Vocabulary Levels and Vocabulary learning strategies of Iranian Undergraduate students

Abstract

This study tries to investigate the vocabulary learning strategies and vocabulary level of Iranian EFL learners and any potential relation and contribution between these two variables. The research design of the study was quantitative method and the population of the study was Iranian junior EFL students. Thus, 238 participants- both male and female- were selected from Semnan universities according to random cluster sampling. Schmitt’s vocabulary learning strategies questionnaire (VLSQ) and nation’s vocabulary level test (VLT) were used to collect data. The resultsshowed that Iranian junior EFL students were medium strategy users with overall strategy mean score of 2.99. It indicated that the participants of the current study need more training on vocabulary learning strategies to become more familiar with all types of vocabulary earning strategies. Furthermore, memory strategy was found as the most frequently used strategy and cognitive strategy as the least frequently one. The descriptive statistics showed that students had sufficient vocabulary knowledge at 2000 and 3000 word levels. However, they did not have sufficient vocabulary knowledge at 5000, 10000, and academic vocabulary levels. The results indicated significant relationship between all vocabulary learning strategy and overall vocabulary level of the students. However, the strongest correlation was found between memory strategy and overall vocabulary level and the weakest correlation was found between social strategy and overall vocabulary level of Iranian EFL university students. It was found that all vocabulary learning strategy contributed to the overall vocabulary learning of the student. The highest contribution was related to memory strategy and the lowest to social strategy.
Key words: Vocabulary; Leaning strategies; Vocabulary learning strategies; Vocabulary level; Vocabularysize