VOCABULARY LEARNING STRATEGIES OF ADULT ESL LEARNERS

Abstract

Recognizing the importance of lexis and vocabulary learning strategies (VLS) in any language learning, this study tries to identify vocabulary learning strategies preferred by university students. The aim of this study was to identify the types of learners based on their VLS preferences and to discuss the impact of their preferences on the acquisition of English vocabulary. Seven vocabulary learning strategies namely metacognitive regulation, guessing strategies, dictionary strategies, note-taking strategies, rehearsal strategies, encoding strategies, and activation strategies were tested. 360 first- and second-year students of Universiti Teknologi MARA, Perlis, from five diploma programmes were involved in the study. A vocabulary learning questionnaire developed by Gu and Johnson (1996) was used to gather the data. Before the questionnaire was used, it was first translated to the Malay language and pilot-tested. Results showed that the respondents preferred guessing and dictionary strategies the most; the other five namely metacognitive regulation, note- taking strategies, rehearsal strategies, encoding strategies, and activation strategies were less preferred.