Beanstalk
Beanstalk
Beanstalk
1. Rationale
Vocabulary learning strategies (VLS) used to be a vivid and fruitful research field back in the
1990s (Griffith, 2008). Recently, however, the research area has been undergoing a
conceptual shift, since new concepts, such as learner self-regulation capacity, have become
more prominent. However, vocabulary learning strategies are still deeply rooted in pedagogical
discourse (Tseng et al., 2006). Consequently, the concept seems to have taken on the role of
sleeping beauty in pedagogical research (Tseng et al., 2006), slumbering unseen behind many
didactic actions in vocabulary teaching. Therefore, it appears to be of relevance to recapitulate
the development of VLS. Moreover, the article will present the results of a small n-study on
VLS preferences of advanced EFL learners.
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Schmitt (1997; 2011) builds on Oxford’s work in his taxonomy of VLS, which has become
widely known and cited. He distinguishes between VLS to discover new words of a language,
named discovery strategies, and consolidation strategies, which are used to remember the
newly introduced items, as can be seen in Diagram 2.
These two groups comprise different strategies adopted from Oxford (1990), namely social,
memory, cognitive and metacognitive strategies. Schmitt argues that to discover the meaning
of a new word students can either use social strategies, which involve social interaction or they
can use so-called determination strategies, which are approaches to new words where
“learners must use their knowledge of the language, contextual clues, or reference materials
to figure out the new meaning” (Schmitt, 2011, p. 206). To consolidate this newly acquired
knowledge, students can again use social strategies, memory strategies, which involve
generation of associations, links to prior knowledge and visualization, or cognitive strategies,
which are concerned with repetition. Additionally, Schmitt (1997) applies Oxford’s (1990) notion
of metacognitive strategies in his VLS taxonomy, which are strategies that are related to
general learning, such as “planning, monitoring or evaluating the best way to study” (p. 206).
Based on this taxonomy Schmitt (1997) compiles a list of 58 VLS.
While this taxonomy of vocabulary strategies appears to be quite elaborate overall, one
component, namely metacognitive strategies, can be further diversified. As stated above
Schmitt (1997) subsumes all processes related to planning, monitoring or evaluating learning
under metacognitive strategies. Nation and Gu (2007) and Nation (2013) diversify this category
by splitting metacognitive strategies into planning strategies and self-management strategies.
While planning strategies involve steps from choosing a word to planning time and type of
repetition, self-management strategies are concerned with students’ self-reflection and control
of their learning processes (Nation & Gu, 2007). In particular they differentiate between five
different self-management strategies, namely commitment control, metacognitive control,
satiation control, environment control and emotion control strategies (Nation & Gu, 2007).
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Commitment control strategies are supposed to keep the student focused on the learning task.
Similarly, metacognitive control strategies are used to enhance concentration and learning
motivation. Satiation control strategies are used to adapt learning tasks to make them more
exciting. Additionally, learners can optimize their learning environment to enhance learning
success, which would count as environment control strategies (Nation & Gu, 2007). The last
category, emotion control strategies, can be equated to affective control strategies, as used by
Hong-Nam and Leavell (2006) and Oxford (1990), which involve strategies to elicit positive
emotions.
These five concepts also form the basis of Tseng et al.’s (2006) approach to develop a
measurement tool of learners’ self-regulation capacity. As already stated briefly in the
introduction, research on strategic vocabulary learning has moved away from focusing on the
product, namely the actual choice of VLS, to the examination of “learners’ innate self-regulation
capacity that fuels their efforts to [use] personalized strategic learning mechanisms” (Tseng et
al., 2006, p. 79), such as VLS. Hence, instead of investigating the what, research has moved
on to the question why learners choose particular strategies. However, although the research
field might have moved on to take a wide-angle picture of strategic vocabulary learning,
pedagogical discourse still incorporates close-ups of the phenomenon, when aiming to equip
learners with VLS to enhance their learning success.
In addition to the incorporation of self-management strategies into a potential taxonomy of VLS,
one fundamental part of vocabulary learning still seems to be missing, namely recording
strategies. Students might differ in the way they record new words, such as verbal or written
recording of all sorts. By subsuming all these thoughts and approaches the following process-
oriented taxonomy of vocabulary learning strategies was developed.
Regarding the sequence of these VLS categories in the learning process of new words one
needs to say that the order how the VLS are applied does not have to be linear from left to
right. Using the example of recording strategies one can see that their placement is ambiguous,
since students might use recording strategies after the discovery of the meaning of a word but
it is also possible that students select a specific recording strategy out of habit, convenience
or on purpose before even investigating the new word more closely. Hence, the recording
strategy chosen could have a guiding or possibly also a limiting effect on what aspects of word
knowledge a student is aiming to discover about a new word in a next step.
3. Empirical study
Based on this taxonomy of VLS a small-scale study on advanced EFL learners’ preferences of
VLS was conducted. In particular, the following research questions were investigated:
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RQ1
How frequently do advanced EFL learners report using the five categories of VLS
mentioned in the taxonomy?
RQ2
Which VLS are reported to be used very frequently in each of the five categories?
RQ3
Do participants’ preferences vary dependent on their sex?
4. Methodology
To answer these research questions, 27 female and 10 male English major students at the
University of Vienna were asked to complete an online questionnaire on their use of VLS. While
most participants had attended a secondary school, 9 students had received their school
leaving qualification at a vocational school. The questionnaire comprised multi-item scales on
64 different VLS, which could all be assigned to one of the five VLS categories of the taxonomy.
All VLS considered can be found in the application box at the end. Participants were asked to
indicate how frequently they use a particular VLS on a six-point Likert scale ranging from I
always use this strategy when learning vocabulary to I never use this strategy when learning
vocabulary. A reliability analysis of the questionnaire revealed that the categories could be
considered to be consistent with a Cronbach alpha (α) above 0.5, as can be seen in Table 1.
5. Results
Regarding RQ1 on students’ use of the five different VLS categories, participants on average
reported to use discovery strategies the most (M 3.0, S 1.26) followed by planning strategies
(M 3.25, S 1.26), consolidation strategies (M 4.31, S 1.41), recording strategies (M 4.5, S 1.05)
and lastly self-management strategies (M 5.19, S. .53). For interpreting the means and
standard deviations in brackets, it is important to consider that I always use this VLS was coded
with 1 and I never use this VLS with 6. Hence, the higher the mean is the less frequently the
category was used.
Considering preferences of VLS within each of the five categories, participants reported to
almost always consider the aspects of a word which are most useful for them (Mdn 2) when
planning vocabulary learning. Additionally, participants stated that they often choose the words
they want to learn consciously (Mdn 3) and that they know how to choose, adapt and combine
their vocabulary strategies (Mdn 3).
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When recording words students often did not collect a word in an organized from but repeated
it by writing it down (Mdn 3). Only sometimes students kept an organized word list (Mdn 4) but
as often they did not even write new words down but claimed to repeat them orally (Mdn 4).
When asked about their preferences in relation to discovery strategies students almost always
guessed word meaning from context (Mdn 2), tried to recall a similar word in their L1 or other
languages known (Mdn 2), used available illustrations (Mdn 2), asked a teacher (Mdn 2) or
simply ignored or skipped the word (Mdn 2). However, participants also stated that they used
reference sources (Mdn 3) at least often.
Regarding consolidation strategies students indicated that they always listened to English with
the intention to remember newly encountered items (Mdn 1). Moreover, they learned the
pronunciation of the new words by speaking them out loud (Mdn 2) and they intentionally used
extensive reading (Mdn 2) or watched English movies to increase their vocabulary knowledge
(Mdn 2).
Self-management strategies were used relatively infrequently overall but the most frequently
used strategy of this category was that students regularly reminded themselves of the value of
achieving success in vocabulary learning (Mdn 4.5).
On basis of the descriptive tendencies found it was additionally interesting that significant
differences dependent on participants’ sex regarding VLS preferences could be found. An
independent t-tests (Field, 2018, p.453), revealed that female students used not only
significantly more strategies overall but also displayed a clear preference of planning (t(37)= -
2.804, p= .012), recording (t(37)= -2.434, p=.020) and self-management strategies (t(37)= -
2.669, p=.011) in comparison to their male counterparts. All assumptions (Field, 2018, p.453)
of the statistical tests were given. These findings are similar to the ones in Gu (2002).
For all three significant results effect size was calculated, showing a reasonably high effect
size, with a Cohen’s d of 1.026, 1.019 and 1.145. According to Field (2018) Cohen’s d is small
from 0-0.49, medium from 0.5-0.79 and large from 0.8 onwards (p. 114). Hence, the gender
difference in all three vocabulary strategies shows a large effect size.
6. Discussion
Analyzing the results presented above suggests that advanced EFL learners of English do not
use a large amount of recording strategies anymore when studying vocabulary but do seem to
perceive working on their vocabulary as a means to acquire better language skills and
understanding in general. At a first glance using discovery strategies the most might contradict
this conclusion but looking at the most frequently used discovery strategies reveals that
students choose the VLS that might require the least amount of time first and only if this does
not work and they see the necessity to use a reference source. Similarly, consolidation
strategies used all point towards a more implicit approach towards vocabulary learning. Hence,
one could argue that advanced EFL learners tend not to study vocabulary explicitly anymore
but adapt their VLS to their need to complete other language tasks. However, further research
needs to be conducted on the role of explicit and implicit vocabulary learning of advanced EFL
learners to confirm these suggestions.
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Application Box
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References
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