Feb
18
Factors affecting choosing Vocabulary Learning Strategies
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There is a range of factors that affect strategy choice, including vocabulary learning strategies. According to Ellis (1994: 540 545) there are two broad categories of such factors:
Individual learner differences: age, learning style, personality type, motivation.
- Age: young children tend to use strategies in task specific manner, whereas older ones use generalized and more sophisticated strategies (O’Malley and Chamot 1990).
- Learning style: according to Oxford (1989), general approach to language learning determines the choice of L2 learning strategies. For example analytic learners prefer strategies such as contrastive analysis and discerning words and phrases, whereas global students use strategies to find meaning: guessing, scanning, predicting and to converse without knowing all the words: paraphrasing, gesturing.
- Personality type: Erhman (1990) suggests that each personality type is associated with ‘assets’ and ‘liabilities’ where language learning is concerned. For example, extroverts are assigned to have willingness to take risks (an asset) but with dependency on external stimulation and interaction (a liability). Another finding mentioned by Erhman was that introverts showed greater use of strategies involving searching for and communicating meaning than did extroverts. Other result reported by Erhman and Oxford is that ‘feeling’ revealed using general study strategies to a greater extent than ‘thinking’.
- Motivation: Oxford and Nyikos (1989) found that “highly motivated learners used more strategies relating to formal practice, functional practice, general study, and conversation/input elicitation than poorly motivated learners” (Ellis 1994:542). The particular reason for studying the language: motivational orientation, especially as related to career field was also important in the choice of strategies.
Situational and social factors: learning setting, type of task, gender.
- Gender: On the basis of Oxford and Nyikos (1989) and Erhman (1990) research, females reported greater overall strategy use than males in many studies. Although sometimes males surpassed females in the use of a particular strategy.
- Type of task: The specification of the task may help learners in using particular strategies, but cannot predetermine the actual strategies that will be used.
Learning setting: Scholars (Ellis 1994) have pointed out a number of differences in the usage of learning strategies in a classroom and in more natural setting. Studies of classroom strategies by Chamot (1988) showed that social and affective strategies were used infrequently by adults, excluding ‘questioning for clarification’. However, Wong-Filmore (1976;1979) reported frequent use of social strategies by young learners in a play situation.
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