AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFL LEARNERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF VOCABULARY LEARNING STRATEGIES

Abstract

Vocabulary learning, which is one of the most fundamental items of a language, has claimed its popularity among other elements of a language in foreign language learning. There have been many investigations about lexical gains of the students and how they process it. Thus, the purpose of this study is to discover the perceptions of students towards the importance of vocabulary learning and to detect students’ vocabulary learning strategies (VLS). A mixed method that includes a 5-point Likert survey and semi-structured interviews with voluntary students were applied to increase the fruitfulness of the collected data. 138 university preparatory students who will study in the faculty of engineering, the faculty economics, administrative and social sciences and translation department at a private university in Mersin participated in the current study. Moreover, another objective of the current research is to enlighten the relationship between students’ demographic differences and the strategies they use to learn vocabulary. Students’ age, English proficiency, majors and gender were taken into consideration as study’s variables. The results obtained through The Statistical Package of Social Sciences software program (SPSS) and theme analysis of the interviews have indicated that most of the preparatory learners strongly believe that learning vocabulary is highly important in foreign language learning. Besides, statistical results demonstrated that there is no statistically significant difference between students’ demographic variables and their vocabulary learning strategies. It was also found that students favor Metacognitive and Determination Strategies more than the other types of VLS such as Social, Memory, and Cognitive Strategies while learning vocabulary.