt’s taxonomy of

vocabulary learning strategies because of some reasons First, among the taxonomies,

Schmitt’s taxonomy is quantitatively detailed enough to study learners’ vocabulary

learning strategies because Schmitt classified vocabulary learning strategies under twomain categories (strategies for the discovery of a new word's meaning, and strategies

for consolidating a word once it has been encountered) Second, Schmitt’s taxonomy

is qualitatively related to the topic of the current study since Schmitt’s taxonomy issuitable to the purpose of the present thesis Finally, Schmitt’s taxonomy was takenform based on both theory and realistic study; therefore, Schmitt’s seem to be the

most appropriate one in language learning situation

Schmitt’s consisted 56 items; however, the present study just applied 50 itemssince the rest which are not suitable to high school students’ level, are too strange,

unnecessary and complicated for students to understand For example, use semantic map, configuration, use semantic feature grids and use spaces word practice are more suitable to English-majors than high school students or check for L1 cognate are strange and complicated for them Moreover, both skip or pass new word and continue

to study word over time are used to check students’ degree of studying English words Therefore, continue to study word over time – one of them was applied in the

questionnaire

The five-scale Likert questionnaire was grouped into two groups: (1) the firstthirteen items divided into 2 categories: determination strategies (DET) and socialstrategies (SOC1) are used to investigate the main strategies that Bui Huu Nghia highschool students apply to discover new English words’ meaning, and (2) the rest with 4categories: social strategies (SOC2), memory strategies (MEM), cognitive strategies(COG) and metacognitive (MET) are used to investigate the main strategies that thesestudents apply to consolidate English word once they have been encountered Thedetailed strategies included in each category are shown in Table 1

Chapter 3 Methodology

Table 1 Vocabulary learning strategies classified by Schmitt (1997) used in the

questionnaire

Part Categories Item

No. Item in the questionnaire

Determination strategies (DET)

Bilingual dictionary Monolingual dictionary Word lists

Discover meaning through group work activity Social

strategies (SOC2)

Interact with native speakers

Image word’s meaning

Connect word to a personal experience Associate the word with its coordinates Connect the word to its synonyms or antonyms

Use ‘scales’ for gradable adjectives

Peg method1Loci method2Group words together spatially on a page Use new word in sentences

Group words together within a storyline

Underline initial letter of the word Use keyword method

Affixes and roots (remembering) Part of speech (remembering) Use cognates in study Learn the word of an idiom together Use physical action when learning a word Cognitive

strategies (COG)

Put English labels in physical objects Keep a vocabulary notebook

Metacognitive strategies (MET)

remembering words by mentally placing them in specific locations

Each strategy in the questionnaire includes a five-point checklist items never,seldom, sometimes, usually and always In total, the questionnaire contained 50 five-point scale checklists for students to put a tick on the scale that most appropriate tothemselves (see Appendix 2)

The questionnaire was designed based on Schmitt’ taxonomy so it was original

in English However, the Vietnamese version was used when delivering to high schoolstudents to assure that students with different proficiency levels could adequately

Chapter 4 Results

CHAPTER 4 RESULTS

The purpose of this chapter was to report the results of the collected data in this study.

1 Descriptive statistics for the whole questionnaire

After collecting the data from 216 students, a five-point scale was used to

decode students’ responses: ‘always’-5, ‘usually’-4, ‘sometimes’-3, ‘seldom’-2,

‘never’-1 These points were used for SPSS analysis It might imply that the more

points students got, the higher degree of using strategies students had

First, the reliability score of the instrument was computed Next, descriptivestatistics for mean score of the whole questionnaire were analyzed Then, descriptivestatistics for mean score of each part of the questionnaire were analyzed to identify themain strategies that students apply to discover the meaning of the new English wordsand to retain new English words Finally, descriptive statistics of each category ineach part was used to illustrate related issues

Reliability of the questionnaire on English vocabulary learning strategies of BuiHuu Nghia high school students is very high reliability (=.91)

Descriptive statistics of the mean score of the whole questionnaire in Table 2show that the whole questionnaire receives an above average mean score (M=3.00,SD=.47), implying that students ‘sometimes’ used vocabulary learning strategies intheir learning English vocabulary

Table 2 Descriptive statistics for the mean score of the whole questionnaire

Table 3 Descriptive statistics of the degree of use of strategies for the

discovery of English new word’s meaning

Std.

Deviation

To gain further insights, the mean score of each strategy is considered (see

Appendix 5) It can be seen that the strategy asking teacher for an L1 translation (M=3.77, SD=1.12) and the strategy asking classmates for the meaning of the word

(M=3.76, SD=1.10) receive highest mean score Therefore, these two strategies aremost typically used by students to know the meaning of new English words

3 Descriptive statistics for the vocabulary learning strategies to consolidate new English words once they have been encountered (Research question 2)

The strategies of part 2 in the questionnaire include four categories ofvocabulary learning strategies of consolidation English new words Descriptivestatistics for the mean score to discover what are the main strategies that students use

to remember new English words were analyzed From Table 4, the mean scores offour categories of vocabulary learning strategies are from 2.48 to 3.43 It can be

implied that students ‘sometimes’ use these strategies to retain new words Among

these strategies, social strategies (SOC2) are reported with the lowest mean (M=2.48,

SD=.08), implying that students ‘sometimes’ use social strategies in remembering

new word In contrast, metacognitive strategies (MET) are reported with the highest

mean (M=3.43, SD=.81) implying that metacognitive strategies are quite ‘usually’

applied by students