The Relationships between the Use of Vocabulary Learning Strategies and their Usefulness as Perceived by English Major Students in a Thai University

Abstract

As vocabulary is a significant part of all English language skills, vocabulary learning strategies (VLSs) have played an important role in English language learning. The present study aimed to investigate the relationships between the use and usefulness of VLSs as perceived by 72 English major students in a Thai university. The data were obtained from two research instruments: an adapted questionnaire from Schmitt’s (1997) taxonomy of vocabulary learning strategies and a semi-structured interview. The findings from the questionnaire showed that the overall use of VLSs was at the moderate level and the perception of their usefulness was at the high level. In general, the perception on the usefulness of VLSs in all categories and sub-categories were found to have higher means than those of the VLSs used. Pearson product-moment correlation analysis showed a positive correlation between the use and usefulness of VLSs in the overall means and the means of both VLS categories (discovery and consolidation). For the subcategories, all except the determination VLS sub-category under the discovery category and the metacognitive VLS sub-category under the consolidation category were found to have a positive correlation. The analysis of the triangulated data between the two employed instruments showed that ‘Use English-language media’ was found to be one of the top five used and useful VLS reported, and ‘Ask a teacher for L1 translation’ and ‘Underline the initial letter of the word’ were found to be two of the least five used and useful VLSs reported. The findings from the present study can be a useful resource for Thai teachers regarding the teaching of VLS instruction in the classroom.