English vocabulary teaching and learning in the Galician EFL context: the role and importance of vocabulary learning strategies

UNIVERSIDADE DE S AN TIAGO DE COMP OSTELA FACULTADE DE FI LOLO XÍA DEPARTAMENTO DE FILOLOXÍ A ING LESA E ALEMÁ English Vocabulary T eaching and Learning in t he Galician EFL Context. The Role and Importance of Voca bulary Learning Strategies Doctoral disserta tion submi tted by Raquel Fernández Carri l Supervised by Dr . Ignacio Mig uel Palacio s Martínez Santiago de Compost ela, 2009 UNIVERSIDADE DE S AN TIAGO DE COMP OSTELA FACULTADE DE FI LOLO XÍA DEPARTAMENTO DE FILOLOXÍ A ING LESA E ALEMÁ TESE DE D OUTORA MENTO English Vocabulary T eaching and Learning in t he Galician EFL Context. The Role and Importance of Voca bulary Learning Strategies Vº Pr ce. Doutor anda do Director Dr. Ignacio Mig uel Pala cios Martínez Raquel Fernández Carril Santiago de Compos tela, 2 009 Ao meu avó , de quen aprendí n a valorar a s m iñas ra íces. Acknowledgements v Acknowledg emen ts Carrying out thi s dissertation has been a long, ar duous and c omplex ta sk. Yet, during all this time my supervisor, Dr. Ignacio M. Palacios Martínez, has always been by m y s ide, offering me encouragem ent and guidance throughout the researc h. I feel really indebted to him and I will never be able to thank him enough for his personal co mmitment and dedicat ion. Without his help , this investigation wo uld have b een impossible. My sincere thanks go to the Galician Consellería de Innova ción, Industria e Comercio for the P h.D grant and the researc h stay at The Unive rsity of Nottingham, whi ch facilitated the a ccompli shment of the pre sent study. I would also like to ext end m y dee pest gratitude to Pro fessors Ronald Carter and Norbert Sch mitt (School of English Studies. Nottingha m University), who s elflessl y offered their time a nd advice on the data collection instruments. I am most grateful to the Galician EFL teachers and stude nt s for their cooperation in collecting the data f or the present research. A special mentio n goes to all the members of the English Philolog y D epartment, Translation Studies Department and Centre fo r Modern Lang uages at A Coruña, Santiag o de Comp ostela and Vigo U nivers ities. Thanks are also due to hi gh school educators and School s of L anguages teachers for their e ver -willing participation. Last, but not least, I wish to express my heartfe lt thanks to m y family a nd close fr iends. I acknowle dge the everlasting patience of B egoña and T eresa, Acknowledgements vi whose e n couragement has been c rucial to c omplet e this dissertation. Thanks to my partner, C arlos , for being always right there when I needed him. I also owe much to my beloved mother, brother s, grandparents, uncle, cousins and godmother for their unconditiona l support, not onl y during this investigat ion but throughout my life. I r eally appre ciate it. Table of contents vii Table of c ontents List of tables.…… …………… …………...……………………… … ………….……… ……….……...x iii List of figures.…………… … …………...…………………… …… ….……….……… …...…..….. ..…xix List of appendi ces………… …………...……………………… … .…………………… .……....….xx iii List of abbrev iations……………… ……..……………………… ……………… ………………...xx iv PART 1: THEOR ETICAL FRA MEWORK Chapter 1: Introduc tio n ……...………………………… … …………………………………….3 1.1. Background to t he study ………… ………………………… …………… ……….……….5 1.2. Purpose of th e investigati on……………………… ………… ….……………….………8 1.3. Significance of the study… ………………… ………………… ……………….……… ….9 1.4. Dissertati on outline…..…… …………………… ……………… ……………………...…1 0 Chapter 2: Liter ature re view.………………………… ………………………. .……………1 3 2.1. Vocabulary a cquisition …………………………… ………… ………………….……….. 15 2.1.1. Definition of lexical co mpetence………. ...………….……… ………………..1 7 2.1.2. Setting learn ing goals …………… …….......…… ……....………………… …..…20 2.1.3. Vocabulary learning ………………...…………… ……… ………………………..2 2 2.1.4. Vocabulary teaching ……………………… …………… ....……………….… …….25 2.1.4.1. Teaching h igh-fre quency word s…………...…… ………..…………… 27 2.1.4.2. Teaching low -frequency words………………. ..… ……………………30 2.1.4.3. Asse ssment..……… …..……………………… ………… ……..………………32 2.2. Language Learn ing Strateg ies (LLS)…..….… ……… ………………………… .…..33 2.2.1. Theoret ical backgroun d…………………………… ………… ………….……….3 3 2.2.2. Defining a LLS……… ……..…..…………. .……………… ………………….…… ….36 2.2.3. Classificat ion…………… …………………….... ……… ……………….…………… .42 2.2.4. Factors af fect ing le arn ers’ use of LLSs………… ……………… ……….…..47 List of tables xiv Table 21 : Students’ beliefs about v ocabulary learn ing (pilot study)…….........14 2 Table 22 : Teachers’ beliefs about vo cabulary learni ng (pilot study)……. ...…14 5 Table 23 : Students’ beliefs about v ocabulary learning …....................................…16 4 Table 24 : VLSs usage according to categories…. .............................. ......................…17 0 Table 25 : VLSs usage – Metacognit ive category.. ................... .............................. ..…171 Table 26 : VLSs usage – Meaning discovery/under stan ding category. .........…17 2 Table 27 : VLSs usage – V ocabulary use cat egory …. ........................... ..................…1 74 Table 28 : VLSs usage – V ocabulary retri eval catego ry ….................. .................…17 5 Table 29 : VLSs usage – St orage into memory catego ry ….................. ................…17 6 Table 30 : VLSs mentione d by learners in th e open question............. ..............…17 9 Table 31 : Differences in s tudents’ belief s about vo cabulary learn ing accord ing t o gen der (Par t 1)...... .......... ..... .......... ..... .......... ... ............ ..... .......... .......... ..... .....1 82 Table 32 : Differences in s tudents’ belief s about vo cabulary learn ing according t o gender (Part 2)… .…………...………… ……… ……...………………………… .18 3 Table 33 : Differences in t he use of VLS categ ories according to gender……. 185 Table 34 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of m eaning discov ery/ understanding strat egies according to gender………. .……………… ……………..… .186 Table 35 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of st orage into memory strategies ac cording to g ender………………………… ….... ....………………………… …...18 8 Table 36 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of vocabul ary use strat egies according t o gender……… ………....……...……… ………… ………………………… …………1 89 Table 37 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of m etacognitive strategies according to gender………………….......…… ……………… ……………………… ……………1 89 Table 38 : Differences in s tudents’ belief s about vo cabulary learn ing accord ing t o age ( Part 1) .......... ..... .......... ..... .......... ..... .......... .. ............ .......... ..... .......... ..... ....192 Table 39 : Differences in s tudents’ belief s about vo cabulary learn ing according to age (Part 2)………………………..……… ………… …………….……………… .193 List of tables xv Table 40 : Differences in s tudents’ belief s about vo cabulary learn ing according t o age (Part 3)……… .................................... ..…………..……… ………………. ....194 Table 41 : Differences in s tudents’ belief s about vo cabulary learn ing according t o age (Part 4)……… …………….....…..……… ……………… ……………………. 195 Table 42: Differences in the use of VLS categories according to age………….19 7 Table 43 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of m eaning discov ery/ understanding strat egies according to age (Part 1)..…………… ...……………....…. 199 Table 44 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of m eaning discov ery/ understanding strat egies according to age (Part 2).………… ...……….…………… .200 Table 45 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of st orage into memory strategies ac cording to ag e (Part 1)……….………… ………… ……….....…………… …...20 2 Table 46 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of st orage into memory strategies ac cording to ag e (Part 2)…………….…… ………… …..………………….. .…...20 4 Table 47 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of vocabul ary retriev al strategies ac cording to ag e…………………….….……… … ……..…………………… ………205 Table 48 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of vocabul ary use strategies ac cording to ag e……………………………… ………… ………………………… …205 Table 49 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of m etacognitive strategies ac cording to ag e……………………………… ………… ………………………… …206 Table 50 : Differences in s tudents’ belief s about vo cabulary learn ing according to grade (Part 1)… ………….…………………… ………… …….……...…… ….....209 Table 51 : Differences in s tudents’ belief s about vo cabulary learn ing according to grade (Part 2)… ………….…………………… ………… ……………………… .21 0 Table 52 : Differences in s tudents’ belief s about vo cabulary learn ing according to grade (Part 3)… ……….……………………… …...……………… ….……… .....211 Table 53 : Differences in s tudents’ belief s about vo cabulary learn ing according to grade (Pa rt 4)………………………………….. ………………… ……………….2 12 Table 54 : Differences in t he use of VLS categ ories according to the g rade v ariabl e…....... ....... .......... ..... .......... .......... ..... ....... ....... .......... ..... .......... ..... .....….21 4 Table 55 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of m eaning discov ery/ understanding strategie s according to the grade variable (Part 1) ……… …....2 15 List of tables xvi Table 56 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of m eaning discov ery/ understanding strat egies according to the grade va riable (Part 2) … ………....2 17 Table 57 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of st orage into memory strategies ac cording to the g rade variable (Part 1)…… …….....………….………… .21 9 Table 58 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of st orage into memory strategies ac cording to the g rade variable (Part 2)…… ……….………….………. ....22 1 Table 59 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of vocabul ary retriev al strategies ac cording to the g rade variable ……… ………… …..………..…….…… ……222 Table 60 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of vocabul ary use strat egies according t o the grade va riable ………….…… ………… ……………………… ……………2 23 Table 61 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of m etacognitive strategies according to age………………… ……………...……………… … ……………………… …………22 4 Table 62 : Differences in s tudents’ belief s about vo cabulary learn ing according t o the period of EFL instruction………… … ….……………………… ……….226 Table 63 : Differences in t he use of VLS categ ories according to the p eriod of EFL instruction ……………… ……………………… …………… …………..…………………… ...22 8 Table 64 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of m eaning discov ery/ understanding strat egies according to the period of EFL instruction……… ....23 0 Table 65 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of st orage into memory strategies ac cording to the period of EFL instruct ion ( Part 1)…………......…… .231 Table 66 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of vocabul ary use strategies ac cording to the period of EFL instruct ion..................… ……..………. ....232 Table 67 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of m etacognitive strategies according t o length of EFL instru ction………………... .…… ……………...……………… 233 Table 68 : Students’ VLT performance…………… …... ………………………… ...………2 24 Table 69 : Gender differe nces in VLT perfor mance… ………………….......… ………236 Table 70: Age diff erence s in V LT performan ce…….. …………….…….….. .…………23 7 Table 71 : Grade differences in VLT perfor mance……… …………………..………… 240 Table 72 : Length of EFL instruction difference s in VLT per formanc e……..…2 42 List of tables xvii Table 73 : Differences in b eliefs about vocabu lary l earning according t o VLT scores (Part 1)……………………… ………… ……..……………………. 2 45 Table 74 : Differences in b eliefs about vocabu lary l earning according t o VLT scores (Part 2)……………………… ………… …..………………………. 2 47 Table 75 : Differences in b eliefs about vocabu lary l earning according t o VLT scores (Part 3)………………… ………… ……………………… …….….248 Table 76 : Differences in t he use of VLS categ ories accord ing t o VLT scores… …....... ..... .......... ..... .......... ..... ........ ....... .......... ..... ..........… ……… .250 Table 77 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of m eaning discov ery/ understanding strat egies according to VLT scores ( Part 1)…...….…. ...………….2 51 Table 78 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of m eaning discov ery/ understanding strat egies according to VLT scores ( Part 2)………… ....….……....2 54 Table 79 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of st orage into memory strategies ac cording to VL T scores (Part 1)… ….....…… …………………… ….………..25 5 Table 80 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of st orage into memory strategies ac cording to VL T scores (Part 2)… ………… ……….……………….…… …..25 7 Table 81 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of vocabul ary retrieval strateg ies according to VLT score s…………........… ....………………… …….25 8 Table 82 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of vocabul ary use strategies according to VLT score s…………………….… ……...………………. .………….2 59 Table 83 : Differences in learn ers’ exploitat ion of m etacognitive strategies ac cording to VL T scores………………… ……… ….…………. ..……..………….2 6 0 Table 84 : Teachers’ beliefs about vo cabulary learni ng…………… …….………….265 Table 85 : VLSs mentione d by teachers in th e open question……………… …….26 8 Table 86 : Differences in t eachers’ beliefs about v ocab ulary learn ing according t o gender (Part 1)… ….… …………………… …….....……………… ………… ....271 Table 87 : Differences in t eachers’ beliefs about v ocab ulary learn ing according to gender (Part 2)…….…… …………………… ……..………………………… ....271 Table 88 : Differences in t eachers’ beliefs about v ocab ulary learn ing according t o gender (Part 3)… ….…………………………… ……… ………...…………… ....27 2 List of tables xviii Table 89 : Differences in t eachers’ beliefs about v ocab ulary learn ing accord ing t o age...... ..... ......... ....... .......... .......... ..... .......... ..... ....... ....... .......... .......... ..... .......... ..... 273 Table 90 : Differences in t eachers’ beliefs about v ocab ulary learn ing according t o the grade va riable (Part 1)……. ………… …......……...………………… ....274 Table 91 : Differences in t eachers’ beliefs about v ocab ulary learn ing according t o the grade va riable (Part 2)……. ..………… …………………………… …....2 74 Table 92 : Differences in t eachers’ beliefs about v ocab ulary learn ing according t o the grade va riable (Part 3)……. ………… ……………… … ….….…..…....275 Table 93 : Differences in VLS u se perceived b y teachers according t o the grade va riable……………… …………… ……………………… ………..…275 Table 94 : Differences in t eachers’ beliefs about v ocab ulary learn ing according t o teaching experien ce………...……... ....…………………...………… ………....2 76 Table 95 : Number and distribut ion of stud ents inte rviewed according t o teaching institution..……… ……… ………… ………..…………… …………..28 0 Table 96 : Number and distribut ion of teac hers interv iewed according t o teaching institution… …..……………… …..... .……………………………… ..28 1 List of figures xix List of figur es Figure 1: Aspect s of word knowledge……… …………… …....…………….… ……...……..1 6 Figure 2: Individ ual difference s in language le arning ………...…..…….……...…….. 34 Figure 3: The relati onship between indiv idual learn er differences, situational fa ctors, learni ng strategie s and learning outcomes ………….… .……..36 Figure 4: Diagra m of the strategy sy stem: Overvie w………......…….……… ....……..45 Figure 5: Diagra m of the strategy sy stem showing t wo cla sses, six groups and 19 sets... .......... ..... .......... .. ............ .......... ..... .......... ..... .......... .. ............ .......... ..... .......... ..... ..…..4 6 Figure 6: Componen ts of FL motivat ion……………… ……………....…………… ………. 49 Figure 7: Semanti c map for transport ation……… …....……….…………… ……………. 81 Figure 8: Nu mber and dis tribution of part icipants according to teac hing inst itut ion…. .......... ..... .......... .......... ..... .......... ..... ......... ..... .......... .......... ..... .......... 10 9 Figure 9: Nu mber and dis tribution of student s according to the g rade v ariabl e…..… ......... ..... .......... .......... ..... .......... ..... ......... ..... .......... .......... ..... .…….11 0 Figure 10: Numbe r and d istribution of st udents acc ording to age….…… ...….11 1 Figure 11: Numbe r and d istribution of tea chers ac cording to the g rade v ariabl e....... ........... ..... .......... ..... .......... ..... .......... .. ............ .......... ..... .......... ..... .....11 5 Figure 12: Numbe r and d istribution of tea chers ac cording to ag e……….…… .115 Figure 13: Numbe r and d istribution of part icipants in the pilot study.… …...13 7 Figure 14: VLSs e mploye d by G alician EFL learner s (pilot st udy)…….……….1 43 Figure 15: VLSs per ceived by Galician EFL teacher s (pilot study)……. ....…….1 46 Figure 16: VLSs e mploye d by G alician EFL learner s….………….... .……………….1 69 Figure 17: Differ ences in VLS u se according to gend er…………….....…… ……….18 4 Figure 18: Differ ences in VLS u se according to age … .…….....………….……… ….19 6 Figure 19: Differ ences in VLS u se according to the grade v ariable……….….. ..214 List of figures xx Figure 20: Differ ences in VLS u se according to the period of EFL instr uction... .......... .... ............ ..... .......... ..... .......... ..... ....... ....... .......... .......... ..... .......... ..... 227 Figure 21: Students’ distributi on according to VLS perfor mance…………….. .234 Figure 22: Male scores on VLT…….…………… ………....…………… …………....……….23 6 Figure 23: Female scores on VLT…………….......... ........... .....……………...….. ..……….236 Figure 24: 15-17 year -old learners’ scores on VLT…………………….…... .……….2 38 Figure 25: 18-20 year- old learners’ s cores on VLT ………….....…….. ..…....………. 238 Figure 26 : 21-23 year-old learners’ score s on VLT………….....…… ....…....………. 238 Figure 27 : 24-26 year-old learners’ score s on VLT…………… ….…....…....…… ….238 Figure 28 : +26 year -old learners’ scores on VLT…………..…………... .…....……….2 38 Figure 29 : 3 rd -4 th ESO lea rners’ scores on VL T……… ………………..............……… .24 1 Figure 30 : BA C learners’ score s on VLT……………… ..…………....…. .............………. 241 Figure 31 : UNI learner s’ score s on VLT………………… ….......…....… ..............……… .241 Figure 32: EOI l earners’ s cores on VLT…………… ………… ………..................………. 24 1 Figure 33: OTH l earners’ score s on VLT……………… ………...... ...…..............……….2 41 Figure 34: VLT s cores of learners w ith 0-5 year s of EFL instruction…....… ....24 3 Figure 35: VLT s cores of learners w ith 6-10 year s of EFL instruction……… ..24 3 Figure 36: VLT s cores of learners w ith +10 year s of EF L instruction ………...243 Figure 37 : Differen ces in VLS use a ccording to VLT score s….………….. .……….24 9 Figure 38: VLS us e perceived by teachers…………… ……….........….. ............……….2 67 Figure 39 : Number an d distr ibution of student s int erviewed accord ing t o grade..... ..... ............ ..... .......... ..... .......... ..... .......... .. ............ .......... ..... .......... ..... .…27 9 Figure 40 : Number an d distr ibution of student s int erviewed accord ing t o age..….... ..... ............ ..... .......... ..... .......... ..... .......... .. ............ .......... ..... .......... .....… .28 0 List of figures xxi Figure 41 : Number an d distr ibution of student s int erviewed according t o length of EFL instru ction……………... .……… ……………………..………. 280 Figure 42 : Number an d distr ibution of teach ers interviewed according t o the grade va riable……………… ……………. ……………………… …..……...28 1 Figure 43 : Number an d distr ibution of teach ers interviewed accord ing t o age...... ..... ......... ....... .......... .......... ..... .......... ..... ....... ....... .......... .......... ..... ......… ….28 1 Figure 44 : Student s’ reas ons for learning EFL voca bulary…………………... ..….28 5 Figure 45 : Reason s why EF L lexis is difficult t o learn ….………........……..…… ….288 Figure 46 : Techniq ues e mployed by student s to le arn vocabulary ……...…….2 93 Figure 47 : Teach ing techniques lab elled as “pos itive” by studen ts……...…….294 Figure 48 : Teach ing techniques lab elled as “neg ative” by students……...…...3 00 Figure 49 : Teach er’s role in EFL vocabulary te aching identified by studen ts...... ..... .......... ..... ........... .......... ..... .......... ..... .......... ..... ......... .......... ..... .......... ..... .......... 30 3 Figure 50 : Learn ers’ view s on the not ion of “learn ing strategy”.............… ...….30 9 Figure 51 : VLS s employed to discover/under stand w ord meaning….... .…….312 Figure 52 : VLS s employed to store words into memory….. .……......…….……… .3 15 Figure 53 : VLS s employed to retrieve words f rom memory….. .…….……..… ….320 Figure 54 : VLS s employed to use already le arnt wo rds…...…….......…….… …….322 Figure 55 : Teach ers’ ideas about students’ reasons for learn ing EFL vocabulary… …...... ..... .......... ..... .......... ..... .......... ..... .......... .. ............ ..... .......... .......... ..... .….33 1 Figure 56 : Teach ers’ ideas about re asons why EF L l exis is diff icult to learn… ........ ..... .......... ..... ...... ....... .......... .......... ..... .......... ..... ....... ............ ..... .......... ..... .......... ..... 33 2 Figure 57 : Best learn ing techn iques identif ied by te achers……...…….… ...…….33 6 Figure 58 : Instru ctors’ te aching technique s…………… ….....……….…………… …...3 40 Figure 59 : Teach ers’ role identifie d by instru ctors……........…… ………….……… .342 Figure 60 : VLS s employed to discover/under stand w ord meaning as perceive d by tea chers… …........... ..... .......... ..... .......... ..... ........ ..... .......... ..... ........…… …...34 9 List of figures xxii Figure 61 : VLS s employed to store words into memory a s perceived by t eachers….. .......... ..... ......... ....... .......... ..... .......... ..... .......... ..... ......... .......... ..... .......... ..... .......... 35 0 Figure 62 : VLS s employed to retrieve words f rom memory a s perceived by teacher s…... .......... ..... ........ ....... .......... .......... ..... .......... ..... ....... ....... .......... .......... ..... .......... ..... 355 Figure 63 : VLS s employed to use already le arnt wo rds as perceived by t eachers.……. ..... .......... ..... ........ ..... .......... .......... ..... .......... ..... ......... .......... ..... .......... ..... .....… .356 List of app endices xxiii List of appe ndices Appendix 1: St udent Vocab ulary Learning Strat egies Que stionnaire (SVLSQ): Pilot St udy (Galician ver sion)………………… .................. ..............………… ..461 Appendix 2: St udent Vocab ulary Learning Strat egies Que stionnaire (SVLSQ): Pilot study (Engl ish version)………… ……...… ……………… ……...………....4 65 Appendix 3: Teac her Voc abulary Learning Strategi es Questionnair e (TVLSQ): Pilot Study (Gali cian version)… ……………… ………………… …………........46 9 Appendix 4: Teac her Voc abulary Learning Strategi es Questionnair e (TVLSQ): Pilot study (Eng lish version)…….……… … …… …………...……………… ....47 2 Appendix 5: Voc abulary Levels Test ( VLT)………..… ……………………… ………….47 4 Appendix 6: St udent Vocab ulary Learning Strat egies Que stionnaire (SVLSQ) (Galician version )……………………… …………… …… …………… …………..….48 6 Appendix 7: St udent Vocab ulary Learning Strat egies Que stionnaire (SVLSQ) (English v ersion)… …………………………… …… ……………...….………… ……49 1 Appendix 8: Teac her Voc abulary Learning Strategi es Questionnair e (TVLSQ) (Galic ian version )……………………...………… ………… …………………….…… 49 6 Appendix 9: Teac her Voc abulary Learning Strategi es Questionnair e (TVLSQ) (Engli sh version)…… …………… ………… ………… …………...………………… .49 9 Appendix 10: Stud ent Interview Gu ide (Galician v ersion)… ...……….…….…... .502 Appendix 11: Stud ent Interview Gu ide (English ver sion)……….…… .……….…50 4 Appendix 12: Te acher In terview Guide (Gal ician v ersion)…………….. .…..……5 06 Appendix 13: Te acher In terview Guide (Eng lish version) ……………..………… .508 Chapter 1: Introduction 6 This has its reflection in the Organic Law of Educat ion (LOE 2/2006), w hich involves the reform of the Spanish education syst em according to the EU common policy, encouraging the exchange of teachers and stud ents across member states (SOCRATES and ERAS MUS exchange pr ogrammes). Galicia, an Autonomous Region of Spain with two official languages (Spanish and Galician), has also und ergone the impl ementation o f the communicative approach to EFL teaching. This approach assumes that students beco me the focus of their own learning process while teachers act as the guides that help them through the communicative process. Hence, as Canale and Swain (1980) put it, students are supposed t o acquire 2 , on the one hand, the gram matical competence of linguistic terms and rules and, on the other hand, sociolinguistic com p etence (appropriateness to a non -lingui stic context), discourse competence (cohesion and coherence) an d strate gic compet ence (verbal an d no n-verbal c ommunicati on strategies). Within this approach, Meara (1996) stated the importance o f a good lexical command since it is said to b e “ at the c ore o f communicative competence” (Miralpeix, 200 8: 3). Actu ally, vocabular y 3 plays a very important role in the 2 It is worth remarking th at in t he current study th e terms F L “acquisition ” and “learn ing” are used as synon yms, in sp ite of Krash en’s (1 981) acqui sition-lear ning hy pothesis. H e distinguished betwe en acquisition as a subco nscious p rocess wher eby lin guistic competence is developed and learnin g, referring to forma l instructio n i n a classroom. However, FL comp etence develop ment will be indiscrimin ately referr ed to as acquisitio n or learnin g. 3 In spite of the distinction b etw een the term ‘ lexis’, m eaning “all the words t hat belong to a p articular subject or la nguage ” an d ‘ vocabulary‘ , understoo d as “words k nown, learnt, used” ( Long man Dictio nary of Conte mporary Eng lish ), both words will b e interch angeabl y used in th is study. Chapter 1: Introduction 7 development of the communicative functions set in specific contents; so students are requ ired to master not only word morphology, syntax, sp elling and phonetics, but also semantic pr oblem s that may arise fro m conte xtual issues. Given the complexity involved in acquiring an acceptable lexical competence and the prom inence placed on the learner in the pr ocess of FL learning, scho l ars have ac knowledged the i mportance of pr oviding learners w ith tools that facilita te this task. In my co ndition of an EFL teacher, it is disheartening to see the difficulties displayed by learners in their use of both receptive and productive vocabular y, which results in low academic achievement. Therefore, there is a necessity o f reflecting o n t he current state o f affairs regarding vocabulary l earning and teaching, and the scope for improvement. It is in this particular context where vocabulary learning strategies (VL Ss) , a notion that will be explained in the following chapter, become really r elevant. In the last fe w decad es, the bu lk of empiric al researc h has been co nduct ed on the VLSs employed by EFL learners mainly in Asia, China and Japan (Gu and Johnson, 1996; Schmitt, 1997; Kudo, 1999; Fan, 2003; Li, 2004; Wu, 2005; Hong , 2006; Wei, 2 007). In Spain, few st udies have been carried out to this en d (Jiménez-Catalán, 2 003) and, to m y knowledge, n one of them in Galicia. Thus, the aim of t he current investigation is to fill this gap by providing empirical data on the strategies employed by Galician learners in the acquisition of FL lexis. Chapter 1: Introduction 8 1.2. Purpose of the investi gation Previous resear ch (Horwitz , 1 987; W enden, 1987; Oxford, 1990) has proved that learners’ beliefs do influen ce the choice and use of specific learning strate gie s. Focusing on FL vocabular y learning, some scholars (Gu and Johnson, 1 996; Fan , 1999; Li, 2004) acknowledged the importance o f taking into acco unt the study of assumptions on lexical acqu isition since the y certainly affect learners ’ use of VLSs . In this vein, the purpose of this investigation is to shed light on the pr ocess of EFL vocabul ary teaching and learning w ithin the Galician co ntext in order to reflect on the r esults and t hus draw the correspondin g pedagogical i mplications. For this purp ose, the current study gath ered data from both EFL learner s with different lex i cal proficien cy levels (from secondary school to universit y) and EFL teachers so as t o compare the inf ormation elicited from the subjec ts invol ved in the teachin g and learning process . A m i smatch between teachers’ and learners’ results might account for t he low academic performa nce observed. Firstly, the re searcher trie d to find out the beli efs abo ut vocabulary that these two groups bring to the Engli sh class, which may condi tion the way words are learnt and taugh t. Sec ondly, a survey on the le arning strategies e mployed by learners in the process o f FL acquisiti on was conducted. Teachers w ere at the same time inquired about the V LSs per ceived in their students fo r a furth er analysis to determine whether there was any discrepancy among these tw o groups, that is, t eachers an d learners. Furthermore, p ersonal factors that influence the ch oice of learning strategies, as pointed out by Oxford (1990), su ch as g ender, age, proficiency, grade and Chapter 1: Introduction 9 length of time learning English, as well as the beliefs held about vocabulary a nd the VLSs used were also inv estigated. 1.3. Significan ce of the stud y The introduction of the communicative appr oach in t he Galician schools has replaced the traditional emphasis almost exclusively on grammar by t he acknowledge ment o f teac h ing based o n the so-called four skills, nam ely, listening, reading, speaking and writing. Textbooks are not struc tured according to gra mmar but to communica tive functions w hils t vocabular y and gramm ar contents are integrated into meaningfu l communicative situa tions within specific contexts. It takes a long while for students and teachers to get used to this methodological revolution . Indeed, one of its mo st direct consequences is the great change of roles in the t eaching process: EFL lessons have shifted from a teacher-centred to a learner-centred approach. The teacher is no longer an all- knowing fi gure but ra ther a gu ide, a helper; in contra st, learners become th e tr ue protagonists, req uired to take r esponsibility f or their own l earning. Therefore, th e m ain aim is to foster learner’s au tonomy and the teacher’s role is to enhanc e their studen ts’ skills to ac hie ve it. Thus, kno wledg e about learning strategies, particularly th ose applied to le xis, se ems to be essential for their efficient use, which ce rtain ly depends on individuals . Ye t, extensi ve informati on on VLSs m ay offer a v ariet y of st rategies for students to cho ose the ones that s uit best their pers onal charact eristics. Chapter 1: Introduction 10 Nevertheless, little research has been conducted on VLSs w ithin the Galician context. The presen t study pro vides data on the belie fs about vocabulary held by Galician EFL learners and their use of VLSs with the a im of sh edding light on this issue. On the o ne hand, it offers students an opportunity to reflect on the procedures c arried out in lexical acquisiti on. On t he other hand, te ach ers can gain better insight into this pro cess, so they can help students find their ow n way, fostering auto nomy, and improve lexical achieveme nt, reinforcing st udents’ self- esteem. In sho rt, the results o btai ned by the c urrent study attempt to provide useful information on the state of the art o f the learners’ attitudes and beliefs about vocabulary teaching and learning as well as the VLS s used by Galician EFL le arne rs as a first step toward s the in corporation of V LS training into th e curriculu m. 1.4. Dissertation outline The present study consists of six chapters. This introductory chapter analys es the necessity of co nducting an investigation of th e kind. Then, it o ffers an account of the aims pursued and it highlights its value within t he Galician EFL context. Finally, an overview of the dissertation is pr esented. Chapter 2 reviews the relevant literature co nsider ed in this investigati on. Firstly, i t provides a t heore tical fra mework for the n otion o f ‘ vocabular y’ and ho w to l earn and teach it. Secondly, motivated by the learner-centred appr oach, it considers the theories that deal with learners’ previous beliefs and assumptions about lexis and it also discusses previous empirical research on the area. Thirdl y, Chapter 1: Introduction 11 it gives an account of the literature regardi ng langu age learning strategies: definition, classificati on and factors influencing their use based o n pri or studies. It moves o n, then, to f ocus on VLSs in parti cular, c overing different ta xonomies and investigation done w orldwide. Finally, the chapt er pr oceeds to outline r eports on strategy training. Chapter 3 describes the methodology emplo yed in the invest igati on. It presents the research questions and provides a detailed acco unt of the participants who vo lunt eered to take part in the st udy. Mo reo ver, the data collection instruments employed, i.e. questionnaires, interviews and v ocabulary tests are evaluated. It also presents the pilot s tudy carried out prior to the main study as well as the changes introduced in the res earch instruments, based on this piloting. The chap ter ends with a report on the data an alysis procedures. Chapter 4 presents, firstly, the quantitativ e data elicited fro m the questionnaires and the vocabulary test statistically analysed. Secondly, it provide s an ove rview of the qualitative data gathered from the intervi ews using the content analysis pr ocedure . Chapter 5 discusses the fin d ings in this investigation a ttempting t o answer the research questions formul ated in chapter 3. Roughly speaking, it identifies the beliefs about vocabulary held by learners and teachers, the similarities and dissimilarities obs erved am ong them and the results obtained in the le vel test. It is also concerned wi th the VL Ss employed. Chapter 1: Introduction 12 Lastly, chapter 6 summarises the majo r conclusi ons rendered fr om this research an d t heir possible implications. It also presents the study li mitations and suggestions for fur ther res earch. Chapter 2 Literatu re review Chapter 2: Literature review 15 Chapter 2 Literature review The present chapter reviews the literature regardin g vocabulary acquisition, language learning stra tegies, in g eneral, and vocabulary learn ing s trategi es, in particular. First, definitions of t he key concepts that constitute t he theo retic al framework for the current research are provided. Then, em pirical studies on the topic under discu ssion are reviewed. 2.1. Vocabu lary acquisition In the last d ecades, the pos ition of vocabular y acquisition has shifted from being a rather marginal aspect to an e xtre mely important area in FL t raining . While traditional t eaching me thodol ogies, such as the Gr ammar-Translati on meth od, the Audiolingu al method or the Oral approach 4 focused almost e xclusivel y on the mastery of gram mar, recent studies p ostulate th e rele vance of an adequ ate lexical command as a prerequisit e to carry out c ommunicative tasks in an efficient way (McCarthy, 1990; Cook, 1996; Schmitt, 1997; Nunan, 1 999 or Meara, 2002, ju st to mention a few). Going back t o t he concep t of communica tive compet ence (cf. chapter 1) developed by Canale and Swain (1980), Meara (1996) borrowed these scholars’ ideas when they pointed out that the notion of grammatical concep t also included the kno wledge of lexical items, so lexical competenc e in FL teaching has n ot be en 4 Fo r further detail s a bout th e mention ed t eachin g metho ds, see Richard s and Rodger s (2001). Chapter 2: Literature review 22 text, o r for reading novels and popular magazines” (Nation and Newton, 1997: 239). In co nclusion, depending on learn ers’ profile and nee ds, t eachers sh ould focus on different vocabulary and to this e nd, Nation’s word division proves to be extremely rele vant. 2.1.3. Vocabu lary learning Several theories attempt to explain the mental proc ess carried o ut in t he acquisition of FL vocabulary. Fan (2003) advocates t h e model presented by Bro wn and Payne (19 94), which divides th e acquisiti on process into fiv e main steps: a) having sources for encoun tering new words, b) getting a clear image, e i ther visual or audito ry or bo th, of the forms of the new words, c) learning the meani ng of th e words, d) making a str ong memory con nection between th e forms and the meaning of the words ; and e) using the wo rds. On t he o ther hand, Nation proposes a cognitive learning framework divided into three phas es that is co mpletely learner-c entred: 1. Noticing: “giving attention to an item” (2001: 63). I t is one o f the basic premises to learn a word because if learners’ at tent ion is not drawn to wards it, the proce ss cannot contin ue. Thus, a mismatch between learners’ and teachers’ interests will lead t o poor a cademic perf ormance. Nation also explains that this process implies working w ith decontextualised words because, e ven if terms occur w ithin a te xt, att ention is drawn on the w ord as a langua ge item and not on the message conveye d. In this sense, examples of decontextualisa tion that favour vocabulary learni ng are provided: Chapter 2: Literature review 23 • The learner may come across a familiar word in listening o r reading and realise that it is being used in a comple te different wa y; • The teacher m ay draw stud ents' attention o n a particular wo rd by writing it on the blackboard ; • The learner may negotiate the meaning of a word in s peaking; and • The learner may focus on the me aning of a word by prov iding a definition, a synonym or L1 equival ent (2001 : 64). 2. Retrieval: o nce noticing has directed the learner to learn the word, the second phase helps the anchoring of terms in the mind. Such a process may be receptive, i.e. “perceiving the form and having to retrieve it s meaning w h en the word is m et in listening or reading” and productive, understood as “w ishing to communicate the mean ing of the wo rd and havin g to r etrieve its spoken or written form as in sp eaking or writing ” (Nati on, 2001: 67). What is more, the ability to retrieve alread y st ored mat erial is crucial in the FL learning process. Hence, it is sensible to gain underst anding about how the human memory w orks. Gairns and Redman (1986) ma ke a basic distincti on: short - term memory and long-term m emory. The fir st s te p consists in storing a smal l number o f t erms in the short-term mem ory, wi th li mited capacity and after wards in long-term m em ory, apparently able to hold any amount of infor mation and recall it at will ti me after th e original input. Additionally, words are not stored in m emory at random. Quite on t h e contrary, these scholars claimed that “our m ental le xicon is highly o rganised and Chapter 2: Literature review 24 efficient” (Gairns and Redman, 1986 : 87) with lexical items stored in se mantic sets and more frequ ently used words easier t o recall. In k eeping with this, Nation (2001) suggests repeated e ncounters and the use of the word as a way to keep it in memory. Such rep etitions sh ould be increasing ly spaced in order to av oid forgetting words and going back to the initial stage of t he learning process. Apart from repetition, thi s researcher also mentioned th e “ Depth of processing hypothesis”, formulated by Craik and T ul ving (1975), which states that learners are likely to retrieve words from memory better if the y e ngage in mental ac tiviti es that require more elaborated and deep semantic processing, such as word association o r picturing word meaning in the mind, rather than shallower procedures such as rote re petition. 3. Creative or generativ e use: This last stage o f the learning pro cess can be performed in a receptive way, i.e. “meeting a wo rd which is used in new ways in listening and reading” or in a productive way, namely, “ pr oducing new w ays of using the wanted v ocabulary in ne w contexts ” (2001: 69). Thus, generative use moves along a continuu m rangi ng from low generation (slightly different from the first time the word was met) to high genera tion (used in a co mpletely different way) . Nation goes a step further and stated that generative use of words re sults in mor e efficient learn ing than mere repetition. In short, the vocabulary of a language is m ade up o f terms that are intrinsically linked and learning them is a dynamic and com plex process, since learners are Chapter 2: Literature review 25 supposed not o nly to kno w these words and th e relations established a mong them, but also t o use them recepti vely and pr oductively. 2.1.4. Vocabu lary teaching With t he arrival of the learner-centred approach, one m ight think that te ach ers play a marginal r ole in the l earning process but this is nothing further fro m reality. Teachers are in charge of devising a systematic way of t eachin g, instead of resorting to concrete techn iques (Laufer et al., 2 005) 5 . Therefo r e, w hen decidin g about the lexical component that has to be covered in a sch ool year, instructor s can benefit greatl y from th e teaching pri nciples outlined by Nati on below: Table 2: Princ iples of vocab ular y learning Content and sequencing • Use frequency and range of occurrence a s ways of deciding what vocabulary to learn and the order in which to learn it. • Give adequate training in essentia l vocabulary learning strategi es. • Give attention to each vocabulary item according to the learning bur den of that item. • Provide opportunities to learn th e various aspects of what is involved in kn owing a word. • Avoid interference b y presenting vocabulary in no rmal u se rather than in groupings of synonyms, opposites, free associa tes or lexical items. • Deal with high-fr equency vocabul ary by focusing on the words themselves, and deal wi th low-frequency vocabulary by foc using on the control strategies. Format and presentation • Make s ure that h igh-frequency target vo cabul ary occurs in all the four strands of meaning-focused input, language -focused learning, meaning-focused o utput an d f luency development. • Provide opportunity for spaced, repeated, generative retrieval o f words to ensure cumulative growth. • Use depth-of-processing activities. Monitoring and assessment • Test learners to see what vocabul ary they need to focus o n. • Use monitoring and assessment to keep learners moti vated. • Encourage and help learners to reflect on their learning. (Source: N ation, 2001: 385) 5 Paul Nation is among those scho lars who hav e cont ributed most to facilita te the work of FL teacher s. This se ction is mainly based on his research because it sheds ligh t on every s ingle aspe ct in volved in the proce ss o f vocabula ry acqu isition. E very d irection h e mentions i s support ed by an exhau stive r eview of pr eviou s research. Thus, many of t he examples an d directions p rovi ded here are th e result o f his ad vice (Nation, 2001 ). Chapter 2: Literature review 26 The first decision a te ach er has to make is the selection of the appropriate vocabulary to be taught. As e xplained above (cf. section 2 .1.1), many scholars recommend at initial stages to focus on the most frequent 2.000 lexical ite ms (Meara, 1995; Schmitt, 2000; Nation, 200 1). The next learning stages, which require learners to co pe with authentic materials in the T L, demand from 3,000 to 5,000 word families. At university levels, tho ugh, Hulstijn et al. (1996) argued that learners are required to master around 10,000 to 11 ,00 0 word families in order to complete communicative task s, where high-freq uency words should be supplemented by specific v ocabulary of the c oncrete s ubject area. According to L aufer et al. (2005), high-frequenc y words and low-frequency words deserve quite different am ounts of attention by the teachers. Rich instruction entailin g focus on the word and the assimilation of its differen t aspects should be applied t o hig h-f requency and specially n eeded terms because th ey are a relatively small number of words indispensable for learners and deserve much attention; this sh ould be done in combination with the so-called four skills, bot h receptively (reading, listening) and productivel y (w riting and speaking). Conversely, t he larg e group of low-frequ ency words are scarcely employed s o they should be i mplicitly taug ht, instead. Thus, both teaching approaches, explicit and implicit or incidental are complementary and necessary. Words taught explicitly need e xtensi ve ex posu re to oral and writt en texts in o rder bo th to be consolidated and to cove r all the different aspects of wo rd knowledge. Furtherm ore, words picked up incidentally Chapter 2: Literature review 27 are very unlikely t o be mastered at a productive level if they are no t given furthe r attention (Sch mitt, 2000). 2.1.4.1. Teach ing high-freq uency words When dealing with high-frequency words, pre-selec ted vocabulary items shoul d be presented in a way that may draw students’ attention and interest. Th us, teaching activities that enc ourage students’ noticing of terms include pre- teaching certain terms before dealin g wit h a particular co ntext, putting w ords under the spotlight by high lighting them (underlining , italics, bold letters... ) or glossing tex ts. As for the activi ties that involve the consolidati on of alread y learnt terms, retrieval exercises are m ainl y based on repeated list ening and reading of texts that include known ite ms, as well as communicativ e activities that ask students to employ familiar words in concrete situations, similar to those w h ere the wo rd was previously enco unt ered. Generative use tasks involve the receptive ex posu re to longer tex ts where words are used in a different way and activities that require students to expres s someth ing in their own w ords. A brief acco unt of tasks aimed at dealing with each of the word knowledge aspects is provided bel ow ( Nation, 2001; Pavičić, 2008): → Wo rd form: Learners may be trained to recognise spoken and written words, as w ell as the parts that fo rm their structure. They should also be able to pronounce and write them corre ctly.  Verbal fo rm: oral drills where teachers pronounce w ords and learner s repeat them (chorally or individually), getting feedback. Students m ay als o Chapter 2: Literature review 28 be asked to read aloud or be trained in the phonetic transcription of concrete items.  Written form: focus o n word spelling system, o utlinin g the s imilarities and differences between L1 and FL s ystems so as to find spelling rules. Teachers can draw students’ attenti on by writing words on the bo ard, un derlining or highlig hting them. Then, learners could be aske d to write the words they hear or spell them out.  Word parts: after learners hav e acquired some complex words, i t is advisable to m ake them aware that these wo rds con tain affixes, which can be used in varied terms and may c ause chang es of written and spo ken words. T h e knowledge of common prefixes and suffixes can be useful information to understand wo rd m eaning and to produce lex ical items combining stems and suitable affixes. Teaching activities include dividing words into parts, filling wo rd charts acco rding to the grammatical category or building new words using concr ete affixes. → Wo rd meaning Understanding the notion ex pressed by a particular wo rd asks for a stro ng explicit instruction in several ways:  Connecting form-mean ing: students should be able to connect a parti cular form with a particular meaning. Good ways of doing so are matching definitions to words, discu ssing the meaning of phrases includin g the desired terms, drawings, pictures or re alia that have to be labelled, peer activities w h ere student s teach each o ther th e meaning o f particular lexical Chapter 2: Literature review 29 items or employing riddles to remember word definitions, as in “ It has a head but it cann ot think = match” (Nation, 2001: 101) .  Concept and referent: it is essential for learners to gain insight into the underlying meaning o f a term and its particular use s, especially in o rder to be able bo th to un derstand it in d ifferent instan ces of u se and t o employ i t in a varied rang e of situations. In g roups, l earners ca n be asked to examine different co nt exts where a particular word is em ployed and find o ut differences and similaritie s in use. They may also be o ff ered a range of possible dictionary me ani ngs fo r a word that is embedded in a concrete context an d have t o ch oos e the correct one. They may be required to look for informati on abo ut specific terms and re port it to the whole class. Moreover, advanced students c an be asked to r efine their w ord kno wledge learning to grasp nuances o f me aning among wo rds, such as in the exam ple provided below: Table 3: Semant ic feature a naly sis Because unexpected Because difficult to believe So as to cause confusion So as to le ave one helpless to act or thi nk Surprise  Astonish  Amaze  Astound  Fla bbe rgas t  (Source: Ru dzka et al. 1 981: 65)  Associations : fo stering students’ awareness of the meaning links established amo ng words is very important to reinforce their anchorage in the m ental lexicon. Exercis es ask ing st udents to find synonyms, antonyms Chapter 2: Literature review 30 superordinate and subordinate words are h ighly recommended. M oreover, activities that e ntail semantic elaboration at a deep level of processing, such as o rdering or classifying words, drawing semantic m aps, grids or diagrams, relating words in cause-effect, etc. , may als o be adequate. → Wo rd use: F inally, learners should be able to use all the vocabulary acqu ired in a manner that suits the communicative situati on and this involves the mastery of the f ollowing features:  Grammatical functi ons: students are required to embe d words into sentences to express the desired meaning without grammar m i stakes. Activities that encompass the o rd ering of the e l ements of a s entence or the matching of sentenc es divided into halves are exa mples of go od practice.  Collocational issues: Apart from grammar, students need to e xpand their word k n owledge by getting acquain ted with the items they collocate w ith as a way of i mproving fluency. Looking in dictio n aries or corpora for collocations o r matching words used as a group can be a useful and interesting exercise.  Constraints on us e: The us e of certain words may b e limite d or c onditioned by factors, such as cultural background, registe r and word frequency. It is advisable to teach students ho w to recognise and cl assify them, for instance, contras ting British and American Engli sh terms. 2.1.4.2. Teach ing low-frequ ency words As mentioned above, the 2 ,000 most frequen t words of a FL sho uld be taught in an explicit way, spending enough t ime for their efficient assimilation. When Chapter 2: Literature review 31 learners m aster these items, it is time to start increasing their lexic al command by acquiring less frequentl y used w ords. While als o assu ming tha t at higher levels vocabulary instruc tion sh ould b e provided, learners should become autonom ous in lexical acquisition and it is in this context that VLSs gain prominence. Such strate gies, which will be dealt with later, pr ovide a good way to learn more specialis ed and , consequ ently, more uncommon terms. Since they fo rm a huge group o f lexical items, it is absolutely impossible to cover them in class. Students’ autonomy allows them both to fill this gap and to somehow determine what vocabulary to foc us on outside the c lassr oom according to their interests and needs. Therefo re, instead of spending class time on c oncrete low-frequency words, t eachers should strive t o pr ovide good t rainin g in the use of VLSs. In this light, research has also proven tha t reading can be an effective way of vocabulary learning (Coady, 1997; Nation and Waring, 1997; Schmitt, 200 0). The latter asserts that extens ive re ading should be care fully planned tak ing into account the foll owing characteristi cs: • Texts m ust be appropriate to students’ proficienc y level so that difficulty increases gradually. Readi ng has to be challenging enough but not t oo much in order to avoid learners’ frustration (they have to master 98% of words). • Reading must b e continu ously done t o be effective. Chapter 2: Literature review 38 quite different me nt al strategies. In short, these e arly stu dies constituted the basis fo r further research o n LL S and mad e it clear th e n eed for students to c ome to terms with their own res ponsibility in the learning pr ocess. All the sam e, the concept of L LS remains far from consensus and three main points of controversy can be pointed out: the relationship between learning strategies and other relate d terms, the definition of LLS and the classification o f LLS. The first disagreem ent ar ose over the work of Ru bin and her definition of learning strategy as “the tech niques or devices which a learner may use to acquire knowledge” (197 5: 43). Within this b road definition, R ubin incorporated strategie s that directly co ntribut e to le arning and those that con tribute in an indirect way, includin g the latter commu nication strategies. However, many scholars were not happy with this definition. Brown believes that learning is part o f the stage of input assimilation while communicating is part of the output. What is m ore, he argued that co mmunicative strategi es employed t o overcome li mitations, such as topic avoidance o r message abandonmen t do not lead to learning. All in all, h e also admitted that “ in the arena of linguistic interaction, it is sometimes difficult.... .to distinguish be tween the tw o” (1994: 118). The same idea was shar ed by Rod Ellis ( 1994) and And rew Cohen ( 1998). Th ey classify LLSs and language use strategies as two different set of strategies belonging to a super ordina te category kn own as L2 le arner strategies . Elaine Tarone (1981) believes, however, t hat helping students to communicate can help them improve their L2 command. Therefore a communicati on strategy Chapter 2: Literature review 39 can also be a learning strategy. T hus, decidi ng whether they are communicati on or learning st rategies depends exc lusively on the learner’s intenti on, so “the relationship of learnin g strategies to communicati on strategies is somewhat problematic” (T ar one, 198 1: 290). This consideration makes it extremely hard to conclude whether Rubin’s inclusion of communication strategies in the group of learning strategi es was righ t or wrong. The second problem lies in the fact that t here is not a single concept o f LLS yet, as sh own in tab le 5 containing the main d efinitions pro vided during decades of research. H owever, there is a no ticeable progr essi on in th e definiti ons fro m an absolute emphasis on identifying behaviours that lead to successful learning t o a description of what l earners thin k and do thr oughout the learning proc ess. Leaving aside the controv ersy arisen from t he interpretation of the different definitions, namely, w heth er they are beha vioural or mental, and whether they are conscious and intentional or subconscious, Rebecca Oxford’s notion of LL S is one of the most widely cited and applied to research and the same will be done in the present disse rtation stud y. When she m entions LLSs as “specific actions t aken by the learners to m ake learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, mo re effective, and more transferable to new situatio ns ” (Oxford, 1990: 8), she emphasises learners’ determinati on to attain learning goals in an autonomous way and LLSs facilita te and make the pro cess more pleasan t. Chapter 2: Literature review 40 Table 5: D efinition of LL S. An ov erview Source Definit ion Bialy stok (1978: 76) Methods or conscious ent erprise for exploiting avail able informatio n to i mprove com petence i n a second la nguage. Tarone (19 80: 419) An attempt to develop lingu istic and sociolinguist ic competenc e in the TL. Weinstein a nd Mayer (1986: 315) Behaviours and thou ghts tha t a l earner engages in during learning that a re inte nded to influe nce the learners’ e ncoding proc ess. Rubin (1987: 19) LLS a re set of operati ons, s teps, plans and rou tines of what l earners d o to facilita te the o btaining, storag e, retrieval and use of in format ion, to regulat e learni ng. Chamot (1987: 71) Techniqu es, approaches or delib erate a ctions tha t students ta ke in ord er to f ac ilitate learning, r ecall of both linguistic and co ntent i nformation. Oxford (19 90: 8) Behaviours or actio ns whi ch l earners use to make languag e learning more suc cessful, self-directed and enjoyable. Ellis (1994: 529) Mental or behaviou ral ac tivity relat ed to some sp ecific stage i n th e process of la nguage acquisition of languag e use Cohen (1998: 4) Processes which are cons ciously selected by learners and whic h may result in a ction ta ken t o enha nce th e learning or us e of a L2, throu gh th e storag e, r ecall a nd applica tion of informa tion a bout that langua ge. Purpura (1999: 8) Conscious or u nconscious techni ques o r activiti es tha t an individua l invokes i n la nguage l earning, us e or testing. (Source: ada pted from Pavi čić, 2008: 51) Furthermore, for a better understanding of this concept, Oxford (1990: 8) provides the main characte ristics of LLSs: 1. “Co ntri bute to t he main goal, comm unicati ve competence” bec ause they help learners to participate actively in communicati on, providing self-assurance and hence interacti on with other peopl e. 2. “Allow learners to become more self-directed”, chang ing students’ passive attitudes int o active ones, which re sults in greater co nfidence and pr oficiency outside the classro om. Chapter 2: Literature review 41 3. “Expand the role o f te ach ers” and then the teacher’s authoritative figure becomes a helping an d ad viser one. 4. “Are problem-orient ed ”, that is, they are tools used to solve a specifi c problem or to ac complish a task. 5. “Are specific actions taken by the learners”, such as t aking notes, self- evaluating or plann ing, in order t o enhance their own learnin g. 6. “Involve m any aspec ts of the learner, n ot just the cognitive”, so metacognitive, s ocial and aff ective aspects are al so involv ed. 7. “ Support learning both directly and indirectly”, since there ar e direct strategies, involving manip ulation and use of t he language, and indirect strategies contributing indirectly to learning, such as m etacognitive and soc ial /affective ones. 8. “Are not always observab le”, because steps su ch as co-operation can be easily o bserved but t hose strategies involving m ental operations cannot be seen. Indeed, according to Purpura (1999), th e fact th at these stra tegies cannot be observed does n ot mean th at they do not resp ond to mental processes. 9. “Are oft en consci ous”, that is, done on purpos e by the learner. However, some o f them may become automatic and thus subconscious after certa in amount of practic e. 10. “Can be taugh t”, that is , strategy traini ng is possible, as we will see later. 11. “ Are flexible”, so they are not always found in a predictable sequence or pattern. On the contrary, each learner differs in the w ay o f choosing , co mbining and sequencing strat egies. Chapter 2: Literature review 42 12. “Are influenced by a variety o f factors ” , such as learner individual differences or situati onal a nd social fact ors. 2.2.3. Classifi cation The t hird problem faced by research on the fie ld is that scholars have not reached a consensus on the classifi cation o f LLSs. This has been mot ivated by the lack o f agreement am ong research ers on the conc ept of LLS. Oxford (1994) analysed the main taxono mies availab le and c oncluded that all of them fall int o five broad categories: i. Systems related to successful language learners: Early studies (Naiman et. al ., 1978; Rubin, 1975) focused on compiling strategies employed by “good” language learners. ii. Systems based o n psycholo gical functions, namely, cognitive, met acogniti ve and affective (Wong-Fillm ore, 1979; Wenden, 1986 ; O'Malley and Chamot, 1990). iii. Linguistically b ased systems dealing with guessing, langu age monitoring, formal and functional p ractice (Bialyst ok, 1978) or with communica tion strategies (Tarone, 1981). Thus, Bialystok divide d LL Ss into fo ur main categories: for mal languag e practicing (k nowled ge of gram matical and syntactical items), function al practicing (for authentic communication goals), monitoring and inferenci ng. M oreover, Tarone focused on the strategies employed by st udents in order to communicate, such as paraphrasing or borrowing. Chapter 2: Literature review 43 iv. Systems related to separate language skills , such as vocabulary learning (Cohen, 1998). v. Systems based on different styles or types or learners (Sutter, 1989 ) Table 6: A com pariso n of strategy cl assifica tion model Study Strategy Description Rubin (1975) Direct strateg ies Clarifying, memorising , guessing , induct ive inferencing, deductive reas oning. Indirect strat egies Creating opportunities for practice, using production tricks, using synonyms. Bialystok (1978 ) Formal practic ing Gaining knowledge about languag e by p racticing with language rules. Functional practicing Using the language for authe ntic communic ation purposes. Monitoring strategies Examining and m odifying or correc ting linguistic output. Inferencing strategies Guessing a prev iously unkn own meaning or f orm. Wong-Fillm ore (1979) Social strategies Interacting with p eers in le arning, asking fo r help . Cognitive stra tegies Assuming what p eopl e s ay, looking fo r pat terns of the target language. O’Malley and Chamot Stewn er- Manzanares, Russo, and Küpper (1985 a) Cognitive stra tegies Performing information pr ocessing . Metacognitive Strategies Regul ating langu age learning and including high orde r . executive skill s or function. Socioaffective Strategies Interacting with others in le arning and using . Mental control to reduce lea rning a nxiety. Wenden (1987 ) Cognitive stra tegies Selecting, co mprehendi ng , storing a nd retrieving inpu t. Self - management strategies Planning, moni toring and evaluatin g. Oxford (1990) Direct Strategi es Memory Storing and r etrieving new information . Cognitive Manipulating and transform ing the target language . Compensation Filling in the gap s o r mi ssing kn owledge o f t he ta rget language. Indirect Strateg ies Metacognitive Controlling cognitive pro cess in learning, managing, or regulating languag e learning . Affective Controlling emotions and feeling s to lower learni ng anxiety. Social Interacting and cooperating with others in l earning . (Source: a dapted from Hong, 2 006 : 31) All in all, the two most influ ential classificati ons in LLS research are those presented b y O’ Malley e t a l. (1 985a) and Ox ford (1990), which will b e covered in turn. Chapter 2: Literature review 44 O’Malley, Chamot, St ewner-Manzanares, Küpper and Russo (1985a) conducted a study to deter mine the range and frequency of LLSs em pl oyed by ESL students. Simultaneously, they sought to d iscover what strategies were u sed in specific tasks and whether studen ts exhibiting different lang uage proficiency differed in their use and choic e of LLSs . The LLSs discovered wer e t hen subcategoris ed into three broad groups: metacognitive, cognitiv e and social mediation . Moreover, they succeeded in linking the use of strategies to cert ain tasks (mainly in pronunciation and vocabulary l earning) and they also demonstrated that stud ents’ level of FL competence has a direct impact on the use of LLSs. Thus, metac ognitive strategies entailed l earners’ acknowledge ment of their own cognitiv e processes when planning, self-monitoring and self-evaluating. Cognitive strategies invol ved direct m anipulation o f information when perfo rmi ng learning tasks, such as in note - taking, repetition, ded uction or resourcing . Lastly, social mediation referred to those LLSs used t o interact with other speake rs, for instance, w hen seeking for c ooperation and asking f or clarification. This study was extremely important for it laid the foundation for subsequent research, such as Oxford’s. Rebecca Ox ford (1 990) t ook O ’Malley et al.’s distribution as point of reference but expanded it to six categories of LLSs: memory, cognitive, compensatio n, metacognitive, aff ective an d social. What is more, th ese categories m ake up the Chapter 2: Literature review 45 so-called Strategy Inventory for Languag e Learning (SILL) 6 and are fu rther divided into two major groups (previously identified by Rubi n, 1987): dir ect and indire ct strategies. Figure 4: Dia gram of th e strategy system: Ov erview (Source : Oxford, 1990 : 16) Direct strat egies are “ strat egies t hat directly involve the t arget language” since they “ require mental pr ocessing of the langu age” (Oxford, 19 90: 3 7). Thr ee direct strategies were id entified: a. Memory strategies, used to store new information and retrieve it when needed. b. Cognitive strategies, w hic h enable learners t o crea te links between ne w information and previo u s knowledge. They involve direct analysi s and transformation of the TL. c. Compensation s trategies , emplo yed to overcome difficulties in using the TL despite lacking requ ired knowledg e. 7 6 A research instrument that has been ada pted to carry out the curren t stu dy (cf. Chapter 3) 7 As p reviously stated, this is rather controversial since many researchers refer to them as communication strat egies an d, th erefore, not in cluded u nder th e heading of LLS (Ellis, 1994; Cohen , 1998) Chapter 2: Literature review 46 Indirect strategies “pr ovide indirect support for langu age le arning t hrough focusing, planning, evalu ating, seeking opportuni ties, controlling anxiety, increasing co-operati on, and empathy and other means” (Oxford, 1990 : 151). Three indirect s trategies were als o designated: d. Metacogniti ve strategies, referring to students’ managemen t of their o wn learning. e. Affective strategi es, emplo yed to take con trol of e motions and at titudes. f. Social strategies, dealin g wi th the interacti on with oth ers in order t o learn. Oxford o ffers a hug e am ount of strategies subcateg orised into each o f the categories present ed abov e (an outline pr ovided in Fi gure 5). Figure 5 : Diagram of t he str ategy syst em sho wing two classes, six group s a nd 19 sets (Source: Oxford , 1990 : 17) Chapter 2: Literature review 47 According to Ellis (1994: 53 9), Oxford’s taxonomy is “perhaps the most comprehensive clas sificatio n of learning strategies to date” and yet the researcher herself ackno wledges that her work “is not the final wo rd on L LS” (Oxford, 1990 : 263), for t here may be some overlap betw een categories (LLSs versus communication strat egies). All things considered, given the relevance of the investigation conducted by Oxford and the influence of her work on the field, the current study is based on the classificati on provided b y this scholar. 2.2.4. Factors affe cting learners’ use of LLSs Oxford and Nyikos (1989) pointed to several factors that accounted for the choice and use of LLSs, nam ely, motivati on, gender, learners’ origin, attitudes and beli ef s, task, age and learning stage, learning style and tolera nce of ambiguity. Researc h has shown that motivation, proficiency in the FL, learning style and gender are among those variables tha t have the strongest effect o n learners’ use of differen t types of strategies. Th ey wi ll be presented in turn. 2.2.4.1. Motivat ion After years o f research scholars have con cluded that motivation is o ne of the factors that affec ts most the learnin g process. Inde ed, Dörnyei argue s that motivation provides the pri mary impetus to initiate lea rning the L2 and later the dr iving forc e to sustain t he long and often t edious learning process; ind eed, all the others facto rs involved in L2 acquisition presuppose moti vation to some e xtent. (1998 : 117) Nevertheless, the same s ch olar emphasises the lack of consensus in what motivation is. Up to the nin eties, the work o f Gardner, Lambert, and MacIntyre Chapter 2: Literature review 54 understandin g, remembering o r using the language). This w ill be cove red in detail in the following chapter. 2.2.4.5. Age an d L2 stage Very litt l e re search has focused on the difference in L LS use found among students of different ages. One c ould mention O ’ M alley (1985a), whose stud y showed that all subjects generally resorted t o cognitive strat egies while metacognitive strat egies w ere restricted t o older lear ners. As for L2 stage, it should be noted t hat language prof iciency has b een studied and test ed in diffe rent ways. Thus, while some s tudies employ co ncr ete means to measure st udent s’ langua ge command, s uch as proficiency and achievement tests, others rate it according to stud ents’ course le vel or e ven se lf-ra ted proficiency. Anyway, most studies established a strong relationship between LLS use and languag e learning outc omes. → Proficiency stated by te sts In t he study previously m entioned co nduc ted by Gree n and Oxford (1995), students sat t he English as a Second Languag e Achievement Test ( ESLAT) to determine their pro fi ciency. T he results revealed a greater LLS use by high - achievers with special incidence o n cognitive, compensation, metacognitive and social strategies. Consistently, TOELF sco r es were emplo yed by Park (1997) to group students at tw o universities in Korea according to t heir language command. The best students reporte d a higher use of strategies in the SILL, especially in cognitive and s ocial strategies. Chapter 2: Literature review 55 The s ame applies t o Griffiths (2 003), who researched the LLSs of private school students in New Zealand learning English as L2. They w ere dis tribu ted in d ifferent level tests acc ording to the sco r es achieved on the Oxford P lace ment Test an d a significant correlation between strategy use and language pro fici ency was identified: the high er the level, the more they resorted to LLSs. → Self-rated pr oficiency Research has also been conducted o n the relation ship betwe en LL S use an d language proficiency stated but not objecti vely rat ed. Oxford and Nyikos (198 9) surveyed th e LLSs of studen ts with d ifferent self-ra ted pro ficienc y and discovered that those w h o were ve r y satisfied with the pr oficiency level acquired in r eading, speaking and listening were the ones who rep orted a hig her strategy use. In the same vein, Ch amot and Küpper (1989) carried out an analysis of LLSs of students rated by t heir t eachers as good, average or poor and pointed out that although learners of all levels did empl oy strategies, those at higher level report ed a wider and m ore frequent u se. In Galicia (Spain ), Palacios-Martínez (1995) su rveyed the LLSs of EFL secondary school and university students. Although university subj ects reported a higher number of st ra tegies than their high school counterparts, this was not statistically significant. Ho wever, cognitive and pronunciation strat egies w ere sign ificantly more frequently employed at univer sity stages while memory and c ompensatio n strategies were m ore popu lar at secondar y schools. Final ly, none of them r esorted to affective or social strategies. Since this survey pi oneered research on LLSs in Galicia, it was certainl y tak en into accoun t in the present study. Chapter 2: Literature review 56 More recently, bilingu al university students in Singapore were surveyed b y Wharton (2000) to deter mine their L LS regarding t heir self-rated proficienc y. A clear trend was obs erved: students who felt that their proficiency in EFL was hig h were those who reported a fre quent use of VLSs and v ice versa. This finding was identified by t he researcher as “two-way ” because bo th proficiency and strategy use have a recipro cal effect. In view of the aforementioned investigation, it seems clear that the relationship between proficiency and use of st rategi es is st rong . This st udy will attempt to clarify this issue, so students will be categorised according to their proficiency level by means of a well-known and widely ac cepted test (cf. Chapter 3). 2.2.4.6. Learning style Learning styles are one of the individual factors that exerts more influence in the process o f L2 acquisition (E llis, 1994) . Indeed, the relevance of this feature w as advocated by Peacock who, basing his in vestigati on on Reid’s work (1995 ), hypothesized that “all students have their own learning styles and learning strengths and weakne sses” and “a mismatch betw een teaching and learning st yles causes learning failure, frus tration, and de motivation" (Peacock, 2001b: 1). Nevertheless, as is generally the case in all aspects of language acquisition, scholars do not agree o n its definition. Keefe (1979: 4) has defined learning style as “c ognitive, affect i ve and physiolo gical traits that are re lati vely stable indicator s of h ow learners perceive, interact with, and respond to th e learning environment”; Ehrman and Oxfo rd (1990: 3 11) consider it as “ preferred or Chapter 2: Literature review 57 habitual patterns of mental functi oning and dealing wit h new information ” ; whereas Reid (1995: viii) defines it as “an individual’s natural, habitual, and preferred way(s) of ab sor bing, processing, and r eta ining new information and skills”. Taking into a ccount these definitions, Oxford et al. (1992) stated that learning styles were made up by cogn itive, affective and beha vioural aspects and identifi ed four main styles : a) Global versus a nalytic , where global l earners create an overall image of the learning situations while analytics fo cus on specific details by analysing, comparing and contrasting ind ividual elements. b) Field dependence versus field independenc e . The main difference between these t wo s tyles is that th e latter are able to extract k ey elements from a complex background whereas the fo rmer lack t his ability, not being able to m ake abstract i on when fa cing distractio n. Thus, field dependent lear ners are more reliant on th e teacher’s advice to direct their own learning pr ocess. c) Feeling v ersus thinking d eal with whether learners make deci sions o n logic and rules (thinkers) or their decisions are based on mo re personal considerations (feel ers). d) Impulsive versus reflective refer to the dive rg ence bet ween learners who react almost immedia tely to a cognitive stimulu s and those who take their time t o think. Chapter 2: Literature review 58 e) Intuitive-rand om versus con crete-sequential , where the fo rmer resort to their o wn criteria to fi nd their learning pace whereas the latter depend more on external crite ria and learn step by step following a chronological order. f) Closure-oriented versus o pen-o riented relate to the tole ranc e of ambiguity . When facing a learning situation, open le arn ers are tolerant of am bigui ty and they do n ot feel anxious about either not knowing all the information or getting a quick solution. Conversely, closed learners are low tolerant of ambiguity and tr y to find an answer quickly. g) Extroverted versus introv erted , regarding the way they cope with learning situations. Extroverts depend more on ot h er people whereas introverts rely ma inly on th eir ideas and inner thoughts. h) Visual versus aud itory versus ha nds on (or tact ile kinaesthetic) , referring to learn er use of physical senses ( sight, hear ing or touch). Table 7: Styl e analysis surve y Style Description Learning task Use of physical senses for study and work: • Visual Learns best through visual mea ns Use books, videos, graphics, pictures etc • Auditor y Prefers listening and speaking activities Discussions, debates, audiotapes, role plays etc • Hands – on Learns by doing, movement Projects, active games, experiments, objects etc Dealing with peo ple • Extroversion Social interactive learning Group work, role plays, discussions etc • Introversion Prefers more independent learning Individual work or pair work with good partner Handling possibilities • Intuitive – random Futur e - oriented, abstract thinker Likes to solve problems, hypoth esis f ormatio n • Concrete-sequential Present, needs to kno w what they are do ing and why Step - by - step learning activities Approaching ta sks • Closure-oriented • Open Neat, structu red, focu ses on all tasks, planner Picks up informatio n in randomly Doesn’t l ike d eadlines or r ules, enjoys discovery learning Dealing with id eas • Glo bal Risk - taker, main idea Making predictio ns, getting main idea , meaning • Analytic Focuses o n details, analysis, brea k d own concepts, specific rules Structured exercises, use of detailed maps (Source: Cohen, 1998) Chapter 2: Literature review 59 Regarding the relatio nshi p betwee n learning styles and LLSs, Ehrman and Oxford (1990) tried to det ermine t he stra tegies employed by students a ccording to their l earning style. The results indicated the identification of concrete strategy use t o specific learning styles, such as the predilection o f e xtroverts for social strategies while introverts preferred the met acogni tive o nes. Likewise, thinkers resorted mainly to cogniti ve and metacognitive strategies and feelers em pl oyed social strategi es to a greater extent. The learning style v ariable will not be considered in the presen t study as it is quite complex t o control. Howev er, it could well be studied in subs equent res earch. 2.2.4.7. Attitudes an d beliefs It h as b een widely accepted that one of t he facto rs t hat influences L2 acq uisition, either consci ous or unconsciously , is connected with the learner’s attitudes and previous beliefs. This issue will receive speci al attentio n in the present s tudy. Research has provided several definitions o f this notion, whose common features have been summa rised by Borg (200 1: 186): A belief is a proposition which may be consciously or u nconsciously held, is evaluative in that it is accepted as true by the individual , and is therefore imbued with emotive co mmitment; fu rther, it serves as a guide to though t and beha viour. Furthermore, Williams an d Burden (1997: 56) specify t hat they “tend to be culturally bound, to be for med early in life and to be resistant to change ”. In this light, o ne of the researchers that has most emphasised the importance of investigating students' beliefs in order to plan better instruction was Elaine Horwitz. Thi s scholar was the pione er in tr ying t o determine students ’ beliefs in a Chapter 2: Literature review 60 systematic way. To this end, based on interviews and discussions with ESL/EF L learners and t eachers, she dev eloped the Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory (BALLI) with thre e different versi ons: → Teachers’ version of the BALLI (Horwitz, 1985). It was a 27 L ikert-scal e questionnaire ai med at e stablishing teachers’ beliefs in four areas: 1. Foreign language aptitude, 2. Difficu lty of langu age, 3. Natur e of lang uage learning and 4. Appropriate languag e learn ing strategies. → ESL/EFL students’ versi on of the BALLI (Horw i tz, 1987). It com prise s 34 Likert-scale ite ms to determine stud ents’ beliefs in fi ve areas: 1. F oreign langu age aptitude, 2. D ifficulty of lan guage leaning, 3 . Nature o f language le arning, 4. Learning and c ommunication stra tegies, and 5. M otivations and expectati ons. → American FL stud ents’ version of the BALLI (Horwitz, 19 85). It is a questionnaire similar to the ESL /EFL students ’ version, covering the sa me fields. Since then, many studies about attitudes and beliefs about language learning have been carried out all over the world. A brief account of t hem will be provide d here: first, research o n studen ts’ beliefs will be outlined and then tho se studies attempting to compare students’ versus teachers’ beliefs will be presente d. Finally, studies att empting to relate beliefs and LLSs will be analysed.  Research on stud ents’ beli efs The earliest investigation w as conducted by Wenden (1986, 1987) with ESL students in the USA. She w as able to categorise apprentices’ ideas according to three main statements: a) the importance of an active stance while speaking and listening, b) the need to learn about grammar and vo cabulary, and 3) the role o f Chapter 2: Literature review 61 personal factors (i.e. affec tive factors, self-concept, and aptitude). These results were said to be u seful in or der to predict stud ents’ L2 learn ing difficulties. Horwitz (1987) survey ed the beliefs of intermediate ES L students enrolled in an intensive English program at the University o f Texas. Her findings showed that students from different ba ckground held di fferent beliefs about L2 learning, whic h led the scholar to conclude that students’ ideas might be shaped by prior learning experience and cultural ba ckground. These conclusi ons w ere later e ndors ed by another cross-cultural study conducted by Horwitz (1999) with American FL learners to gether with ESL/EFL Turkish, Korean and Taiwanese students, where significant differences were spotted among gr oups.  Learners’ versus instru ctor s’ beliefs Research has shown that the mismatch between teachers’ and st udents’ beliefs may be a source of proble ms such as: • misunderstandin g and misco mmunication (Lupp escu and Day, 19 90), • students questi oning of t heir teachers’ credibility (S chultz, 1996), • learners’ engage ment in strategies of which the tea cher disapproves (Rees-Miller, 1 993); and • students’ with drawal and feelings of unhap piness (McCargar, 1 993) Kern (1995) investigated the beliefs o f students learn ing French in California and also those of their teachers. It was a longitudin al study which showed that after a period o f instruction the students did not change t heir attitudes o r their beliefs. However, no significant dive rgence amon g learners’ and teachers’ presuppositi ons was found . Chapter 2: Literature review 62 Large discrepancie s betwe en t he beliefs of EFL teachers and students w ere found by Peacock in Hong Kong (1998, 1999) in a series of studies conducted in Taiwan. Students rated the learning o f EFL as le ss demanding and expected to learn it m ore easily than their teachers did. As for particul ar aspects, learner s praised e rror correction and both vocabulary and grammar exercises to a high er extent t han teachers the mselves. Peacock argued t hat this mismatch le d t o students’ dissati sfaction wi th the class , since the y we re unable t o understand the pedagogical reasons behind each e xercise d one. A study conducted in the USA by Siebert (2003) demonstrated a certain degree o f similarity but also discordance on certain e lem ents: just as was the case of Peacock’s, students did not consider English as hard to learn as their teacher s did and bo th groups did not agree o n a specific learning met hod, which should be carefully consider ed by inst ructors (Bernat , 2007: 7). More recently, Bernat (2007) investigated the beliefs of university EFL learn ers and teachers in Australia. Sh e could discern significant belief differences betwe en both groups: students held a m ore optimistic vision of the difficulty of langua ge learning, placed more emph asis on grammar and vocabulary an d, surp risingly enough, students maintained st ronger beliefs about the relevance of c ulture in L2 learning. Bernat argued th at this gap be tween g roups wo uld have, n o d oubt, pedagogical i mplications. Chapter 2: Literature review 63  Beliefs and LLS us e Finally, some surv eys have focused on find ing out the relationship be tween belie fs and learning strategies to assess whether previous assumpti ons do influenc e the use and choice of LLSs. Wenden’s studies (1996, 1 997) pioneered the research on t he topic, where students who believed in using the language tended to employ more communication strategies where as those who suppo rted t he idea o f learning a language resorted to cogni tive strategies. In a p reviously mention ed study by Park (1995) Korean univ ersity students displayed a clear pref erence for memory and metacog nitive st ra tegies rather than communicative strategies. The research er po in ted out that so me beliefs held a stronger connection with L LSs than others: due both to t heir fear of m aking mistakes and their shyness, t hey were not prone to using st rategies involvin g interaction e ven when they were willing t o m eet English speakers. Simila rly, Y an g (1999) res earched Chinese u niversity EFL stud ents’ b eliefs in Taiw an tr ying to correlate them to LLS strategy use. Her finding s indicated that students were fairly satisfied w ith their L2 proficiency, which was reflected in their extensive use of strategies. Besides, they acknowledged the importance o f o ral aspects and this was correlated to learners ’ emphasis on o ral practice strategies. Yang co nclud ed that both aspects are intrinsically connected: not only do beliefs influence LLS use but also their successful em pl oyment of st rategies affect th eir attitudes when they report a strong s ense of self-efficac y. Chapter 2: Literature review 70 Some years later, Nation (2001: 217), instead o f offeri ng a precise definition of VLS, puts fo rward some of the features of this kind of strat egy, considered as an integral part of LLSs. Accordi ng to him, a VLS sh ould: • involve cho ice, that is, the re are several s trategies to c hoo se from; • be complex, th at is, there a re several step s to learn; • require knowledge and ben efit from training ; and • increase the effici ency of vo cabula ry learning and vocabul ary use. In other words, VLSs are a set of varied strategies em ployed at different stages of vocabu lary l earning that are liabl e to be taught and that impr ove b oth L2 vocabulary acquisiti on and u se. In Spain, Jimé nez-Catalán ( 2003: 56) combines b oth Wenden and Rubin’s definition of LLS and Schmi tt’s notion of VLS t o provide a definition of her own as : Knowledge abo ut the mechan isms (processes an d st rategies) u sed in order to learn vocabul ary as well a s steps or action s taken by students (a) to find out the meaning of unknown words, (b) to retain them in long-term memo ry, (c) to recall them at will, and (d) to use them in oral or w ritten mod e. Without ign oring all the considerations exposed above, the latter definition will constitute the basis f or the present study, esp ecially when designing th e research instrum ents (cf. ch apter 3). 2.3.2. VLSs taxon omy If defining VLSs was a troublesome procedure, their classification is also controversial. Several researchers have prop osed different classifications o f VLS s based on their own criteria, which led Fan (2003: 223) to conclude that “no Chapter 2: Literature review 71 classification is perfect and any individual strategy m ay fall into o ne category or another, dependin g on the a spect in focus”. To date, several VLS categorisations have been provided, being those of Gu and Johnson (19 96), Natio n (2001) and Sch mitt (1997) the most outstand ing. Gu and Johnson (1996) e mployed a questionnaire that combined both th e elicitation o f students’ beliefs about vocabulary learning , and the VLSs used by learners. They were divided into thr ee main cat egories: beliefs, metac ognitive strategies and cognitive strategies, which were further subdivided into six main sets, as illustrated in the tab le below: Table 10: Gu a nd Johnso n’s t axonomy of VL Ss Beliefs Metacogni tive regulat ion Cognitive strate gies Beliefs about vocabulary l earning Metacognitive regulation Guessing str ategies Words should b e memorise d . Selective atten tion . Using backgroun d knowledg e/wider cont ext . Word should b e acquired in context: bottom-up. Self-initiation. Using linguisti c cues/imm ediate con text. Words should b e studied and pu t to use: top-down . Diction ary strategies Dictionary str ategies for c omprehe nsion . Extended dicti onary strat egies . Loo king-up activities. Note - taking act ivities Mea ning - oriented n ote - taking st rategies . Usage - oriented note - taking activ ities . Rehearsal act ivities Using word lis ts . Oral repetition . Visual repetit ion . Encoding strat egies Association / ela boration . Imagery . Visual encoding . U sing word - struc ture . Semantic encod ing . Contextual en coding . Activation strate gies (Source: Gu a nd Johnso n, 1996: 654- 655) Nation’s (2001) taxon omy of VLSs separates three different aspects regarding vocabulary acquisition: the first category deals with strategies rather metacognitive in nature of planning the learning ex perience, the second is Chapter 2: Literature review 72 concerned with t he p rocess of look ing for inf ormation about lexical items and the third part focuses on the already explained processes o f vocabulary acquisiti on namely, noticing, re trieval and generati on (cf. 2.1.3): Table 11: Na tion’s taxo nomy of VLSs General class of strate gies Types of strategies Planning: ch oosing what t o focus o n and when to focus on it Choosing word s Choosing the asp ects of word know ledge Choosing str ategies Planning repetit ion Sources: finding information about words Analysing the wo rd Using context Consulting a reference sour ce in L1 or L2 Using parallel s in L1 and in L 2 Processes: est ablishing kno wledge Notici ng Retrieving Generating (Source: N ation, 2001: 218) Notwithstandin g t hese categorizati ons, Jiménez-Catal án (2003: 60) arg ues that the taxonomy compiled by Schmitt (1997) boasts many advan tages such as its suitability to be “standardi zed as a test […] to collect the answe rs from student s easily”. Moreover, “it is based on the theory of le arn ing strategies as well as on theories of memory […] an d techn ologically si mple”, therefore, easy for “coding, classification and managing of the data in co mputing programs” . Also, it can be “used with learners of different ages, education al backgrounds and t arg et languages”. Finally, “it is rich and sensitive to the variety of learning strategies, and allows comparison with other st udies , among them Schmitt’s o wn survey”. Accordingly, the research i nstrument s employed in th e current study will be bas ed Chapter 2: Literature review 73 on S chmitt’s taxonomy of VLSs, though adapted to the research g oals of this investigation 8 (cf. chapter 3). Schmitt (1997) took four of the six categ ories established by Oxford, namely, social, memory, cognitiv e and m etacogniti ve strategies and added a new category, which includes those strat egies used to disco ver the meaning of new words without asking it to another person: d etermination strategies. This las t category was inspired by Oxford’s guessing strategies included within the group of compensation tactics. All these VLSs are in turn sub-divided into two main groups: strategies for d isco vering the meaning of a new word and strategies used to consolidate it once found ( Table 12). 2.3.2.1. Disco very Strategi es The first task a vocabular y learner m ust complete is that o f understanding the meaning of unfa miliar lexic al items they co me across. 2.3.2.1.1. Deter mination strategies Schmitt (1997: 205) defines determination s trategies as those used “when faced with discovering a new word’s meaning without recourse t o another person’s expertise”. This means that learners can either try to infer the meaning of unknown items or resort to reference mat erials. 8 Segler e t al. (2002) agr ee with Jimén ez-Catalán on p raising S chmitt’s categorizatio n though they regre t tha t non e of the existing categorization s t akes into account the depth- of-proces sing factor (Craik an d Tulving, 1 975); a theory which, despite crit icism, has shown that a d eep analy sis involving a greater cogn itive effort or involv ement with the meanin g results in greater retentio n of the term (cf. s ection 2.1.3. ) Chapter 2: Literature review 74 Table 12: Schm itt’s taxon omy of VL Ss Dimension Discovery Consolida tion Determinat ion Analyse part-of -speech - Analyse affix es and root s Check for L1 cognate Analyse any available pictures or gestur es Guess fro m textual conte xt Bilingual dictio nary Monolingual dict ionar y Word lists Flash cards Social Ask teacher f or an L1 tra nslatio n Study a nd practise m eaning in a g roup Ask t eacher for paraphr ase or sy nony m of new word Teacher c hecks students’ flash c ards o r word lists for accuracy Ask te acher for a se ntence including the new word Interact with native-spea kers Ask class mates for mea ning Discover n ew meaning t hrough gro up wor k activity Memory - Study word with a picto rial represe ntation o f its meaning Image word’ s meaning Connect word t o a perso nal experie nce Associate the wo rd with it s coordi nates Connect the wo rd to its synonyms and antony ms Use semantic maps Use ‘scales’ for gradabl e adjectives Peg metho d Loci method Group words together to study th em Group words together s patially on a page Use new wor d in sent ences Group words together w ithin a st oryline Study the sp elling of a wo rd Study soun d of word Say word aloud Image of word f orm Underline initi al letter Configuration Use keyword method Affixes and ro ots/parts of speech, Paraphrase wo rd mean ing, Use cog nates in study Learn words of an idiom t ogether Use physic al action Use semantic feature grids Cognitive - Verbal repetitio n Written rep etition Word lists Flash cards Take notes in c lass Use the vocabul ary sectio n in your textb ook Listen to tap e of word l ists Put English lab els on ph ysical objec ts Keep a vocabul ary noteboo k Metacogni tive - Use English -language me dia (songs, mov ies, newscasts, etc.) Testing ones elf with wo rd tests Use spaced w ord practic e Skip or pass n ew wor d Continue t o study word ov er time (Source: Schmit t, 1997 : 207-208) → Guessing strategies are ext remely importan t to find o ut what new terms mean. Indeed, they have be en included in all three afor ementioned taxonomies (Gu an d Johnson classified it as cogn itive and Nati on as noticing ). Chapter 2: Literature review 75 These strategies includ e guessing from structural knowledge o f the language, guessing from an L1 cognate and guessing from co ntext. The analysis of specifi c parts o f speech or word m orpholog y may offer hints to infer word meaning, so many teachers provide their students w ith lists o f common prefixes and suffixes with their meaning s in order to guess m eaning from a g iven affix in an u nfamiliar term. Moreover, students m ay find a cognate in t he ir L1 that resembles the L2 term and, theref ore, be abl e to infer its meaning. Laufer ( 1997) warns us, however, ab out the dang er of w ord part analysis or L 1 cognate c omparison. She c ontends t hat a word is not always the sum of its part s, i.e. “shortcomings” does not mean short visits, but “f aults”, neither can be idi oms interpreted by breaking them into parts, that is, “kick the bucket” meaning “to die”. Cognat es may also be deceptive for students : “sympa thetic” is not the English equivalent of “simpático” but of “comprensivo” (all cited in Ruut mets, 2005: 43). Hence, alth ough they may be usefu l strategies, they ar e n ot 100 % reliable. As for guessing from textua l context, infer encing word meaning from c ontext is the mo st frequent way learners disco ver the meaning of new words. Several clues can help learn ers t o come up with meanings, such as t he t opic, that is, an outline of what they are reading, the title and even some other clues related to discourse, such as redundancy, anaphora, into na tion or punctuation, which help sharpen students’ ability t o discover meaning through the context alone. Nation (1990) states tha t a good way to m anage the learning of great amounts of vocabulary is t hr ough ind irect le arning , for instance, learning new words in Chapter 2: Literature review 76 context through extensive reading and listening, o r problem-solving group work activities. Nevertheless, and despite the fact that learning from context may be a good way to enhance work knowledge, beginners cannot start to learn from context until they are familiar w ith basic vocabulary so as to be able to comprehend wh at they are actually reading . Schmitt (1997: 209) emphasises that guessing meaning from context can be a major source o f lexical acquisition but the learner has to possess an adequate level of vocabulary as well as sufficient background knowledge of the content for guessing to be effective. Moreover, if the context is not rich enough in clues, t he learner will be in trouble. → Reference materials entail an intentional approach to vocabulary learning as opposed to guessing strategies, which can be techniques used in an incidental way of learning. Included in all t he taxonomies (in Gu and Johnson’s as a subcategory o f cognitive st rategies and in Nation’s as part of the process of finding inform ation about words), Nation (2001: 281-282) considers that dictionaries are a g ood res ource for:  Comprehensi on (decoding): looking up unknown wo rds met while listening, reading or transla ting or confirming guesses about word meaning.  Production (encoding): looking up words nee ded to speak, write or translate, looking up spelling, pronunciation, meaning , etc. of known words…  Learning: cho osing unkno wn words to learn or enrich knowledge. Chapter 2: Literature review 77 This scholar insists on the necess i ty of a skilful use of dicti onaries, training students how to do it in the right way and tak ing adv antage of the v ast information pro vided, not j ust word meaning. Furthermore, he provides a rich analysis ab out different t ypes of dictionaries : monolingual, bilingu al and bilingualised (i.e. they “con tain the infor mation that is in a monolingual dicti onary plus a translati on of the head word ” 2001: 29 0). Monolingual dictionaries c ontain m uch m ore inf orma tion about t erms but i t is also true tha t students with less pro fi ciency in the L2 language may have difficulties in understanding t he definitions provided. Conversely, bilingua l dictionaries are better at helping learners understand wo rd meaning and can be used in a bidirectional way: L2-L1 and L1-L2. However, they are o f ten criticized because th ey are said to promote translation and create in students the m istak en idea t hat every meaning has a direct e quival ent in the other language, apart from containing ve ry littl e info rmati on on w ord usage. This leads Nation ( 2001: 2 90) to suggest a combin ed use of both types of dic tionaries. Using the dictionary to look up every new word may become a se curit y tool fo r learners; however, Carter and McCarthy (1988) advise that teachers should encourage their students to rely on varied strategies and use the dictionary only as the last resourc e. Schmitt (1997) also includ ed word lists and flashcards as reference materials but they are also embedd ed w ithin the group of memo ry strategies, that is why they w ill be explained later. This scholar acknowledges the overlap of strategies between categori es when he says that, Chapter 2: Literature review 78 almost all of the discovery and consolidation strategies could be conceivab ly be used as consolidation str ategie s, but only the most obvious are listed in bo th s ections of the taxono my (1997 : 206). 2.3.2.1.2. Social st rategies The so-called ′ social’ strategies do not show the same p opularity in all classifications o f VLSs. Thus, while Schmitt made a separate category, other scholars, such as Gu and Johnson (1996) o r Nation (2001) do not even mention them. This indicate s t hat t hey are no t reall y considered to hav e an important role in vocabulary acq uisition according t o many res earchers. All in all, Schmitt (1 997: 210 ) defines social strategies as tho se employed to understand word meaning “ by asking someone who know s it”. However, not all the social strategies involv e meaning determination. T here are some that can be used to co nsolida te knowl edge, so t his set of strategies can be regarded as having a double dimensi on. When trying to discover the meaning of a word, the teacher is often the primary source of inform ation by providing the equivalent ter m in t he L1, a synonym, a definiti on or an example of use. In addition, classmates o r friends may also help learners fill knowl edge gaps and e ven group work acti vities. Within the c ategory of consolidati on strategies, those techniques that lead to practise new words in grou ps or in pairs, such as role-p lays o r inter views, can be very fruitful in lexical a cquisition (Sch mitt, 1997: 211). 2.3.2.2. Consol idation strategies The second phase of lexical acquisition entails trying to assimilate words that have been learnt so as to store them into t he long-term memory. With this purpose Chapter 2: Literature review 79 and apart from the section of social st rategies presented above, memory, cognitive and metacognitiv e strategies can als o be em ployed. 2.3.2.2.1. Memory strategi es Memory strategies are “approaches which relate new materials to existin g knowledge” (Schmitt, 1 997: 205). Such s trategies are one o f th e oldest and they are regarded as rath er traditional. In his VLS classification Gu and Johnson (1996) distinguished two kinds of memory strategies: rehearsal (repetition o ral and visua l) and e ncoding strategi es (imagery, visual and auditory associations), which coincides with t h e differentiation made b y Schmitt (1997) between rote learning and deep strategies. They all enable learners to s tore new t erms into memory and then retrieve them when nee ded for commun ication. They als o help students learn faster and remember better for they favour the integrati on o f new material into existing cognitive units. Thus, mem ory strategies ar e subcateg orised (Oxford: 1990) into: → Creating mental linkages  Peg me thod: It involves the classification of language m aterial into meaningful units t o make it easie r to remember by re ducing the number of unrelated ele ments. Unrelated items ar e linked by m eans o f a “peg” or “hook”. As explai ned by Schmitt (1997: 213), One first memorises a r hyme like “ one is a bun, two is a shoe, three is a tree, etc.” Then an image is c reated of the word to be remembered and the peg word. If the first word t o be remembered is c hair, then an image is m ade of a bun (peg Chapter 2: Literature review 86 meet their requirements. Finally, they should regulate how to study L2 vocabulary and the time to be sp ent o n doing it (Sch mitt, 1997: 216). It is crucial that learners take resp onsibility for the ir own learni ng process since, quoting N ation (1998: 9): No matter what the teacher does or what the course book presents, ultima tely it is the lear ne r who does the learning. The m o re learners are aware of how learning is b est carried out, the better learning is likely to be. 2.3.3. Empirical resea rch The great imp ortance of VLSs in L 2 acquisiti on is reflected in the large amount of research conducted in a relatively short period of time. In this se ction I will focus on a chronological presentation of the major studi es carried o ut strictly on VL Ss as a whole. Those investiga tions dealing with a single strategy (for example, Hulstijn’s (1997) account of the keyword method) will not be discussed here for space reasons. One o f t he pioneering studies on VL Ss was conducted by Cohen and Aphek (1980). They asked their college st udents learnin g Hebrew in Israel to take unstructured notes on the strat egies th ey used to learn new v ocabulary. The results showed that attem pts t o create an association between wo rds (sounds, pictures, mental images, personal experience...) w ere really effective in recalling words. Ahmed ( 1989) conducted an investigation invo lving t hink-aloud, observation, and interview data fro m 300 EFL Sudanese students o n VLSs. Ah med employe d the VLS survey to distinguish between good and poor learners, and reached the Chapter 2: Literature review 87 following conclusions : good students used a greater number of strategies in a more efficient way becaus e they were aware of their own learning process. They reported learning words in c ontext, using the dictionary and resorting to social strategies in order t o clarify t he meaning o f words, i.e. asking o ther peopl e. Conversely, poor learners showed no interest in contextualised learning and applied strategies inappro priately. Their m etacogniti ve command was also very poor which resul ted in an inad equate control of VLSs. Some years later , in three c onsecutive studies San aoui ( 1995) inter viewed adult English an d French foreign languag es learners in Canada about the VLSs t h ey used. By analysing the results e licited, she was able to dis cern two t ypes of learners in terms of t heir approach to the study of vocabulary, namely, those with a stru ctured ap proach and tho se without i t, who se main di fferences are reflected in this table: Table 13: Featu res of a st ruc tured and an u nstructu red approac h to voca bulary stu dy Structured approach Unstructured approach Opportunitie s for learning vocab ulary Self - created Reliance on cou rse Independen t study Minimal indep endent study Range of self - initiated activitie s Extensive Restricted Record of lexic al items Extensive (tend to be systema tic) Minimal (ten d to be ad hoc) Review of l exical items Extensive Little or no re view Practice of lexic al it ems Self - created opportun ities in and outsid e classroom Reliance on cou rse ( Source: Sanao ui, 1995: 24 ) As can be observed from the table above, an unstru ctured approximation to vocabulary acquisition is less systematic and co rrelates to poor outcomes. This researcher str essed the n ecessity of encouraging stu dents to take control of their Chapter 2: Literature review 88 own learning process; in other words, the importance o f metacognition is highly emphasised. One of the first VL S taxonomies w as compiled by Stoffer (1995). In her Ph.D thesis, the rese archer d evised the VOc abulary Learning Strategy Inventory questionnaire (VOLSI) that includ ed 53 strategies divid ed into 9 main c ategories: (1) Strategies inv olving authen tic language use (2) Strategies inv olving creati ve activities (3) Strategies used f or self-mo tivation (4) Strategies used t o create mental linkages (5) Memory strategi es (6) Visual/auditor y strategies (7) Strategies inv olving physica l action (8) Strategies used t o overco me anxiety and (9) Strategies used t o organize words In this study, thos e w ho st udied languages very different from their own increased their relianc e on VLSs. Moreo ver, bearing in mind the categ ories alread y presented, the cr eation of me ntal ties, such as the as sociation between L1 and L2 words was the most popular. One o f the key studies in the field o f VL Ss is that developed by Gu and Johnson (1996). T hey administere d a questio nnaire in order to triangulate Chinese university EFL learners’ beliefs about vocabulary learnin g, v ocabulary level an d VLSs. For this purpose, 8 50 students took a vocabulary size test an d answered t h e Vocabu lary Learning Questionna ire ( VLQ Version 3), which consisted of 2 m ai n sections: a. Beliefs ab out v ocabulary learning, including 1 7 statements belonging t o 3 dimensions of beliefs: Voca bulary should be memo rised, Vocabulary should be picked up naturally an d Voc abulary should be studied an d used. Chapter 2: Literature review 89 b. Vocabulary learning st rate gies, containing 91 strategies subcategorised into metacognitive regulation and cognitive strategies (Gu and Johnson, 1 996: 648) Many conclusions were d rawn from t his research. The analysis of beliefs demonstrated that studen ts co nsidered that vocabulary asks f or conscious learning and activ e use o f words. As fo r VLSs, and contrary to what is traditionally believed about Asian stude nts, participants rep orted not resorting to rote learnin g very often but displayed a wide range o f strategies. Rough ly speaking , the use of metacognitive strategies, that is, guessing, skilful use of the dictionary and note- taking, co rr elated to proficiency while v isual repetition was linked to poor performance. What is m ore, these scholars singled o ut fiv e learn er approaches to vocabulary acquisiti on: 1. Readers , the best group of students who believ ed mainly in vocabulary learning through readin g an d contextual guessing but n ot memorisation, 2. Active strategy users , the second best group and the one that employed most strategies. Student s were highly motiva ted and open to a combination of all kinds of strat egies, 3. Encoders , and 4. Non encoders , both groups were very similar and incl ude the v ast majority of students. They report ed average use o f strate gies, being t he only difference that enc oders believed more in associat ion, imag ination and mental pictures, Chapter 2: Literature review 90 5. Passive s trategy users , a gr oup o f low-achievers who based their learning on memorisation and visual repetition o f word lists (Gu and Johnson : 6 62- 666). Through the think-aloud proc edure , Law son and Hogben (1996) explored the VLSs of students l earnin g Italian as a f oreign lan guag e in A ustralia. I t w as an experiment in which students had to learn 12 word cards that contained 12 Italian words, e xamples of use and an explanation in English. Then, they had to take a test. T h ese scholars were able to identify 15 strategies divided into 4 cate g ories: repetition, word feature a nalysis, si mple e laboratio n and complex e lab oration, being repetit ion stra tegies the most frequently employed. Moreover, students who m ade greater us e of strategies were able t o recall m ore words than t he others. A m ajor m ilestone in VLS research is the large-scale study by Schmitt (1997) in Japan. The survey consist ed of 600 high-sch ool, university and adult EFL learn ers. It sought to determin e the VLSs used by learner s and also to assess their usefulness, regardless o f whether they employed them or not. The results revealed that the m ost commonly used strategy was look ing up words in a bilingu al dictionary, which, by the way , was also perceived as the most useful. Other popular and useful strategies were written and ve rbal repetition, sayi ng words aloud, studying spell ing and taking notes in c las s. Conversely, the least us ed strategy was to compare L 1 and L2 words (looking for L1 cognat es), which is understandab le because both languages are co mpletely different. Semantic Chapter 2: Literature review 91 networks and imagery were also unpopular strate gies, being labelled as n ot useful. Another important discovery w as that the groups o f subjects belonged to different L2 stage levels and he was able to discern a strategy pattern : the more mature t he learner, the deeper the VLSs. Shallower strategies , such as repetition were more often used by h igh -school students while deeper strategies invo lving a complex processing , such as c reating a m ental pictu re of the word were more frequently expl oited by ad ults. Nevertheless, the greatest co ntribution of this study was the compilation of the mo st th or ough tax onomy of VLSs to da te. Aft er a r eview of the r eleva nt literature and their own experiences as a teacher, Schmitt listed 58 VLSs and attempted to categorise them according to Oxford’s scheme, namely, social, cognitive, metac ognitive a nd memory strat egies (cf. s ection 2.2.). He found that some strategies could be c ategoris ed into several group s; in lexical acqu isition b oth co g nitive and me mory strategi es are used to recall words. Therefore, he decided to lab el as cognitive only those strategies that do n ot involve metal mental manip ulation, i.e. repetiti on and mechanical t echniqu es. Furthermore, he included a new categor y to describ e those strategies used to discover the meaning of n ew wo rds and called it ‘determination’. All VLSs were further subdivided into those employed to discover the meaning o f a word and those us ed to c onsolida te wo rd knowledge. Indeed, t his is one of the weakn esses of his tax onomy, ad mitte d b y the inv estigator hi mself when he asserted th at Chapter 2: Literature review 92 many strategies can belong simultaneously to both categories. Still, it is the most internationally ac knowledg ed compilati on of VLSs. Schmitt's research formed the basis fo r the sur vey conducted by Kudo (1999) with 5 04 high-school EFL le arners in Japan. I n a pilot study, Schmitt's VLS taxonomy together with so me o th er additional items added by the scho lar was organised into four categories: cognitive, memory, metac ognitive and social strategies. L ater on, these four categories would be reduced to only t wo: direct and indirect, in th e main stu dy. The overall resul ts ind icated that VLS use was very low. The most popular strategies were rote learning and bilingual dictionary use, whereas deep processing strategies, such as the keyword method o r semantic mapping were rarely employed, which endorses Schmitt’s findings . Moreover, Kudo's greatest achievement was that strategy use was not culturally conditioned. This study seems to c onfirm then the results elicited by Ox f ord (1990) in the United State s, contrary to what was com monly assumed b y researchers (cf. s ection 2.2.4. 3.). Inspired by the work of Sanaoui, Koji-Sabo and Lightbown (199 9) in vestigated the VLSs strategies o f two ve ry different groups o f students: undergradu ate ESL learners in Canada and pre-un iversity EFL learners in what used to be Nort h- Yugoslavia. The researcher s asked participants to ans wer a VLS questionnaire a nd two t ests: a vocabulary kn owledge (Yes/No test) and an overall English proficiency (cloze test). The questionnaire divided VLSs into 5 categories: time, learner independence, note-taking, review and dictionary use. The most imp ortant difference betwee n Chapter 2: Literature review 93 groups emerged in the category o f independ ence because E SL learner s proved to be mo re independent, while t he EFL gr oup depended much more on review strategies. W hat is m ore , a co rrelation betw een strate g y use and learning outcomes was also shown. Among VSLs, learners’ initiative and independence as well as the time devoted to English learning becam e the best indicat ors o f learning achievement, which endorses the aforementioned conclusions drawn by Gu and Johnson (1996). Fan (2003) surveyed the VLSs of 1,067 students at seven higher education institutions in Ho ng Kong in order to find out t he st rategies used most and least frequently, the strategies perceived as most and least useful and t he actual usefulness of th e strat egies according to learn ing outcomes. With th is ai m in mind, she resorted to a vocabulary level test to determine learners’ proficiency and a questionnaire based on previous research (O’ Malley and Chamot, 1990 and Oxford, 1990; Gu and Johnson, 1996). This included 5 6 st ra tegies classified into 9 categories: management, sources fo r encounteri ng new words, guessin g, dictionary, repetiti on, asso ciation, grouping , analysis an d revision of kn ow words. Broadly speaking, the part icipants considered VLSs as useful, yet their usage was rather low. The use of dictio nary and the review of known words strategi es were the m ost frequently mentioned and also t h ose rated as the most useful . Moreover, students did not feel inclined to rote memorisation, use of imagery or the keyword m ethod and high-achi evers employed a wider range of strat egies, includin g guessing, dictio nary, and k nown words. Cu riously enough , managemen t strategies w ere considered as e fficient by m ost learners but rarely used and vice Chapter 2: Literature review 94 versa, guessing strategies were v ery p opular but not rated as useful. As can be seen, these results confirm p revious results ( Kudo, 1999; Sch mitt, 1997). Jiménez-Catalán (2003) introduced the gender variable into the investigati on of VLSs. M akin g use of Schmitt's taxonomy questionnaire she surveyed the strategies of primary, secondary and university EFL learners and adults learnin g Basque as a se cond language in La Rioja and Navar re (Spain). Special attention was also paid to keeping the balance b etween men and women fo r fur ther comparison. Both fe male and male grou ps showed low VLS use, being st atistically higher for women than for men. This endorses the results of prior st udies comparing the sex factor in the use of strategies (cf. sec tion 2.2.4.2.). Roughly speaking, men and women also differed in the strategies employed: women opte d for formal rule, input elicitation, rehears al and planning strategies w hile men preferred techniques involving th e use of images. This led the researcher to state that divergence in the use of strategies be tween g enders is mainly based on motivation and learning styles. Howe ver, she contends the need fo r conducting more research on the subj ect to confirm th ese hypot heses. In the same light, Wu (2 005) surveyed the st rategie s of 303 high schoo l and university EFL students in T aiwan. This study fully confirmed the results obtained by Schmitt using the questionnaire based on his taxonomy: the most frequently used VLSs were electronic and biling ual dictionaries as well as guessing strategie s, which in turn were also the m ost valued. Chapter 2: Literature review 95 Ruutmets (2005) carried out a study o n the VLSs use d by 237 primary and secondary EFL le arn ers in Tart u (Estonia). The research instruments designed were a semi-structured interview and a vocabulary questionnaire inspired by Kudo (1999). Her findings showed that VLSs were seldom employed, being ro te learning the most p opular. As in prev ious s tudies, t he so-called “deep ” strategi es, such as mental association or imagery were completely unusu al. Signific ant differences were also found between genders, which co incide with t h ose of Jiménez-Catalán. Indeed, women relied more o n rote rehearsal and dictionari es while men opted f or guessi ng or picking up words from differ ent sources. More rece ntl y, P avičić (2008) conducted a se ries of studies w ith 358 primary EFL learners in Croati a. The first study was ai med at piloting the VOcab ulary Learning Strategy Questio nnai re for Elementary Schools (VOLSQES). This is a 27 - item questi onnaire divided into three main categ ories o f strategies: formal vocabulary learning (rote memorisation, L1 reliance and rev ision), independ ent vocabulary learning (exposure to TL and memory s trategies ) and incidental vocabulary learning (le a rning in naturalistic co ntexts and communication strategies). The second study tried to compare t he VLSs used by learners and the vocabulary teaching strategies of their instructors. To do so, teaching strategies were elicited by recordin g 45 EFL lessons. T hen a questionnaire that consisted of the VOLSQES and another section includin g 29 statements about learner s’ perceptions of v ocabulary teaching strategies was administered to a group of students. Contrar y to the researcher’s expecta tions, students’ VLS use is Chapter 3 Method Chapter 3: Method 105 Chapter 3 Method As outlined in the intr oductory section, this study has two main aims. Firstly, it investigates learners’ beliefs about vocabulary l earning and their use o f vocabulary strategies in the Galician EFL cont ext. Secondl y, it focuses on learners’ and teachers’ views on lexical acquisition and the strategies used o n vocabular y learning. Teacher s’ and stud ents’ percepti ons will be compared and analysed. The aim of t his chapter is t wofold; on the one hand, I will state the research questions that this study attempts to answer and, o n the other hand, I will offe r a detailed account of the methodol ogy employed t o carry out the present study. It w ill be organised as follows: the first section establish es the objectives of the current study. Se condly, it describes both the sa mple an d selection crit eria of t he participants. Thirdly, materials are pre sented, nam ely, vocabulary test, questionnaires and interviews. In the fourth part, I will deal with the procedures followed to carry out the piloting an d the main study. 3.1. Research qu estions This study is direc ted by th e following resear ch questions: 1. What are the beliefs about the vocabulary learni ng process held by Galician EFL learners ? 2. Are t he learners’ beliefs homogeneous ac ross the different r esearch variables consider ed in this study? Chapter 3: Method 106 3. Are the afor ementioned learners’ beliefs different from those of thei r teachers? If so, in what way and t o what extent ? 4. Is t here any relationship between the aforementioned beliefs and vocabulary achi evements as sho wn in the VLT? 5. What are the vocabular y learning strategies employed b y Galicia n EFL learners? 6. Are learners’ re p orted vocabu lary learning strategies similar to t h ose perceived by their teachers ? 7. What particular factors exert influence on the choic e and use of those vocabulary learn ing strategies? 3.2. Participan ts As already mentioned (cf. chap ter 1), I aimed to compar e and c ontrast bo th sid es of the vocabulary learning process. Therefore, studen ts’ and t eachers’ data were collected. All the subje cts volunteere d to par ticipate in this project and I tried to o b tain such a sample whose data could become representative of the Galician educational state of the art. Thus, as the table below illustrates, a total of 820 subjects formed th e main s ample of this study , organised as f ollows: Table 14: N umber and distributio n of part icipants Participants N % Students 712 86.8% Teachers 108 13.2% Total 820 100% Chapter 3: Method 107 As mentioned above, one of the aims of this resear ch is to give an account of the English vocabulary lea rning and teaching process within the Galician setting. Thus, this survey was inte nded to cover the fo ur provinces in t h e territory of the Galician autonomous region, in spite of the fact that, as is generally the cas e, educational centres do not vo lunte er for this kind of research projects. T hen, I mostly resorted to friend teachers and colleagues. That is why I was able to include at least a sample fr om the whole ge ographical territ ory. As for the number of subjects included , I firmly belie ve t hat 712 students and 108 teachers can be considered statistically represe ntative for the purpose and scope of this sur vey. Takin g sim ilar s tudies as reference p oint, th e amount of participants w h o collab orated in t his investigati on is compatible w ith thes e reference projec ts. Indeed, O’ Malley et al. ’s study in 1985(a), co nsid ered as a pioneer in strategy research, focused on the learni ng strat egies used by 7 0 students and 22 teachers in Virginia (USA). Re becca Oxford in her studie s conducted in Puerto Rico and Japan, respecti vely ( Green and Oxford, 1 995; Okada, Oxford and Abo, 1996) to find out the learning strategies used by EFL learners, selected a sample o f subjects that ranged from 72 to 374 . The same applies to K ud o (1999), whose survey about vocabu lary strategies employed by Japanese high scho ol pupil s included a total of 504 subjects. More recently, r esearch fo cused specificall y on vocab ulary learning co nducted mainly in Asia by Taga (2000), Laufer and Goldstein (2004) or Li (2004), is based on results rend ered fr om sa mples s maller than the current one. More over, even Chapter 3: Method 108 in t he case of pr ojects carried o ut w ith mo re subjects, namely, Gu and Johnson (1996) and Fan (2003) condu cted in B eijing and Hong-Kong using samples of 978 and 1067 subjects, respectively, it is worth noting that the ratio of EFL learners found in China and in Gali cia is complete l y differe nt. What is mo re, taking into account the popu lation of each target community, I co uld dare to say that this sample can be regar ded as representativ e of our educ ational situation. 3.2.1. Selection This project was carried out at several dat a collection stag es, including both teachers and students. In order to obtain data from subjects with diver se proficiency levels in English, students and te achers from ve ry different grades were selected. Thus, the initial phase comprised secondary school pupils (ESO, both 1 st and 2 nd cy cle) and non-compulsory secondary educati on st uden ts (Bacharelato), w h o were supposed to stand fo r e l ementary and intermediate proficiency levels (n=351). 11 Special emphasis wa s placed on comparing the results obtained from students with those of their teachers, so professionals fr om their same educational centres were asked to collaborate, as well as other EFL colleagues bel onging to th e same grad es and educati onal levels (n=3 4). As mentioned, the sec ond phase of this study focused on the highest proficiency level. To do so, University stud ents enrolled in the second cycle of English P hilology and Translation Studies (University o f A Coruña, University of Santiago de Compost ela, University of Vigo), together with those studen ts 11 IES Arzúa, IES “Camilo José Cela” (Pad rón), IE S “Ma ría C asares” ( Oleiros), IES Melide, IES Someso. Chapter 3: Method 109 in the seco nd cycle o f School o f Languages (EOI de Ferrol, EOI de L ugo, EOI de Santiago de C ompostela and EOI de Ourense) were selec ted (n=328) . Furthermore, I also consid ered some volunteer subjects who were taking o th er type o f E FL studies to improve their overall train ing as, fo r instance, those enrolled in th e Modern Langua ge Centre o f Santiag o University, so as to complete our general surv ey with those highly proficient s tudents (n=23). As far as E FL teachers are concerned, instructors belonging to the three Galician Universities were willing to cooperate (n=14), as well as teachers from different School o f Languages (n=25). H owever, this sample was n ot large e noug h to render any conclusive statement, so some o ther volunteers were n eeded. Again, those who were t eachin g English at o ther educational institutions were also taken into acc ount, su ch as the Modern Language Centre (n= 2). 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 Students Secondar y University+School of Languages +M LC Other Figure 8: Numb er and distribut ion of pa rticipants a ccording to teaching in stitution Chapter 3: Method 110 3.2.2. Students ’ background This first group o f partici pants comprised seven h undred and twelve studen ts (n=712). Sinc e the surv ey tried to analyse whether students’ background characteristics were s omehow r elated to their as sumptions on the pro cess o f vocabulary learning/teachi ng and therefore to their use and choice of vocabulary learning strategi es, several selection criteria wer e cons idered: ♦ Proficiency: Initially, there was the idea of taking the same number of pupils belonging to different years; however, this was not possible since it was a volunteer task. Thus, Sec ondary school pup ils were divided into 1 st and 2 nd cycle of ESO, as well as Bacharelat o students. Furth ermore, a group of stud ents enrolled i n the 2 nd c ycle of their university degrees and school of languages were selecte d. Moreover, students in t he fin al y ears of the Modern Langu age Ce ntre (n=23) were also invited to collaborat e. Finally, there were some subjects who did not belong to any of t he aforementi oned groups but who we re st udying at other teaching institutions and who we re also included in the general sam ple (n=10). Figure 9 shows the distrib ution of the participan ts in the study : 73; 10% 59; 8% 219; 31% 134; 19% 194; 27% 23; 3% 10; 2% ESO (1st Cycle) ESO (2nd Cycle) Bacharelato Philolog y (2nd Cycle) EOI (2nd Cycle ) CLM Other Figure 9: Numb er and distribut ion of studen ts according to the gra de variable Chapter 3: Method 111 At first, I c onsidered stude nts’ year as an indicator o f t heir Engli sh proficiency. However, this was not always an e asy correla tion. T here was, then, the need for a research instrument which could scie ntific ally assess students’ command o f English. Wit h this purpose in mind, the participants in the study were asked to take Nation’s Vocabulary Levels Test (V LT) f or learners, a placement test that will be described in close detail in the pages that follow. ♦ Age: These volunteer subjects were randomly select ed so t heir ages range from 12 (1 st cy cle ESO) to ove r 2 6 years old ( especi ally EOI students), the v ast majority of the m being und er 25, as shown in Figure 1 0. 90; 13% 241; 34% 74; 11% 123; 18% 49; 7% 121; 17% 12 - 14 15 - 17 18 - 20 21 - 23 24 - 26 26+ Figure 10: N umber and distribut ion of studen ts according to age ♦ Gender: In this sample, the total number of fema le students w as 447 (62.8%) versus 265 males (37 . 2%). It was originally in tended to choose an equal number o f male and female students; this was, however, not possible. Fi rst of all, in non-compuls ory stages of education, it is a well-known fact that females outnumber m ales. Second ly, this was a vo lunt eer task and fem ale students wer e more willing to cooperate t han m ale learners. This explains t he unbalanced sample accordin g to this factor. Chapter 3: Method 118 each learner has to show the knowledge of a lexical ite m ac cordin g to several components. 12 Since the purp ose of using a vocabulary test is not linked to the benefits that might be obtained in language teaching or learning but as a resear ch instrumen t, that is, mainly to me asur e t he vocabular y size known by o ur students so that t hey can be subcategorised into different groups according to their le xical proficienc y, the first type of vocabular y test was chosen. Thus, students could be cla ssified as beginners, intermediate or advanced vocabulary learners, and t h e resu lts obtained in the test could be studied in accordance to those data elicit ed from both the questi onnaires and the interviews. As st ated by Schmitt (2000), even if there is not a standard test of English vocabulary, th e so-called Vocabula ry Levels Test designed by P aul Nation in 1990 is one o f the mo st widely accepted, to th e point that it is b eing o ffered online at the University o f Quebec’s website <http://w ww.er.uqam.ca /nobel/r21 270/ levels>. Based on West’s General Service List of English Words (1953), Nati on’s test determines vocabulary knowledge at five fr equency levels based on word frequency: 2,000, 3 ,000, 5 ,000, UWL and 10,000. 13 Thus, fo ll owing Sch mitt’s (2000: 174) advic e: “beca use the test give s estima tes of vocabulary si ze at 5 levels, it is useful for placement purpos es”, an improved version of the o riginal 12 This part icular t ype o f t ests is dire ctly related to the concept of what knowing a word means, alr eady discus sed in the in troductio n to th is study. 13 See Appendix 5 for fur ther de tails Chapter 3: Method 119 VLT developed by Schm itt, Schmitt and Clapha m (2001) was selected as proficiency grouping tool. Nevertheless, for this s tu dy se veral ad aptations w ere r equired. First of al l, comparing students sh owing a wide range of vocabulary levels in volves taking in to account those learners with lo w proficiency levels; this means that c onsid ering 2,000 words as starting point wo uld be too demanding for them. Accordingly , I resorted again to Nation (1993), wh o claimed the first 1,000 words o f English to be essential for those wantin g to use the language and a starting-point to systematically help learners expand t heir vocabulary knowledge. Thus, he devised the 1,000 W ord Level Test bearing in mind that learners at this st age may show poor reading skills and problems with the context in w hich t he tested words we re embedded. It resulted in a two-fold t est of 39 i tems with a t ru e/false f ormat (see Appendix, versions A and B), where learners were occasionall y helped by visual cues. Roughly sp eaking, the structure of th e t ests for the following levels i s different from the 1,000 WLT. T hey are divided into 3 parts: the first two par ts, namely, sections A and B, test receptive vocabulary knowledge. Thus, res pondents have t o match 3 definiti ons on the left hand side to 6 possible answers on the right. Special care was t aken by the t est devisers on se lectin g six si milar p arts of sp eech items, that is, s ets o f nouns, v erbs, adjectives and so on, with meanings unrelated to each o ther (Nation, 1990). Furthermore, section C tests e xactly t he same words presented in sections A and B but pro ducti vely, so re spondents face 18 sentenc es in a gapped-word f ormat a nd are required to provide the missing word. Chapter 3: Method 120 Both 2,000 and 3,000 Word L evel Tests are based on high-frequ ency words. According to Nation (199 0), learners need to know at least these 2,000 lexical items because t hey cover approximately 87% o f the words in an average text. Moreover, Laufer (1992b: 100-101) stated that 3,000 high-frequency words are “the lexical threshold of reading comprehension” since they are said to account for 95% of general te xts, which is requ ired to infer meaning of unknown words in a successful wa y (Nation, 1 990). The 5,000 Word L evel Test draws the dividing line between high and low frequency words an d as fa r as this stud y is concerne d, it was thus conside red t he highest vocabulary level. I decided not t o include t he two r emaining Nation’s categories, namely, the University Word Level Test (UWL) and the 10,000 Wor d Level Test . The rationale fo r that is tha t the words includ ed in the UW L, based on the Academic Word List (Coxhead, 2000), occur quite frequentl y in school or university te xts (8% of the words in an av erage text) and represent specialise d vocabulary. So, in order t o avoid overrating students’ general vocabula ry knowledge (sinc e most of these t erms have a Latin r oot), this t est was dismiss ed. As fo r the 10,000 Word L evel T est , since it contai ns actual l ow-frequency words, the number of subjects who could pass it w ould be very limited so it w ould not be representati ve at all. 3.3.2. The Voca bulary Lear ning Strategies Q uestionnaire (VLSQ) From the initial stages of the investigation on language learning strategies to t h e most re cent stages, s ch olars hav e proved the suitability of em pl oying questionnaires as a research tool to gather written data o n learning strategies Chapter 3: Method 121 (Naiman et al. , 1 979; O’ Malley et al. , 1985a; Gu and Jonhson, 1996; Taga, 2000 ; Fan, 2003; Li, 20 04). According to Br own (2001: 6), questionnaires are any wr itten instruments that pre sent respondents w ith a series of questions or statements to which they are to react ei ther by wri ting o ut thei r ans wers o r selectin g f rom among existing ans wers. They can vary in format from more structured to less structured. The difference li es in the fa ct that t he former are based o n a multip le-choice question completion that can be e asily scored and analysed; whereas in the latter, respondents are allowed to describe their own learning process in open-ended questions, but wh ose richness of answers ar e extre mely difficult to s core and summarise. As pointed out by Dörny ei (2 003), the main advantages and disadvantages o f questionnaires could be summarised as foll ows. On the one hand, they ha ve limitations due to their in ner structure and t o respondents’ charac teristics. It must be bo rne in m ind that, since re sp ondents ha ve to com plete questionnaires on their own, questions need t o be simple and straightforw ard, w hich may lead to rather superficial answers. Also, respondents may feel unmot ivat ed, bored, prone to providing an answer socially accepted or sim ply unable to understand so me items, which may bias the results obtained. Notwithstandin g these difficulties, the benefits that can be taken from questionnaires a re m ore relevant. Indeed, a huge amount of information can be collected in little time becau se they c an be ad ministered to many people at once Chapter 3: Method 122 and their results can then be quickly c oded by computer pro gra mmes. Apart from that, especially in t he case of researchers with stressing jobs and res tricte d financial resources, less data co llecti on effort is required because they can be easily distributed, e ither in person, by m ail or e- mail. This is, besides, a cheap way of do ing it. Furthermore, they tend to be very versatile, that is, the same questionnaire can be applied to heterogen eous grou ps of respondents, as king them about different issues in varied situati ons. For the purpose o f the present study, two versions of Voca bulary Learning Strategies Questionnai re (VLSQ) 14 we re compiled , one for students and one for teachers, which will be accounted for in detail late r. Bo th of them were inspired by Horwitz’s (1987) Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory (BALLI) , Ox ford’ s (1990) questionnaire known as the S trategy Inventory for L angua ge Le arni ng (SILL), Gu and Johnson’s (1996) Vocabulary L earni ng S trategies Qu estionnai re (VLQ), Schmidt and Watan abe’s (2001) Motivation Questionnaire and Schmitt ’s (1997) Vocabu lary Learnin g Strategies Taxono my (VLS). Elaine Horwitz ( 1987) pioneered the field devising an instrument t o a ssess students’ beliefs about learning a FL. It c omprised fiv e categori es: foreig n language aptitude, difficul ty o f language learning, nature of language learnin g, learning and communication strategies, and motiva tion an d expectations. This questionnaire has pr oven to be an internationall y accepted research t ool to assess beliefs (cf. section 2.2.4.7 .) so the first part of the questionnaire specific ally designed for the current st udy owes its str ucture to t he BALLI. 14 See Appendixe s 6-9 for d etails Chapter 3: Method 123 In the same vein, Sch midt and Watanabe (2001) d eveloped a questi onnaire to survey students’ mot ivati on, preferences fo r instructional activities and learning strategies. T he first par t was devoted to m otivation an d it c ontained 47 statements with ref erence t o motivation, orien tation, int erest, expectan cy, anxiety, language aptitude, competitiveness, cooperativeness an d m otivation al strength. This questionnaire went deeply into the categories established by the BALLI, so it was also taken into account w hen wording the first sect ion o f the VLSQ. The SILL is a structured survey, whose internal organi sation depends on Oxford's learning st rategie s c lassificati on system (cf. chapter 2 ), which has been used to assess le arning strategies in h igh sch ools an d un iversities ar ound the world. Its 121 items were designed to evaluate how actively students were involved in their o wn learning process. Numerous studies have resorted to this survey, proving t he SILL to be a po werful research tool (Oxford, 1990; Bedell and Oxford, 1995 ; Ehrmann and Oxford, 1995; Green and Oxfo rd, 1995; Oxford and Burry-Stock, 1 995; Cohen, Weaver and Li , 1998; Kudo, 1999; Mochizuki, 199 9; Yang, 1999; Whart on, 2000; Peac ock, 2001a; Oli vares- Cuhat, 2002). As far as Schmitt’s inv entory of VLS is concerned, the SILL w as again taken as the m ain framew ork. He divided strategies into two m ain classes: those used to discover a word’s m eanin g and those employed to cons olidate it once encountered (Schmitt, 1997). Wi thin this general division, he subcategorised then 58 VL T into Oxford’s 4 cat egories of learning st rategie s: c ognitive, meta-cogn itive, memory and so cial, to which a fifth cat egory w as added, that is, determination, Chapter 3: Method 124 adapted from Oxford’s compen sation strategies. Again, this ta xono my was successfully used in recent research (Kudo, 1 999; Taga, 2 000; Segler, P ain and Sorace, 2002; Ji ménez-Cata lán, 2003; Pa vičić, 2008). Lastly, Gu and Johnson’s VLQ was the third re searc h instrument considered when designing the questionnaires used in t he present study. They dev eloped a questionnaire containi ng a great amount of strategies, structu red around 2 main sections, namely, beliefs about vocabulary learning and vocabulary learning strategies. This last section grouped vocabulary strat egies into two main categories: m eta-c ognitive re gulation and cognitive strategies (Gu and Jonhson, 1996). Many studies up to the pr esent (Taga, 2000; Gu, 2002; Fan, 2003; Li, 2004) have resorted to this questionnaire, since it is very useful to correlate previ ous assumptions on vocabulary to the choice an d us e o f learning strategies, and in i ts turn the latt er to vocabula ry learnin g outcome s. Since one o f th e main objec tives sought in this research was precisely trying to e stabl ish some correlation a mong these three fact ors, Gu and Johnson’s instrument was also taken on board. 3.3.2.1. The Stu dent Vocab ulary Learnin g Strategies Q uestionnaire (SV LSQ) As previously stated, the items in cluded in this questionnair e w ere generat ed from tho se designed by Horw itz’s BALLI ( 1987), Schm idt and W atanabe ’s questionnaire (2001), Ox f ord’s SILL (1990) and Gu and Johnson (1996), as well as from Schmitt’s t a xonomy. However, some o f t h em were eit h er devised by the researcher or adapted to meet th e requirements o f the research purposes ; otherwise, our que stionnaire w ould have be en extremely l ong. Chapter 3: Method 125 The S tudent Vocabulary L earning Strategies Quest ionnaire , from now on SVLSQ, contains 101 items, structured into three main sections: ♦ Section 1. Personal Data: After a brief ex planati on on the aim of the SVLSQ, respondents were asked to provide demographic infor mation that might be useful for establishing comparativ e variables, s uch as name 15 , g ender, age, grade, period of study of English and edu cational instituti on. ♦ Section 2. Beliefs about Vocabulary Learning: This section was inspired by Gu and Johnson (1996) and Schmidt and Watanabe (2 001), together wit h some general statements extrac ted from Horwitz’s BALLI (1987) applied to the process of vocabulary learning. It included 34 closed questions subcategorised into 5 types of beliefs: motivation fo r learning EFL, learner profile 16 , ideas related to linguistic aspects, h ow EFL vocabul ary is learnt 17 , how EFL vo cabulary sho uld be taught includin g how EFL vocabula ry learning sh ould be assessed. A Likert scal e was us ed so that responses could r eadily be qu antified an d analysed. Students were requ ired to rate each item on a 5 -point scale by selecting the option of their choice (1, 2 , 3 , 4 , 5). Following No rbert Schmitt’s advice 18 , these five responses were not assigned a particular value, so as to avoid the “so- feared” 3, normall y standing for “no opinion”. On t he contrary , they w ere devised 15 They w ere exp lained th at b oth the VL T and the S VLSQ would be corr elated, so th ey should use the same nam e in the test and the que stionna ire. Neverthel ess, they wer e als o told th at they could use a pseu dony m if they wanted to. 16 Both p arts adap ted from Schmidt a nd Wat anabe (2001) 17 Section ad apted from Gu and John son (1996) 18 The rese arch er held an interview with bot h Ronald Carter and Norbert Schmitt during her stay as visiting sch olar at the University of N ottingha m i n October 2003. Th ere, severa l issues con cerning her stud y were discu ssed and she carefully con sidered the advice provided by th ese two sch olars in th e design and administratio n o f these resear ch instrument s. Chapter 3: Method 126 as a continuum where 1 stood for “absolutely disagree”, and 5 stoo d for “absolutely agree”. At the end, an open question was added so that the learne rs could provide qualita tive d ata on their b eliefs about vocabulary learning. ♦ Section 3. Vocabulary Learning Strategies: As fo r this last section, it followed the structure of Schmitt’s Taxonomy of Vocabul ary Learning Str ategi es (1997), that is, strategies for the discovery of a new word’s meaning and strategies fo r the c onsoli dation of the word once it has been encountered. It should be underlined that Schmitt used t his main divisio n as the basic structure; however, all the st ra tegies were subsequently c l assified following Oxford’ s description of learning strategies : deter mination (originally devised b y Schmitt), social, memor y, cognitive an d meta-cogniti ve strategi es, previously explained. Within this general framework, I decided to take into consideration Jiménez Catalán’s (2003: 56) four steps in vocab ulary acquisition: “(a) t o find out th e meaning o f unknown word s, ( b) to re tain them in long-term memory, (c) to recal l them at will, and (d) to use them in oral o r written m ode”. Ther efore, in order to avoid overlapping of VLSs between categories (i.e. deciding whether a strate gy belongs to memory or cognitive set, as ex plained in section 2 . 3.2.), the SVLSQ ssubcategorises vocabular y strategies into 5 m ain parts, including a last se ction adapted from Gu and Johnson devoted to metacognitive regulation: strategi es used to d iscover and u nderstand meaning of new w ords (guessing, word analysi s, dictionaries, asking for help…); st rategies used to sto re vocabulary (practice , mental associations , im ag e and sound, revision, total physical re sponse, taking notes…); s trategies u sed to retrie ve al ready st ored vocabula ry; stra tegies th at Chapter 3: Method 127 entail t he use o f already learnt vocabulary and, final ly, metacogniti ve strategi es used to regulat e their own vocabulary learn ing proces s. Again, students made use of a Likert scale to rate ea ch item on a 5-point scale by c ircling t he response ( 1, 2, 3 , 4 , 5) al ong a continuum according to how frequently they resorted to these items, where 1 st ood for “never”, where as 5 stood for “always”. Then, another o pen question was added s o t ha t the learners could add more technique s, if not me nti oned, or clarify their use of vocabular y learning strategies. Apart from that, a last question asked students whether they were willing to hold an interview o n the topic. If s o, th ey should provide a co nta ct telephone or e- mail addres s to be called lat er on. All the items included in the SVLSQ were ch ecked for their internal reliabi lity. Cronbach’s alpha is a well-known coefficient tha t e stimates the proporti on o f variance that is systematic or consistent in a se t of test scores. Bearing in mind that, by conv ention, the cu t-off poin t is .60, alp ha (α) sho uld b e at least .7 0 to b e considered a reliabl e scale. The Cr onbac h Alpha sco res (n=95) obtained for the SVLSQ were of .90, subcategorised into the major subscales illustrated in the table below. Rough ly speaking, the sc ores obtained su ggest a fair int ernal consistenc y. Chapter 4: Results 230 Table 64: D iffer ences in l earners’ exploita tion of m eaning dis cov ery/understandi ng strategies ac cording to th e peri od of EFL inst ruction ITEM DISCOVERY STR ATEGIES SOURCE N X SD SE P 41 I guess meaning f rom context/ topic . 0 - 5 years 58 4,02 ,964 ,127 ,000 6 - 10 years 408 3,97 1,074 ,053 +10 years 234 4,31 ,807 ,053 43 I find out the logical developm ent of the paragraph to guess wo rd meani ng. 0 - 5 years 57 3,30 1,336 ,177 ,010 6 - 10 years 405 3,35 1,137 ,056 +10 years 234 3,62 1,047 ,068 46 I try t o find out meaning by dividing the word int o chunks. 0 - 5 years 58 2,83 1,465 ,192 ,000 6 - 10 years 406 2,34 1,343 ,067 +10 years 234 3,00 1,449 ,095 48 I use common sense and previous knowledge to un derstand m eaning. 0 - 5 years 58 3,76 1,189 ,156 ,000 6 - 10 years 406 3,80 ,997 ,049 +10 years 234 4,11 ,832 ,054 54 I read sample sentences illustrating the different sens es of a wo rd. 0 - 5 years 57 4,04 1,133 ,150 ,001 6 - 10 years 404 3,90 1,218 ,061 +10 years 233 4,25 ,964 ,063 55 I pay attention to many word aspects and not only t o word mean ing. 0 - 5 years 57 3,56 1,282 ,170 ,003 6 - 10 years 406 3,37 1,323 ,066 +10 years 234 3,73 1,205 ,079 56 I make use o f monolingual dictionaries. 0 - 5 years 57 2,67 1,443 ,191 ,000 6 - 10 years 403 2,39 1,481 ,074 +10 years 234 2,9 8 1,444 ,094 57 I ask the teacher for an explanatio n or translation. 0 - 5 years 58 3,71 1,043 ,137 ,017 6 - 10 years 407 3,51 1,164 ,058 +10 years 233 3,29 1,214 ,080 Moving on to storage into memory strategies, Table 6 5 illustrates that all the participants reported grou ping wo rds, relating them to a topic or everyday situation (ite ms 6 3-65) to a me diu m extent, although ave rage means increased with years of learn ing experience. On the other hand, memori sing co mmon suffixes and pre fixes had a medium acceptance among learner s who had s tudi ed English up to 5 years, whilst the remaining groups rated it as an unpopular strategy. How ever, subjects with the greatest amount of instruction claimed that t hey embedded ne w words into contexts t o be tter r ecall them qu ite frequently ( M=3. 73), in contrast with t he less experienced learn ers’ medi um scores. Chapter 4: Results 231 Table 65: Differences in learners’ exploita tion of s torage into m emory strate gies according to the period of EFL instruction (Par t 1) ITEM STORAGE IN TO MEMOR Y STRATEGIES SOURCE N X SD SE P 63 I gro up w ords together to remember them. 0 - 5 years 57 2,84 1,192 ,158 ,009 6 - 10 years 406 3,08 1,277 ,063 +10 years 235 3,33 1,243 ,081 64 I group words r elat ed to the same topic to remem ber them. 0 - 5 years 58 2,66 1,236 ,162 ,011 6 - 10 years 403 2,98 1,262 ,063 +10 years 233 3,18 1,302 ,085 65 I group words r elat ed to the same situation to rem ember the m. 0 - 5 years 58 2,98 1,207 ,158 ,013 6 - 10 years 404 2,90 1,266 ,063 +10 years 235 3,20 1,308 ,085 67 I analyse word parts and memorise the most commonly used prefixes and suffixes. 0 - 5 years 57 2,51 1,351 ,179 ,000 6 - 10 years 402 2,08 1,177 ,059 +10 years 234 2,49 1,233 ,081 73 I lear n words better by putting them into contexts. 0 - 5 years 58 3,43 1,230 ,161 ,002 6 - 10 years 406 3,40 1,137 ,056 +10 years 234 3,73 1,049 ,069 77 Keyword method. 0 - 5 years 58 2,34 1,292 ,170 ,002 6 - 10 years 403 2,33 1,290 ,064 +10 years 234 1,98 1,174 ,077 81 I assess my self with v ocabulary tes ts. 0 - 5 years 58 2,34 1,163 ,153 ,010 6 - 10 years 399 2,07 1,245 ,062 +10 years 234 1,85 1,152 ,075 85 I use flashc ards. 0 - 5 years 58 2,38 1,449 ,190 ,000 6 - 10 year s 401 2,30 1,413 ,071 +10 years 235 1,86 1,199 ,078 As fo r t h e k eyword method, self-administered vocabu lary tes ts and flashcards, they were overall rated as infrequent techniques ; however, it could be argued that they were slig htly mor e popular am ong less experienced learn ers. No relevant differ ences we re observed w ithin the category of retrieval strategies and only one item deser ves analysis a mong t he strategies e mployed to make use of already learn t vocabulary. Thus, the intermediate gr oup (6-1 0) reported a moderate use of te chniqu es that entail reading and practising learnt vocabulary, whereas the remaining groups show ed a fr equent use of th e aforementioned strategies, as sho wn in the table belo w: Chapter 4: Results 232 Table 66 : Diff erences in l earners’ exploitation of voc abul ary use s trategies ac cording to the period of EFL i nstruction ITEM STORAGE INTO MEMOR Y STRATEGIES SOURCE N X SD SE P 90 I re ad and employ English media t o practise words I am already famil iar with. 0 - 5 years 58 3,57 1,244 ,163 ,000 6 - 10 years 401 3,19 1,299 ,065 +10 years 235 3 ,86 1,101 ,072 Finally, a commo n discrepancy w as re corded when participants were asked about s elf-regulatory strategies: wher eas l ess exper ienced sub jects r eported a moderate acknowledgement of important words t o unders tand paragraph s, students w ith more t han 10 y ears of instruction were clearer about t hem. The same is true for ite ms 96 and 98, i.e. knowing which cues m ust be applied so as to guess wo rd meaning as well as searching for other materials apart from textbooks to learn new words, where more experienc ed le arne rs (those w ith mo r e than 10 years of instruction) outscored the other tw o groups (those with up to 5 years and between 6 and 1 0 years of in struction, respectiv ely). Conversely, these first two groups of subjects (0-10) admitted they focused only on vocabulary taught b y the te ach er or directly r elated to exams to a high er extent than students with mo re of 1 0 years of instruction (medium versus low scores). Chapter 4: Results 233 Table 67: Differenc es in l earners’ expl oitation of metac ognitive strategies ac cording to the period of EFL instructi on ITEM STORAGE INTO MEMOR Y STRATEGIES SOURCE N X SD SE P 94 I kn ow whether a word is essential for me to understan d a text. 0 - 5 years 57 3,47 1,071 ,142 ,000 6 - 10 y ears 401 3,36 1,093 ,055 +10 years 235 3,89 ,915 ,060 95 I know whe ther a word is essential for me to learn. 0 - 5 years 57 3,51 ,966 ,128 ,000 6 - 10 years 398 3,42 1,054 ,053 +10 years 235 3,76 ,953 ,062 96 I know how to use cues to understand meaning. 0 - 5 years 57 3,14 1,093 ,145 ,001 6 - 10 years 402 3,18 1,110 ,055 +10 years 235 3,51 1,014 ,066 98 I look for other m ateri als to read apart from textbo oks. 0 - 5 years 57 3,07 1,374 ,182 ,000 6 - 10 years 401 2, 62 1,439 ,072 +10 years 234 3,52 1,327 ,087 99 I only learn vocabulary taught by the teacher. 0 - 5 years 57 2,72 1,411 ,187 ,000 6 - 10 years 403 2,84 1,397 ,070 +10 years 235 2,09 1,218 ,079 100 I only f ocus on vocabular y relate d to exams. 0 - 5 years 57 2,63 1,397 ,185 ,000 6 - 10 years 403 2,64 1,383 ,069 +10 years 235 1 ,94 1,136 ,074 4.1.2. Results of the VLT As explained in chapter t hree where w e discussed the method used in this research project, the Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT) was administered not to find out about the students’ vocabulary stock but t o divide them into four gro u ps according to the results obtained, namely, low proficient (those with an amount of vocabular y below 1000 words), lower-intermedia te (t h ose with a vocabula ry stock of 1 000 words), upper-inter mediate (those with a vo cabular y stock of 20 00 words) and finally, high pro ficient (t h ose w ith a w ord sto ck between 3000 and 5000 words). Nevertheless, one o f the research questions was aimed at clarifying, on the one hand, whether learners with different profici ency lev els in v ocabu lary had the same id eas abo ut vocabulary learning and resorted t o th e sa me typ e of vocabulary strategies and, on the other hand, t o draw a comparis on between Chapter 4: Results 234 vocabulary learning o utco mes and t he other variables considered in this study, that is, age, gender, grade level and amount o f English instruction. Both analyse s will be presented separatel y; I will start with the variable analysis, followed by t he reported beliefs an d vocabu lary strategies. 4.1.2.1. General resul ts Breadth of vocabulary knowledge was measu red by the VLT. Four main frequen cy levels were used: 1000 words, 2000 words, 300 0 word s, 5000 words ( cf. sectio n 3.3.1). This instrument tested only content words, b oth in comprehension and production. Stud ents h ad to scor e at l east 83% to pass on to the nex t lev el, according to the criteria explained by Paul Nation and Batia Laufer <http://www.er.uq am.ca/n obel/r21270/le vels>. Once processed, each freq uency level was given a value so as to be more easily compared, i.e. 1=-1000, 2 =1000, 3=2000, 4=3000 and 5=5000. T hus on a 5-p oint scale, the me an sc ore obtained by our subjects w as 2.23, meaning t ha t the average vocabular y level w as of 1000 words, as illustrated in Table 68. Table 68: S tudents’ VLT performanc e BREATH OF V OCABULAR Y KNOW LEDGE N X SD SE 712 2,23 1,236 , 0 46 35; 5% 87; 12% 171; 24% 130; 18% 289; 41% -1000 1000 2000 3000 5000 Figure 21: Stu dents’ distrib utio n accordin g to VLT p erformance Chapter 4: Results 235 Roughly spea king, Figure 21 demonstrat es that a great number of subj ects (41%) know less than the m inimu m amount of 1000 wo rds in English, namely ESO and Bacharelato stud ents, what som eh ow outnumb ered our expectations. Over the scor e of 1000 words, we find those students (18%) with a lower-inter mediate proficiency level. Twenty-four per cent of the sample scored 2000 words, whereas 12% and 5% showed t he k nowledge of 300 0 and 5000 words, respecti vely, which correspond to University and EOI students. Of course, exceptions to t hese tendencies were f ound in l ower and high er levels. 4.1.2.2. Anal ysis of test res ults by variables Encouraged by the sig nific ant differences found in the S VLSQ am ong subjects and bearing in mind the afore mentioned indep endent variables, I decided to condu ct an analysis that correla tes learnin g outcomes (represen ted by the score obtaine d in the VL T) and students’ background differences: age, gender, grade lev el and prior English instruc tion. ♦ Gender variable: Gender differences in learning a foreign language are commonly acknowledged in st udies of the kind (cf. section 2.2.4.2). As re gards the results obtain ed and once they were processed according to one-way ANOVA statistical te st, femal e participan ts outperformed men o n v ocabulary size being this differenc e really significant (P<,05). Inde ed, the average mean for male students defined them as low proficient ( vocabular y stock of less than 1 000 words) whereas female learners were rated as lower-inter mediate studen ts (vocabulary siz e of 1000 w ords). This can be seen ver y clearly in Tabl e 69 below: Chapter 4: Results 236 Table 69: G ender diffe rences in VL T perfo rmance Gender group N X SD SE P Male 26 5 1,89 1,148 ,07 1 ,000 Female 447 2,45 1,2 45 ,059 Total 712 2,23 1,23 6 ,046 Figures 22 and 23 illustrate more graphically how female participants outscored the male group. In fact, students knowing less than 10 00 words represent only 33% of the total group of women in contrast with 55% of men, that is, more t han a half. Then, percentages re presentin g lo w intermedi ate learners (1000 wo rds) are quite sim ilar between gende rs, that is, 16% and 19%, respectively. However, high intermediate and high achievers were more numerous in the case of women and significantly smaller in the case o f m en, which m ay co nfir m that gend er should be taken into account as a variable that may exert some influence on over all proficiency ratings. Figure 22: Ma le scores on VLT Figure 23: Female scores on VLT 3% 7% 19% 16% 55% -1000 1000 2000 3000 5000 6% 15% 27% 19% 33% -1000 1000 2000 3000 5000 ♦ Age variable: As regards age divergence in vocabu lary breath, relevant differences among subjects of various ages were e xpected; that is why the variables of age and grade level w ere considered in the selection of participant s. Chapter 4: Results 237 My pri or expectations were confir med af ter the pr ocessing of th e data. In general, older learners mastered a significantly greater stock of vocabulary than their younger counterpar ts , as reflected in the averag e means of T able 70. Table 70: Ag e differ ences in VL T performa nce Age group N X SD SE P 12 - 14 90 1,00 ,000 ,000 ,000 15 - 17 241 1,44 ,700 ,045 18 - 20 74 2,16 1,228 ,143 21 - 23 123 3,45 ,925 ,083 24 - 26 49 3,27 ,974 ,139 +26 121 3,06 ,859 ,078 Total 698 2,22 1,239 ,049 Bearing in mind the aforementioned r esults, students whose ages range fro m 12 to 17 were overall low achievers (less t han 1000 words). T he group of low intermediate subjects ( 1000 words) was for med b y 18 t o 20 year-old pupils. Finally, the upp er-intermed iate achievers defined the oldest students from 21 to over 26 years old; however, it is worth noticing that their average means decreased with age. As e xpected, only a few studen ts could be co nsider ed high achievers; special attention will be paid to this s mall group in the discussion o f the individual anal ysis of items. Apart from t hat, age group s were rather heter ogeneo us in their t est resul ts, as depicted in Figures 2 4-28. The only excepti on to t his tendency was foun d amon g the youngest group (12-14), their rates corresp onded to the profile of a low proficient learner. Chapter 4: Results 238 Figure 24: 15-17 year-old learners’ scores on VL T Figure 25: 18-20 year-old learners’ scores on VL T 67% 24% 8% 1 % - 1000 1000 2000 3000 4% 9% 31% 9% 47% -1000 1000 2000 3000 5000 Figure 26: 21-23 year-old learners’ scores on VL T Figure 27: 24-26 year-old learners’ scores on VL T 13% 35% 36% 15% 1% -1000 1000 2000 3000 5000 12% 24% 44% 18% 2% -1000 1000 2000 3000 5000 Figure 28: +26 year-old learners’ scores on VLT 7% 17% 50% 26% 1000 2000 3000 50 00 The vast m ajority of studen ts belo nging to the second group (15-17) also fell within the categor y of low proficiency. Twenty-four percent of the t otal was rated as low er-int ermediate and 8% as upper-intermediate , whilst only 3 students (1% of the total) could obtain a test level of 3000 words. Percentages change when dealing with the next age group (18-20), where a polarisation o f scores c an be observed: they were either low profi cient (47%) o r Chapter 4: Results 239 upper-intermedi ate (31%), depending on their grad e level as we w ill see la ter on. Besides, this is the first t i me some subjects scored the highest mark in the V LT, that is, knowledge o f 5000 words, but it w as rather anecdo tal with only four per cent out of the t otal thirtee n per cent of high achiever s within this group. The mo st dramatic variation is seen in the next age category (21-23). Here, low and lower-intermedia te achievers represent only sixteen per cent of the total, thirty-six per cent o f the m were rated as upper-i ntermedia te whereas high proficiency students (3000-5000 words) concentra te almost half of them (48%), which differs greatly from the previous three age groups. The same tend ency is observed in the last two groups, fro m 24 to over 26 year-old learners, although most of them were conc entrated on the categ ory of upper-int ermediate, th e percentage of hi gh achieve rs gradually decr eased. ♦ Grade level v ariable: Bearing in m ind the differences among subjects surveyed when considering the age factor, I expecte d to confirm them with t h is variable, since age and grade lev el correlate, e speci ally in t he case of younger students. Thus, o nce again, significant variatio ns we r e o bserved among subjects, which somehow coincided w ith t hose obtained across age groups. For example, ESO and BAC students were rated as low achieve rs (le ss than 1000 words ); however, in the ca se of BAC scores their means we re lower than expected, since I a priori consider ed them to be inter mediate l earners. In addition t o this, my expectations were fulfilled with UNI students, the highest achievers, in fact , within t he scope o f upper-intermediate learners (2000 words). However, the scores obtained by EOI learners are in the border line Chapter 4: Results 246 optimistic. The same applies to their satisfacti on w it h the amount of vocabula ry mastered: all groups we re m oderately happy with their vocabulary stocks ( ev en high proficient le arners), except for low achievers, who showed a clear dissatisfaction wi th their vocabula ry breadth. Finally, when try ing to c ommunicate, anxiety was a real drawback am ong students rated with the lowest proficiency, whereas as proficiency increased, anxiety diminished . Furth ermore, all students claimed n ot to quit studying vocabulary even if it was too difficult, although t he i ncrease o f scores from most to least proficien t learners was quite relevant (item 15). As for the number o f linguistic aspects c onnected with v ocabulary learning (Table 74), everyon e agreed that the vocabulary of a particular commun ity reflects its own culture bu t the scores obtained for l ower achievers were slightly inferior to those of their co unterparts. Nevertheless, in ite m 19, there was a great variation between lo wer and lower-intermediat e achievers (-1 000 to 1 00 0 w ords) and upper-in termediate and high achievers (2000 to 5 000 words): the latter were clearly in disag reement with the statement that learning a FL is e ssentiall y learnin g its vocabulary, whereas the former did not k eep such a negative attitude. Moreover, all par ticipants rated English vo cabulary as mo deratel y difficult to learn, except for the group of high achievers; for this particu lar group, v ocabular y seemed to be an e asy task, according to their a verage means. Chapter 4: Results 247 Table 74: Differe nces in beliefs about voca bulary lear ning a ccording to VLT sc ores (Part 2) ITEM BELIEF STAT EMENT SOURCE N X SD SE P 18 The cultur e of a commun ity is reflec ted in its vocabula ry. - 1000 279 3,59 1,162 ,070 ,000 1000 129 3,98 ,964 ,085 2000 171 3,91 1,053 ,081 3000 86 4,26 ,829 ,089 5000 35 4,11 1,022 ,173 19 Learning a FL is e ssentially learning its vocabulary. - 1000 285 3,11 1,279 ,076 ,000 1000 129 2,54 1,046 ,092 2000 171 2,39 1,025 ,078 3000 87 2,14 1,058 ,113 5000 35 2,26 1,146 ,194 21 English vocabul ary is diffic ult to learn. - 1000 289 3,16 1,136 ,067 ,000 1000 130 2,75 1,064 ,093 2000 171 2,64 ,981 ,075 3000 87 2,29 ,951 ,102 5000 35 2,26 1,067 ,180 26 Guessing w ord meaning i n c ontex t is the best way to learn vocab ulary. - 1000 283 3,32 1,277 ,076 ,006 1000 128 3,75 1,065 ,094 2000 170 3,52 1,027 ,079 3000 85 3,65 1,020 ,111 5000 35 3 ,54 1,010 ,171 27 One ca n only learn vocabulary by memorising individual w ords. - 1000 288 3,14 1,329 ,078 ,000 1000 128 2,49 1,057 ,093 2000 171 2,21 1,024 ,078 3000 87 2,02 ,940 ,101 5000 35 2,14 ,845 ,143 29 Using vocabulary is more i mportant than memorising words. - 1000 288 4,40 ,924 ,054 ,000 1000 129 4,71 ,627 ,055 2000 171 4,64 ,639 ,049 3000 87 4,72 ,564 ,060 5000 35 4,69 ,530 ,090 When asked ab out how v ocabul ary is learnt (Table 75), there were s ome points where divergence arose among students. First, all groups ackno wledg ed the importance of guessin g wo rd m eaning in co ntext as a goo d w ay of learning vocabulary, in o pposition to lo wer achievers’ less determined o pinion (M=3.32). However, all groups discarded memorising in dividual lexical items as the only procedure to acquire vo ca bulary, except for lower achievers, who were not so critical about memorisation (M=3.14). Finally, everyone agreed o n the fact that making use of words is better than memorising individ ual words, but learners with a vocabulary st ock below 1 000 words sh owed slightly lower values. Relevant differences were observed among subjects concerning their opinions about the teaching and assessment of vocabulary. All groups claimed t hat Chapter 4: Results 248 students sh ould go be yond kno wing the translation of the foreign word, but also its meaning, form and b asic use. However, their means increas ed with their proficiency and the sam e applies to the claim that teaching words out of context should be completed with in-context te ach ing. Besides, all o f them supported a clear and systematic way to teach vocabulary; o n this o ccasion, the highest scor es corresponded once again t o high achievers (M=4.09). Furthermore, word lists were clearl y supported by low achievers (M= 3.60), whereas the remainin g groups considered them v ali d only to a medium extent. The same could be o bserved in item 39, where low achievers c lai med that vocabulary t ests should be based on lis ts of frequ ent wo rds (M=3.53). The rest of the participant s sh owed a more moderate support of this type of tests; this was not the case of high ach ievers w ith a vocabulary sto ck of 5000 wo rds , w h o showed their disagr eement on this idea. Table 75: Differe nces in beliefs about voca bulary lear ning a ccording to VLT sc ores (Part 3) ITEM BELIEF STAT EMENT SOURCE N X SD SE P 30 The least a learn er should kno w about a word is form, meaning and basic u se, not only its transl ation. - 1000 285 3,81 1,115 ,066 ,000 1000 129 4,05 ,951 ,084 2000 171 4,06 ,906 ,069 3000 87 4,34 ,860 ,092 5000 35 4,60 ,695 ,117 31 Vocabulary must be t aught in a systematic and clear way. - 1000 287 4,04 1,072 ,063 ,001 1000 129 3,80 1,011 ,089 2000 168 3,70 ,988 ,076 3000 86 3,65 ,955 ,103 5000 35 4,09 ,887 ,150 34 Out-of-context teaching sh ould be completed wi th in-context on e. - 1000 280 3,64 1,038 ,062 ,000 1000 128 3,86 ,911 ,081 2000 170 4,08 ,817 ,063 3000 85 4,09 ,750 ,081 5000 34 4,29 ,760 ,130 35 Teachers should make wo rd lists. - 1000 287 3,60 1,321 ,078 ,000 1000 127 3,09 1,231 ,109 2000 169 3,09 1,122 ,086 3000 86 3,08 1,190 ,128 5000 34 3,06 1,229 ,211 39 Vocabulary t ests must be based on lists of the mo st frequently u sed words. - 1000 284 3,53 1,222 ,073 ,000 1000 129 2,76 1,230 ,108 2000 171 2,91 1,111 ,085 3000 86 2,51 1,049 ,113 5000 35 2,40 1,117 ,189 Chapter 4: Results 249 As can be ga thered from all this, learners with differe nt proficiency levels also held different opinions about some aspects of vocabulary. Thus, it could be argued t hat attitude towards vocabulary learning e xerts an influenc e upon learning outco mes; this will be discussed later on in further detail. ♦ Variation in o verall strateg y use As previously stated, one-way ANOVA revealed significant differences in overall strategy use bet ween the fo ur lev els of pro ficienc y, as show n in Figure 37 and Table 76. 0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5 4 4,5 -1000 1000 2000 3000 5000 Meta-cognitive st . Discovery/understa nding st . Vocabulary us e st. Vocabulary retrieval st . Storage int o memory st. Figure 37: Dif ferences in VLS u se according to VLT scor es Chapter 4: Results 250 Table 76: Dif ferences in the u se of VLS cat egories ac cording to VLT scor es CATEGORY SOURCE N X SD SE P Discovery strat egies - 1000 288 3,15 0,526 0,031 ,000 1000 130 3,27 0,519 0,045 2000 171 3,46 0,407 0,031 3000 87 3,51 0,468 0,05 5000 35 3,59 0,385 0,065 Storage into memory - 1000 287 2,71 0,634 0,037 ,228 1000 130 2,62 0,511 0,045 2000 171 2,65 0,541 0,041 3000 87 2,74 0,446 0,048 5000 35 2,8 0,457 0,077 Vocabulary retri eval - 1000 281 2,65 0,901 0,054 ,000 1000 130 2,84 0,893 0,078 2000 1 71 2,96 0,88 0,067 3000 87 3,11 0,975 0,105 5000 35 3,31 0,977 0,165 Vocabulary us e - 1000 282 2,68 0,889 0,053 ,000 1000 130 2,88 0,811 0,071 2000 171 3,08 0,739 0,057 3000 87 3,18 0,698 0,075 5000 35 3,26 0,732 0,124 Metacognitive - 10 00 282 3,1 0,72 0,043 ,000 1000 129 3,41 0,702 0,062 2000 171 3,68 0,586 0,045 3000 87 3,89 0,596 0,064 5000 35 4,05 0,599 0,101 Relevant variation was observed in four of the five subscales, namely, discovery, vocabulary retrieval, vocabulary use and metacognitive st rategie s. Moreover, all groups reported empl oying techniques t o retrieve lexical items from memory and using alrea dy learnt words to a medium extent; however, as students’ level of profici ency increased, they tended to develop these skills much more frequently. The scores ga thered in discovery st ra tegies show a clear divergence between lower and higher achievers, ran ging from a modera te use o f these t echniques to a frequent one. Th e sa me app lies to metacognitive strategies since students with a vocabulary st ock over 2 000 admitted a co nstan t involvement in their own learning process, in clear co ntrast with a more modera te participation of both low and lo wer-inter mediate achievers. Conversel y, storag e into memory strategies seemed to be mo re homogeneously employed by all participants. Chapter 4: Results 251 The number o f differences identified bet ween group s according to the t est level was ve ry high as table 77 illustrates. It shows the patte rns o f responses for both guessing meaning and word analysis to unders tand meaning (items 41-50). These will be ana lysed sep arately. Table 77: D iffer ences in l earners’ exploita tion of m eaning dis cov ery/understandi ng strategies ac cording to VLT s cores (Part 1) ITEM DISCOVERY STR ATEGIES SOURCE N X SD SE P 41 I guess me aning from context/t opic. - 1000 287 3,77 1,144 ,068 ,000 1000 129 4,22 ,912 ,080 2000 171 4,37 ,719 ,055 3000 87 4,28 ,845 ,091 5000 35 4,37 ,690 ,117 42 I look f or e xamples in context to guess word meaning . - 1000 287 3,44 1,138 ,0 67 ,000 1000 128 3,82 1,068 ,094 2000 170 3,99 ,843 ,065 3000 85 3,92 1,003 ,109 5000 35 4,11 ,676 ,114 43 I find out the logical developm ent of the paragraph to guess wo rd meani ng. - 1000 286 3,10 1,170 ,069 ,000 1000 129 3,50 1,083 ,095 2000 170 3,69 1,055 ,081 3000 86 3,79 ,959 ,103 5000 34 3,79 ,978 ,168 44 I look for definitions, paraphrase s to support my gues ses. - 1000 286 3,33 1,168 ,069 ,000 1000 128 3,66 1,083 ,096 2000 171 3,76 1,038 ,079 3000 87 3,87 ,986 ,106 5000 35 4,20 ,719 ,122 45 I check my h ypothesi s in context. - 1000 286 3,35 1,312 ,078 ,002 1000 128 3,72 1,261 ,111 2000 170 3,64 1,145 ,088 3000 85 3,71 1,100 ,119 5000 35 3,97 ,985 ,166 46 I tr y to find o ut meaning by dividing word into chunk s. - 1000 285 2,05 1,259 ,075 ,000 1000 129 2,50 1,409 ,124 2000 171 3,10 1,336 ,102 3000 87 3,24 1,446 ,155 5000 35 3,43 1,195 ,202 47 I de riv e hypotheses b y applying general rules. - 1000 284 2,63 1,210 ,072 ,000 1000 128 2,90 1,260 ,111 2000 171 3,08 1,215 ,093 3000 87 3,43 1,168 ,125 5000 35 3,77 ,877 ,148 48 I use common sense and previous knowledge to un derstand m eaning. - 1000 285 3,56 1,075 ,064 ,000 1000 128 4,01 ,909 ,080 2000 171 4,06 ,783 ,060 3000 87 4,33 ,726 ,078 5000 35 4,49 ,562 ,095 49 I unders tand word meaning b y comparing w ord p arts (so un ds, roots…) to my nat ive language . - 1000 284 2,43 1,312 ,078 ,002 1000 128 2,38 1,242 ,110 2000 171 2,64 1,196 ,091 3000 87 2,82 1,290 ,138 5000 35 3,14 1,141 ,193 50 I understand word meaning by translating it into my nati ve language. - 1000 284 3,70 1,221 ,072 ,000 1000 128 3,28 1,255 ,111 2000 171 3,22 1,152 ,088 3000 86 3,23 1,103 ,119 5000 35 3,09 1,095 ,185 Chapter 4: Results 252 Here, it is curious to notice how all statements of these subscales were significantly different acro ss subjects. What is more, a quite regul ar pattern was revealed: the higher the score, the more frequ ent t he use o f VLSs; it em 50, devoted to w ord translation into L1, being the only exception. Indeed, all groups report ed a frequent use of different aspects of co ntex t to guess word meaning (items 41 -45 ); means increased gradually along the proficiency levels. The o nl y exception was the group o f low achievers, reporting ‘medium’ guessing strateg y use. The same applies to wo rd division into chunks to guess meaning. Bearing in mind that all mean scores went down to the categor y of me dium use, the only group o f st ud ents w h o reported a scarce use o f t hi s strategy was that of the lower achi evers (M= 2.05). As for t he techniques that entailed word analysis to understand meaning, all learners claimed they applied common sense and previous knowledge to do so (once again, means increased with proficienc y). However, o nl y those w i th a vocabulary breadth of 5000 words admitted they normally applied general rul es to derive hypothese s about word meanin g; the rest of the groups, how ever, did so only to a me diu m e xtent, their means increasing with proficiency. Then, upper - intermediate and high achievers stated they compared wo rd elements (sound s, prefixes…) t o their mother to ngue to unders tand w ord m eaning to a me di um extent, whilst low and lower-in termediate groups were more reluctant to do so (all means below 2.5). The onl y te chnique which was more w idel y appr eciated by low pro fi cient learners was tha t of translatin g new words int o their mother t ongue to Chapter 4: Results 253 understand meaning. In fact, average means worked the other way round: the less proficient the l earner, the more frequent the use of transla tion. Moving on to dictionary strategies, there was a general agree ment on the value o f both looking up words in a dictio nary to confirm hypotheses about the meaning of words and on reading the sam ple sentences that illustrat e their meaning; however, lower sco res were o bser ved among lower achievers. On the contrary, upper-intermedi ate and high proficient students usually paid at tention to wo rd aspects other t h an translation (so und, derivates, collocations…); less proficient studen ts, howev er, did it more moderatel y. The same could be argued about the use of m onolingu al dictionaries, emplo yed to a m edium extent by the former, namely, advanced le arners and quite infrequ ently by the latter, that is, beginners and in termediate students. Apart from this, as expected, there was a great er reliance o n the teacher to provide an explanation or a translation o f the m eaning of the word among low and lower-interm ediate than among their m ore profi cient counterparts (fr eque nt against medium sc ores). However, there w as mor e homogeneity o f respon ses when students were asked whether they resorted to their classmates whenever they had pr oblems with the meaning of words. On t his occasion, all groups claimed they relied on their peers to a moderate extent, although slightly lower scores were obtained for hig h achievers. Chapter 4: Results 254 Table 78: D iffer ences in l earners’ exploita tion of m eaning dis cov ery/understandi ng strategies ac cording to VLT s cores (Part 2) ITEM DISCOVERY STR ATEGIES SOURCE N X SD SE P 52 I look up words in a dictiona ry to confirm the gu essed meaning. - 1000 286 3,74 1,217 ,072 ,001 1000 129 3,99 1,027 ,090 2000 170 4,15 ,952 ,073 3000 87 3,97 1,005 ,108 5000 35 4,23 ,808 ,136 54 I read sample sentences illustrating the different sens es of a wo rd. - 1000 283 3,72 1,261 ,075 ,000 1000 127 4,04 1,094 ,097 2000 170 4,29 ,965 ,074 3000 87 4,31 ,992 ,106 5000 35 4,43 ,698 ,118 55 I pay attenti on to many word aspects, not only meaning . - 1000 286 3,04 1,331 ,079 ,000 1000 128 3,46 1,235 ,109 2000 171 3,95 1,116 ,085 3000 86 4,01 1,046 ,113 5000 35 4,03 1,071 ,181 56 I make use o f monolingual dictionaries. - 1000 281 2,31 1,498 ,089 ,000 1000 129 2,22 1,352 ,119 2000 171 2,93 1,437 ,110 3000 87 3,23 1,395 ,150 5000 35 3,37 1,352 ,229 57 I ask the teacher for an explanatio n or translation. - 1000 286 3,65 1,165 ,069 ,000 1000 12 9 3,61 1,056 ,093 2000 170 3,26 1,238 ,095 3000 87 3,13 1,119 ,120 5000 35 2,86 1,141 ,193 59 I ask my classmates f or word me aning. - 1000 287 3,37 1,219 ,072 ,007 1000 128 3,05 1,254 ,111 2000 169 3,21 1,156 ,089 3000 87 3,11 1,176 ,126 5000 35 2,71 1,045 ,177 Despite the fact that the overall use of storage into memory strategi es was not significantly different amo ng participants, there we r e some items which presented significant divergences from a stat istical perspect i ve. Table 79 shows these differences. Chapter 4: Results 255 Table 79: Differences in learners’ exploita tion of s torage into m emory strate gies according to VLT scor es (Part 1) ITEM STORAGE INTO MEMOR Y STRATEGIES SOURCE N X SD SE P 61 I repeat words aloud to memorise them. - 1000 285 3,24 1,396 ,083 ,001 1000 129 2,80 1,313 ,116 2000 171 2,75 1,228 ,094 3000 87 2,83 1,231 ,132 5000 35 3,11 1,367 ,231 63 I gro up w ords together to remember them. - 1000 285 2,95 1,322 ,078 ,001 1000 129 3,23 1,202 ,106 2000 171 3,16 1,219 ,093 3000 86 3,41 1,110 ,120 5000 35 3,74 1,268 ,214 64 I group words r elat ed to the same topic to remem ber them. - 1000 281 2,90 1,293 ,077 ,011 1000 129 3,05 1,246 ,110 2000 171 3,04 1,255 ,096 3000 87 3,09 1,291 ,138 5000 35 3,71 1,126 ,190 65 I group words r elat ed to the same situation to rem ember the m. - 1000 284 2,74 1,298 ,077 ,000 1000 129 3,02 1,293 ,114 2000 170 3,18 1,218 ,093 3000 87 3,26 1,176 ,126 5000 35 3,74 1,067 ,180 67 I analyse word parts and memorise the most commonly used prefixes and suffixes. - 1000 283 1,95 1,215 ,072 ,000 1000 128 2,20 1,125 ,099 2000 170 2,54 1,182 ,091 3000 86 2,55 1,224 ,132 5000 35 2,83 1,2 00 ,203 68 I pay attention to colloca tions to remember the m as fixed expression s. - 1000 283 2,76 1,209 ,072 ,000 1000 129 2,61 1,120 ,099 2000 168 3,01 1,148 ,089 3000 87 3,26 1,115 ,120 5000 35 3,49 1,067 ,180 69 I crea te semantic n etworks and meaningful gr oups of words. - 1000 281 2,54 1,195 ,071 ,000 1000 129 2,70 1,087 ,096 2000 170 2,81 1,198 ,092 3000 87 3,07 1,076 ,115 5000 35 3,34 1,083 ,183 70 I search for synonyms or an tonyms in memory. - 1000 282 2,93 1,291 ,077 ,000 1000 129 3,06 1,102 ,097 2000 171 3,33 1,084 ,083 3000 87 3,40 1,115 ,120 5000 35 3,63 ,942 ,159 71 I create a senten ce in my own langu age so as to link n ew and known words. - 1000 284 2,82 1,2 93 ,077 ,000 1000 127 2,39 1,155 ,102 2000 171 2,47 1,170 ,089 3000 87 2,32 ,958 ,103 5000 35 2,37 1,190 ,201 72 I r ememb er the sentence in which a word was em bedded. - 1000 284 2,80 1,256 ,075 ,000 1000 128 2,68 1,122 ,099 2000 171 3,18 1,180 ,090 3000 87 3,17 1,193 ,128 5000 35 3,20 1,183 ,200 73 I learn words better by putting them into different c ontexts. - 1000 285 3,11 1,185 ,070 ,000 1000 130 3,51 1,029 ,090 2000 170 3,89 ,970 ,074 3000 87 3,95 ,951 ,102 5000 35 4,00 ,767 ,130 Chapter 4: Results 262 students. For example, in th e SVLSQ, item 7 was I like learning the vocabu lary of this foreign languag e , in the teachers’ questionnair e this item was worded as I think that my students like learning English vocabular y. All the s tatements had to be answered using the sa me 5-point Likert scale as tha t of the stud ents. Part 3 was completely different from SVLSQ; teache rs w ere n ot asked about the individua l le arning s trategies used by their students but only about t he five general subscales, namely, discovery strategies, stora ge into memory, vocabulary retrieval, vocabulary use an d m etacognitive techniques. Be sides, there also was an o pen questi on at the end of each section, where te achers could add further comments or re marks abo ut their teaching e xperience. 4.1.3.1. Teacher s’ beliefs ab out vocabulary: des criptive statisti cs The section of beliefs abou t vocabulary contained the same 34 statements of the SVLSQ, subcategorised into motivation, linguistics, v ocabulary le arning and teaching, and asse ssm ent aspect s. H owever, some of t hem w ere re - worded to elicit teachers’ ideas about t he way they perceived t heir students, so as to fin d out whethe r studen ts and teachers shared si milar views or not. The same 5-poi nt Likert scale (from 1 “absol utely disagre e” to 5 “absolutely agree”) was used to rate each state ment. Here are the results (Table 8 4). As for motivational aspects, teachers considered that th eir students really liked learning En glish vocabu lary bu t that they w ere not s o willing to use it outside the classroom. M oreover, it i s remar kable to s ee that the y were no t quite sur e abo ut the motivation of their students t o learn vocabulary since they reported the same medium score fo r the three main reasons given, that is, a) because it is useful t o Chapter 4: Results 263 find a good job, b) because it is useful to understand material of my interest and c) because it is useful to commun icate with foreign pe o ple . They did no t claim one o f them to be more important tha n the r est; m eans scor es for the three items wer e very similar (ite ms 9-11). Apart from this, they stat ed that their students had a self-perception of being moderately successfu l in the learning of vocabulary and also modera tely satisfi ed with their vocabular y stocks. Nevertheless, in t he lig ht of the results obtained, teachers firmly believed t h at studen ts ex perien ced gr eat anxiet y w hen they t ried to express thems elves in En glish and could not find the desired word (M= 3.88). Finally, teaching professi onals believed that their students made medium effort to learn English voca bulary, not gi ving u p very e asily desp ite the d ifficulti es found (items 15 and 17). However, n otwithstanding t he fact that vocabular y complexity was not enough for them to quit studying, teachers claimed that the materials employed to teach them English vocabular y should not be b oring; if t ha t were the case, their studen ts would surel y abandon this task. As re gards a nu mber of lin gu istic featur es connected with vocabul ary learning, all pro fessionals w ere convinced that t he vocabulary of a particular communi ty inevitably reflects its own culture (M=4.3 3). Moreo ver, they really consider ed vocabulary as important as any other aspect in FL teaching; ho wev er, they wer e really against the assertion that learning a FL w as essentially learning its vocabulary. As for the complexity of English vocabulary, th ey rated it as moderately difficult to learn . Chapter 4: Results 264 When inquired abo ut the w ay v ocabulary is learnt, teachers ac knowledged the relevant role played by con text in learning new words. Ind eed, they supported the idea that, since words m ake sense o nly w ithin a context, new vocabulary cou ld only be learnt in context . This was r einforced by item 25, def ended by all teachers, w hich asserts that one can learn vocabula ry simply by encountering it several times in different c ontexts. Be sides, th ey all c onsidered gues sing words in context as one of the best ways to learn n ew vocabulary. Apart from that, there was general co nsensus in acknow ledging the importance of co ll ocational sets and words t hat normally occur with words . However, in the light o f the me dium scores observed, te ach ers w ere less determined towards self-learning or reading as t h e best ways t o learn ne w vocabulary. Conversely, all teaching pro fessionals rejected the m emorisati on of individual ite ms as the only way of learning a gre at amount of vocabulary. Furthermore, teachers supported t h e idea that learners should go beyond word translation and know at least its form, meaning and basic u se. Nevertheles s, they were not so sur e about whether vocabulary required clear and systematic teaching (M=3.30). They also claimed that words should be presented t o students in groups rather than isolated and they also beli eved stro ngl y that if some vocabulary items were to be taught out of context, this should be compensated with in-context teaching. In contrast w ith this, th ey showe d less det erminati on towards analysing word morphol ogy or making word l ists. Chapter 4: Results 265 Table 84: T eachers’ beliefs about v ocabula ry learning ITEM N º ITEM DESCRI PTION N X SD SE 7 My students lik e learning v ocabulary . 108 3,70 1,025 0,1 8 My students lik e using vo cabulary o utside class . 107 2,61 0,929 0,09 9 My student s learn v ocabul ary mainly be cause it is useful to find a good j ob. 107 2, 93 0,918 0,09 10 My student s learn vocabul ary mainly to und erstand movies, songs, videoga mes, etc. 107 3,08 0,972 0,09 11 My student s learn v ocabul ary mainly because it is useful to communicate w ith foreign pe ople. 107 2,90 1,072 0,1 12 My stud ents consider themselves good at learning vocabulary. 104 3,08 0,844 0,08 13 My students think the y know enoug h vocabul ary . 106 2,84 0,977 0,09 14 My students ge t anxious w hen tryin g to speak in English . 107 3,88 1,03 4 0,1 15 My students gi ve up study ing vocabulary if it is too diffi cult . 106 3,28 1,049 0,1 16 My students gi ve up study ing vocabulary if it is too bor ing . 106 3,91 1,019 0,1 17 My students m ake a great eff ort to l earn vocabul ary . 107 3,12 0,876 0,08 1 8 The culture of a communi ty is reflected in i ts vocabul ary . 107 4,33 0,833 0,08 19 Learning a FL is essentiall y learning it v ocabulary . 108 2,44 1,062 0,1 20 Vocabulary is les s impor tant than other asp ects . 108 2,03 0,961 0,09 21 English vocabul ary is diffic ult to learn . 106 2,72 1,031 0,1 22 Self - learning is the best way to l earn vocabulary . 106 3,09 1,01 0,1 23 Vocabulary is e ssentially learn t by r eading . 107 3,32 0,996 0,1 24 Vocabulary can only be learn t in co ntext . 105 3,88 1,026 0,1 25 You c a n lea rn vocabul ary only by encoun tering a w ord in different con texts. 104 3 ,84 0,849 0,08 26 Guessing word meaning in context is the best way to learn vocabulary. 108 4,01 0,704 0,07 27 You ca n only learn vocabulary by mem orising individual words. 108 2,06 0,83 0,08 28 Collocations and sets of phrases are very i mpor tant in vocabulary learn ing. 107 4,24 0,763 0,07 29 Using vocabular y is more i mportant than mem orising words . 108 4,59 0,627 0,06 30 The mini mum a student should kn ow i s word meaning and basic usage. 108 4,14 1,063 0,1 31 Vocabulary ask s for clear and sys tematic tea ching . 104 3,30 0,944 0,09 32 Words must n ot be pr esented in isolation but in group s. 108 3,76 1,058 0,1 33 It is important to pay attent ion to word structure . 107 3,40 1,063 0, 1 34 Out - of - context teaching must be completed with in - context teaching. 104 4,17 0,864 0,08 35 Teachers should create w ord lists for stud ents . 105 2,74 1,144 0,11 36 Teachers’ role: explaining w ord meaning in context . 107 2,56 1,092 0,11 37 Teachers’ role: p roviding student s with le arning stra tegies . 106 4,49 0,59 0,06 38 Vocabulary t ests are accept able . 107 3,70 0,882 0,09 39 Tests must be based on fre quency li sts . 106 2,58 1,095 0,11 40 Tests must be based on usefulness of words ra the r t han on frequency. 105 3,41 0,917 0,09 As far as their m ain role in vocabular y t eaching is concerned, they were truly convinced that their main task was to encourage learners’ autonomy by providin g them wit h learning st r ategies. However, they did no t discard the idea o f t hei r main function consisting in explaining wo rds in the ir co ntext of occurrence; this idea, howe ver, re ceived only a moderate support. Finally, they all acknowledg ed Chapter 4: Results 266 the suitabilit y of specific tests to evaluate vocabular y knowledg e, although they did not have a clear idea whether they sh ould be based on lists o f words chosen by their frequency of occur rence or by their usefulnes s to students. 4.1.3.2. VLSs: de scriptive s tatistics The last part of the TVLSQ asked teachers to rate how frequently their students made use of vocabulary learning st rategies. It included only five general items, devoted to the five main subscales o f strategies: strategies used t o discover and understand t he meaning of new v ocabular y, strategies used fo r storing it into memory, strategies to retrieve words from memory, strategies to make use of previously learnt m aterial and, finally, se lf-regulating or m etacogniti ve techniques. Figure 38 illustrates the mean scores that teachers assigned to the use their students made of t he aforementioned strate gies. Roughly speaking, on the five point scale, teachers considered that their students m ad e use of learni ng strategies to a medium extent. Within this framework o f medium use, they believed that students’ preferred strategi es we re those related to dis covering and understandin g the m eani ng of new words (Mean=3.31; SD=,821; SE=,08), followed by memory strategies (Me an=3.1 7; SD=,86 0; SE=,08), strategies for using already learnt vocabular y (Mean=3.16; SD=,883; SE=,09), strategies for retrievin g vocabulary (Mean =3,12; SD=,883; SE=, 09) and slightly less fr equentl y, metacognitive strategi es (Mean=3,00; SD=,85 1; SE=,08). Comparisons with t h e average means obtained by student s will be drawn l ater on. Chapter 4: Results 267 3,31 3,1 7 3,12 3,16 3 12345 Dis c ov ery/under st anding Storag e in to memory Vocabulary re trieva l Voc abu lary u se Me tacogn itiv e Figure 38: VLS use perc eived by teachers 4.1.3.3. Teacher s’ respons es to open qu estions As previously st ated, both part 2 and 3 of the TVLSQ e nded with an open question, s o t hat teachers co uld provide further comments or explana tions ab out any aspect of the te a ching of vocabulary. As was the case with the data elicited from students, teach ers’ response s to these open questions w ere also coded a nd processed using SPSS 11.0 soft ware. Thirty-six teachers out o f a tot al of 108 answered these questions, which means 33.3% of th e total sa mple. As rega rds their beliefs about vocabulary, thei r main concern was the comp lete lack of motivati on observed in students towards EFL, in general, and towards vocabulary, in particula r. In fact, sixte en per ce nt of the responses express ed this preoccupa tion, emphasis ing that students’ main goa l was passing the e xam rath er than learnin g the langua ge. One of them also pointed out that the current educational s ystem did not encourage b oth stud ents and teachers to pay atte ntion to le arning strategi es, Chapter 4: Results 268 which supports the idea that students do no t resort to learning strategi es (8,3% of the collected co mments). Moreover, the same perce ntage o f teachers ackno wledg ed the importance of FL vocabulary w ithi n the fr amework of FL teaching, especially for communicativ e purposes. One of these pr ofessionals insist ed on the idea that gra mmar teaching was overemphasised, whereas other te ach ers questi oned stated that students ’ poor self-percepti on as vocabulary learners m akes them gi ving up. Finally, it was also mentioned that stude nts did not like s tudying vocab ulary so it is necessary to resort to new techn ologies and games to get them motivated. As for the vocabulary learn ing strategies mentioned, Tabl e 85 illustrates those techniques tha t are considered as fr equentl y used by their student s. Table 85: VLSs mention ed by teac hers in th e open quest ion CATEGORY STRATEGY N % Discovery strategies Guessing strategi es . 2 3,2% Analysing word parts (prefix es, suff ixes…) . 1 1,6% Comparison to L1 words . 6 9,7% Dictionary str ategies . 1 1,6% Asking the tea cher for word translati on . 2 3,2% Asking classma tes for word translat ion . 1 1,6% Storage into memory strat egies Oral repetition . 1 1,6% Word families . 2 3,2% Word grouping by topic . 4 6,5% Word groupi ng by form al structur e . 1 1,6% Looking for synon yms/an tonyms… 4 6,5% Embedding w ords in contex ts (sent ences, stories… ) . 3 4,8% Using pictures or drawings to reme mber words . 4 6,5% Associating wo rds and sounds . 1 1,6% Word lists . 1 1,6% Flashcar ds . 1 1,6% Taking notes . 1 1,6% Vocabulary us e Speaking by us ing new w ords . 4 6,5% Using new w ords in writing . 3 4,8% Metacognitive Knowing wh en to learn/skip words . 1 1,6% Using English songs to lea rn vocabu lary . 6 9,7% Using mass medi a and new technol ogies, games . 11 17,7% Reading as mu ch as possibl e to lear n vocabulary . 1 1,6% Total 62 100,0% Chapter 4: Results 269 Twenty-one per ce nt of the to tal number of strategies mentioned corresponded to t he categor y of meanin g discovery/understanding. Here, teachers considered that students resorted mainly to co mparing the new TL word to one of their L1 in order t o guess its possible meaning (9.7%). T h en, with lower percentages, teachers p ointed out that students em pl oyed co ntext to gues s word meaning or to divide words into parts, paying special attention to common prefixes and suff ixes. Vocabulary strategi es were only m entioned once, since teachers considered that st ud ents preferred asking t hem directl y or as king their classmates for a translation of the ne w word . The vast majority of the teachers questioned (37.1% of the total) also claimed that students relied mainly on storage into memory strategi es. The strat egies most comm only m entioned belonged to the set of strategies tha t involve th e creation o f mental linkages between words, such as grouping new words related to a t opic or establishing relations o f s ynonymy or a ntonymity ( 6.5% each). To a lesser e xtent, other s trategi es, su ch as creating gr oups of words according to word families or words with similar parts (hap py, happily, unhapp y…) or embedding words int o contexts , in sentences o r stories, were also menti oned. Moreover, o ne o f the most supposedly popular te ch niques among students was m aking use of visual aids, such as drawing s or pictures to r emember vocabulary. Besides, repeating words orally and establishing asso ciations betwee n words o n acc ount of the way th ey sound were al s o mentioned. Finally, note- taking strategies, word lists and flashcards we re less commonly referred to by Chapter 4: Results 270 teachers. Apar t from that, some teachers belie ved that students m ad e use of previously learnt vocabulary bot h in oral conversati on and in written co mposition, actually, 11.3% of the total number of strategie s. As for the last categ ory, that is, m etac ognitive strateg ies, m any o f the teachers firmly believed tha t the most imp ortant source of vocab ulary learning for stud ents was the m ass media (press, TV), new technol ogies (Internet, DVD, videoga mes, etc) or English songs, wher e they could find vocabula ry that suited their interes ts and nee ds. O nly one o f them me nti oned reading as a frequently em ploy ed method to learn vocabula ry, whereas another one claimed that studen ts al so learnt to spot which were t he key words in a text. 4.1.3.4. Reported beliefs a nd VLS use in terms of var iables In the light o f t he data ob tained from t he SVLSQ, t he relationship between the teachers’ backgroun d characteristi cs and their ideas about vocabulary and their perceptions of students’ strategy use w as also examined. Onc e again, f our variables we re considered to carry o ut this analysis: gender, age, grade level and teaching experienc e. The data obtained were processed by usin g one-way ANOVA statistical test. 4.1.3.4.1. Gender diff erences Roughly speaking, it co uld be argued that no significant correlations were foun d between gend er and the appreciation of learning strategies used by studen ts. However, in the case of b eliefs about vocabulary , significant differenc es between male and female teachers were found in thr ee partic ular items. Chapter 4: Results 271 The first of them belongs to the category o f students’ m otivation to learn English v ocabulary. Item 1 6 asked teachers whether their students quitted studying vocabulary if the y found the materials used boring . As shown in Table 86, both groups considered th is statement to be true although male scores wer e slightly higher. This means that m en thought that the m aterials employed in vocabulary te aching exerted a great influence upon students, whereas wome n seemed not to b e so sure a bout it. Table 86: Differ ences in teac hers’ beli efs about vocabul ary l earning ac cording to gender (Par t 1) ITEM BELIEF STAT EMENT SOURCE N X SD SE P 16 My studen ts give up s tudyi ng vocabulary if i t is too boring. MALE 23 4,30 ,635 ,132 ,033 FEMALE 83 3, 80 1,079 ,118 The second dive rgent item w as related to a number o f linguistic features connected with vocabulary learning. It stated that the role of vocabular y in the development of t he FL competence was less im p ortant than any other aspect, such as grammar. Table 87 shows that n either m en nor women agreed with the aforementioned statement; male teachers, however, seemed t o b e slightly more against it than fe males. Table 87: Differ ences in teac hers’ beli efs about vocabul ary l earning ac cording to gender (Par t 2) ITEM BELIEF STAT EMENT SOURCE N X SD SE P 20 Voca bulary is less i mpor tant than other aspects. MALE 23 1,65 ,832 ,173 ,034 FEMALE 85 2, 13 ,97 3 ,106 Finally, there was also a di vergence wh en asked ab out how lang uage is learnt. The same pat tern of item 16 is reproduc ed in item 24; m ale te ach ers supporte d Chapter 4: Results 278 Finally, university learners and students w ith more than ten years o f English instruction obtained the be st results. Proficiency levels accounted for significant discrepa ncies among st udents in their beliefs about vocabu lary; ever ything seems to indicate that the mor e proficient the learn er, the more fr equent th e use of learning strategies. As far as teachers are concerned, the results o btained were more homogeneous than those of their students and particular items showin g significant differences according to the aforemention ed fo ur variables (gender, age, grade level and EFL teaching experience) wer e low. Key findings will be presented and further discussed in the following chap ters. 4.2. Qualitative data a naly sis: the inter views This section w ill present the data elicited with anoth er research instru ment, that is, the semi-structured interview. As outlined earlier, (cf. Sec tion 3.3.3), two interview fo rma ts wer e de signed, one for students a nd one for te ach ers; this was done in order to confirm and contrast the respons es provided by participan ts in the questionnaires. During the first and sec ond phases o f the data collection from high schools, universities and schoo ls of languages, a to tal number of 712 students and 10 8 teachers complet ed their corresponding questionnaires. Once the data wer e coded, proc essed and analysed, the third and fourth phases of the present stud y began. A tot al of 115 pupil s and 2 7 professi onals out of those aforementi oned students and teachers volu nteered to participat e in the inter views. Chapter 4: Results 279 Before going in to a detaile d analysis of the data collected durin g these stages, a brief acc ount of the part icipants will be offe red in a descriptive manner, using the SPSS 11.0 co mputer software. In acc ordance with the results elicited from the questionnaires, we managed to obtain volunteer interv iewe es belonging to the different groups chosen to act as selection criteria, namely, gender, age, proficiency, lev el test, years studying/teaching English a nd teaching instituti on. As far as stud ents are concerned, Fig ure 39 shows th e distribution of studen ts according to their grad e and level: 28; 24% 32; 28% 33; 29% 10; 9% 5; 4% 3; 3% 4; 3% ESO (1st Cycle) ESO (2nd Cycle) Bacharelato Philology (2nd Cycle) E OI (2nd Cycle) CLM Other Figure 39: N umber and distribut ion of interviewe e students accordin g to grade Consequently, their ages vary considerably as see n in Figure 40 and the same applies t o the number of ye ars they had been studying English and the te achi ng institution (See Figure 41 an d Table 95 below). Chapter 4: Results 280 20 ; 17% 13; 11% 27 ; 24% 13; 11 % 7; 6% 35 ; 31% 12-14 15-17 1 8-20 21-23 24-26 26 + Figure 40: Numb er an d distribu tion of stud ents interview ed a ccording to age 41; 36% 10; 9% 64; 55 % 0-5 6-10 +10 Figure 41 : Number an d distri bution of students int erviewe d accord ing to th e period of E FL instruction Table 95 : Number and d istribu tion o f students in terv iewed acco rding to teachin g institution Teaching i nstitut ion N % IES Melide 14 12,2 IES Arzúa 9 7,8 IES Someso 2 1,7 IES C. J. Cela (Pad rón) 10 8,7 IES Mª Casares ( Oleiros) 12 10,4 USC 9 7,8 UDC 4 3,5 UVIGO 9 7,8 CLM 21 18,3 EOI Santiago 4 3,5 EOI Ferrol 8 7,0 EOI Lugo 11 9,6 Other 2 1,7 Total 115 100% Chapter 4: Results 281 Finally, the proporti on o f m ale students who volunteered for this intervi ew was outnumbered by that of females; seventy-fi ve (6 5.2%) o ut of the to tal number were w omen versu s forty men (3 4.8%). As fo r the group of teaching professionals, females (n=18) doubled the number of males (n=9) and their ages ranged fro m 25 to over 50. Moreover, they represented diverse grades, dif ferent teaching experience and teaching institutio n as shown in Figu res 42, 43 and Table 96, respec tively: 4; 15% 5; 19% 5; 19% 6; 21% 2; 7% 5; 19% Primary E SO Ba charelato University E OI Ot her Figure 42: Numb er and distribu tion of teachers int erviewed accordin g to the grade variable 8; 30% 11; 40% 8; 30% 0-10 11-2 0 +20 Figure 43: N umber and distribut ion of teachers int erview ed accordin g to age Table 9 6: Numb er an d dis tribution of teach ers int erview ed accord ing to teachin g institution Teaching instit ution N % IES C. J. Cela (Pad rón) 2 7,4 IES Mª Casares (Oleiros ) 1 3,7 USC 1 3,7 UDC 1 3,7 UVIGO 3 11,1 CLM 1 3,7 EOI Santiago 4 14 , 8 Other 14 51 , 9 Total 27 100% Chapter 4: Results 282 As e xplained above, the purpose o f this interview was, on the one hand, to encourage students and t eachers t o reflect on the proce ss o f vocabulary learning and teaching, laying espec ial emphasis on their background assumptions about the acqu isition of lexicon. On the other hand, they were required to verbalise the strategies empl oyed during the four stages of voca bulary learning, that is, to discover the meaning of a new word, to store it into memory, t o retrieve it from memory when necessary and, finally, to make an automatic use of it. In the case of teachers, they were inquired about their perce p tions of the students’ m ost common techniqu es throu ghout the aforem entioned learning stages. All the data gathered from these interviews, both face-to-face and those conducted via phone, were rec orded on audiotape and subsequently transcrib ed by the re searcher for further content analysis. Li (2004: 178) refers to Neum an (1997) who pr ovides an ex planation on h ow to use W enden’s content analysis : Content analysis is a techn ique for examining information, or content, in written or symbolic material... In content analysis, a researcher first identifies a body of material to analyse... and then creates a system for record ing specific aspects of it . Th e sys tem might include counting how often certain words or themes occur. Finally, the researcher records what was found in the material. He or she often measure s informatio n in the content as number s... Accordingly, both s tudents’ and teachers’ transcrip tions of the interviews were interpreted and coded in order t o categorise specific beliefs and strategies about vocabulary learning. Thu s, all respons es were analysed one by one an d subcategorised taking into account, on the one hand , concrete beliefs about EFL vocabulary and, o n t he other hand, th ose strategies employed to face each of the Chapter 4: Results 283 four phases entailed in the learn ing of wo rds: namely, discovery, storing, retrieval and use, togeth er with the concre te text segmen t in which they a ppeared. 4.2.1. Students ’ interviews : General result s Both models of interview (st udents’ and teachers’) were divided into two main sections. P art 1 o f the se mi-structur ed intervie w consisted in the elicitation from the informants of ideas regardin g the process of learni ng vocabulary based on the questionnaire stat ements bu t reworded in a diff erent form. Respondents were inquire d about 12 items conc eive d as open questions that dealt with specific aspects o f vocabulary learning, such as willingness to lea rn vocabulary, mot ivati on, difficulties found during the proce ss, self-confid enc e, learning techniques, teacher’s role and their o wn ideas about the notion of learning strateg y. Part 2 of the int erview was aimed at gathering data to either confirm or explain in further detail those strategies that s tudents claimed to use in the questionnaire. So interviewees were required to reflect upon what they did throughout the whole t he pro cess of vocabulary learning: firstly, to discover an d understand the meaning of new wo rds; sec ondly, to store t his new vocabulary items into memory; thirdly, to retrieve from m emor y already stored vocabulary and, finally, to use this new vocabulary. Two final questions inquired about their use of m etacogniti ve strateg ies, asking the m whether they planned or r egulated their own learni ng process. The interview finished with a totally open question where studen ts could add any further opinion or remark. The results obtained will be presented separate ly, Chapter 4: Results 284 according to the two different sections: beliefs about vocabulary and re p orted vocabulary learn ing strategies. 4.2.1.1. Students ’ beliefs a bout vocabulary In this sec tion, the beliefs about vocabulary learning o f 115 subj ects interviewe d are identified. Relevant comments o btained from the interviewees are qu oted and examples ar e presented to illustrate their own opinions and assumptions. The first three questions are concerned with the na ture and characteristics of vocabulary itself. Question s 4 and 5 are devoted to students’ perceiv ed ability to learn vocabular y, w hereas the following four questions are related to the proce ss of teaching and learning w ords. Finally, q uestions 10, 11 and 12 tackle th e notio n of learning strategies and the p ossibility of being i nstructed in their use. The responses to th e twelve op en-ended questi ons will be p resented in turn.  Open question 1 : When you are studying Engl ish, do you like studying vocabula ry? This question was intende d to find out the e xtent to which st uden ts’ liking or disliking of vocabulary might affect t he results obtain ed. The elicited resul ts show that the majority o f th e in terviewees li ke studying vocabulary (61%); however, a percentage of thirty-nine per ce nt do not like it, which co nfirms the data obtained from the questionnaires. Thu s, learning vocabulary s eems to be a linguistic aspect highly valued by students; here are some illustrative comments such as: “eu prefiro e studar vocabulario ca gramática porqu e m e resulta m áis doad o…” (interview 11), expressing t heir prefer ence for vocabulary ove r grammar; “O vocabulario non é o que m áis pesad o se m e fai porq ue vas aprendendo como se Chapter 4: Results 285 din as cousas…” ( int. 37), stat ing t he idea that vocabulary helps you to expre ss things; “ gús tame bas tante porque creo que é út il.” (int. 43), arguing that vocabulary is useful; “Fáiseme ameno se o practico na clase e se o vocabulari o novo que imos aprenden do o empregamos en situ acións reais. Aprend elo de memoria palab ra por palab ra […] n on me vai b en” (int. 51), emph asising t he importance of using words instead of rote memorisation.  Open question 2 : why do y ou study new voc abulary in English? The second question so ug ht to investigate the effect of motivation on their learning progress. There was a wide ran ge of different ans wers; they can be summed up as foll ows: 9; 8 % 1; 1 % 1; 1 % 14 ; 12% 1 4 ; 12 % 1 7 ; 15 % 9; 8 % 6 ; 5% 43 ; 3 8% s p e a k E ng l i s h p a s s e x a m s b r o a d e n k no w l e d g e f i nd j o b c o m p u l s o r y un d e r s ta nd te x ts us e f ul l a ng u a ge a v o id f o r g e tti ng s ho w o f f Figure 44: Stu dents’ rea sons for learning EFL vocabulary The majority of the subject s interviewed (3 8%) stated that their main reas on to study vocabulary w as to express themselv es better in English, m atching the results e licited from the questionnaires. Thus, we obtained answers such as, “porque me parece muy importante saber vocabulario en una lengua y saber de Chapter 4: Results 286 qué estoy hablan do…” (int. 24) or “É unha ferramenta fundamental lo xicament e para aprend er o idi oma. Por moita gramática que sa ibas se n on tes una base de vocabulario para manexarte é imposible” (int. 104), both of them emphasising the importance of l exical comp etence to master a f oreign lan guage. The next most commonly mentioned reason w as, as expecte d, to pass exams (15%), for instance, “para saber re sp onder ás preguntas do e xame ” (int. 21) o r “Sabes que v ai entrar no exame e tes que chapalo” (int. 28). Others claimed to study vocabulary eit h er to broaden their knowledge of the foreign language (12%) or b ecause the y consider ed that Eng lish would h elp th em to find a g ood jo b (12%), this was precisely one of the most frequently stated reasons obtained from the questionnaires. Indeed, there were replies, such as “O principal, a verdade, é pola saíd a que ten porque se non a m in particularmente gústame m áis o francé s” (interview 3 ) o r “ p enso que ten mo itas avantaxes de cara a un futuro pro fesion al” (int. 8). To a lesser extent, some pupils reporte d studying vo cabulary to understand texts (8%) or simply because it is compuls ory to pass the English course (8%); a smaller number o f them (5%) consid er English to be a useful language so studying its vocabulary i s reall y worth it, for example, “Agora para moitas cousas fai falt a inglés, para intern et ou así, enton ás veces axuda moito para iso ” (int. 40). Finally, one of our vo lunt eers (1%) admitted studying vo cabulary so as to avoid forgetting previously learnt words, whereas anot h er o ne confessed he used English words just t o show off. Chapter 4: Results 287 Through these inter views t he number of reasons given by learners to study English vocabulary was higher than those of the qu estionnaires; in the case of latter, they were provide d with given motives whereas here they were open questions, this means that pupils could come up with their own reasons more spontaneously.  Open question 3 : Do you think that English vocabulary is difficult to learn? If so, why? Students are re quired to express t h eir opinion ab out the difficult y o r not o f learning vocabulary. The answer was really clear, 72 .6% of the interviewee s argued that le arning new w ords in English was not a difficult task; in contrast, 27.4% of t h em considered it to be hard. When the lat ter were asked abo ut t h e reasons why it seemed to be a complex activity for them, there was a wide variety of answers (Fig ure 45): thirty-five per cent o ut o f this minoritarian group of pupils attached the difficu lty o f vocabulary learning to the Germanic nature o f E nglish , a linguistic feature t hat m akes it very different from their mother tongu e as, for instance, “ porque n on ten a mesma pr ocedencia románica, pois diferéncia se moito do español” (int. 8 ). M oreover, twenty-on e per cent confessed that they tended to forget known words very easily and that was why it was s o hard to learn, .e.g. “É q ue apréndeste unhas palabras de vocabulario e úsalas no e xame e despois xa non as volves practicamente a utilizar” (int. 41). A lower number of students (14% ) re f erred to the great amount of polysemic w ords in English as the main source of trouble, fo r example, “é moi extenso e ten moitos matices” (int. 115); whereas ten p er cent of them admitted that they did not like vocabular y an d Chapter 4: Results 294 answering of this question , eit her because t hey did not have a clear opinion or because they pr eferred not to say what they really th ough t about it. Going into a mo re detail ed descripti on, on the one hand, those teaching techniques rep orted by in terviewe es as positiv e will be firstly anal ysed. Second ly, there will be a presentatio n of those tec hniq ues c ritic ised by learners and finally, I will provide a su mmary of some o f the suggestion s m ade by pupils o n the teaching of vocabular y. 8.1. Positive teachin g techn iques The following four t echniq ues were the m ost highly rated by the group of learne rs who held positive vie ws about the wa y they were bei ng taugh t English vocabulary; three of them have contextualised teaching as their main tool. T hese results match the data elici ted fro m the questionnair es (Figure 47). 1; 1% 1; 1% 19 ; 23 % 3; 3% 3; 3% 19 ; 23% 13 ; 16% 8; 9% 3; 3% 3; 3% 5; 6% 2; 2% 3; 3% 2; 2% 2 ; 2% T e a c h i n g u s i n g c o n t e xt T e a c h i n g v o c a b u l a r y u s e W o r d gr o u p i n g P r o v i d i n g e xa m p l e s D o i n g e xe r c i s e s T e a c h i n g t o g u e s s m e a n i n g T e a c h i n g i n E n g l i s h P h o n e t i c a s p e c t s R e a d i n g A d a p t i n g v o c a b u l a r y D r a wi n g s A u d i o v i s u a l m a t e r i a l s W o r d l i s t s G a m e s W o r d f o r m a t i o n Figure 47: Tea ching techn ique s labelled a s “positive” b y studen ts Chapter 4: Results 295 Twenty three per cent of the interviewees referred to the usefulness of th ose teaching techniques that are based o n the use of the c ontext for the presentatio n of new vocabulary. In fact, mo st of them made the point that vocabulary should be taught within a context, instead of using lists of words. The following quotations illustrate this point: “ traballa mos moito co n textos sobre temas de todo t ipo […] e t odo o que vai xurd indo váinolo exp lica ndo e bastante ben…” (int. 1); “métodos ad ecuados son precisamente o s de meter as palabras no contexto. Non só darn os o listado, senón darno s una aplicación práctica […] o seu us o concreto e como s e u saban…” (int. 50) or “Ensina as cousas en c ontexto: A través do contexto vem os o que p ode significar ” (int. 84). Likewise, the other technique widely commended by learners was that based on the practice of the new terms in different contexts o r situations, either in writing or orally, as shown in t heir ow n words: “…falamos incluso en co nvers a bastantes temas […] creo que se sabes a palabras e non as usas porque no estás segura […] non sei eu…” (int. 1 ); “ din os como s e po de usar, danos pistas para poder utilizala logo…” (int. 14 ); “m áis que mandarche aprender vocabulari o, métecho en práctica e entón eu creo que non che r esulta tan pesad o. Quédasech e máis fácil, resulta máis ameno” (int. 41 ); “en un entorno más bien informal, ella hacía que entablásemos conversaciones […] Es decir, no nos decía vocabulari o suelto, más b ien n os ense ña a u sar vocabulari o en u n entorno inf ormal” (int. 56); “Tiñamos que discutir, entrevistas o u p reguntas, conversación m ái s q ue n ada […]. Plantarse diante do libro e po ñerse a e stud ar vocabulario é aburrido, hai qu e Chapter 4: Results 296 aprender o vocabulari o e saber cando utilizalo” (int. 73) o r “o que imos facer é falar intentando utili zar esa s formas. A o utilizalas, vánseche quedan do” (int. 1 10). The third technique most highly reported as positive (16%) was that of presenting new terms in sem an tic fields, instead of in isolation. Interview ees wanted teachers t o draw li nks between lexical items: ♦ according to t he grammat ical category of words: (“Preséntanolo por grupos, os adxec tivos… ” – int. 8); ♦ according to t opics: computers ( “agora estamos no grupo dos ordenadores e vainos d icin do todo o vocabu lario d os ordenadores ” – interview 17), ani mals (“di nos animais e temos que i r dicind o un animal cada un e cousas así” – int. 48), et c. ♦ according t o spelling, i.e., prefixes and suffixes: (“palabras dunha mesma raíz, porque […] necesitamos saber sufixos e prefixos na formación de palabra s”- int . 99) ♦ according to semantic connections, i.e., synony ms, antonyms...: (“cada vez que sale una palabra nueva proporciona a m ayores palabras que están relaci onadas con ella, sinónim os, antónimos …” – int. 101) The o ther technique regarding contextualised te ach ing is concerned with providing le ar ners with varied examples and situations where the new terms can be used; this is mentioned by 9 % of these sample subj ects. Mo st of them conside r these instance contexts as crucial to facilitate word assimilation, as in “ confor me che di o significado desa palabra po is tamén che dá exemplos para pode r entendela mellor na casa” (int. 1 9); “Nos lo enseña de form a didáctica con Chapter 4: Results 297 ejemplos […], con expresi ones” (int. 54) o r “Pon exemplos do s contextos nos q ue se utilizaría a palabra ” (int. 82). Apart from the aforementioned t echniques, 6 % of the students believe that doing specific vocabulary e xercises is a good way o f increasing their lexic al competence because it provides instances and co ntexts of use. Thus, some expressed their preferenc e for exercises as somethi ng practical: “Parece qu e sentar diante dunha lista de vocabulario, creo que non lle gusta a ninguén. Eu penso que por medio de exercicios é a maneira. Algo máis práctico” (int. 9 2). Others specify t he t ype of exer cise they like , such as gap-filli ng ones: “aprendemos unha serie de frase s e exercicios onde hai un oco e nós temos que ir completand o coas palabras […]. Creo que che queda mellor cunha frase que cunha palab ras solta” (int. 15). At the o ther end of t he con tinuum, we find the t echniq ues which are repo rted less frequently (3% of the interviewe es); the f ollowing can be me n tioned. Two of these are also related to learn ing in co ntext: t eaching how to infer the meaning of unknown terms by using context clu es and exten sive readin g. The former is supported by s ome of them as a good way o f assimi lating new words, instead o f an overuse of the dictionar y: “Ensínanos a que ten temos adiviñar o signif icado sen recorrer a o dici onario […] p orque o dicionario é interesante pero has ta c erto punto […]. Ade mais, ao pensar sobre a palabra despois xa tamén de spois cho fai recordar me ll or cando volve aparec er de novo” (in t. 3) o r “ Non nolo dá así directamente. Mándanolo sacar ela po lo contexto” (int. 6). Reading is also seen as an effective met h od to gain le xical improvement; some learners st ated that Chapter 4: Results 298 teachers should encourage reading in class, as in “ nos o briga a ler textos e non a aprendernos o vocabulario” (int. 10); “ Facénd onos ler libros ou lendo na clase algún artigo… ” (int. 100) or “Sobre todo o uso de le ctur as para po der ir co llendo máis vocabulario e tamén atender ás dúbidas que pu idera ter o alumnado ” ( i nt. 114). A similar percentage of ind ividuals (3%) alluded to the technique of using English as the language o f co mmunicati on in class w hich c ould be regarded as a source o f vocabular y learn ing. They consid er that by being exposed to t he t arg et language they will improve their lexical co mpetence, for example: “Ten unha maneira diferente de dar clase […]. N os anos pasad os non me falaban inglés , en cambio con ela o pouco tempo que levo penso que apre ndín mo ito máis […]. É bastante imp ortante porque aínda que non coñeza s todas as palabras, sempre colles algo” (int. 13) or “En vez de decirte lo que significa la palabra en nuestro idioma, el profesor nos lo explica con gestos pero todo en inglés. Lo e ntiend es mejor” (int 26). Some o thers (3%) f ocused o n ph onetic aspects to describe what they considered good teaching practice, as s hown in “Sobre todo lo enfoca a la pronunciación de las palabras” (int. 9) or “ Se para bastante en la pronunciación […] considero qu e es bastante importante porqu e comprueb o que a v eces escuchando a otra gent e que no la tie ne tan buena me es difícil entenderla” (int. 77). The same percentage applied to those who pointed to adapting vocabu lary to students’ needs as a correct teachin g met h od, as exe mplified in “ deb en agrupalo e buscar t emas que sexan realmente útiles […] non desfasado ou fóra de lugar” (int. 90 ), “Nos enseña cosas de hoy en día en Inglaterra. La jerga de hoy en día […] Chapter 4: Results 299 pues no mucha gente te e nseña” (int. 63) or the case of one student (int. 18 ) whose o nl y aim was to pass the English exam: he considered that his teacher fulfilled his expectati ons when focusing exclusively on vocabulary required for t he exam. The thr ee following teaching techniq ues were ac knowledged by an even lo wer number of subjects (2%), namely , the use of audiovisual materials and new technologies (slides, films or so ngs) ; the use o f diagrams and sketches and, curiously enough, the use of word lists. The latter cle arly g oes against the o pinion of the vast majority of le arn ers because, as we will see later on, employing lists of words was clearl y rejected as a “correct” teaching me thod. Finally, some other techniques were also mentioned by 1 % of our sample, such as teaching vocabulary in a ludic way through games or even focusing on word- formation. 8.2. Negative teachin g techn iques As previously explained, among the group of learners who wer e not sat i sfied with the way they were being taught English vocabulary (34%), there was o n e teachin g practice sharpl y criti cized by al most ha lf of this group of students (45%): t he creation of word list s with t he purpose of m emorising them (Fig ure 48). Chapter 4: Results 300 21; 45% 1; 2% 1; 2% 16; 33% 5; 10% 2; 4% 2; 4% Wo rd l i s t s Lit t l e a t t e n t i o n O n l y p ro v i d e s m e a n i n g O n l y d i c t i o n a r y u se U n s u i t a b l e vo c a b u l ar y La c k o f u se P h o n e t i c i n a c c u r a c y Figure 48: Tea ching strate gies labelled as “n egative” by stud ents Indeed, this was widely pointed out as a negative teaching practice by many of them and, curiously e noug h, among the group of lea rners who liked the way of teaching shown by their teachers, a great deal o f them mentioned using list of words as a pa radi gm of what should not be done . Thus, ther e were multip le voices against this t echnique, s uch as “Danos unha lista e dinos: e studade este vocabulario e x a e stá ” ( int. 1 6); “Es lo de siempre: o s estudiáis el vocabulario y n o se le da nin guna im portancia. Es qu e así el trabajo es todo t u yo, llegas a casa y te lo chapas tú todo…” (int. 29); “Manda chapar o libro nada máis. N on e nsina textos nin nad a” (int. 46); “Sempr e nos mandab an memorizar as palabras directamente. Tampouco creo que sexa a maneira máis axe itad a porque é bastante pesado” (int. 88) or “Moitos d eles dab an li stas de vocabulario e creo que así é imposible. Aprendes as listas para o exame, que non é difícil, pero despois es quéc este” (int. 96), just to mention some. Following this, 33% of learners m aintained that teaching vocabulary w as neglected in class. They con sidered that litt l e attenti on was being paid to this area and felt really overwhelmed since it is a hard work t o do o n o n e’s own, as quoted Chapter 4: Results 301 in “Non se detén a explicar, s implem ente o vemos un día e di só aquel que lle parece difícil. Non se centr a en explicalo” (int 22); “Céntrase na gra mática e pasa moi por riba o vocabulario […] eu porque tomo notas en clase de voc abulario per o outra xente que non o fai nunca o v ai estudar” (int 27), “No que é vocabulario dao sempre por sabido. Cre que to dos temos un nivel moi alto e non é así […] Co vocabulario fíxase pero pasa páxina mo i rápid o” (in t 32); “A m aioría dos profesores dicíanche que se non e ntendías algo o buscases no dicionari o. Tampouco se mataban a expl icarche” (int 97) or “Eu penso que eles nos deixan a nós o tema do v ocabulario” (int 1 15). A fewer number o f learn ers (10%) did not like to be provided with the meaning or translation o f the w ord directly without any further explanation by their teachers. They stated that this was not t he right way to do it because if th ey w ere not taught how to use them, they would certainly forget these new terms later on: “Somentes dá o signific ado. Non especific a os diferentes significad os que pode ter […] o que é realmente aprender e no n a aprobar” (int 23); “Estás lendo un texto e dich e o significado pero n on che contextualiza un pouco para que a ti che quede un pouc o mellor, ni n che dá outros exe mplos para que se che gra ve mellor ” (int 42); “O únic o que fai é darche a tradución e eu así sempre me esquezo” (int 43) o r “ Basica mente a través da t raduci ón. Era moi aburrido e realmente no n aprendía moit o” (int 113). Then, some other students (4%) described two different techniques as examples of bad prac tice. On the one hand, they pointed out that teachers did n ot adapt t he le xicon to t heir students’ needs, what made t hem feel uninterested or Chapter 4: Results 302 even frustrated, as confirmed in “Porque nos daba demasiado vocabulario que para nós precisamente non nos é útil. O normal é que che e nsine vocabulario q ue che sexa ú til” (int 68 ) or “ Cousas básicas que debíamos coñecer non as coñecemos e ao mellor coñecemos cousas que a un nativo lle resultan pedante s ou máis formais e vocabul ario básico como o da casa pois non temos nin idea. Carecemos do vocabulari o básico e temos un vocabulario máis académico” ( i nt 78). On the other hand, others were c ritical with t he technique based on lo oking up wo rds in a dicti onary as t he only way of vocabulary learning p rovided by s om e teachers, which l eads t o b oredom and apathy, as reflected in “S ó se fai buscando no dicionario e acabas por perder o entusiasmo” (int 19) or “Era t odo moi técnico e moi teórico. Eu creo que todos os estudantes de inglés nos queixamos d o mesmo e pode parecer un complot contra os profes ores, pero non. Por e xemp lo na clase eles o único que facían era ler o texto e despois dicíanch e o significado ou mandábanche ir ao dicionario e eu creo que iso nos tempos que e stam os é un pouco obsoleto. ” (int 112). Finally, there were tw o facts criti cized by 1% of the su bjects. On e learner considered tha t the problem of the current educa tional system was that stud ents were not t aught h ow to us e the ne w term s, neither orally nor in writing : “Sólo s e estudia el inglés d e libro y no se le da importancia a la pronunciación. Sólo se centran en escribir c orrectament e pero frases, ni siqu iera se centran en enlazar un texto con se ntido ni nada. Se estudia el inglés de libro de to da la v ida ” (int 74). Moreover, another learner claimed that most teachers do not pronounce words accurately e nough, which leads to a complete failure when trying to learn thes e Chapter 4: Results 303 terms: “ Creo que debería aprender a pronunciar bien en inglés , p orque no lo pronuncian bien. Aquí no se pronuncia bien en gen eral” (int 6 7).  Open question 9 : How shou ld they do it ? What is the teac her’s role? We decid ed to go a step further and ask them about the way teachers should carry out this tas k. The ans wers elicited are pr esented below (Figu re 49): 15 ; 24% 2; 3% 4; 6% 11 ; 18% 10 ; 16% 8; 13 % 2; 3% 3; 5% 4; 6% 1; 2% 1; 2%1; 2% T e a c h t o u s e i t C o n t e xt e m b e d d i n g S p e c i f i c e xe r c i s e s S e l f - l e a r n i n g W o r d g r o u p i n g A u d i o v i s u a l m a t e r i a l s W o r d l i s t s R e a d i n g G a m e s E t h y m o l o g y N a t i v e t e a c h e r s r e q u i r e d W o r d f o r m a t i o n Figure 49: Teacher’s rol e in E FL vocabulary teaching id entified by learners Taking into account the most frequently mentioned teaching t echniques, there were four outstanding ones: teachin g how to use vocabulary, using contex ts, making use of specific lexic al exercises an d self-learning . As for the first one, 24% of t he students questio n ed insisted on the idea that the best way of expanding one’s vocabulary is using these recently learn t terms, either in oral exchan ges or in writing. In fact, ma ny of them considered that they lacked oral skills and, cons equently, could not communicate properly: “Dedicarl le polo menos unha hora ao mes a falar entre nós. Falar un pouquiño en inglés, dicindo palabras e repetin do uns e outros pois vaise aprendendo ” (int 19); “Yo Chapter 4: Results 310  Open question 1 2: Do you t hink learning st rategies shou ld be taught? Once they were given a brief explanation o n the notion of learning strategie s, they were as ked their opin ions ab out the suitab ility of strategy train ing in regular lessons. The results were very interesting: 90% of students th ought that the y would like to be train ed in the use of learning strategies in their l earning of English; this definitely sh ows that learners are really interested in strategy training. Conversely, o nly 10% of them were against this type o f instruction in regular classes. T here was a wide range o f reasons for this: Some of t hem considered that students should b e trained in the use o f strategies in specialised didactic session s but not in the general English lessons, as quoted in “Este tipo de técnicas deberí a n enseñarse más bien en tutorías o en alterna tiva a la religión” (int. 20); “Probablemente no n s ei se ll e correspondería en particular ao prof esor de in glés. Ao mellor debería ser algo máis xeral” (int. 98) or “Non porque m oitas persoas coñecen as t écnicas e non teñen por que aburrirse na clase de inglés […] a clase de inglés hai q ue est udar inglés só” (int. 102). Others maintain that it is very difficult to train learn ers in the use of these strategies because each person has to look f or t h e b est way o f learnin g but individu ally, as in “ Es que cr eo que c ada uno tiene su técnica. P or much o que te digan ya acabas en contrando la tuya, no hac e falta que nadie t e diga cómo” (int. 33); “Yo creo que las técnicas y trucos de aprendizaje tiene que buscarlas cada uno por su cuenta porque el profes or n o puede decir: a t i te va m ejor este método y a ti e ste o tro. Yo cr eo que e so es al go muy particular” (int. 47) ; “Cada un xa ten as súas propias técnicas. Hai xente que Chapter 4: Results 311 lle van m ellor as imaxes, hai xente que as recorda agrupándoas en grupos de determinada forma. Eu penso que cada p ersoa te n a súa regra.” (int. 55); “ Yo creo que esas técnicas son individuales. Entonces no creo que haya una técnica para enseñar. Además, las técnicas no se aprenden en una clase sino que cada un o tiene su forma de interiorizarla y no creo que un profeso r pueda enseñarla” (in t. 60). 4.2.1.2. Students ’ reported use of VLSs Once learners’ beliefs about the process of lexical acquisition were gathered, they were required to verbalise the procedure they would follow when facing co ncr ete tasks. This was clearly an attempt to elicit th ose learning strategies most frequently used by learner s so as to compare them with the results obtained from the questionnaires. Thus, the following open questions were conceived as hypothetical situations to find out the meaning of new words (question 13 ), to store them into memory (question 14 ), to r etrieve them from m emory when needed (question 15) and to use them (qu estion 1 6). Lastly, we were also interested in metacognitiv e strategies so they were asked w heth er they re gulat e d their own learning proce ss (what to learn and when – question 17) and whether they restricted themselves only to vocabulary items covered in class o r require d to pass an ex am (question 18). The respons es obtained will be put forth below: Chapter 4: Results 312  Open question 13: Im agine you come ac ross an unknow n word, what w ould you do to find out it s meanin g? As e xpected, the reported s trategies were consisten t with their answers on the survey and they included co gnitive strategie s, such as guessing techniques, analysing/reasoning p rocedures, dictionary use and social strategies which involve asking someone more proficient in th e target lang uag e, either the teacher or one of their classmates: 93; 80% 14; 12% 5; 4% 5; 4% U s i n g c o n t e x t c l u es D i c t i o n a ry us e A s k i n g fo r h elp A n a l ys i n g c o n t ra s t i v ely Figure 51: VLS s employ ed to d iscover/under stand wor d mean ing The most frequently used technique was trying to derive the meaning of the new term by m eans o f contextual c lues, rep orted by 80 % o f the learne rs questioned. In fact, most of them would try to m ake se nse o f the sentenc e or paragraph where the new word is embedded to guess the meaning of the unknown term, as quoted in “Pois dende o último p unto ata o outro no que estea metida esa palabra na frase leeríaa varias veces tentan do deducir as que están arredor e a partir dis o saca ría o significado desa ” (int. 1 9); “Pri meiro leo a frase e Chapter 4: Results 313 despois a parte que n on e ntendo intent o metela no co ntext o no que se encont ra e ila deducind o aínda que non sexa o significado ex acto” (int. 21); “Pues leyen do la frase e ntera e intentando av eriguar el significad o que concu erde” (int. 30); “Intento sempre ler sempre dende un pouco antes de que apareza a palabra e buscar alg o q ue me encaixe a í, polo sentid o xe ral” (int. 42); “Leo o texto en conxunto e procuro ver se me teñen se ntido esas pal abras que non coñezo” (in t. 53) or “ Leo o texto en xe ral para coller o sentido do t exto. Desta m aneira d eduzo ou in terpreto alg ún significado, aín da que ao mellor non se xa cen por cen ex acto , pero co ll o un pouc o o significado completo d o te xt o” (int. 75), just to menti on some. Apart from using context clues to find o ut the me aning o f new words, dictionaries (especially bilingual o nes) were tools em pl oyed to check their meaning. Here it is n ecessary to make a remark: a great part of the learn ers who claimed th ey deri ved meaning fro m the context reported m aking use of dictionaries to c heck whether they were right o r w rong in their hypothese s. However, the percentage of 12% r eflected in Figure 5 1 applies only t o tho se learners whose learn ing strategies ha ve no thing to do with using context bu t employing a dictionary when coming across unknown te rms, as qu oted in “Primeiro, o dicio nari o” (in t. 40); “Como mi tiempo está bastante contado […] lo que hago e s ir al dicci onario” (int. 77); “Pues si tengo un diccionario a m ano me voy al dicci onario, al bilingü e; no me lo pienso” (int. 87); “Eu utilizo un dicionar io electrónico que é máis rápido” (int. 1 02) or “Seguramente la buscaría en un diccionario bilin güe directamente” (int. 103). Chapter 4: Results 314 Other subjects, 4% to be mo re exact, were completely reliant o n some one else’s knowledge, namely th eir teacher or nati ve speakers, and in some c ases the y preferred to d o this inst ead of try ing out an autonomous way of learn ing, in “ Poi s chamaría á profesora e pregun taríalle” (int. 36); “Se está o profesor ao lado pois xa lle pregunto a e l ” (int. 40); “Primeiro pregúntolle ao profesor” (41); “Primeiro preguntaríalle ao m eu profesor” (int. 49); “Se estou na clase preguntar ao profesor se me p ode axuda r” (int. 90) or “Procuro estar na compaña dun falante nativo e apunto as palabra s para cando v eña pregunt arlle” (int. 102). Lastly, the same percentage of learners (4%) was pro ne to analysing unknown words in order to understand their me aning . Thus, t hey ex a mine t arg et words to determine the likeness in comparison with one’s own or other known languag es, as explained in “ El inglés está m u y influenciad o po r otras len guas y si tiene alguna raíz lat ina pues ver si corresponde con la lengua lati na” (int. 9); “ Primeiro penso na orixe da palabra, nas similitudes con o utras palabras” (int. 12); “ Buscand o as palabras que signifiquen o mesmo, quero dicir, que teñan a mesma raíz. T amé n estudei latín e grego e entón moitas veces coinciden e entón ás v eces sác ans e” (int. 27 ); “Miro se t eñen algun ha similitude con o utro idioma co que poida asócialo o u que a súa raíz t eña algo que ver con algunha palabra que c oñeza” (int. 76); “T ento averiguar se a palabra como substanti vo, como adxectivo, e tamén igual polo s sufi xos o u os prefixos podo intentar sa ber o que significa ” (int. 96) or “Ver si tien en alguna parte del étimo que me su ene a otra palabra, para establecer vículos a través de ese étimo” (int. 101). Chapter 4: Results 315  Open question 14: Imagine you w ant to store these r ecently learnt terms into your memo ry, what wou ld you do? The answers elicited from this question show that t he vast majo ri ty of student s resorted to a varied set o f sto rage into memo ry strategies to keep new words in their memory (Figure 52). 1; 1% 2; 2% 1; 1% 12; 9% 3; 2% 2; 2% 13; 10 % 15; 11% 32; 24% 4; 3% 5; 4% 41; 31% W o r d l i s t s C o n t e xt e m b e d d i n g R e v i e wi n g wo r d s R e p e t i t i o n W o r d a s s o c i a t i o n W o r d g r o u p i n g P r a c t i c i n g n a t u r a l i s t i c a l l y C r e a t i n g m e n t a l p i c t u r e R e p r e s e n t i n g s o u n d s i n m e m o r y P h o t o g r a p h i c m e m o r y C r e a t i n g r h ym e s V o c a b u l a r y c a r d s Figure 52: VLS s employ ed to store word s into m emory Thus, among the se t of storage into memory strategies, there is a group of techniques involving the creation of m ental linkages. T he first of them is word grouping (3%), that is, classifying words in meaningful groups by conceptual similarities, by grammatical cate g ory, by word spe lling, etc., as in “Trato de agrupalas o u porque te ñan un signi ficado parecido o u porque pertenzan a un campo semántico igual. Tr ato de memorizalas” ( int. 42) or “Organizando dalgunha maneira por familia léxica ou pola forma da palabra” (int. 93) . The second strategy, re ported by 9% o f the st udent s inte rview ed, is associating new term s with familiar concepts already stored into their memory, especially resorting to mother t ongue lexic on, as reflected in “Intent o identificala con algo, unha palab ra Chapter 4: Results 316 que se pareza ao castelán” (int. 6 ); “ Int ento asociar palabras que se parezan en como se escriben” (int. 8); “Si fuese un objeto trataría de asociar ese o bjet o en m i idioma y en ingl és” (int. 9); “ Int ento relacionar lo que ya co n ozco en inglé s” (in t. 74); “Buscando más palabr as que tengan relación […] La relaciono con palabras de mi propia lengua y de la lengua que e sto y estudi ando” ( int. 85). Finall y, 24% of interviewees claim ed to place n ew words in to a meanin gful context s o as to remember them, as quoted in “ Ás veces, pero menos, acostumo a po ñela s en varias fr ases” (int. 10); “Collería esa p equena frase onde es taba, relacionaríaa con outra que puid ese facer eu” (int. 15); “Fabricar frases con esa palabra” (int. 46); “Éme máis fácil memoriza r unha frase que esa palabra soa” (int. 51); “T rato de dicir unha frase coa palabra dentro ou im axin o unha situación” (int. 5 2); “Intent ar poñelas nunha frase para acordar me, nun contexto concreto” (int. 62) ; “Si hubiera una frase que se me pueda qued ar fácilmen te, c on la frase ya me ayuda a recordar esa palabra ” (int. 91), just to men tion some. The second set o f st ra tegies within storage into memory o nes entails the application of images and sound s, for instance, when dealing with imag es, it may refer to bo th creating a mental picture of the new te rm (2%), as quoted in “Intentar asociala a un obxecto en e spañ ol que xa c oñezo” (int. 17); “Imaginándom e el o bjeto en cast ellano” (int. 24) or “Asócioa c unha imaxe m ental que fago d o te xto” (in t. 100), and remembering a writte n item by creating a “photographic” pictur e in o ne’s me mory of the place where it is located (2%), as recorded in “A ve rdade é que para algunhas palabras teño memoria f otográfic a. Ao m ellor vexo unha palabra e acórdome que a v in naquel lado” (int. 21) o r “Eu Chapter 4: Results 317 teño moita m em oria fotográfica e acó rdom e da situació n da palabra dentro da páxina” (int. 6 8). Furthermore, as far as sounds are concerned, 2% o f the learners interviewed claimed they remember ed words by making auditory representations of them. They generally link new terms with familiar sounds or words according to the way they are pronounced and this helps recall them better, in “Fijarme bien en ella y recordarla [ …] fijarme en la pronunciación” (int. 25 ) o r “Máis ben en como s oa, na pronunciación ” (int. 2 7). Mo reover , one of t hem (1%) claimed to m ake use of a song (rhymes) to remem ber new v ocabul ary items as quoted in “Haría una canción relati va a ella y trataría de memorizarla asociándola co n algo parecid o e n mi propia lengua” (int. 9). Apart from those, 12% of the subjects questioned rev iew the already learnt words at different intervals in order to recall them: “Para los exámenes cojo todas las palabras del curso anterior y todo y las miro” (int. 29); “Las suelo repasar bastante” (int. 49); “Las veo un día y luego durante el fin de semana suelo repasar esa lista” (int. 54); “Léoas periodicamente ” (int. 57); “Las miraría cada poco tiempo, en función de mis nece sidade s” (int. 65) or “ Revísoas días ant es do exame” (int. 107). The last set of storage into m emory strategies invo lves using mechanical techniques. It is curious to see that one of the strategies included here , i.e. creating lists of words on not ebooks or separate sh eets was sharply criticized by most of the interview ees; yet it was the most co mmonly employed stra tegy of this group; it was in fact reported by 31% of learners, as reflected in the following Chapter 4: Results 318 quotes: “Pois anotaríaa nun sitio onde a v ise ben” (int. 4); “Meteríaa na libreta de vocabulario” (int. 18); “Teño sem pre unha libretiña o nde apunto sempre o máis importante” (int. 22); “Escribiríaa na lista cun si nónimo en castelán” (int. 28); “Escribireina nunha libreta e x a a iría aprendend o” (int. 44); “Usar os listado s de vocabulario que poida e ir einos e laborand o pouco a pouco e a través dela irlles botando un ollo de v ez en canto” (int. 50 ); “Escribiéndolas en una lista y repasándolas habitua lmen te para usarla s en ejercicios” (int. 63); “En una hoja de papel busco la traducción al español e intento rela cionar lo que ya conozco en inglés e ir haciendo una lista de palabras sinónimas que ya sé lo que significan ” (int. 74); “Faría un glosari o pequeno ou algo así” (int. 90); “Escríboa en grande n un folio e cólgoa na parede do cuarto para levantarm e e v ela todos os días ata que xa estea na m emoria ” (int. 98). T h e other mec hanica l tool is that o f employing vocabulary flashcard s, one of the students refers to this as f ollows : “Facerll es fichas ou algo así […] as fich as de vocabulari o de sempre” (int. 88). Apart from storage into memory strategies, studen ts also reported m aking use of cognitive st rategie s t ha t entail practising. On the one hand, repetition, either oral or written, was reported by 10% o f t he students in terviewed, as “Po i s repítoa varias veces” (int. 10); “Pois simplemente re petín doa un par de v eces” (int. 12) “Como mínimo repit o cada palabra c inco vece s” (int. 2 8); “Repetiríaa varias v ec es en alto e cando vou repetindo vánseme gravand o” (int. 36 ); “Eu re pit o moitísimas veces esa palabra […] pois aprendo esa palabra com o se escribe e quéda me po la repetición. Incluso a e scrib o m oitísimas veces nun papel” (int. 41); “L a memorizo tratando de repetirla en voz alta” (int. 70) o r “E scríbo as coa transcripción fonética Chapter 4: Results 319 varias veces e míroas moitas veces” (int. 106). Beside s, 5% o f learners argu ed that they kept wo rds in their memories by using th em in a ctual c ommunication, bein g able to understand and to express themselves both in speaking and in writing, as quoted in “Sobre todo usalo o máxim o posible” (int. 50); “Es simplement e a través de la práctica, no chapar, sino a t ravés de la práctica” (int. 5 6) or “Procuro aplicarlas a cosas que yo suela utiliz ar” (int. 72) .  Open question 1 5: What w ould you do to retrieve vocabulary items from your memory when ne eded ? Without doubt, this was the most difficult que stion t o answer; retrie ving terms from one’s memory is a complex me nt al process and it is not easy to verbalise ; this may explain why we did not obtain any reply fro m 8 % of t he intervie wees. However, when students were given some time to think about it, we were able to obtain different answers. As observed in Figure 53, learners claimed they made use of memory strategies to retrieve words quickly in communicati ve situations. In this light, techniques entailin g the creation of mental links were report ed, namely, ass ociation. F our per cent of the lea rners int erviewed w ere abl e to r ecall learnt words by their asso ciation with other te rms, either in the target languag e or in their own language: “ Polo parecido da palabra con algunha outra tanto en inglés coma en galego” (int. 5); “Pola palabra do meu idiom a á que a aso ciei” (int. 13); “ Pode ser que haxa palabras que asocio do mesmo grupo, vocabulario da comida ou doutra sit ua ción” ( int. 55) or “Eu sei que hai certas expresi óns que en español s e din dun xeito e en inglés de outro , e nt ón canto m aior é a diferen za entre elas, mellor as l embro porque canto máis diferentes, máis sinx elo me é Chapter 4: Results 326 the importance of develop ing metacognitive awaren ess in our learners as a way to reinforce stronger cognitive skills and bett er learning progress.  Open question 18: Do you restrict yourself to the voca bulary items taught by your teacher or do you hav e additiona l sources of info rmation? This final question also belongs to the group of me tacognitiv e strategies and is aimed at finding o ut if learners are either auton omous in setting their own learning goals o r focus only o n what teachers can t each them. Thus, we want to know whether they restric t themselves to the target language le xicon co vered in class or, o n t he contrary, they make use o f other so u rces to develop t heir lexical competence. The re sults obtained were co nclusiv e: o nly 25% o f interviewees reported being completely dependent on the vocabulary taught by their te achers whilst 75% of learners claimed their own auto nomy in the process of vocabulary learning since they re sorted to varied sources so as to expand their EFL lexicon. Thus, they mentioned reading books, the mass media, the Internet and so on: “ Yo voy a clase simplemente para practica r y leo libros y utiliz o internet, artículos de medicina y ahí se va adquiriendo vocabulario” (Int. 9); “ Si, s em pre canció ns en inglés” (Int. 16), “ Si, por exemplo cando as vexo na televisión” (Int. 4 4); “ Tamén estudo o vocabulario que sae en can cións” (Int. 45); “Acostumo a ler libros […] inclus o en películas ou na prensa ou na telev isi ón” (Int. 51); “Me centro e n lo que vimos en clase porque sé que van a caer e jercici os que v imos en clase pero luego trato también de buscar otro tipo de material […] canciones, al go que haya es cuchad o, el paquete de cualquier cosa que vi el super mercado y que tenía los ingrediente s Chapter 4: Results 327 en inglés, cualquier cosa” (Int. 58); “Yo tengo otros intereses y normal mente no me quedo sólo en lo de clase […] a mayores leyendo novelas siempre intento sacar ot ro tipo de v ocabulario porque el que nos dan e n clase no es suficiente” (Int. 74) ; “Non me centro só no da clase. O que leo en xornais ou en revistas o u escoito nas películas, todo me interes a” (Int. 93).  Open question 1 9: Further r emarks or com ments As explained above, learner s we re given the c hance to add any further commen t or explanation about their learning process and 8 interviewees (7%) decided to d o so. Curiously enough, 4 of them (3,5%) sharply criticised o ur current vocabular y teaching approach , since they consider ed that it was either b oring (“Se cambiaran estes d o es tudio do vocabu lario de opinion [...] As í é m oi abu rrid o e do únic o q ue te acordas é para o exame, pero unha vez que o fas xa t e esqueces porque ti o que queres é estudar e sa li ngua para poder usala e non acordarte pa ra o exame” [Int. 1 0]); too t he oretical (“A mi me gustaría que las c lases de inglés se hiciera n mucho más de práctica para aplicar lo que sabes, no tan plastones” [Int. 29]); ineffective (“Deberían c am biar el sistema de aprendizaje de ing lés porque sali mos con muy mal nivel de bachillerato” [Int. 87]) or inade quate (“Cr eo que se deberí a dar m áis v ocabulario de fo rmas coloquiais que non v eñen nos dici onarios sequera” [Int. 88]). Furthermore, 2 subjects (2%) claimed that they considered our work an interesting research issue: “Me parece interesante es te tema” (Int. 64) and one primary school te acher learning EFL: “Cando nos pasastes o cuestionari o Chapter 4: Results 328 pareceume moi interesante [...] porque eu levo o do portfo lio en primaria” (Int. 66). Finally, it w as quite encouraging to be thanked by one of t he interviewees for carrying out resear ch of th is kind (“ Grazas a vós po r e stas cuestións que estades facendo. A ver se se pode facer m ellor o ensino” [Int. 19]). Mo reover , another learner wanted t o prais e hi s English t eacher, which is ve ry gra tifying for us as EFL instructors (“La verdad es q ue la profesora es es tupenda. Sólo es o” [Int. 56]). 4.2.2. Results of the teach ers’ intervie ws The interview questions were o rganised in accordance with the sections in t h e questionnaire address ed to the students. Once again, the first se ction consisted of 12 open questions dealing with teachers’ b eliefs a bout lexical acq uisition and instruction whereas the second section in the interview sought further in-depth data o n te ach ers’ percept ions about the learning strategies employed by their own st ud ents. By means of 6 open questions, teaching professionals were as ked to de scribe those lea rnin g st rategies employed by their students in t he process of EFL v ocabulary acquisition . To end with, they were told that an y professional remark or opin ion about th e topic under discussi on would b e highly appre ciated. 4.2.2.1. Teacher s’ beliefs ab out vocabulary The 12 questions included in the first section o f the interview aimed to investigate teachers' attitudes towards vocabulary teaching and learnin g. Just as was the case in the learners’ interviews, the answers elicited from 2 7 subjects will be presented here, being illustra ted with clarif ying quotation s directly taken fr om each interview. Chapter 4: Results 329  Open question 1: Do you think that your students li ke studying English vocabula ry? This questio n sought to find o ut t he overall impression of teachers abo ut their students’ degree of liking or not liking E nglish vocabula ry. The results show th at they were quite pessi mistic about their students’ e nthusiasm for the foreign language (51.9%), as reflected in “Non lles g usta nada. De feito moitas veces pasan d el e iso que nós sempre lles poñe mos unh a pregunta que vale c omo mínimo o 20% e aínda así pasan” (Int. 7 ) or “Creo q ue lo hacen básicamente porque tienen que hacerlo ” (Int. 16). On the contrary, 37% of the subjects thoug ht that they liked it, in “I think they realize now mo r e and more t hat v ocabulary is the ke y rather than kn owle dge of structure and grammar” (Int. 11). L astly, a thir d group (11.1 %) believ ed tha t learners’ likin g o r dislikin g Eng lish lexicon w as mostly dependent on the teaching approach, p ointing out th e traditi onal methods a s th e main cause for them to dislike EFL vocabulary. In o ther w ords, they ac cept their own responsibilit y in making learners appreciate t his language area: “Estudar listas de vocabulario é pesado. Agora, aprender vocabulario nunh a unidade didáctica non d ebería. Dep ende de com o se formule didacticamen te” (Int. 9)  Open question 2 : In your op inion, why do they study Eng lish vocabu lary? It was also interesting to know stud ents’ motivations to study EFL lexicon from their teachers’ point o f view. The results in Figure 55 show that the participant s reported a total of seven r easons. In accordan ce w ith the main opini on obtained in the previous question, that is, st udents’ dislike for the studying of English vocabulary, most of the teachers interviewed (34 %) think that learners stud y Chapter 4: Results 330 lexicon only to pass exams, as in “ La mayoría de ellos lo hacen puntualmente para exámenes” (Int. 1); “Creo qu e é máis ben un tema de saber palabras para aprobar o exame que saber palabras para poder defenderse no idiom a” (Int. 4); “O lo estudian para un examen po rque quieren sacar nota o no lo estudian” (Int. 15); “Estúdano porque saben que o necesitan para po d er seguir as leccións e log o facer o exame” ( Int. 24). Besides, 15% of the subjects o f the sample also sh ow this negative v iew when t hey claim that students only take new wo rds into account because it is a compulsor y part of the study of the FL and they have to do it whether they like it or not, in “Eu creo que o estudan porque se ven forzados, non porque lles gus te” (Int. 7) or “Porque lles dis que lles v as pregun tar nun exame, baixo coacción porque de motu propio, nada ” (Int. 21 ). Conversel y, there was a group of t eachers (27%) wh o argued tha t their studen ts learnt E nglish vocabula ry to gain more fluency in the FL , especially in oral int eractions : “Le interesa conoce r cómo se dic en ciertas palabras en o tra lengua y después utiliz arlas cuando tien en oportunidad de hacerlo” (I nt. 2); “Supongo que adq uirir cuanto más nivel de vocabulario mejor para luego poderse expresar con m ás precisión, tanto escrita como oral” (Int. 8); “To ge t some fluency and no t be searching for words, not to stop and hesitat e so that th ey get the words th ey need ” (Int. 11). Finally, fo ur of these teac h ers me ntioned three differen t reasons to study EFL words: either to understa nd te xts in English (8%), as quoted in “Principal mente porque queren saber todo o que se está dicind o nun texto ” (Int. 22); due to professional reasons, that is, to find a go od job in the future (4 %), in “P ois desde necesidades labo rai s ou para buscar traballo” (In t. 23) ; or because student s re all y Chapter 4: Results 331 want to broaden their kno wledge of the FL (4%). Interestingly enough, 8% o f our teachers could not provide a n answer to the qu estion p osed. 1; 4% 2; 8% 4; 15% 7; 27% 1; 4% 2; 8% 9; 34% To pass exams To gain fluency It's compulsory To understand English texts To find a job To broaden English knowledge No idea Figure 55: Tea chers’ id eas abo ut studen ts’ reasons for learnin g EFL vocabu lary  Open question 3 : Do you thin k that English voc abulary is diffi cult to learn? Another aspect worth inve stigating was the teachers’ opinion about the difficult y of learning English lexicon. Based o n the results obtained, this learning process was ranked by the m ajori ty of the participants ( 63 %) as an easy t ask, whereas 22.22% o f instructors c onsidered it to be intricate. Moreover, four o f t he subjects interviewed (14.81%) were not so categ orical since they claimed that some areas of EFL lexicon are difficu lt whereas others are no t, depending on whether we a re dealing with words fro m Germanic or from Latin origin; one o f them even stated that traditional methods m ake word acquisition hard er than modern ones. It was not enough to know that s ome instructor s claimed that learners have to confront many difficulties in learning English words. We also wanted to find out why they thought so; these were the results obtained (Figure 56): 40% of the instructors belie ve that learning EFL wo rds is hard because studen ts’ mother Chapter 4: Results 332 tongue and the target language have differen t origin and their lexical repertoire s are v ery diff erent. Howeve r, 3 0% of sub jects thought that the difficulty lied in th e large a mount of words students have to learn, wher eas one of the m s tated that vocabulary ite ms are easily forgotten if the y are not constantl y used. 1; 1 0% 2; 30% 3 ; 40% Differen t fro m m ot h er t on g u e To o b road S t u d en t s t e n d t o f o rg et it Figure 56: Tea chers’ id eas abo ut reasons why EFL lexi s is difficu lt to learn  Open question 4: Once you r students finish school, will they have acquired enough voc abulary to expr ess themselves flu ently? The answers elicited from this questi on show that m ost teachers did not think that their students would become fluen t speakers of English after th eir instructional period. Ho we ver, there was a group o f educators (37%) who were optimistic about their disc iples’ future achievements in the FL. This was exactly the same percentage of interviewe es who stated that this questio n had to be answered taking into acc ount particular learners. T hey firmly believed that it was difficult t o generalise and it was necessary to consider learner’s particul ar characteristics and individu al features: “Hay alu mnos que so n bastante buenos a Chapter 4: Results 333 todos los niveles, tant o en pronunciación como en re tención que sienten interés” (Int. 2), tasks required : “ Depende da actividad e que fagan” (Int. 10), aptitude: “It depends o n individual students. There are students that can do it and others probably will never do it; it’s a question of aptitude ” (Int. 11), m otivation: “ Ha i alumnos que teñen unha maior motivaci ón que outros e entón é máis fácil que a súa fluidez sexa tamén mellor” (Int. 14), pers onal work: “Algunos tienen un nivel muy adecuado para e ste curso, leen mucho, escuchan m ucho la radio o ven la televisión” (Int. 19) o r educational level: “Depen de d e qué ni vel este mos habland o: Los de la universidad creo que sí. Un alu mno que acaba bachillerato debería tener un niv el para expresarse con fluidez ” (Int. 20). Furthermore, a smaller number of teachers (26%) do not believe their students will acquire the skills to obtain a fair command o f English words which may allo w them to express fluen tly in Eng lish.  Open question 5 : Do you think that your students are confident in a chieving this goal? This questi on is co nnected with the pre vious on e in o rder to c ontrast, on the one hand, t eacher’s beliefs about their stud ents’ capacities t o achieve a fair command of English vocabulary an d, on the other hand, th e perceived co nfidenc e o f students to acqu ire it. Roughly speaking, fr om th e i nstructors’ point of v iew, students are slightly more pessimistic than th eir teachers. In other w ords, most of the teach ers (48.1 %) argued that their pupils were n ot confident in achiev ing the aforementioned fluency, whilst in the prev i ous question only 2 5.9% of t eachers did not give thei r Chapter 4: Results 334 students credit for it. Conversel y, 37% of the respondents considered that students show ed self-confi dence towards an y vocabul ary improvement and 14.8% of them thought t hat this was highly dependent on students as individuals: “Los más deshinib idos t iran para adelante y hay o tros que tienen pav or a habla r porque no se sienten seguros [...] Cad a u no es un mundo y depende de ellos y d e su m icroc osmos” (Int. 2 ); “Depende de la p ersonalidad de cada uno. Hay un os q ue son muy confiados y hay otros que a lo mejor t ien en menos confianza y, si n embargo, se expresan mejor que lo s que tienen mucha confianza en sí mismos. Depende” (Int. 2 0).  Open question 6: Do you think it is worth spen din g time on vocabu lary teaching or do you foc us on other a spects, such as grammar ? When dealing with the importance o f the target l exicon in FL teaching, most of the teachers (81.5%) claimed they paid attention to vo cab ulary learning in their classes. Some of t hem were really aware of t he role vocabulary has to play since it was said to complete other teaching aspects, such as grammar: “Sen voc abulari o non podes e xplic ar gramática p orque as frases e stán construídas sobre vocabulario, sexan verbos, adxectivos ou o que sexa” (Int. 4); “As miñas clases céntranse case exclusivamente en vocabulario. É moi importante, sen descoidar os o utros aspectos” (Int. 12 ); “O vocabulario é un aspecto mo i imporante pero non é un elemento illado. Ao contrari o, e stá presente en todas as actividad es e sempre ten que ser atendid o aínda que moitas veces se prime a gramática por motivos de programas ou exames” (Int. 14) or “Das diversas d estrezas da lingu a, Chapter 4: Results 335 as que teñen que ver coa adquisición do vocabulario son as máis importante s” (Int. 18). Among th ose wh o consid ered o ther areas in class rather than vo cabular y (18.5%), several reasons were mentioned to explain this issue. Thus, there was a lecturer who considered that vocabulary should be taught at earlier stages (primary o r secondary school): “Eu son m áis partidaria doutros aspectos a este nivel, a nivel universitario” (Int. 3) , where as ot hers argued that lexicon acquisitio n was a matter of s elf-learni ng: “Eu céntrome m áis nou tros aspectos, sobre todo na compresión, tanto na escrita coma o ral, que me parece máis im p ortante [… ] A miña teoría é que o vocabu lario vai saíndo” (Int. 5); “Eu creo que o vocabulario é fundamental pero creo que tamén depende m oito do pro pi o alumno, do tempo que lle dedica, non tanto d o tempo que ll e dedica o profesor na aula ” (Int. 2 3).  Open question 7: What do you t hink vocabulary learning consists in? What are the best techni ques to l earn it? When discussing t he best me thods to le arn new words, Figure 5 7 below shows that most of the subjects interviewed (27%) indent ified learning words with in given co ntexts as good practice, in opposition to t he traditional method of word lists, as reflected in “Yo creo que les resulta m u cho m ás eficaz hacer ejercicios donde el vocabulario esté en un co nt exto […] Así les resulta mucho m ás fácil y sencillo a la hora de fijar ese conocimiento a largo plazo” (Int. 8) or “Pode haber moitas técnicas pero cr eo que a que mellor lles funciona é ver o v ocabulari o dentro dun cont exto” (Int. 14). Chapter 4: Results 342 3; 8% 1; 3% 3; 8% 2; 5% 2; 5% 3; 8% 5; 14% 7; 20% 3; 8% 2; 5% 6; 16% Encourage students Provide m eans Help to l earn to learn C lari fy c omprehension Corrector S elect voc abulary Teach to use it Teach to associate terms Set minim um contents Emphasise i mportance of vo cabulary Teach pronun ciati on Figure 59: Tea cher’s rol e ident ified by instru ctors Other instructors (16%) pointed to the im age of the teacher as e ncourag ing their students t o lea rn ta rget lang uage word s, “Eu creo qu e o profesor deb e animar. Hoxe en día xa falamos de que non ensin amos nada. O proceso n on é de ensino senón de apr endiz axe” (Int. 9), “I guess creating interests, cr eating a situation where t h e students want to express somethin g about themselves ” (Int. 11) o r “Yo cr eo que tie ne que se r un m otivad or, un es tímulo para que ellos vayan adquiriend o destrezas, no sólo de aprendizaje sin o el propio vocabulari o también” (Int. 15). Fourteen per cent of the interviewees firmly believed that the main r ole a teacher has to adopt is that of h elping their students learn t o learn so t ha t they may become aut onomou s learners. This is clearly seen in the foll owing Chapter 4: Results 343 quotations: “Cada uno tiene una m anera de aprend er v ocabul ario entonces se trata de enseñarles alguna s técnicas que pueden usa r a la ho ra de estudiar” (Int. 1) or “O ro l do pro fes or é facer unha canle entre o vocabulario que ll es faltan e as destezas que nec esitan par a poder saber ese vocabula rio” (Int. 22). Four differen t ideas rela ted to the teachers’ role were stated b y the same percentage of educators, that is, 8% respectively. The first of them claims that teachers have to reinforce their students’ und erstandin g of new terms: “Consi ste en primer lug ar en en señarles a ver cóm o descifra r, que no digo traducir, el vocabulario dentro de un contexto” (Int. 13 ). The second one deals with the id ea of t eachers as correctors of th eir stu dents’ mistakes: “Sobre todo en intenta r dirigir la co rrección de ejercicios y combin arlo con la t écnica individual ” (Int. 8). The teacher is also seen as the person in charge o f selecting the app ropriate vocabulary in accordance with students’ needs: “Lo principal es c oger el vocabulario adecuad o para ellos. Sel eccionarlo” (Int. 20). Finally, two teacher s believed that their main task in vocabulary teaching was m aking their students understand the importan ce of lexicon when learning EFL: “Enseñarles que una lengua consta de palabr as y que ha y que aprend er palabras para poder comunicarse” (Int. 6). Another set of three different roles applied to the FL teac h er was also mentioned by the same number of respondents (5%, respectively). Some st ate d that their main role was teaching learners how to use English w ords in different contexts: “Para min o pape l fundamental é ensinarlles o uso […] e n que mo mento, cando hai que utilizalo” (Int. 5). Ot hers argued that teachers have to te ach how to Chapter 4: Results 344 draw associations betwe en different concept s so as to assimila te them better: “Relacionar ese vocabulari o con otros contextos y con otro vocabulario que gir e alrededor” (Int. 13). Moreover, some others conside red that the teacher’s main role was establishing the m inimum cont ents that have to be covered during th e teaching period so th at stud ents can know e xactly those terms they are su ppos ed to kn ow at each stage: “Si estamos hablando de una clase de lengu a donde va a haber una evaluación final, se s up one que el profesor va a dictar ahí unos límites de hasta dónde ti ene que llegar el apr endizaje de vocabu lario” (Int. 16). Finally, there was a respon dent (3%) whose main preoccupation, apar t from teaching how to use t erm s, was teaching how to pronounce words correctly : “ a pronunciación, n este caso p orque é fundament al par a o inglés” (Int. 5).  Open question 11: What is your opinion about the so-called learning strategies? Do you think th ey work? The vast m ajority o f te ach ers in this stud y ackno wledged the imp ortance o f learning strate gies since they were rated as useful by 63% of the students of the sample. One of them even described his successful experience using this kind of strategies: “E u púxeno en proba nunha lección que fixemos hai pouco. A lecció n era “a miña rúa” e no libro de texto tiñan 6 ou 7 palabras de vocabulario da súa rúa e p ouco máis. Eu preg unteilles aos nenos o que tiñan c ada un na súa rúa e a partir de aí orixinous e un ha lista d e vocabulario que foron m áis de 100 p alabras e a maioría coñécenas porque saiu dele s […] Usárono nun exame mandeilles poñelo, fixer on debux os e funcionou. Eles ente nder on que o necesit aban para falar na súa rúa ” (Int. 21). Conversely, o nly one teacher (3.7%) did n ot beli eve in Chapter 4: Results 345 the effect i veness of le arni ng strategies because she explained that self-learni ng might work wh en dealing w ith other fie lds of kn owledg e but not if app lied to the teaching o f foreign langu ages: “ En xeral dame a impresión de que non. Eu penso que hai un certo erro no da aprendizaxe autó noma. Creo que é mo i útil para determinadas m aterias p ero para un idioma… No caso dun idioma cuxo vocabulario pode ser facil mente recoñecido visual mente, como pode ser o fran cés ou o it alian o, pero un idioma cun vocabulario doutra fam ilia lingüística necesita moita máis dir ección” (Int. 24). Moreover, 29.6% of int erviewees considered tha t sev eral factors account ed for the effectiveness or not o f the afo rementi oned strategies. Some of the m pointed out that students were the key feature in the success o r failure of these techniques, that is, depending o n individual le arners some strategies m ay w ork whereas others may not, “ Tiend o a pensar que sí pero est á claro que no funcionan todas de igu al manera con tod o el mundo.” (Int. 2) or “Si el alumn o está motivado, sí” (Int. 20). Other teachers claimed that the success depended o n the commitment of the teacher who was responsible for those stud ents: “Todo depende mucho d e la capa cidad del pro feso r para implementar esas estrategias o por lo menos para enseñarles cómo se pueden usar” (Int. 16 ) or “Si el profes orado de un centro no está impli cado no valen para nada” (Int. 27). Lastly, one te ach er contended that s ome stra tegies worked whereas others we re n ot re all y eff ective: “Algunas sí, otras no. Ojalá tuviéramos alguna q ue funcionara muy bien” (Int. 6). Chapter 4: Results 346  Open question 12: Do you think that students should be t rained in the use of learning strategies in the E nglish lessons ? Teachers’ po sitiv e attitude towards vocabulary learning strate gies was confirme d in this question sinc e all our interview ees except one were in favour of te achi ng or, at le ast, mentioning this type of strat egies in E ngl ish lesso ns in order to help students be resp onsible for their own learn ing process. In co ntrast with the previous opinions, o ne of the instructors expressed her doubts towards these tech niq ues because she claime d she was more traditional in her teaching. She said that the way sh e learnt Englis h had been effective so she wanted to co ntinue t his way, avoiding rote memorisation: “Os me us derroter os non van por aí. Eu son m ái s tradicional no sentid o de ir aprendend o como todos fomos aprendendo esquivan do a chapatoria o máximo posible ” (Int. 5). 4.2.2.2. Teacher s’ ideas ab out studen ts’ use of VLS s As previously st ated, the main purpose o f this research was to explore the differences in beliefs and strate gy use held by studen ts and t eachers. T his second part investigates those vocabulary learning strategies employed by students that teachers were able to identify in their t eaching experience. These will be illustrated using their own words.  Open question 1 3: Please describe what your s tuden ts do to find out the meaning of new word s Figure 6 0 below shows that w hen teachers we re inquired about t h e strategies employed by students to discover t he meaning of target language terms, many teachers, 38% of them, to be more exact, claimed that the first thing their Chapter 4: Results 347 students did w hen facing an unknow n word was re sorting to a social strategy: asking other p eople for hel p. Some learners are also said to ask ot h er classmates about word meaning, as quoted in: “In r eading, th ey might pr obably ask the person next to them” (Int. 1 1), “Por máis que queiras, o primeir o é sempre preguntarlle ao do lado porque non son o suficientemente atrevidos todos para preguntarche a ti” (Int. 12) and “ O primeiro que fan é pregun tarlle a alguén que teñen cerca e pensan que sabe a resposta. O s alumnos peores inmediatamen te recorren aos que máis saben” (Int. 18); whereas others ask directly to the teacher. In fact, most teachers comp lained about the fact that they w ere somehow us ed by their students as if they we re dictionaries: “ O primeiro tipo é dos que levantan a man e me pregun ta directamente o que significa a palabra” ( Int. 1 4), “Preguntándo me a mí. Ya no siguen leyend o el t exto. Paran, se p onen muy nerviosos y dicen: profe e sto no sé lo que signi fica. Usándome a m í de diccionario” (Int.15), “O profesor sempre é o diccionario con patas” (Int. 18) a nd “Los más pequeños simple mente preguntan ” (Int. 27). Another s trategy fr equen tly reported was using a dictionary or any o ther source of informa tion (Internet, specific glossaries…) to l ook up unknown word s; this was mentioned by 30% o f the subjects intervie wed: “ Hai dúas posibilidades. Se é un te xto xeral, d iciona rio bilingüe. Se é un t exto máis especializado, perder se en internet, buscar gl osario s xa feitos en int ernet que poida haber para ese léxico ” (Int. 3 ); “O terceiro paso é coller o dicio nari o e mirar. Hai xe nt e qu e incluso trae a PDA ou dicci onarios electrónicos ” ( Int. 18). Some teachers shared the idea that it was very important for students to k now how to u se this resource; they even told Chapter 4: Results 348 their students n ot to depe nd so much on dictionary use: “A pri meira reacción é coller os dicionarios da aula. Outro problema é como o u san” (Int. 7) and “A pesar de que a veces tienden enseguid a a ir rápidamente al diccionario, yo intento que en clase no haya dicci onari os disponibles” (In t. 8). Some instructors (2 3%) claimed tha t the best stud ents tried to get the meaning of ind ividual words by pay i ng atte nti on to the co ntext w her e th ey are embedded: “O segundo tipo de alumno que eu espero que sexa ma ior a medida que avance o curso, é o que mira o texto, le a palabra varias veces e trata de tentar ded ucir loxicamente o que significa antes de preoc uparte ” (Int. 14), “Os alum nos de niveis superiores por contextualiz ación, derívano a partir n o contexto” (Int. 17) and “Hai catro intelix entes qu e coll eron rápid o a cousa e e ntón funcionarán por dedu ción” (Int. 2 4). It was a fact t hat m any o f t hese teachers placed emphasis on the importance of this learning strate gy and even train ed their st udents to use it before going to the dictionary or askin g for help, “Eu sem pr e lles d igo: o pri meiro que tedes que facer nos e xercicios d e comprensión de texto é, se hai exercicios de lectura, ler os exercicios […] En se gund o lugar, ler o texto sen preocupart e das palabras. Simplemente l elo e intentar entender de que trata o t ext o, cal é o t em a principal dese texto” (Int. 4 ), “Os m áis m aiores usan o contexto para tentar deducilo porque é algo qu e xa traballam os” (Int. 7) or “Intentamos que cada palabra q ue desconozcan hacerle reflexionar so bre el tipo de palabra qu e es, q ué tipo de categoría tien e, cuál es el context o que la rodea , intentar deducir el significado por el r esto de palabras qu e tenga alreded or” (Int. 8). Chapter 4: Results 349 Finally, 9% of the subjects interviewed believed that students infer m eaning by analysing contrastively EFL wo rds and terms belonging to their mother tongue or to any other the y are familiar with language : “Se apoyan en las palabras q ue conocen de antes [… ] Si algu nos saben francés, a l o m ajor por el francés ya les suena” ( Int. 2) and “Por otro lado, relacionar las palab ras. A veces las palabras son auténticos calcos del latín y para e ll os puede ser m ás o menos fácil de entender” (Int. 13) 18; 38% 14; 3 0% 11; 23% 4; 9% A s k i n g f o r h e l p D i c ti o n a r y u s e U s in g c o n t e x t c l ues A n alyzi n g c o n t ra s t i v e l y Figure 60: VLS s employ ed to d iscover/under stand wor d mean ing as perceived b y teacher s  Open question 14: Please descr ibe what your studen ts do to store these recently learnt ter ms into memory As observed in Figure 61, when asked about their s tudents’ storage into memory strategies, 35% o f the respondents believed that, in general, le ar ners resort to the traditional ( rank ed as such by many inter viewees) m ethod of word list to st ore F L into their m em ory: “Creo que se poñen a estudalo na m aneira t radici onal […] Os máis pequen os utilizan a s l istas de palab ras” (Int. 7) , “Yo creo que hacen lis tas d e Chapter 4: Results 350 palabras y se las chapan” (I nt. 15), “ Teño moitos a lumnos que fan listas durante a clase. No caderno ou nos folios fan seccións específicas para apuntar ese vocabulario” (Int. 1 8). It is curio us to verify that some teachers discourag ed students fro m using this kind o f lists but their pie ce o f advice is far from successful, as seen in “ Ás veces qu eren facer listas e eu dígolle q ue unha lista es tá ben para saber o v ocabulario pero non é a única maneira. Eu dígolles que non fagan listas p orque non se trata dis o senón de moita práctica” (Int. 22). 1; 3% 1; 3% 1; 3% 2; 6% 2; 6% 2; 6% 3; 8% 3; 8% 4 ; 10% 2; 6% 2; 6% 13 ; 35% W o r d l i s t s W r i t t e n r e p e t i t i o n O r a l r e p e t i t i o n R e v i s i o n C o n t e xt e m b e d d i n g U s i n g v o c a b u l a r y G a m e s R e m e m b e r i n g l e a r n i n g s i t u a t i o n W o r d a s s o c i a t i o n P i c t u r e s P h o t o g r a p h i c m e m o r y V o c a b u l a r y c a r d s Figure 61: VLS s employ ed to store word s into m emory as pe rceived by teachers There were others w h o also mentioned two rather traditional techniques: repetition, e ither written (10%) o r oral (8%), and revision (8%). The f ormer, that is, verbal and written repe tition, has to do with langu age rehearsal and is said to be useful for learners : “Sinceramente, cre o que lo escriben muchas veces o lo leen muchas veces, lo repiten en v oz alta” (Int. 16), “A técnica de repetición sempre funcionou, ben sexa oral ou escrita” (Int. 17). The lat ter was said to be employ ed only those days right before t he English test; this was sharply criticized by Chapter 4: Results 351 teachers: “ Eu creo que cand o chega a é p oca do exame revisan os apuntes, os libros e fan listas e estudan ” (Int. 18). Other storag e into memory strategies suggested by a smaller number of teachers took c ontex t into account in two different ways: on the one hand, tw o of them ( 6%) e xplained that some learners integrat ed recently learnt t erms into meaningful sentences or contexts in order to recall them bett er, “ En Bacharelato, algúns pero moi pouc os o utiliza n dun ha m aneira act iva. Collen as palabras e tentan facer frases con elas de maneira que sexan significativas” (Int. 7). On t h e other hand, t he same percentage of teachers (6%) declared that some o f their pupils were able to reme mber words b y remembering the co ntext o r situation where the term was embed ded: “Penso que recordando ou a situación da frase ou o contexto do texto. Va no almacenand o” (Int. 5). There were so me instruc tors whose st udents em ployed specific types of strategies because they trained them to do so. Some of these maintain that their pupils create links between words so as to store them into their memory; t his was considered by this group o f instructors as a successful strategy: “ Es buen o enseñarles a utilizar la asociación, no de significado con una palabra sino de u n significado con una palabr a en un cont exto deter minado. Por eso que la idea d e utilizar unidades co n topics concretos v iene bien a la hora de fijar eso” (Int. 8). Some others contended that students are instruc ted to us e the words they com e across as much as possible in order to retain the m in t heir m emory: “ Si y o q uiero que retengan ese vocabulario te ndré que trabajarlo procurando utilizarlo en el Chapter 4: Results 358 gusta moito a música e seg uen co vocabulario ” (Int. 7) and “Quizás con la músi ca más” (Int. 16). Another group of instructors (6%) said that some learners needed English vocabulary for pr ofessional re asons, as described in “Pois eses son 4 ou 5 alumnos de c ada 1000 que traballan estudando o vocabulario ou se no seu traballo lle cadra utilizar ing lés pois fan o” (Int. 24). Finally, t here were two other instances of vocabular y use me nti oned by two teachers ( 3% respecti vely): t he first o ne refe rs to the fact that learners incorporate words t aught in class when doing written tasks, as in “Despois nas redaccións sempr e hai alumnos que in tentan inc orporar ese vocabu lario nas s úas redaccións ou nas tarefas qu e fan na clase” (Int. 23). The second one is concerne d with the application o f k n own EFL terms to the understanding of texts, either written or ve rbal : “Creo que o utlizan máis de xe ito pasivo, lectura e recepción oral” (Int. 17).  Open question 17: Do you think your students regulate or plan their own vocabula ry learning process? As regards the group o f metacognitive strategies that regulate and monitor students’ learning process, the v ast majority of the teachers in this stud y (66.7%) reported t hat their st uden ts did not regu late o r plan how t o learn new wo rds in English. Indeed, they complai ned abo ut the fact that learners spent little or no time on vocabulary, as obs erved in: “Trabáll ano porqu e nós o traballamos na cla se e facemos un m ontón de exercici os na clase pero á hora de estudalo pas an e eu x a non sei que facer” (Int. 7), “ Preparan os exercicios que lles m andamos para a casa Chapter 4: Results 359 onde s e ven un po uc o todos os aspect os pero non se trata dun estudo sistemático ou re grado do vocabulari o” (Int. 14) and “Limítanse a estudalo para a data do exame. Non teñ en unha din ámica de estudo ” (Int. 22). In accordance with the previous views, a small group of respondents (18.5%) specified that some studen ts devoted some time to s tud y EFL wo rds but only righ t before an exam, which was also considered as something negative, as observ ed in “Salvo situaciones puntual es tipo pre-exa men, por ejemplo, donde sí saben qu e es un contenido que puede caer en algún ejercicio” (Int. 1), “Unos días antes del examen repasan pero enfocado a h acer el e xam en y s alvarlo, nada m ás. L ueg o n o les interesa mucho más” (Int. 15) and “Sí, los dos días anteriores al examen” (Int. 27). Conversely, only 14 .8% of the respo ndents answe red affirmatively t o this question b ecause they ad mitted training their st uden ts to d o s o: “Mis alu mnos, sí porque se lo pongo en el examen y lo tienen que estudiar. Le tienen que dedicar tiempo porque si no, no lo hacen bien” (Int. 6) and “Eu supoño que si porqu e desde o principio ll es digo que é o único qu e teñen novo nestes curs os” (Int. 12). It is worth mentioning that one of them taught at un iversity to learners taki ng translation studies so stud ents were trained t o create specific gloss aries: “Si, levan a cabo moita documenta ción de termos e máis as gl osas, p olo que si lle d edica n tempo específico” ( In t. 3). I n other w ords, only th ose students who are in structe d to spend time o n vo cabu lary follow this rule. Otherwise, they are said not to be interested in this par ticular aspect of EFL l earning. Chapter 4: Results 360  Open question 18: Do you think your students r estrict themselves to the vocabula ry items you t eac h them or do they h ave additiona l sources o f information? Results fro m the intervie ws indicat ed t hat teachers did not agree on wheth er students focu sed onl y on those terms taugh t in cl ass or the y exp anded the ir lexicon using other sources of knowledge, according t o their interests, mainly, videogames, Internet websites, computer software, m ass media, songs, films in English, etc. Thus, 44% of t hem fir mly believed that learners were interes ted in acquiring more EFL words than those studied in normal lessons : “ Ha y tres filones que son interesantes. Uno so n lo s videojuegos que v ienen en inglés y t e suelen preguntar co sas por la c uen ta que les tr ae. Otro es surfear po r int ernet so bre la vida de cualquier actor o c antante…” (Int. 2) , “ Sí, yo creo que tienen intereses personales porque, de hecho, es una de las bases para aprender no sólo vocabulario sino un idiom a en general. Si tienen un interés añadido e n la lengua inglésa les lleva a escuchar música en ese idio ma, a leer periódicos, novela s, libros, etc.” (Int. 8) and “Tienen otro s intereses p or su cuenta […] V en películas en los canales digitales que aunqu e les ponen la traducción siempre hay algo que se queda” (Int. 13). In contrast, t here was a smaller group of responde nts (1 8.5%) who claimed that, in general, the y did not observe an y other interests from their students apa rt from the vocabulary pr esented and studied in class: “ Non sei se é qu e son moi mal pensada pero creo que se centran no da clase só” (Int. 3) or “Yo cr eo que van al del libro [ …] creo que estud ian s ólo y exclusivamente para aprobar el examen. El Chapter 4: Results 361 inglés para e llos no es más que una asignatura más que tienen que hacer” (Int. 15). Finally, other teachers (38%) also shared t he same negative opinion as the previous ones but they specif ied that there are ve ry small groups o f good learners who tried to r einforce th eir lexic al c ompetence b y usi ng other resources an d techniques outside t he classroom, “Una minoría, a lo mejor l os m ás motivados sí que se inter esa por alguna c osa más, sobre t odo cuando son temas qu e les interesan como música, letras de canciones…” (Int. 1), “L a gran mayoría se centr a únicamente en el vocabul ario que se presenta en clase. L u ego ese 15% del q ue hablamos antes a ve ces v ienen co n dudas de un a canc ión o de alg o que v ieron en internet” (Int. 16), “Normalmente os m ellores, o s que teñen máis inquietude s, preocúpanse. Son os que collen os libros para le r ou que t entan ver o DVD en versión orixinal subtitulad a e logo hai o s que van a rastras e basicament e fan o mínimo para sacar o curso” (Int. 18) and “Pois a grande m aioría céntrase no d a clase e n x eral pero hai a lumnos q ue co n internet ou c os chat s, c orreos electrónicos, mensaxes o u iso que saben máis vocabulario que lles interesa a eles para poder comuni carse de ste xeito coas p ersoas que coñecen” (Int.23).  Open question 1 9: Further r emarks or com ments Just as w as the c ase with students’ interviews, some additional comments were provided by the t eachers questioned. It w as interesting to see how 14.8% of them were reall y w orried about the current state of affairs of EFL vo cabular y te achin g and were willing to o btain advice from this st udy : “Es pero que salga bien todo, a ver si mejoramos esto” (In t. 6), “Se atopades a variña máxica para que estuden o Chapter 4: Results 362 vocabulario, apúnto me” (Int. 7), “Espero que el tema mejore en el fu turo porqu e ahora mismo e stá bastante mal” (Int. 15) and “Se sacades alguna co nclusi ón que nos axude, por fav or, mand ádenola” (Int. 25). Lastly, two educators (7 . 4%) sho wed their interest in lexical issues and they emphasised the relevance of this langu age area, as observed in “O vocabulario é un exercicio fascinante pero perigoso porque pode converterse en paráfrases e en comentario cultural. Se un profesor ten experi encias no estranxeir o pode ser unh a tertulia” (Int. 10) and “Creo que e s un tema muy bueno porque cr eo que el vocabulario es muy im p ortante. Incluso después de viv ir en España desde hace muchísimos años, aquí hay términos muy específic os para todo, porque en inglé s las palabras valen para más de una cosa, cre o que si no tienes vocabulario va a ser muy difícil lle gar a tener la fluidez necesaria como para desenvolvers e en otra cultura. Me parec e un tema muy de a ctualidad” (Int. 16). The results elicited from al l the research instru ments designed for t he current study will be discussed in c hapter 5 in o rder to provide definite answers to our original research qu estions. Chapter 5 Discussio n Chapter 5: Discussion 365 Chapter 5 Discussion As me nti oned in t he previous chapters, t h e current investigati on focuses on t he process o f EFL vocabulary learning from a strategic point of v iew. Through both qualitative and quantitative analyses using the SPSS computer software package 11.0 and content analy sis procedure, it was sough t to ans wer so me resear ch questions. The data presented in the preceding chapter will be dis cussed according to the researc h questions formulat ed for this study; the resul ts obtained from th e questionnair es will be compared with th ose gathered from t he interviews: 1. What are the beliefs about the vocabulary learni ng process held by Galician EFL learners ? 2. Are t he learners’ beliefs homogeneous ac ross the different r esearch variables consider ed in this study? 3. Are the afor ementioned learners’ beliefs different from those of thei r teachers? If so, in what way and t o what extent ? 4. Is t here any relationship between the aforementioned beliefs and vocabulary achi evements as sho wn in the VLT? 5. What are the vocabular y learning strategies employed b y Galicia n EFL learners? 6. Are learners’ re p orted vocabu lary learning strategies similar to t h ose perceived by their teachers ? Chapter 5: Discussion 366 7. What particular factors exert influence on the choic e and use of those vocabulary learn ing strategies? 5.1. RESEARCH QUESTIO N 1: What are the beliefs abou t the vocabulary learning proces s held by Ga lician EFL learners? When addressing the issue of t he ideas about lexical acquisition, i t is necessary to refer to Elaine Horwitz, w ho designed the Beliefs About Language Learning Instrument o r BALLI (1987). It is a 3 4-item questionnaire inquiring about the following language learning areas: fo reign language aptitude, the difficulty of language learning, the nature of language learning, learning and communicatio n strategies, and motivation and expectations. As mentioned in the analysis of data (cf. Sec tion 4.1.), t he BALLI toge ther with Gu and Johnson’s (1 996) and Schmidt and Watanab e’s (2001) questionnaires were used as the basis to design our own questionnaires, selecting and adapting those items that best sui ted the current study. Thus, th e area devoted to beliefs abou t vocabulary held by Galici an EFL learners was furth er subcat egorised into f our main divisions : m otivatio nal issues, linguistic aspects, v ocabular y learning and vocabulary teaching . 5.1.1. Motivation al issues Roughly speaking, it could be argued that students were motivated to learn EFL words, which confirms previous studies concernin g students’ motivation to learn English (Fan, 1 999; Perclov á, 2003; Siebert, 2003). Chapter 5: Discussion 367 Students claimed they like d learning and using vocabulary (Means=3.82 and 3.69, respecti vely), which was endorsed by 65% of the learners int erviewed. Moreover, their m otivation w as re infor ced by the fact that learners found it useful to get a good jo b (M=3.78; Interview Percentage=12%) and to communicate w ith foreign people (M=3.59; IP=38%). It is curious to see how the students surveyed seem to be more in strumentally oriented, keeping in mind their professional career; interviewees’ interest, how ever, is more closely connected wit h the improvement of communicative abilities when learning EFL terms (in tegrative motivation). These scor es are very sim ilar to those obtained b y Fan (1999 ) about Hong Kong E FL learners’ beliefs and strategies and also t o th ose reported by Schmidt and Watanabe (2001) in Hawai’i, whose questi onnaire constituted the starting po int for the development of the surv ey empl oyed in th e current study. When asked about their reasons to learn English, students rated it as very importan t for th eir future (M= 4) and to communicate with foreign speakers (M=3), give n the relevance of English in most jobs and communication systems related t o the new technologies, such as the In ternet. In t he same light, Siebert (2003) surveyed t h e beliefs about language le arning held by ESL students enr olled in an intensive Engl ish course in the USA. She concluded that they were highly motivated towards language learning. This statement was later endorsed by Bernat’s (2006) investigation on the beliefs of 262 m ulti-eth nic backgr ound English for Academi c Purposes (EAP) universi ty students at an Australian university. The same applies to P erco vlá (2003), whose Chapter 5: Discussion 374 As far as the teacher’s role is concerned, they w ere fully aware of their importance in the promo tion o f their autonomy in the learning process so instructors were suppo sed to provide them with app ropriate learnin g strategies (M=4.16), in accordance with Natio n’s instruction: “The teacher’s role is t o f ocus on the most useful vocabul ary, to provide strategy training for the low frequency vocabulary” (2003: 150). However, they we re not so sure abo ut the t eacher’s ro le when ex plainin g the meanin g o f a word in its context of occurrence (M=3.04); this indicates that students ac knowledge t hat meaning i s not the o nly aspe ct tha t counts. In fact, in the in ter view they were aske d to verbalise t heir id eas about the role o f the teachers and the most widely supported ideas w ere the following: teachers should teach students how to use FL words (IP=24%), te ach ers should provide specific contexts to exemplify specific terms (IP=18 %) and teachers should offer specific exercise s to practise vocabulary (I P=16%). Meaning explanati ons were not menti oned at all. Finally, learners agreed that specific vocabulary tes ts should be used as assessment instruments (M=3.65) and that they have to be designed taking into account vocabulary items that suit their learn ing goals (M=3.56). 5.2. RESEARCH QUESTION 2: Are the learners’ beliefs homogeneous across the different re search vari ables cons idered in this st udy? Once students’ assump tions on vocabulary w ere considered, remarkable differences among them were observed regarding all the research variables taken Chapter 5: Discussion 375 into account : gender, age, grade and years of English instruction. They will be presented in turn . 5.2.1. Differen ces in beliefs ac cording to gen der The descriptive analysis of the data reveals t hat female stud ents possessed clearer ideas abou t vocabulary teaching and learning than their male counterparts. In fact, the ANOVA test showed sign ificant differences bet ween the subjects of the study accor ding to the gender variable; this is in keeping with the results of previ ous studies ( Bacon and Finne mann, 199 2; Siebert, 200 3). Going into a mo re detailed analysis, females like learning and using vocabulary (M= 4.01; 3.82) and rated it useful bot h for their fut ure careers (M =3.9 1) and to communicate with EFL speakers (M= 3.84). Conversely, t h e o pinions of m al e subjects were indefinite since they w ere not so e nth usiastic about learning new words and they did n ot find Eng lish as valuable as women did. Female scores were also sligh tly hig her in ratin g them selves as modera tely good at acquiring lexis an d in the e ffort they made in learning v ocabulary, n ot giving up as easily as me n in spite of h ardship o r boring lessons. In other w ords, fe male learners ar e mo re willing to learn FL vocabula ry than men. The same results were o bserved in an investigation conducted by Bacon and Finnemann (1992) with 9 38 university learners o f Span ish in the United States, since women rep orted a hig her degree of m otivation in language learnin g. As fo r the different dimensions of beliefs concerning languag e learning, female learners supported reading and putting wo rds t o use as good ways of ac quiri ng vocabulary t o a hig her ext ent than men; however, they did n ot hold very positive Chapter 5: Discussion 376 views on memo rising new words (M=2.47, versus 2.86 from men). Accordingly, it could be concluded that the memorisation of indivi dual words is more ty pi cal of male learners whereas reading and using the new terms could be regarded as more feminine techniq ues. Finally, when dealing with general teaching approaches w omen were more aware of th e m any different aspects included in kn owing a word ( M=4.15, in contrast with 3.80), as well as the complementary na ture of in-contex t and out-o f- context te aching (M=3.96 ve rsus 3.72) and t hat teachers should o ffer students learning strategi es that fost ered their aut onomy (M=4.28 versus 3 .95). In contrast, they maintain ed less favourable positions towards the idea that teache rs should cre ate wo rd lists for students (M=3.22, ve rsus 3.42) and that the instructors’ main role was explaining vocabular y in context (M=2.9 5 v ersus 3.18) or that vocabulary tests should be based on lists of frequent words (M=2.95 versus 3 .23). To make i t sh ort, not only are fe male learners more mot i vated but they also show str onger be liefs about ho w vocabulary is learnt an d how it sh ould be t aught; m ale learners, ho wever, were much more undecided about all these questions. 5.2.2. Differen ces in beliefs ac cording to age Just as was e xpected, Galician EFL younger and older students’ beliefs showed significant d ifferences across m any categori es (12-14; 15-17; 18-2 0; 21-23; 24-2 6; +26). To begin with, the general statement the older the learner, the more motivated could be conten ded in t he light o f the results obtained: 20-year old students seem to represent a bo rderline between really motivated learners and Chapter 5: Discussion 377 those who are m ore undecided. Indeed, older learners re ported they liked learning an d using words a nd rate d this F L as useful t o communica te with Eng lish speaking peo ple and to understand m aterials in this lang uage; younger stud ents’ scores were, ho wever, much lower. I would also like to make a s pecial comment on the data o btained ab ou t the item c oncerning the relevance of this FL to find a good jo b; it somehow contradicts the afo re mention ed co nclusion : all students considered E nglish as a facilitating element for their future careers and only thos e learners above 26 were more dubious about this ( M=3.13); this could be explained by the fact that so me of them may already form part of the labour market whereas y ounger learners are st ill at school. Moreover, learners’ pr ofiles differed when they rated their own vocabulary learning aptitude, with m eans slightly lower a mong y ounger learners. Th e y oungest group (12-14 years old) w as the only one who clai med to m ake a great effort to learn v ocabulary ( M=3.5 5), in contrast with the moderate commitment shown by the remaining st udents. However, t his same group w as also the only one not to give up s tudying even if classroom materials were boring (M= 2 .49). T h ese data certainly ask fo r a reflection: younger learn ers do not like vocabu lary and thin k that their effort is big enough in spite of boredom; this must be ta ken into account in teaching p ractice. As regards linguistic asp ects, once again all groups acknowledged tha t the cultural aspects o f a community are reflected in its lexis, exce p t for the youngest students, w ho did n ot provide a clear answer (M=3.35). Th e same could be applied to the item that stated that learning a F L is essentially learning it s vocabulary: the group o f youngest learners were undecided, in contrast w ith t h e Chapter 5: Discussion 378 rest of learners, who did not support this st ate ment. In short, as expecte d, experienced students provided clearer replies about t he FL lexis. Ho wever, the youngest st uden ts ra ted the hardness o f l earning vocabulary slightl y higher than the rest . This finding so mehow contradicts other re sults gathered in studies carried o ut by M ary et al . (20 08) and P erclová ( 2003). The former study investigated the beliefs of the In stitute of Tea cher Ed ucation students in M alaysia and no correlation w as o bs erved between age and self-rated aptitude in this FL or the id ea o f E nglish language difficulty. However, a plausible explanati on for this is that “ all the stud ents are already exposed t o the world as the youngest student i n this study is eighteen y ear s old” (2008: 19), where as the subjects in the current study show a wider range of age differences. It is logical to assume that learners of ve r y different ages m a y hold different opinions from adults. Perclová’s resear ch (2003) is concerned with the beliefs of primary and secondar y sch ool students in Prague, where the older the learn ers, the more dif ficu lt the y rated le arning an FL. This may be due t o the fact that the subjects of her study were primary school students and their percepti on of FL languages is rather playful; whereas secondar y school subjects are more a ware of the effort needed t o learn a foreign lang uage. Conversely, when dealing wit h the nature of vocabulary learning, the first set of students (12-14 years old) s howed the lowest degree of support to reading and the nec essity o f acquiring w ords in context; however, they were the bigge st supporters of self-learning and memorisation as good learning methods. Indeed, the younger the learners, the more they valued memorisation, which may reflec t the way they are curr ently being taugh t. Chapter 5: Discussion 379 Lastly, the same group (12-14 years old) stroke t he discordant no te within the section dev oted to vocab ulary teaching . On the one hand , they obtained t he highest mean scores in the items stating that vocabulary asks for clear and systematic teachin g, t he relevance of word structur e and also that teachers’ role was explai ning the meaning of new terms in the c ont ext of occurrence. Moreover, they firmly supported teachers’ use o f word lists and voc abular y tests based on frequent words, in contrast with th e medium sc ores o btained from the re maining learners. Further more, they felt m ore insecure ab out what knowing a word entai ls or w hether conte xtualised t eaching is needed to compensate o ut- of-context teaching. In short, they are reliant on more m echanical techniques, such as focusing o n word structure (prefixes, suffixes…) o r word lists and less sure about the importance o f context in teaching or the minimum lexical content s they have to master. 5.2.3. Differen ces in beliefs ac cording to the grade variable The results o btain ed also sho wed that grade was a significant factor. When considering st uden ts’ opinions o n vocabula ry t eaching and learning, importan t differences we r e o bserve d between and across the four groups of subjects considered: 1 st -2 nd compulsory sec ondary educatio n (ESO), 3 rd -4 th compulsory secondary education (ESO), post-c ompulsory secondary education (BAC), university (UNI), school of lan guages (EOI) and other institutions (OTH). Firstly, the means recorded regarding motivational issu es show a correlati on with the previous age factor; youn ger le arners were studying compulsory secondary education (ESO) whereas o lder students co uld be studying at [Document text truncated for crawler view.]