Investigating the Use of Vocabulary Learning Strategies among English Major Students

Abstract

The present study investigates the use of vocabulary learning strategies among English majors at University of Al-Fashir, particularly, those who major in English from the first year at the Faculty of Arts. The study focuses on strategies used by English majors, who study English vocabulary based on vocabulary building course prescribed in semester one at the Faculty of Arts. The sample involved (80) male and female students who joined the department of English in the academic year (2015-2016). The participants responded to the questionnaire and took a pre-and-post test. The methods adopted to carry out the current study are experimental and descriptive analytical approaches. The results of the questionnaire revealed that students tend to use metacognitive strategies (75%) as the most frequently used strategy, and social strategies (31.3%) as the least used strategies than other strategies whereas the results of the pre-and-post test showed that there was a significant difference (p = .000 < 05) at T. test equal 3.06 points in post tests when students exposed to vocabulary learning strategies (determination, social, cognitive, memory and metacognitive strategies) proposed by Schmitt in (1997). Accordingly, the researcher submitted a number of recommendations. The most important ones are; 1) students should be trained to guess the meaning of the new words from the context where they are used, 2) students should not focus on words that are expected to be involved in examination only, 3) students should pay a special attention to listening skill, especially to native speakers if that's possible, otherwise, they should use alternatives such as listening to podcasts, watch videos, movies, or join authentic English clubs.