Page 58 - Apuntes de Investigación en la Enseñanza de Idiomas

42 Apuntes de Investigación en la Enseñanza de Idiomas

Marin (2006) examined the use of VLS of 185 students enrolled in a five-year English major at Uni-
versidad Veracruzana. The data collection instruments were an open VLS questionnaire with three
general questions and semi-structured interviews. Results showed that the most frequently used vo-
cabulary learning strategies were Dictionary-use and Repetition strategies. In contrast Skipping and
Association strategies were the least frequently reported categories. At Universidad Autonoma de
Chiapas (UNACH) Bermejo (2013) investigated learning strategies frequently used by EFL university
students. 15 students answered a survey designed for this study based on the 50-item instruments
of Oxford´s (1990) Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL). The results showed that Meta-
cognitive strategies are the most used strategies among students while Memory strategies are the
least used.

Methodology
The type of research method adopted in this study was quantitative. Besides following a quantitative
approach the design was correlational, descriptive and longitudinal. Mackey and Gass (2005) claim
that the goal of a correlational research is to determine whether a relationship exists between varia-
bles and if so, the strength of that relationship. This investigation also relied on the descriptive re-
search. A longitudinal method was followed too since this project was divided in two periods, the first
when learners were enrolled in fourth semester (May 2013) and the second when the same learners
were in sixth semester (May 2014) of their BA in English Language Teaching(ELT).

Nation (1983) designed the first instrument that aimed at measuring students’ vocabulary knowledge.
The vocabulary level test, 2000-word level, contains high-frequency words. The type of vocabulary
within this test is the one of simplified reading books. It was applied to 26 students in the fourth se-
mester (May 2013). The second instrument also designed by Nation (1983) 5,000-word level is on
the boundary of high-frequency words. It requires a wide vocabulary in order to be able to answer it
th
correctly. It was applied to the same 26 learners in May 2014 (6 semester of the BA). The last instru-
ment was a questionnaire on Vocabulary Learning Strategies that was designed by Doczi (2011). It
was based on Schmitt´s taxonomy (1997).

Results

The results obtained on the first test were that only one learner answered all the items (18) correctly
whereas seven participants had the same grade (17) and the rest of the participants (17) who passed
this test obtained different results. Only one student failed the test. The second test was administered
after 160 hours of more language instruction. The results revealed that 66.7 % of the group passed
the test whereas 33.3 % did not obtain the expected level.

Vocabulary Learning Strategies students use to learn new vocabulary
The next table summarizes the frequencies of all the strategies used by respondents.