CHAPTER FIVE DISSCUSSION OF RESULTS
This study aims to explore the use of vocabulary learning strategies reported by Taiwanese vocational high school students. The relationship between vocabulary learning strategies and reading proficiency is also investigated. Two instruments were adopted: a vocabulary learning strategy questionnaire based on Schmitt’s (1997) taxonomy with some modification and a reading proficiency test selected from GEPT-Intermediate Level. After participants filling out the vocabulary learning strategy questionnaire and taking the English reading proficiency test, the collected data were analyzed quantitatively. Chapter Four provides the results of the study. In this final chapter, results presented in Chapter Four are summarized and discussed following the research questions. Then, classroom implications are offered. Finally, the limitations of the study are stated.
Summary of the Results
The research questions that guide the present study are as follows: (1) What vocabulary learning strategies are used by Taiwanese vocational high school students?
(2) Is there any relationship between Taiwanese vocational high school students’ use of vocabulary learning strategies and their English reading proficiency? (3) Is there any difference between high and low English reading proficiency students in their use of vocabulary learning strategies? The main findings to answer these research questions are listed as follows.
1. Vocational high school students investigated in the present study did not use vocabulary learning strategies very often.
2. Discovery strategies were reported to be of more frequency of use than
consolidation strategies.
3. Among the five strategy categories, determination strategies were reported to be used most frequently while social strategies were of least frequent use.
4. Eleven most and least commonly used vocabulary learning strategies were identified.
5. Vocabulary learning strategy use and reading proficiency were found to be positively correlated.
6. Among the five strategy categories, determination strategies, memory strategies, and metacognitive strategies were shown to be significantly correlated with reading proficiency.
7. Among all 60 strategies, 19 strategies were found to be correlated with reading proficiency, among which 17 were positively correlated and 2 were negatively correlated. The two negatively correlated strategies are “study and practice meaning in a group” and “skip or pass the word.”
8. Of the three sub-sections in the reading proficiency test, only reading comprehension section was found to be positively correlated with vocabulary learning strategies.
10. The reading comprehension section was correlated with determination, memory, and metacognitive strategies.
11. High and low English reading proficiency students were found to be significantly different in their use of vocabulary learning strategies. High reading proficiency students significantly used some strategies more often than their low reading proficiency counterparts, especially determination and metacognitive strategies.
13. The ten most and least used vocabulary learning strategies reported by high and low reading proficiency students were listed respectively and found that more than
half of the strategies overlapped.
14. Sixteen strategies out of 60 were identified to be used significantly differently by high and low English reading proficiency students. Among these 16 strategies, high reading proficiency students generally obtained higher means in the frequency of strategy use except for one strategy: skip or pass the new word, which was used more frequently by low reading proficiency students.
Since the relationship between vocabulary learning strategies use and reading proficiency was confirmed to be positively correlated, topics related to reading proficiency are integrated into the following discussion about vocabulary learning strategies use.
Discussion
In this section, the general profile of vocational high school students’ use of vocabulary learning strategies is first discussed. Then, the use of strategy categories and the most and least used vocabulary learning strategies are discussed. Lastly, five commonly used individual vocabulary learning strategies are selected for discussion.
General Profile of Vocabulary Learning Strategies Reported in Use
According to the results presented in Chapter Four, there are three characteristics existing in the participants’ use of vocabulary learning strategies as a whole. First, vocational high school students investigated in this study are moderate users of vocabulary learning strategies. Besides, they tend to pay attention to the form and the meaning of a word rather than the usage of the word. And third, mechanical strategies are favored by participants over more complex ones. These three characteristics are discussed as follows.
1. Participants are moderate users of vocabulary learning strategies
According to the mean score of the frequency of strategy use, vocational high school students investigated in the present study only sometimes used vocabulary learning strategies. Even the high reading proficiency students indicated their use of vocabulary learning strategies at medium frequency level. Besides, vocabulary learning strategies of high frequency use are of limited numbers. As shown in Table 8, only 11 strategies out of 60 (17.33%) are reported to be used in high frequency level.
This indicates that the participants in general neither used vocabulary learning strategies very often, nor did they use large numbers of strategies. They tended to stick to certain types of vocabulary learning strategies and used them occasionally.
As for the comparison of high and low reading proficiency students, there exists a large gap between the numbers of strategies in high frequency use. As shown in Table 27, 15 out of 60 strategies (25%) appear to be of high frequency use by high reading proficiency students while only 5 out of 60 strategies (8.3%) reported by low reading proficiency students to be of high frequency use. It is confirmed that students of high reading proficiency not only use vocabulary learning strategies more frequently, but they also utilize larger numbers of high frequency strategies. The same results occur in Kung’s (2004), Cheng’s (2006), Wang’s (2004), and Hsu’s (2005) studies, which took elementary school students, junior high school students, senior high school students, and college students as participants respectively. Thus it can be concluded that more proficient students use vocabulary learning strategies more often than less proficient learners regardless of their age or educational background.
2. Form and meaning rather than usage of a word are focused.
Another point to be noted is that vocational high school students investigated in
this study tended to focus on the form and meaning of a word rather than the usage of a word when learning vocabulary. Strategies related to study the sound or the spelling of a word are among the eleven most frequently used vocabulary learning strategies reported by all participants and among the top ten most frequently used strategies by high and low reading proficiency students. High reading proficiency students even ranked the strategy “study the sound of a word” number one among all 60 vocabulary learning strategies. This suggests that the orthographic and phonological properties of a word are often carefully studied by participants in this study.
Evidence can also be found by examining the teacher’s role in helping participants discover the meaning of a new word. Participants reported that they employed the strategy “ask the teacher for an L1 translation” more frequently than strategies such as “ask the teacher for paraphrase or synonym of the new word” and
“ask the teacher for a sentence including the new word.” From this perspective, vocational high school students investigated in the present study just want to know the
“L1 translation” of a new word. The use of a word in context is not initially studied seriously by language learners, and they seldom think of getting deeper understanding about the “usage” of a new word. When students make efforts to memorize words, strategies such as written repetition and verbal repetition are thus employed to enhance the connection of forms and meanings of target words.
Typically, learners think of knowing a word as knowing what the word sounds like (its spoken form) or looks like (its written form) and its meaning. However, as reviewed in Chapter Two, the complete knowledge of a word involves not only knowing its spoken form and written form and its direct translation from L1. In order to use a word, learners should have knowledge about the grammatical structure of the word, the meaning of the word in different contexts, and the association or collocation
related to the word. Apparently, vocational high school students investigated in this study only focus on certain part of the whole word knowledge. This may result in their failure to fully comprehend a reading passage for lack of sufficient knowledge about the word usage.
3. Mechanical strategies and rote learning are favored.
Another characteristic of vocational high school students’ reported use of vocabulary learning strategies is that mechanical strategies such as “take notes in class,” “underline the word,” and “use word lists” and rote learning such as “written repetition” and “verbal repetition” receive high preferences. The same results occur in Chen’s (1998) and Wang’s (2004) studies on Taiwanese senior high and college students, and Schmitt’s (1997) and Kudo’s (1999) studies on most-used strategies by Japanese participants. Studies mentioned above all adopt Schmitt’s classification of vocabulary learning strategies. O’Malley, Chamot, and Walker’s (1987) claim that Asian students persist in using repetition strategies to tackle vocabulary learning is thus confirmed.
Schmitt attributes the results partially to the study style encouraged by their Japanese school system, where “students are required to memorize English grammar and vocabulary, usually through repetition” (Schmitt, 1997, p. 220). Kudo also holds that “historically rote learning has been encouraged in learning a language, whether an L1 or L2, and thus is commonly used” (Kudo, 1999, p. 30). Similar English learning situation also occurs in Taiwan. Although communicative language teaching has been introduced for over a decade, due to the limited class time and large amount of teaching materials to be introduced to students, teachers inevitably sometimes choose to use grammar translation method, in which the vocabulary is learned through direct translation from L1 and is practiced via repetition or drills. These strategies are
deemed by Schmitt (1997) as cognitively “shallower” strategies. However, Ellis (1995) states that shallow processing only leads to short-term retention of words. It is deep processing such as semantic association or imagery that leads to long-term retention of words. From this point of view, lack of cognitively complex learning strategies may influence students’ vocabulary retention and lead to insufficient vocabulary knowledge in the process of language learning.
Vocabulary Learning Strategy Categories Use
In this section, two dimensions about the use of vocabulary learning strategy categories are discussed. First, the use of vocabulary learning strategy categories by all participants is discussed to have a general picture about vocational high school students’ use of different strategy categories. The most and the least used strategy categories are discussed in detail. Second, vocabulary learning strategy categories significantly correlated to reading proficiency are selected for discussion to have a better understanding of how high and low reading proficiency students differ in their choice of vocabulary learning strategy categories.
The Use of Vocabulary Learning Strategy Categories by All Participants
Before the use of five strategy categories is discussed, the broader classification of vocabulary learning strategies, i.e., discovery strategies and consolidation strategies, is first taken into account. Participants reported more frequency of use in discovery strategies than in consolidation strategies, which means that participants more frequently used strategies to “gain initial information about a new word” than to
“make some effort to remember it” (Schmitt, 1997, p. 206).
The similar result occurs in the reported use of the five strategy categories.
Among the five strategy categories, determination strategies are the most frequently
used vocabulary learning strategies, followed by memory strategies, cognitive strategies, metacognitive strategies and the last one, social strategies. This finding is in line with Liao’s (2004) study, which investigated Taiwanese college students’ use of vocabulary learning strategies and found that determination strategies were used most frequently while metacognitive and social strategies were used least frequently.
According to Schmitt (1997), determination strategies are those used by an individual to discover a new word’s meaning without the help of another person’s expertise. The facts that discovery strategies are used more frequently than consolidation strategies and that determination strategies are the most often used vocabulary learning strategies indicate that it takes vocational high school students great efforts to get the meanings of new words instead of consolidating the known words into their vocabulary system. This is probably due to vocational high school students’ limited quantity of vocabulary or their inability to integrate newly-learned words into their vocabulary. Thus, students spend extra effort on getting the meaning of new words, or even the unfamiliar known words.
Social strategy category is ranked the least-used strategy category. The same ranking of social strategy occurs in previous studies as reviewed in Chapter Two (Cheng, 2006; Liao, 2004; Wang, 2004). The least frequently used strategy of all 60 strategies, i.e., “ask teacher to check the flash cards or notes for accuracy,” is also a social strategy. Besides, among the least frequently used vocabulary learning strategies, as shown in Figure 2, social strategies take up almost half (45.45%) of the 11 least used strategies. This indicates that vocational high school students deem vocabulary learning as an individualized activity. Interpersonal interaction is not favored by learners except for “ask classmates for meaning,” which is among the most-used strategies. When teacher-student relationship is concerned, vocational high
school students seem not to have the habits of interacting with the teacher or asking their teachers for help when learning vocabulary as two least used social strategies by vocational high school students are related to interacting with teachers. Students tend to turn to their peer for help rather than the teacher.
Vocabulary Learning Strategy Categories Correlated with Reading Proficiency
When participants’ reading proficiency is concerned, three strategy categories were found to be correlated with participants’ reading proficiency, especially with the sub-section, reading comprehension, in the reading proficiency test. These three strategy categories are determination strategies, memory strategies, and metacognitive strategies. In other words, participants who reported more frequency of use of determination, memory, and metacognitive strategies scored higher on the reading proficiency test. These three strategy categories are discussed as follows in terms of their relationship with reading proficiency.
When the determination strategy category is concerned, high reading proficiency students not only used determination strategies more frequently, but they also utilized more determination strategies in high frequency use than low reading proficiency students. For example, when the most-used strategies by high and low reading proficiency students are investigated, 4 determination strategies are reported by high reading proficiency students while there are only 2 determination strategies reported by low reading proficiency students. This is in line with Ahmed’s (1989) finding that good learners use more vocabulary learning strategies than poor learners. It is confirmed that when facing a new word while reading, those who manage to discover the meaning of the new word by means of various strategies tend to have better reading proficiency.
As for the memory strategy category, according to Schmitt’s (1997) definition,
memory strategies are “approaches which relate new material to existing knowledge”
(p.205) such as association, imagery, grouping, physical action, analyzing word chunks, or “focusing on the target word’s orthographical or phonological form to facilitate recall” (p.214). From the definition, the use of memory strategies involves mental processing to facilitate vocabulary retention. Students who use memory strategies more frequently, i.e., with greater efforts to integrate new words into their vocabulary system, are expected to have better vocabulary retention. Thus, higher scores on the reading proficiency test are received. It is concluded that the ability to integrate new words into one’s vocabulary system utilizing shallow or deep strategies to aid vocabulary recall is one factor to promote high reading proficiency.
In addition to determination and memory strategies, metacognitive strategies were also found to be correlated to students’ reading proficiency. Metacognitive strategies “involve a conscious overview of the learning process and making decisions about planning, monitoring, or evaluating the best ways to study” (Schmitt, 1997, p.205). Strategies such as self-testing, using English-language media, and planning reviewing schedule are all metacognitive strategies. The use of metacognitive strategies is to help learners plan and regulate their vocabulary learning, monitor and evaluate their strategies in use, and finally improve the outcome of their vocabulary learning. The result that high reading proficiency students used metacognitive strategies significantly more frequently than low reading proficiency students indicates that self-initiated monitoring and learner autonomy are needed in the process of learning vocabulary to achieve high reading proficiency. This finding echoes what Gu and Johnson’s (1996) claim that two metacognitive strategies (self-initiation and selective attention) emerge as positive predictors of participants’ English proficiency.
Vocabulary Learning Strategies of Most and Least Use
Among the top eleven most frequently used strategies as shown in Table 16, cognitive strategies are the most in number. Four out of 11 are cognitive strategies.
These cognitive strategies include the note-taking strategy (ranked number 1), written repetition (ranked number 2), verbal repetition (ranked number 4), and the strategy of using the vocabulary section in the textbook (ranked number 7). Cognitive strategies are less obviously linked to mental manipulation as memory strategies do (Schmitt, 1997). Participants’ preference of these four cognitive strategies proves again that mechanical strategies (note-taking and the use of the vocabulary section in the textbook) and rote learning (written and verbal repetition) are favored by participants as discussed earlier in this chapter.
Of the top eleven most frequently used strategies reported by participants, there are four discovery strategies and seven consolidation strategies. The four most-used discovery strategies are (1) guess from textual context, (2) use word lists, (3) consult an electronic dictionary, and (4) ask classmates for meaning. Among these four discovery strategies, as shown in Table 21, only “guess from textual context” is proved to be positively correlated with reading proficiency. As for the other most commonly used consolidation strategies, 5 out of 7 are correlated with reading proficiency. They are “take notes,” “study the sound of the word,” “verbal repetition,”
“underline the word,” and “use the vocabulary section in the textbook.” Strategies such as written repetition (ranked number 2) and studying the spelling of the word (ranked number 10) are not correlated with reading proficiency. As a result, among the most-use vocabulary learning strategies, 6 strategies out of 11 are proved to be helpful to enhance reading proficiency. Teachers can encourage students to use these 6 strategies while reading.
When reading proficiency is concerned, as shown in Table 28 and Table 29, high reading proficiency students not only use vocabulary learning strategies more frequently, they also use more strategies that are positively correlated with reading proficiency as presented in Table 21. Eight (Items 31, 45, 4, 41, 34, 1, 2, 46) out of the 10 most frequently used strategies by high reading proficiency students are positively correlated with reading proficiency while only 4 (Items 45, 34, 31, 41) out of 10 most-use strategies by low reading proficiency students are positively correlated with reading proficiency. High reading proficiency students are thus proved to use more vocabulary learning strategies that are beneficial to enhance their reading proficiency.
From this perspective, learners’ choices of vocabulary learning strategies do make a difference in their levels of reading proficiency. Detailed description of strategy items mentioned above are discussed in terms of the distinction of discovery and consolidation strategies as follows.
When high and low reading proficiency students’ use of discovery strategies are compared, as shown in Table 28, high reading proficiency students ranked “guess from textual context” as their most frequently used discovery strategy, followed by strategies such as “use an electronic dictionary,” “analyze the word’s part of speech,”
and “analyze the words’ affixes and roots.” On the other hand, as shown in Table 29, low reading proficiency students ranked “ask classmates for meaning” as their most frequently used discovery strategy, followed by “use an electronic dictionary,” “check the word lists.” Apart from the use of electronic dictionaries, which was reported by both proficiency groups to be of most use but was found to be not correlated with reading proficiency as shown in Table 21, other discovery strategies reported by high reading proficiency students are all positively correlated with their reading proficiency, while none of the commonly used discovery strategies by low reading proficiency
students are positively correlated with their reading proficiency. Thus, it can be concluded that when encountering a new word, high reading proficiency students tend to use strategies such as guessing or analyzing, which are helpful to promote their reading proficiency, while low reading proficiency students like to look for available word lists or ask classmates for meaning, which are not helpful in promoting their reading proficiency.
As for the other consolidation strategies, as shown in Table 28, high reading proficiency students reported 6 consolidation strategies among their top ten most-used vocabulary learning strategies, among which 5 (Items 31, 45, 41, 34, 46) are correlated with reading proficiency. As for the low reading proficiency group, as shown in Table 29, 7 consolidation strategies are presented among their top ten most-use strategies, among which 4 (Items 45, 34, 31, 41) are correlated with reading proficiency. It is apparent that high reading proficiency students use more strategies related to higher reading proficiency to consolidate what they have learned.
High reading proficiency students ranked “study the sound of a word” as their most frequently used consolidation strategy, followed by “note-taking strategy,”
“verbal repetition,” “underline the word,” “use the vocabulary section in the textbook,” and “study the spelling of the word.” Except for the strategy “study the spelling of the word,” all the other five are correlated with reading proficiency. On the other hand, low reading proficiency students’ most-use consolidation strategy is
“written repetition,” which is, however, not correlated with reading proficiency. Other consolidation strategies related to reading proficiency are “note-taking strategy,”
“underline the word,” “study the sound of the word,” and “verbal repetition.” These four strategies are also reported of most use by high reading proficiency students.
From the findings above, it is even clearer that the use of vocabulary learning
strategies is correlated with reading proficiency. Detailed discussion of some individual strategy mentioned above will be presented later.
Low reading proficiency students further reported “memorizing words according to their location in the article or on a page” as their most-used consolidation strategies, which is not presented in the top 11 most frequently used strategies by all participants.
It is interesting to discuss the researcher’s observation of low reading proficiency students’ use of this strategy. When taking vocabulary quizzes during class, some less proficient learners tend to ask the researcher for the location of the target word on the page in the textbook. For example, they often ask, “Is it on the top of the page or on the bottom of the page? Is it on the left leaf or the right leaf?” These questions may seem interesting and ridiculous. But oftentimes when the researcher indicates where the target word is on a page, those less proficient students recall the word immediately and can spell it right. However, no more proficient learner has ever asked such questions. This strategy is proved to be favored and used by low reading proficiency students.
Among the 11 least frequently used vocabulary learning strategies, almost half of the least-used strategies are social strategies. The result again demonstrates that social strategies are rather unpopular among the participants in the present study. This kind of distribution shows that participants in the present study deemed vocabulary learning as a kind of individualized activity, and thus social interaction is not needed in the vocabulary learning process. The finding is in line with Wang’s (2004) study, which took senior high school students as participants, and Cheng’s (2006) study, which recruited junior high school students as participants. Vocabulary thus is commonly thought to be learned individually by learners in secondary education in Taiwan.
When reading proficiency is concerned, two strategies least used by participants are proved to be positively correlated to reading proficiency. They are “watch English news” and “listen to English broadcasting.” These two strategies are related to the use of language media resources. This suggests that the efficiency of certain strategies that students don’t use frequently should not be neglected. Students should be guided to note the value of strategies that are proved to be helpful in promoting their reading proficiency, and then gradually learn to utilize them.
As for high and low reading proficiency students’ least-used strategies, the differences lie in that high reading proficiency students seldom “study and practice meaning in a group” and “keep a vocabulary notebook” while low reading proficiency students seldom “use English-language media (news and broadcasting).” It is shown that the use of multimedia, which belongs to metacognitive strategies, is not favored by low reading proficiency students. However, the use of metacognitive strategies is found to be positively correlated with reading proficiency. Low reading proficiency students’ infrequent use of English-language media may result in less exposure to the target language and may be one reason for their low reading proficiency.
When compared with Wang’s (2004) participants, who are senior high school students in their third year and so of the same age as participants in the present study, Wang’s participants in general report higher frequencies of vocabulary learning strategy use than participants in the present study in both most and least used vocabulary learning strategies, which means that senior high school students in general employ vocabulary learning strategies more often than vocational high school students do. This finding is reasonable because with higher scores on the Basic Competence Test for Junior High School Students, senior high school students in general are supposed to have better English ability than vocational high school
students. The finding again confirms that more proficient language learners use vocabulary learning strategies more frequently than less proficient learners. Besides, it is interesting to note that among the most frequently used vocabulary learning strategies, nine strategies are favored by both senior high and vocational high school students, except that vocational high school students use strategies such as “use word lists” and “ask classmates for meaning” more often while senior high school students favor “bilingual dictionary.” As reviewed from literature, word lists have been proved better for less proficient students (Cohen & Aphek, 1980). In the present study, “word lists” are also favored by low reading proficiency students. It is proved that language
proficiency does play a role in the choice of vocabulary strategies.
Individual Vocabulary Learning Strategies
Most commonly used individual vocabulary learning strategies such as note taking, guessing, dictionary use, repetition, and the strategy negatively correlated with reading proficiency, i.e., skipping and passing the new word, are discussed in detail in the following section.
Note-taking Strategy
The most frequently used strategy reported by participants is “taking notes in class.” The same result occurs in Wang’s (2004) study, in which “take notes in class”
is also ranked number one in the use of vocabulary learning strategies by senior high school students in Taiwan. Furthermore, in Cheng’s (2006) study, junior high school students also rank “take notes in class” number two in their use of vocabulary learning strategies. According to Schmitt (1997), taking notes provides learners opportunities
“to create their own personal structure for newly learned words” (p. 215). However, it should be noted that, in the authentic language learning classroom in Taiwan,
note-taking is employed mechanically by students at vocational high school level.
Learners don’t “create” their own personal structure but “copy” down what they see on the blackboard. Rote learning is still emphasized by many classroom teachers and that it is not surprising that this teacher-oriented, cognitively shallow strategy is ranked so high in the present study and in the literature reviewed.
Guessing Strategy
The most frequently used discovery strategy reported by participants is the strategy “guess from textual context.” This finding could be explained that for vocational high school students, there are too many words for them to catch up that they “guess” the meaning of a new word most frequently. However, according to Schmitt (1997), guessing from context has prerequisites. The learner must have a certain level of language proficiency, adequate background knowledge of the subjects, and the strategic knowledge of how to go through the guessing process. Besides, the context itself must be rich enough with clues to enable guessing. These prerequisites are most likely to be found in more proficient language learners. It is confirmed in the present study that high reading proficiency students ranked the use of guessing strategy number 3 among their 10 most frequently used vocabulary learning strategies while this guessing strategy is not presented in the low reading proficiency students’
list of most often used strategies because high reading proficiency students possess the prerequisites to guess the meaning of words from context.
The Use of Dictionaries
When the use of dictionary is discussed, there are three kinds of dictionary investigated in the present study: electronic dictionary, bilingual dictionary, monolingual dictionary. The last two are paper-printed dictionaries. It is shown that both Wang’s (2004) senior high school students and vocational high school students
in the present study rank the use of electronic dictionaries among the top ten most frequently used strategies and the use of monolingual dictionaries among the least-used strategies. It is understandable because electronic dictionaries are handy and convenient for looking up words. As for the use of monolingual dictionaries, it may be seen as a challenge to vocational high school students because there may exist other new words that hamper their comprehension toward the explanation of the target word.
As for the use of bilingual dictionaries, there is a great difference between vocational high school students investigated in this study and participants in former studies. The use of bilingual dictionary is ranked number one in both Schmitt’s (1997) and Chen’s (1998) study. Wu (2005) also claims that the use of bilingual dictionaries is among the three most popular strategies shared by students from different age groups and furthermore it is also the most favored strategy adopted by Taiwanese EFL learners. Wang’s (2004) senior high school students also rank the use of bilingual dictionary among top ten most often used strategies. However, vocational high school students in the present study ranked the use of bilingual dictionaries number 36 among all 60 vocabulary learning strategies. It seems that participants in the present study don’t have the habit of consulting paper-printed bilingual dictionaries and usually turn to electronic dictionaries.
It should be noted that the use of bilingual dictionaries is found to be one of the vocabulary learning strategies that are correlated with reading proficiency. Besides, according to Chang (2004), consulting paper-printed dictionary significantly enhances vocabulary learning and it is found that there is a significant positive correlation between the lookup behavior and vocabulary retention. Furthermore, as for the use of the electronic dictionary, though it can be utilized as a kind of bilingual dictionary,
Chang’s (2002) study reveals that reading comprehension and incidental vocabulary learning are almost uncorrelated when pocket electronic dictionaries are used. From these findings, it is concluded that the use of paper-printed bilingual dictionaries has better effect on vocabulary retention than the use of electronic dictionaries. Thus, lack of dictionary lookup behavior may be one reason for vocational high school students in general to become less proficient in reading proficiency.
Repetition Strategies
There are two kinds of repetition: written repetition and verbal repetition. Verbal repetition was reported to be used frequently by both high and low reading proficiency students while written repetition was reported as most frequently used only by low reading proficiency students. The preference for written repetition by low reading proficiency students was also found in Wang’s (2004) study, in which written repetition was found to be used significantly more frequently by poor learners than good learners. Besides, in the present study, verbal repetition is among the 19 strategies that are significantly correlated with reading proficiency and is used significantly differently by high and low reading proficiency students while written repetition is not found to be significantly used differently by high and low reading proficiency students. This suggests that students who get used to saying a word over and over again when learning vocabulary will score higher in the reading proficiency test. The similar results about verbal repetition appeared in Gu and Johnson’s (1996) and Cheng’s (2006) studies. Gu and Johnson found that oral repetition is positively correlated with general English proficiency, and in Cheng’s study, participants who scored higher on the vocabulary achievement test reported using “verbal repetition”
most frequently. Oral repetition is confirmed to be effective not only on the reading proficiency but also on the general English proficiency and vocabulary learning.
Skipping or Passing Strategy
Metacognitive strategies, as discussed previously, were reported to be used significantly more frequently by high reading proficiency students in this study.
However, the metacognitive strategy of “skip or pass the word” was the only strategy that low reading proficiency students significantly used more frequently than high reading proficiency students and was reported by low reading proficiency students to be among the ten most frequently used vocabulary learning strategies. As for the relationship with reading proficiency, “skip or pass the word” was also found to be negatively correlated with reading proficiency among all 60 strategies in the present study. Similar results occur in Wang’s (2004) study that “skip or pass a word” is used significantly more often by poor learners. Schmitt’s (1997) Japanese participants also rated this strategy as of the least help in learning vocabulary. These findings are in line with Ahmed’s (1989) study that poor learners almost always ignore unknown words, and they are generally characterized by their apparent passiveness in learning.
Schmitt (1997) indicates that the strategy of passing over unknown words is especially important when the goal is to increase reading speed rather than vocabulary growth. The skipping strategy is used beneficially when the learner knows that some words are not so important as to hamper the reading comprehension and therefore can be skipped or passed to increase reading speed. However, this strategy is of most use by low reading proficiency students, who are considered weak in the process of reading. Their decisions of skipping or passing unknown words are not because they deem these words unimportant to their understanding; rather it is because they had no choice due to their limited vocabulary knowledge. Thus, the skipping and passing strategy is negatively correlated to reading proficiency.
