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Tina Yu Yang King’s College London
A Study on Vocabulary Learning Strategies
Used by Native English Speakers Learning Chinese as a Foreign
Language
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Introduction of my ongoing PhD study Research aims and questions Relevant theories and frameworks Research methods
Presenting part of the data analysis Basic information of the cases Identifying strategy use & describing individual’s self-
regulation
Tentative conclusions
Outline of the Presentation
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Research aims To understand Chinese vocabulary learning process by investigating learner’s strategy use and self-regulation process
Research questions1. What learning strategies are used?2. How are they used (e.g. purpose, steps)?3. Why are they used in such manners (e.g. beliefs)?
Introduction
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Relevant Theories - Definition Language Learning Strategies are activities consciously chosen by learners for the purpose of regulating their own language learning (Griffiths, 2013, p. 15 )
Key Theoretical Frameworks Oxford (2011) – Meta-knowledge, Meta-strategies,
strategies (i.e. cognitive, affective, sociocultural interactive)
Gu (2003) - Person, Task, Context factors
Introduction
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In the UK context
Individual Context
The task factor• Chinese (fewer
cognates, tones, characters)
• Vocabulary
• Strategy• Meta-strategy • Meta-knowledge
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Key Theoretical Frameworks – The task factorFive vocabulary learning sub-tasks Proposed based on Schmitt (1997), Nation (2001), Gu (2003)1. Encountering new words2. Searching for word information3. Keeping records of word information4. Establishing, consolidating and enhancing word knowledge5. Using the word
Introduction
Form, meaning and use Nation (2001)
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Research methods Qualitative Case study approach: 6 cases Data collocation methods: 1. Learners’ diaries 2. Interviews and follow-up questions via emails 3. Think-aloud protocols 4. Observations 5. Learning products Analysing to identify learner meta-/strategy use and
learner meta-knowledge
Introduction
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Basic information of the cases - two good language learnersCriteria: make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective, and more transferable to new situations (p.8 Oxford, 1990)
Data on two Sub-tasks Encountering new words Establishing, consolidating and enhancing word knowledge
Data analysis
Case
age
Learning environment
Study time per week
Years spent in learning
Current Chinese proficiency level
Sarah
25 Private lessons, UK
2-5 hours 2.5 years Beginning
Mark 58 Self-study, UK
14-21 hours
4 years Intermediate
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Sarah’s use of resources1. Using vocabulary lists (main)2. Private lessons3. Instructional TV programsMark’s use of resources4. Using character list5. Reading textbooks (main)6. Interacting with native Chinese speakers
Encountering new words
Learning French & Spanish: • Interacting with native
speakers • Extensive Reading
Learning French & Dutch: Extensive Reading
Intentional
Incidental
Chinese Western Languages
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Key strategy: selecting and limiting the amount of vocabulary input for further learning Meta-cognitive: To regulate the cognitive
aspect of learning
Encountering new words
Sarah: It is helpful to have a limit, like okay I am gonna learn this to start with, and I am gonna try and reuse this as much as possible until I am familiar with it, and I am also trying to recognise the characters, and the pronunciation in pinyin, and then the tones accurately, so it is quite a lot to do at once, so it is helpful to restrict it, get that right (Interview 5)Mark: [from QQ conversation] If I do encounter new words/characters, I invariably don't add them to my list: this is because I read and re-read the course work, giving me an opportunity to revise my new words/characters. But QQ conversations will never be repeated so I don't record unknown words from there (Follow-up email).
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Key strategy: selecting and limiting the amount of vocabulary input for further learning Meta-affective: To regulate the affective aspect
of learning
Encountering new words
Sarah: I am gonna try and learn these words, and practice all the grammar using this vocabulary, because this will help me pass a particular test, and then that's like a checkpoint for me to feel like I will achieve something. And I think it is quite important to have that when you learn a language, because otherwise it's such a massive task that you can get a bit overwhelmed by it, and it gets frustrating if you are trying really hard to recognise characters and you keep coming across new ones you have never seen before, so you are never gonna recognise something you haven't learned it (Interview 2).
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Key strategy: Dividing the learning task to pay better attentionSarah’s dividing strategy
Establishing, consolidating and enhancing word knowledge
Sarah: And then the next one […], but I am not really comfortable with how it is used, so I will think of that as something I would not want to learn the character yet, because I don't understand the word enough, so I will think okay this is a word I will need to look out for, and see how it is used, and then I will learn the character because I will have something to link it to (Think-aloud 2).
Sarah: I read over the vocabulary from yesterday on the tube in the morning. Because these words are new to me, I focused on remembering the meaning and how they structure works in a sentence rather than the tones or characters (Diary).
Sarah: So with this [i.e. the vocabulary list], the first few pages I have been through a while ago, […] most of the words on the first page I now recognise, and I don't necessarily know the characters for them, so I've now try to pay more attention to the characters when I read through it […] (Interview 1).
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Key strategy – Dividing the task to pay better attentionSarah’s dividing strategy Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4 (optional)
Establishing, consolidating and enhancing word knowledge
spoken form-meaning (excluding tones)
use
Tones
written form (character recognition)
written form (character hand-writing)
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Sarah: […] initially when I was learning Chinese, the way the classes was structured to learn all of them [i.e. aspects of word knowledge] simultaneously, and I found that, personally I found it really frustrating, because I just felt overwhelmed by a lot of different things, they were all quite difficult, and I did not feel like I could reinforce them easily, so it just felt a bit pointless, it felt like it should have been easy, but it really wasn’t, and I just found it, I did not feel like I was making progress, and I found that frustrating (Interview 1).
Establishing, consolidating and enhancing word knowledge
Sarah: Trying to learn new words, new structures and the characters all at once was overwhelming - I never knew what to focus on so I didn't really feel like I had learnt anything by the end of the course. Now that I am familiar with certain words and how they are used, it feels like recognising a friendly face when I see them in a sentence, and it helps unlock the rest of the meaning (Follow-up questions).Sarah: Now that I am familiar with more words, learning to read them is surprisingly satisfying and easier than I expected. I think that's something I didn't realise when I started (Follow-up questions).
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Key strategy – Dividing the task to pay better attentionMark’s dividing strategy Memorizing individual characters (i.e. word part) through
writing characters repeatedly
Meeting words (i.e. character combinations) through reading the textbooks
Establishing, consolidating and enhancing word knowledge
Mark: the reason for this is because I see the characters a bit like I would see the English alphabet, […] we have to learn the alphabet as a kind of building block, so I took the same idea and try to apply to these characters, so, unfortunately there are more than 26 to learn [...] (Interview 2)
Mark: There are two aspects to this, there is the character itself, am I familiar with how to write it, how to pronounce it, what its basic meaning is; but there is also its meaning as a word when combined with another character. […] I am looking to see if I need add any to the list, and I am also looking for new words that consist of characters I already know. (Interview 1).
Key strategy – Dividing the task to pay better attentionMark’s dividing strategy
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Establishing, consolidating and enhancing word knowledge
Character (word part) learning
Spoken form
Written form
Morpheme meaning
Word learning
Form Learning
Character combination Word meaning
Use
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Tentative Conclusion
1. Strategy use appears to be under the influence of the task nature Chinese vocabulary features fewer cognates, characters, tones, deep orthographic system Strategy use limiting the vocab. Input attending more to the affective aspect (having checkpoints) more intentional learning at the beginning dividing the task to pay better attention (e.g. spoken before written)2. Strategy use seems to be under the influence of learner knowledge Sarah’s knowledge on various aspects of word knowledge Mark’s knowledge on the relationship between characters and words
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3. Strategy use seems to be under the influence of learner individual differences Motivation: listening/speaking vs. reading/writing Learning styles: analytical vs. holistic Study time
4. Good language learners are better at realising their meta-knowledge into strategy use through effective use of meta-strategies (esp. planning, implementing the plans, and evaluating)
5. Good language learners are better at generating new meta-knowledge from their strategy use through effective use of meta-strategies (esp. evaluating)
Tentative Conclusion
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References
Gu, Peter Yongqi. (2003). Vocabulary Learning In A Second Language: Person, Task, Context And Strategies. TESL- EJ, 7(2), 1-25. Nation, I.S.P. (2001). Learning Vocabulary In Another Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Oxford, Rebecca L. (2011). Teaching and Researching Language Learning Strategies Great Britain: Pearson Education Limited.Schmitt, Norbert. (1997). Vocabulary Learning Strategies. In N. Schmitt & M. McCarthy (Eds.), Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition And Pedagogy (pp. 199-227). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
