Vocabulary Learning Strategy Use

CHAPTER FIVE DISCUSSION

This chapter discusses the results of the present study according to the following sequence: (1) vocabulary learning strategy use, (2) perceptual learning style preference, (3) relationship between vocabulary learning strategy use and perceptual learning style preferences, and (4) relationship of vocabulary learning strategy use and perceptual learning style preference to background variables (i.e., English achievement and gender).

Vocabulary Learning Strategy Use

Results in the present study reveal that all the participants as a group were moderate users of vocabulary learning strategies with an overall mean score of 2.58 on a five-point scale. In other words, the participants as a group did not use vocabulary learning strategies very frequently. This finding echoes Wang’s (2004), Kung’s (2004), and Hsu’s (2005) findings that Taiwanese students did not use vocabulary learning strategies very often. The consistent result obtained from these four studies indicates that Taiwanese EFL learners are in lack of the ability of using strategies while learning lexical items. This may be attributed to the inadequate strategy training in the present language program. Of all the previous vocabulary learning strategy studies, only Gu and Johnson’s (1996) study on 850 Chinese university students found that their participants used a variety of vocabulary learning strategies. One possible reason is that the participants in their study were all from Beijing Normal University, a prestigious university in Mainland China of which students achieved an advanced English proficiency level.

As to the six categories of strategies, the participants as a group reported using

the category of metacognitive strategies most frequently though the frequency was not

very high ( M = 2.77). The result corresponds to Hsu’s (2005) finding that Taiwanese university students used metacognitive strategies most frequently. However, other studies showed different results. For example, the university students in Hong Kong, as Fan (2003) found, favored guessing strategy category the most. Besides, the participants in Wang’s (2004) and Kung’s (2004) studies reported using cognitive strategy category and determination strategy category most often respectively.

According to Schmitt (1997), “metacognitive strategies (MET) involve a conscious overview of the learning process and making decisions about planning, monitoring, or evaluating the best ways to study” (p. 205). The result of this study suggested that the participants could control and manage their own learning by monitoring their learning process. However, it seems unreasonable for the participants of this study, who had mid to low proficiency levels, to do so. One possible reason for this result could be the common educational practices in Taiwan. Most teachers, as well as parents, in Taiwan monitor and make plans for their students and children (Lai, 2004).

Therefore, the participants’ use of metacognitive strategies in this study may not be self-initiated. For example, the high use frequency of the metacognitive strategy

“testing oneself with word tests” (item 56; M = 3.71, SD = 1.35) could merely reflect the fact that teachers in Taiwan often squeeze many quizzes in their syllabus in order to prepare their students for monthly exams and the Basic Proficiency Test. Students are forced to review lessons and test themselves as rehearsals of these quizzes. The same reason may also account for the students’ use of the other two metacognitive strategies: “use spaced word practice” (item 57; M =2.53, SD = 1.12) and “continue to study word over time.” (item 58; M = 2.76, SD = 1.32) As to the use of the metacognitive strategy “use English-language media (songs, movies, newscasts, etc.)”

(item 55; M = 2.09, SD = 1.24), it could be mainly due to the popularity of

advanced-technology and admiration of western culture among youngsters in Taiwan.

Regarding the use of individual strategy, the top ten most frequently used vocabulary learning strategies are “verbal repetition,” (item 45) “written repetition,”

(item 46) “testing oneself with word tests,” (item 56) “using word lists for discovery,”

(item 8) “asking classmates for meaning,” (item 13) “analyzing any available pictures or gestures,” (item 3) “studying the sound of a word,” (item 32) “using the vocabulary section in your textbook,” (item 51) “guessing from textual context,” (item 4) and

“using word lists for consolidation.” (item 47) The results show that the participants appeared to prefer rote learning provided that the top two strategies like “verbal repetition” and “written repetition” are seen as rote learning strategies. This finding is different from Gu and Johnson’s (1996) and Fan’s (2003) findings. Gu and Johnson (1996) concluded that “contrary to popular beliefs about Asian learners, the participants generally did not dwell on memorization, and reported using more meaning-oriented strategies than rote strategies in learning vocabulary” (p. 668).

But our finding supports the results in Schmitt’s (1997) study on 600 Japanese students, Wang’s (2004) study on 271 Taiwanese female senior high school students, and Hsu’s (2005) study on 47 Taiwanese university students. Their students all favored repetitive learning. O’Malley (1987) asserted that Asian students persisted in using repetition strategies to tackle vocabulary learning.

Many North American researchers (e.g., O’Malley et al., 1985; Oxford &

Scarcella, 1994) regarded rote learning strategies as shallow strategies, which do not

require much cognitive processing. It thus becomes difficult for them to explain

many Chinese learners’ reliance on such seemingly surface learning strategies as rote

learning or, more precisely, repetition to achieve academic success. However, to

other researchers (e.g., Biggs, 1996; Marton et al., 1996) repetitive learning does not

necessarily exclude understanding and therefore could contribute to learning. For

example, Biggs (1996, cited in Gu, 2003) distinguished between mechanical learning

without understanding and repetitive learning, “which uses repetition as a means of ensuring accurate recall” (p. 54). He stated that repetition is more commonly used in

“Confucian-heritage cultures” (p. 46) because of traditional beliefs about learning and rooted examination culture. Marton, Dall’Alba, and Tse (1996, cited in Gu, 2003) further suggested that for Chinese learners, memorization and understanding are not mutually exclusive. “Memorization with understanding” could include both

“memorizing what is understood” and “understanding through memorization” (p. 77).

In sum, the Western notion of rote learning does not fully capture Chinese people’s conceptions of repetition.

Besides, strategies that may help students to succeed in paper-and-pencil achievement tests like “testing oneself with word test,” “studying the sound of a word,” “using the vocabulary section in your textbook,” and “using word lists for consolidation” were favored by the participants of this study. The Japanese students in Schmitt (1997) and the Taiwanese senior high school students in Wang (2004) also reported studying the sound of a word frequently. The students in Schmitt (1997) used word lists for consolidating a word frequently. Besides, the participants in Wang (2004) and the female participants in Catalán (2003) favored using the vocabulary section in textbooks.

The remaining four frequently used strategies all belong to discovery strategies.

This finding is not surprising in view of the mid to low proficiency level of the

students. They may not know much vocabulary and have to find out the meanings of

new words frequently. In this study, the participants preferred discovering a new

word’s meaning by means of “using word lists for discovery,” “asking classmates for

meaning,” “analyzing any available pictures or gestures,” and “guessing from textual

context.” Schmitt’s (1997) and Catalán’s (2003) studies also found that their

participants preferred the strategy “asking classmates for meaning.” “Guessing from

textual context” was frequently used by the participants in Schmitt’s (1997), Fan’s (2003), Wang’s (2004), Hsu’s (2005) and Catalán’s (2003) studies. This finding is encouraging to the teachers who emphasize the importance of guessing meaning.

Yet, “analyzing any available pictures or gestures” was not found to be frequently used in any previous studies. This strategy was more frequently used in this study probably because it was linguistically less demanding and thus easier for low proficiency learners to use. Learners can guess the meaning of a word from illustrations directly. Chen’s (1998) study on Taiwanese students found that participants regarded word lists helpful for discovering a word’s meaning. It seems that paired-associate words on lists and cards are commonly used for Taiwanese students.

The strategies used the least frequently are the following: “using semantic feature grids,” (item 44) “Peg Method,” (item 25) “using physical action when learning a word,” (item 43) “using semantic maps,” (item 23) “monolingual dictionary,” (item 6)

“Loci Method,” (item 26) “grouping words together within a storyline,” (item 30)

“configuration,” (item 37) “putting English labels on physical objects,” (item 53) and

“interacting with native-speakers.” (item 17) These strategies, especially strategies

like “using semantic feature grids,” “Peg Method,” “using semantic maps,” “Loci

Method,” and “grouping words together within a storyline,” are more complicated and

involve “deeper processing” (imaging, association, grouping, analysis). One

possible explanation for their low frequency of use may be that the complexity of

these memory strategies is beyond junior high school students’ capacity in particular

of those students with mid to low proficiency level. Another possible explanation is

that teachers in Taiwan favor traditional vocabulary learning techniques and these

complex strategies are seldom introduced to their students. It is also possible that

even teachers themselves have limited knowledge about these strategies.

“Configuration” was infrequently used probably for the same reasons.

The infrequent use of “using physical action when learning a word” may be attributed to the teaching practices in Taiwan. In a junior high school English classroom compacted with around 40 students, it’s hardly possible for the teacher to adopt Total Physical Response teaching approach. A similar finding is obtained in Schmitt (1997), which shows that Japanese students seldom use physical actions to learn vocabulary. As to use of “monolingual dictionary” strategy, because this kind of dictionaries are written all in English, it may be too difficult for language learners with only four years’ learning experience to use in the present study. Due to the EFL environment in Taiwan, it is not easy for students to have the opportunities of talking to English native-speakers. Therefore, it is not surprising that “interacting with native-speakers” was not frequently used by the participants of this study. The low frequency of using the strategy “putting English labels on physical objects” can be explained by Taiwanese parents’ attitude toward this kind of behavior. It is very likely that most parents in Taiwan would discourage this kind of behavior for fear of messing up the house. Besides, junior high school students might not have free time to do so under great studying pressure in Taiwan.

Perceptual Learning Style Preference

The findings of this study indicate that the participants did not express any major preference for perceptual learning styles. To be more specific, the mean score for each style is below 3.8 on a five-point scale: Visual ( M = 2.82), Auditory (M = 3.00), Tactile ( M = 2.43), Kinesthetic (M = 2.54), Group (M = 3.26) and Individual (M = 2.57). This finding contradicted that of Reid’s (1987) and Rossi-Le’s (1995), which reveals that Chinese students demonstrated a very strong visual preference.

However, the finding echoed the findings of four studies done in the context of

Taiwan, including Lin and Shen’s (1996) study on junior college students, Cheng’s (1997) study on military college students, Tsao’s (2002) study on senior high school students, and Chao’s (2005) study on junior high school students. In addition, the result is consistent with Stebbins’ (1995) study on Chinese students in the United States, which shows that Chinese students expressed no stronger preferences for any modality. Cheng (1997) observed that her participants provided more “agree” or

“disagree” responses than “strongly agree” or “strongly disagree” ones. It seems that Chinese students are less willing to express strong personal opinions, probably because they are influenced by “a cultural tradition based on Confucian morality and its stress on control and order for the well-being of all” (Stebbins, 1995, p. 112).

Further research is required to clarify the effects of this response tendency on Chinese/Taiwanese students’ choice of learning style preferences.

Among the six learning styles, group learning was the most preferred mode ( M = 3.26). Besides, group learning was preferred by the participants to individual learning. This means that the participants would learn better and get more work done in a group than alone. Several previous studies had similar findings. For example, Rossi-Le (1995) found that Chinese adult immigrant learners had strong preference for group learning. Similarly, Cheng’s (1997), Tseng’s (2001), Tsao’s (2002), and Chao’s (2005) studies on Taiwanese learners found that the preference for group learning ranked higher than that for individual learning. Most of the Taiwanese senior high school students in Chen (2004) also preferred a style of learning in collaborative work. One possible explanation for this finding is the high premium that Chinese society place on group cohesiveness (Stebbins, 1995) and collectivism (Nelson, 1995). That is, Chinese students are often encouraged to concern and work for the group instead of for themselves.

Compared to group learning, individual learning was the less preferred

sociological learning style, receiving a mean lower than 3 on a five-point scale ( M = 2.57). This indicates that students in the study did not like to learn through working alone. Similarly, according to Cheng’s (1997), Cheng’s (2001), Tseng’s (2001), Tsao’s (2002), Chang’s (2003), Chen’s (2004) and Chao’s (2005) studies on Taiwanese learners, most Chinese learners ranked individual learning as the least preferred learning style. The result may be explained by the culture and educational practices of Chinese. According to Nelson (1995), the Confucian philosophical tradition that does not place great emphasis on individualism might have an effect on students’ preferred learning style. Besides, Chinese parents or teachers tend to make plans for their children or students so students had few opportunities of solving problems or making decisions by themselves. Chinese children or students might eventually become not used to learning alone. In other words, students’ previous educational experience might play an important role in student learning style preferences (Reid, 1995).

Tactile learning received the lowest mean ( M = 2.43) and is the least preferred learning style among the six styles in the present study. The result indicates that the participants as a group in this study did not like to learn through doing “hands-on”

activities with materials, such as working on experiments, handling and building models (Reid, 1995). Chao (2005) obtained a similar finding in that tactile modality was preferred second to the least in her study. Tsao (2002) also found that senior high school student did not show great preference for tactile learning. The result obtained in this study may be due to two facts. First, the activities in junior high school English textbooks include only a small proportion of tactile activities, most of which are related to writing (Chao, 2005)

that usually requires higher proficiency

9

Chao (2005) conducted a study on EFL students’ preference for textbook activities at the junior high

level. One of her instruments was the Textbook Activity Preference Questionnaire, which was

constructed on the basis of an analysis of the English textbooks, Kang Hsuan Version: Book One to

and may easily make learners feel dull. Second, due to the compact syllabus and the heavy pressure for learning and teaching, junior high school English teachers seldom include “hands-on” English learning activities, such as carving pumpkin lanterns, making Easter eggs, or decorating a Christmas tree. The keen competition in the Taiwanese educational system makes many teachers only focus on preparing students for the exams. Therefore, students have few opportunities to develop their tactile strength.

Auditory learning mode was ranked as the second most preferred learning mode ( M = 3.00) among the six styles; it ranked as the first among the four perceptual styles.

The finding shows that students prefer learning through auditory stimuli, such as reading aloud, moving their lips as they read, and listening to tapes or lectures (Reid, 1995). The result corresponds to Reid’s (1987) finding that the Chinese subjects in her study preferred auditory learning the most while compared with the other eight ethnic groups. Similarly, the Taiwanese college students in Cheng’s (2001) and Tseng’s (2001) studies showed strong preferences for auditory learning. Tsao (2002) also found that senior high school students preferred auditory learning the most, and so did the junior high school students in Chao (2005). These students’ preference for auditory learning style may be due to the common instructional practice among Taiwanese junior high school teachers, who spend most of class time on lecturing.

Among the six learning styles, visual and kinesthetic learning styles received a mean lower than 3 on a five-point scale, indicating that the participants’ preference for these two learning styles was lower than moderate. Regarding the visual mode, participants’ preference for learning through eyes, such as reading notes and having visual aids, was lower than moderate ( M = 2.82). The result contradicts Reid’s (1987) and Rossi-Le’s (1995) finding that Chinese were strong visual learners.

only 13 were related to tactile learning style.

However, many studies conducted on Taiwanese students, like Tsao (2002), Ko (2002), Chen (2004) and Chao (2005), revealed that students did not show strong preference for visual learning. Keefe (1987) asserted that as individuals get mature and learn to read, they gradually shift from tactile/kinesthetic to visual mode. Besides, according to Rossi-Le’s (1995) study, visual learning was preferred by older students and by students with higher language proficiency. In the present study, the participants’ not showing strong preference for visual learning may be due to their low proficiency.

In the past three years, the graduates of this school always obtained an average English score for the Basic Proficiency Test slightly below the average score of the whole nation.

Kinesthetic learning is the second to the least preferred style, receiving a mean lower than 3 on a five-point scale ( M = 2.54). This finding indicates that the participants in this study did not like to learn through whole-body movement, such as moving, field trips, and role-playing (Reid, 1995). The result contradicted Reid’s (1987), Rossi-Le’s (1995), Park’s (1997, 2000), Tsao’s (2002), Chen’s (2004), and Chao’s (2005) findings. Reid (1987) found that Chinese students expressed stronger preference for kinesthetic learning when compared with other eight ethnic groups.

Rossi-Le (1995) claimed that the Chinese subjects showed strong preference for

kinesthetic learning though there were no clear explanations as to how she defined

one’s level of preference for a particular learning style. In Park’s (1997, 2000)

studies, all ethnic groups revealed major preference for kinesthetic mode. A similar

finding was found in Taso’s (2002), Chen’s (2004) and Chao’s (2005) studies that

Taiwanese students demonstrated strong preference for learning kinesthetically. The

data in Rossi-Le’s (1995) study revealed a relationship between kinesthetic learning

style preference and a learner’s background. “More language-proficient students

preferred learning through interactive methods and direct experiences with the

language” (p. 121). The low proficiency level of the participants in the present study may be related to their low level of preference for kinesthetic learning. Besides, the finding may also be explained by the fact that few kinesthetic activities are included in the current used junior high school English textbooks in Taiwan. According to Chao’s (2005) analysis of the textbook, among the 34 activities, only 2 were related to kinesthetic learning. In addition, influenced by Confucianism, many Chinese teachers believe that the classroom is a place where serious knowledge is taught.

Many kinesthetic activities common in communicative language teaching, like games, may be considered unserious and excluded by Chinese teachers who feel that they are not really teaching when they use such activities (Burnaby & Sun, 1989). Therefore, students may have few opportunities for kinesthetic learning or developing kinesthetic strength.

Relationships Between Vocabulary Learning Strategy Use and Perceptual Learning Style Preferences

This study shows that all the six perceptual learning styles were significantly correlated with overall vocabulary learning strategy use. As the correlation coefficients show, visual learning style had the strongest link with overall vocabulary learning strategies ( r = .67, p < .01), followed by auditory learning style (r = .58, p

< .01), individual learning style ( r = .42, p < .01), kinesthetic learning style (r = .34, p

< .01), group learning style ( r = .28, p < .01), and tactile learning style (r = .15, p

< .05). The results reveal that visual and auditory learning styles are the only two styles that had a more than moderate correlation to all the six strategy categories. The results also suggest that preferences for visual and auditory learning styles are the two most important correlates of vocabulary learning strategy use.

The classroom instruction is mainly delivered by visual and auditory modes

(Melton, 1990). Hence, academic study usually requires visual and auditory modalities. The above findings seem to suggest that students who are more adaptable to the modes of instruction are also more able to use a wide range of strategies. However, it is worth noting that though visual learning style had the highest correlation with overall vocabulary learning strategy use, visual learning style ranked as the third preferred style by all the participants. The students as a group did not seem to like using visual modality so much. Owing to the strong link between visual learning style and vocabulary learning strategy use, visual learning style preference may need to be further cultivated in Taiwanese junior high school students.

The results reveal that individual learning style was significantly correlated with all the six strategy categories. Among the six strategy categories, individual learning style had the lowest correlation with discovery social strategies ( r = .31, p < .01) and consolidation social strategies ( r = .19, p < .01), which require interactions with others.

In contrast, individual learning style had higher correlations with determination, memory, metacognitive, and cognitive strategies, which corresponds to the self-directed and individualized nature of individual learning style.

Regarding kinesthetic learning style, the results demonstrate that it was significantly correlated with all the six strategy categories. In particular, it was most highly correlated with consolidation social strategies ( r = .41, p < .01). This finding is not surprising. Kinesthetic learners prefer being involved in the totality of the language learning experience and benefit from learning in the realistic context (Rossi-Le, 1995). Consolidation social strategies that involve much interaction with other people to improve language learning appear to cater to kinesthetic learners.

However, it should be noted that the other subgroup of social strategies, discovery

social strategies, which do not involve continuous interaction with others have only

low correlation with kinesthetic learning style ( r = .26, p < .01).

As to group learning style, the results demonstrate that it had a significant correlation to all the six vocabulary learning strategy categories. Among the six strategy categories, consolidation social strategies and discovery social strategies had the highest correlation with group learning style ( r = .43, p < .01 and r = .29, p < .01 respectively). Group learning involves collaborative work and group learners learn more effectively through working with others (Reid, 1995; 1998). Utilizing social strategies like asking teachers or classmates to discover the meaning of vocabulary or consolidating vocabulary knowledge with other people corresponds to the preference of group learning style. Again, discovery social strategies, which do not involve frequent interaction with others, had a lower correlation with group learning style than consolidation social strategies.

Tactile learning style was the only style in this study that was not significantly correlated with all of the strategy categories. Though it was significantly correlated with the overall vocabulary learning strategy use, only consolidation social strategies and memory strategies had a significant yet low correlation with it. This result may be due to students’ lack of experience with tactile activities in their educational environment. The current English teaching program in Taiwan seldom includes hands-on activities, except for writing practices. Another possible explanation is that the nature of all the six vocabulary learning strategy categories can not fit well into tactile learning mode.

Relationship of Vocabulary Learning Strategy Use and Perceptual Learning Style Preferences to Background Variables

Vocabulary Learning Strategy Use and Achievement Level

Consistent with the findings of previous studies done in Taiwan (Hsu, 2005;

Kung, 2004; Wang, 2004) or in other countries (Fan, 2003; Gu & Johnson, 1996;

Kojic-sabo & Lightbown, 1999; Lawson & Hogben, 1996; Sanaoui, 1995), students with better English achievement used a wider range of vocabulary learning strategies more often. The difference in vocabulary learning strategy use between high and low achievers was significant in the use of all the six vocabulary strategy categories.

To be more specific, high achievers used all the six strategy categories significantly more often than low achievers. The results reveal that achievement level is an important variable in participants’ use of vocabulary learning strategies.

As to the six categories of vocabulary learning strategies high and low achievers employed, two interesting findings are worth noting. First, high achievers in the present study used determination strategy category most frequently, while low achievers ranked it fourth. The difference was significant. That is, high achievers found out a word’s meaning without turning to others more often than low achievers.

The finding was consistent with Gu and Johnson’s (1996), Fan’s (2003), Kung’s (2004), and Wang’s (2004) findings. Kung (2004) and Wang (2004) adopted Schmitt’s taxonomy of vocabulary learning strategies and found that their high proficiency students used determination strategy category most frequently. In Gu and Johnson’s (1996) study, “skillful use of dictionary,” “contextual guessing,” and

“paying attention to word formation” were found to be positively correlated with

vocabulary size and proficiency level. All these three strategies can be grouped into

determination category. Besides, Fan (2003) showed that more proficient students

reported using more guessing and dictionary strategies, which may also be

characterized as determination strategies. One possible explanation for these

findings is that high achievers are more independents learners. They like to figure

out a new word’s meaning by themselves, and thus adopt determination strategies

more frequently. It could also be that learners that could find ways to figure out the

meanings of words learn more efficiently and achieve better than those could not.

The second noteworthy finding of this study is that in addition to the significant difference, high achievers reported using metacognitive strategies the second most frequently, while low achievers reported using them second to the least frequently.

In other words, high achievers used more frequently those strategies that help them control, manage, and analyzing their learning process than low achievers. The contrast between high and low achievers’ use of metacognitive strategies corresponds to the findings of some previous studies. For example, Sanaoui (1995) found that high scoring group in the vocabulary test employed more structured strategies, while low scoring groups used more unstructured strategies. According to Sanaoui (1995), the structureness of an approach depends on the extent of independent study, self-initiation, reviewing, etc.; therefore, structured approach could be recognized as metacognitive strategy. Our finding is also in line with Fan’s (2003) finding that high proficient students reported using sources strategies, that is, actively finding sources for encountering new words. They could thus be categorized as metacognitive strategies. Furthermore, this result supports Gu and Johnson’s (1996) finding that self-initiation and selective attention, two metacognitive strategy categories, emerged as positive predictors of proficiency tests. Gu’s (2003) investigation on two advanced vocabulary learners found that they shared many metacognitive abilities. Being more active and self-motivated, high achievers tend to prepare and plan for their own learning and to monitor and evaluate their learning outcomes. It could also be true the other way around. That is, the ability to control and monitor one’s learning could contribute to high achievement.

Perceptual Learning Style Preferences and Achievement Level

In this study, the differences between high and low achievers reached statistical

significance in four out of the six learning styles: visual, auditory, kinesthetic and individual learning styles. Besides, high achievers showed a stronger preference for all six learning styles than low achievers. In other words, high achievers were more open to different learning styles and appeared to enjoy learning through multiple modalities. The result is consistent with Kirby’s (1979), Kinsella’s (1995), Ko’s (2002), and Tsao’s (2002) studies. Kirby (1979) claimed that students with greater learning-style flexibility were also greater achievers. Kinsella (1995) asserted that students with “mixed modality strengths had better chance of success in terms of academic achievement than those with a single modality strength” (p. 173).

Probably learners of multiple learning style could deal with different kinds of information by using suitable sensory channels; they could thus absorb and integrate the information more effectively.

In line with Tsao’s (2002) and Park’s (1997) findings, high achievers in the

present study preferred auditory learning the most while low achievers preferred

group learning the most. As far as high achievers are concerned, they favored

auditory learning the most, and visual learning, the second, with both means reaching

3.5. The following reasons may explain why auditory and visual learning styles tend

to be associated with high achievement. First, it was found that a majority of the

English teachers in Taiwan preferred instructing in an auditory fashion, such as

lecturing, reading instructions, asking students to read aloud, and playing audio tapes

(Cheng, 1997). This instructional approach favors the auditory learners. Second,

Oxford (1995) stated that 50% to 80% of language teachers and students preferred

visual learning. Thus, visual learners might achieve better at school because their

style matches their teachers’. On the other hand, low achievers liked group

learning style the most, which was also the only learning style rated beyond 3 by low

achievers. This finding suggests that low achievers need more support from others.

Vocabulary Learning Strategy Use and Gender

Findings emerging from the present study showed that males and females did not have significant differences in any vocabulary learning strategy categories. However, females were found to employ more strategies than males did in five out of the six strategy categories: determination strategies, consolidation social strategies, memory strategies, cognitive strategies, and metacognitive strategies. Though the result is not exactly consistent with some of the previous studies (e.g., Catalán, 2003; Gu, 2002), it follows the common tendency that females adopt more strategies. Gu (2002) investigated 648 Chinese university students. A questionnaire adapted from Gu and Johnson’s (1996) Vocabulary Learning Questionnaire were used as an instrument. The questionnaire consists of three belief categories, two metacognitive strategy categories, eighteen cognitive strategy categories, and an item on study time.

He found that compared to males, female participants reported significantly higher

levels in two belief categories, two metacognitive strategy categories, ten cognitive

strategy categories, and study time. In addition, Catalán’s (2003) study on 581

Spanish students found that the strategies females used significantly outnumbered

those that males used. Besides, female learners reported using a wider range of

strategies than males did. One possible explanation for this gender difference may

be that females hold more positive attitudes towards language learning and are more

motivated (Bacon & Finneman, 1992; Kaylani, 1996). Besides, in the Chinese

society, women are generally expected to achieve better in language learning than

men. Therefore, the failure of English learning may be more face-threatening for

females than males (Gu, 2002). Different social expectations for females and males

may push female learners to use more strategies to deal with language learning. It is

noteworthy that contrary to the belief that females have stronger verbal skills and

greater social orientation (Oxford, 1989), in the present study, males adopted more,

though not significantly, discovery social strategies than females, which solicit support from others but do not require continuous interaction with other people.

Perceptual Learning Style Preference and Gender

Significant difference in learning styles between males and females was only found in tactile learning. Females showed significantly stronger preference for tactile learning than males. The finding contradicts Rossi-Le’s (1989) finding that Asian males utilized tactile learning more than Asian females. Similarly, Oxford (1995) claimed that women were more likely to be less tactile, less kinesthetic and more auditory than men in the sensory style realm. Further research is needed to verify the gender difference in tactile learning.

In the present study, females showed stronger preferences for five of the six learning styles: visual, auditory, tactile, kinesthetic, and group, although four of them did not reach statistical significance. This tendency indicates that females tended to be more open to a variety of learning styles than males. In accordance with Lin and Shen’s (1996) and Tsao’s (2002) studies, overall, female students exhibited more willingness to adopt more learning modes than males in English classes. This phenomenon may be explained by the fact that female students were more fond of language courses (Lin & Shen, 1996).

As to the rank order, both males and females preferred group learning the most,

and auditory, the second. Their preference for group learning may be accounted for

by their less than moderate proficiency. Mid or low achievers have been found to

favor working with others in some studies (e.g., Park, 1997; Tsao, 2002). In addition,

as discussed previously, studying at school in Taiwan usually demands auditory

modality. As a result, the participants of this study, both male and female, might get

more used to auditory learning style.