An investigation into vocabulary learning strategies employed by the second-year non-English major students at Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry

ISSN: 1859-2171 TNU Journal of Science and Technology 199(06): 31- 36 
 Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 31 
AN INVESTIGATION INTO VOCABULARY LEARNING STRATEGIES 
EMPLOYED BY THE SECOND-YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS 
AT THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY 
Pham Thi Thu Trang 
TNU University of Agriculture and Forestry 
ABSTRACT 
This study investigates on the most frequently used vocabulary learning strategies of the second-
year non-English major students at Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry. The 
research method approach of the study was descriptive method and a questionnaire was used as the 
main data collection instrument. The major findings of the research showed that the students of 
Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry employed a wide range of vocabulary 
learning strategies. Determination strategies were the most frequently used strategies while 
metacognitive strategies were preferred the least. It also revealed that students favored 
monolingual dictionaries, guessing from context and asking teachers or friends for meaning and 
concentrated mainly on the memorization of spoken form to consolidate the meaning of new word. 
Through these findings, some implications and recommendations are promisingly suggested for 
vocabulary learning. 
Keywords: vocabulary learning strategies; non-English major students; Thai Nguyen University 
of Agriculture and Forestry; vocabulary learning. 
Received: 11/4/2019; Revised: 13/5/2019; Approved: 15/5/2019 
NGHIÊN CỨU VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC HỌC TỪ VỰNG 
CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH 
CỦA TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NÔNG LÂM – ĐẠI HỌC THÁI NGUYÊN 
Phạm Thị Thu Trang 
Trường Đại học Nông Lâm - ĐH Thái Nguyên 
TÓM TẮT 
Nghiên cứu này điều tra chiến lược học từ vựng được sử dụng thường xuyên nhất của sinh viên 
năm thứ hai không chuyên tiếng Anh tại trường Đại học Nông Lâm – Đại học Thái Nguyên. 
Phương pháp nghiên cứu được sử dụng là phương pháp thống kê mô tả với công cụ thu thập dữ 
liệu chính là bảng câu hỏi. Những phát hiện chính của nghiên cứu cho thấy sinh viên trường Đại 
học Nông Lâm – Đại học Thái Nguyên đã sử dụng nhiều chiến lược học từ vựng. Chiến lược xác 
định được sử dụng thường xuyên nhất trong khi các chiến lược siêu nhận thức được sử dụng ít 
nhất. Nó cũng chỉ ra rằng các sinh viên thích sử dụng từ điển đơn ngữ, đoán từ ngữ cảnh và hỏi 
giáo viên hoặc bạn bè để tìm hiểu ý nghĩa của từ và tập trung chủ yếu vào hình thức nói để củng cố 
nghĩa của từ mới. Thông qua những phát hiện này, một số đề xuất và ứng dụng được đưa ra phục 
vụ cho việc học từ vựng. 
Từ khóa: chiến lược học từ vựng; sinh viên không chuyên tiếng Anh; Trường Đại học Nông Lâm 
– Đại học Thái Nguyên; học từ vựng. 
Ngày nhận bài: 11/4/2019; Ngày hoàn thiện: 13/5/2019; Ngày duyệt đăng: 15/5/2019 
Email: thutrang.pham90@gmail.com 
DOI: https://doi.org/10.34238/tnu-jst.2019.06.591 
Pham Thi Thu Trang TNU Journal of Science and Technology 199(06): 31- 36 
 Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 32 
1. Introduction 
In recent decades, vocabulary has been 
viewed as an important part of language study 
on which effective communication relies. 
Many researchers have stated that the mastery 
of vocabulary is a fundamental component in 
learning English. Schmitt [1], for example, 
believes that meaningful communication in a 
foreign language depends mostly on words. If 
learners do not have the available words to 
express their ideas, mastering grammatical 
rules does not help. A lot of the research also 
supports the idea that the more vocabulary 
words learners use, the greater learners‟ 
language learning success will be. Moreover, 
it is also an important factor for academic 
study. Many international academic tests of 
foreign language require a large amount of 
knowledge in vocabulary. Thus, it is without 
no doubt that vocabulary is the key to all the 
language skills; speaking, reading, writing 
and listening. 
In Vietnam, the importance of vocabulary in 
second language acquisition has received 
great attention. For most university students, 
English vocabulary has long been their big 
headache on which they spend a lot of time. 
The teachers still mainly pay attention in 
explaining grammar and developing student‟s 
reading skills, leaving vocabulary to students 
themselves. Students, on the other hand, 
believe that learning a word is memorizing 
the spelling and the meaning of that word. 
Moreover, it is common to find that student‟s 
difficulties in both receptive and productive 
language use result from their insufficient 
vocabulary knowledge. It means that students 
yield a limited comprehension of the text in 
listening and reading or in speaking and 
writing students cannot use vocabulary 
productively. In order to bring a 
comprehensive picture of what the college 
students do with their English vocabulary 
learning, further research on this issue is 
needed. This study intends to investigate the 
vocabulary learning strategies that are mostly 
used by students. 
2. Subject and methodology 
The subjects of the study were second year 
non-English major students at Thai Nguyen 
University of Agriculture and Forestry. There 
were totally 100 students in two English 
classes participating in the research. In this 
study, quantitative data about students‟ 
vocabulary learning strategies according to 
their perspectives was collected through a 
questionnaire which provided a general 
picture of the research problem. 
3. Results and discussions 
3.1. Use of overall strategies by the second 
year students at TUAF 
This section involved simple statistical 
methods used in order to analyse the data 
obtained from 100 TUAF students through 
the vocabulary learing strategy questionnaire. 
The frequency of strategy use was indicated 
on a five-point rating scale, ranging from 
“never”, valued as 1; “rarely” valued as 2; 
“sometimes” valued as 3; “ususlly” valued as 
4; “always” valued as 5. As a result, the 
average value of frequency of strategy use 
could be valed from 1.0 to 5.0. The mid-point 
of the minimum and the maximum values was 
2.5. The mean frequency score of strategy use 
of each category or item valued from 1.0 to 
2.4 was determined as “low use”, from 2.5 to 
3.4 as “medium use”, and from 3.5 to 5.0 as 
“high use” [2]. 
According to table 1, the mean frequency 
score of students‟ reported strategy use 
ranged in varying degrees with moderate 
overall score. The usage levels of the five 
strategy categories were different and all their 
mean frequency fell within the range from 
2.48 to 3.0. On average, the mean score of the 
participants‟ response was approximately 2.8; 
this meant that the research subjects reported 
employing vocabulary learning strategies with 
medium frequency when they had to deal 
with vocabulary learning. 
Pham Thi Thu Trang TNU Journal of Science and Technology 199(06): 31- 36 
 Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 33 
Table 1. The participants’ responses to the use of the five strategy categories 
Strategy category M SD Frequency use Rank order of the usage 
Determination 3.00 1.009 Medium use 1 
Social 2.48 0.954 Low use 5 
Memory 2.81 1.009 Medium use 3 
Cognitive 3.00 1.055 Medium use 2 
Metacognitive 2.51 0.927 Medium use 4 
Overall 2.80 1.002 Medium use 
3.2. Use of each individual strategy by the second year students at TUAF 
3.2.1. Determination strategies 
Table 2. Determination strategies: Means and Standard Deviations 
 N Mean Std. Deviation Strategy use 
Bilingual dictionary 100 3.50 1.049 H 
Word lists 100 3.39 .815 M 
Guess the meaning from textual context 100 3.32 1.034 M 
Analyze any available pictures or gestures 100 3.09 1.111 M 
Analyze parts of speech 100 2.99 1.059 M 
Analyze affixes and roots 100 2.82 .936 M 
Flash cards 100 2.77 .941 M 
Monolingual dictionaries 99 2.17 1.134 L 
It is apparently seen in table 2 that the most 
use strategy was bilingual dictionary with 
mean score of 3.5 ranked as high level of use. 
On the contrary, monolingual dictionary was 
reported at low frequency level (M=2.17, 
SD= 1.134). The rest were reported being 
employed at medium use. Among them guess 
the meaning from textual context and word 
lists also got more favor than the others with 
the mean score was 3.32 and 3.39 
respectively. 
The reason might be that using bilingual 
dictionary, word lists and guessing from the 
textual context often took time, monolingual 
dictionary, on the other hand, got the lowest 
attention from the student. In fact, the 
elementary students are often familiar with 
using bilingual dictionaries because it is 
convenient and easy for them to understand 
the meanings rather than taking time in 
monolingual dictionary. Research studies, 
moreover, showed that monolingual 
dictionary got more preferred by high 
achievers than low achievers. This strategy 
was very helpful for high level of learners 
especially for the English majors. This 
finding was similar to the results of Schmitt‟s 
[3] study among Japanese students who also 
favor the use of bilingual dictionary. It 
showed that bilingual dictionary was the most 
used strategies of all. 
3.2.2 Social strategies 
Social strategies, in general, seemed to get 
less prefer than the other strategies with only 
three strategies were ranked at medium use 
and the rest were low frequency. As shown in 
table 3, social strategies were not frequently 
used by the students. Asking teachers or 
friends for L1 translation was the most 
frequently used strategy while interacting 
with native speakers was the least frequently 
used. This fact can be easily understood 
because students were not afraid to ask their 
friends or teachers for their help in L1 
translation. The students, on the other hand, 
did want to interact with native speakers 
although they did not have many chances. 
That was the objective reason why few of 
them employed the strategy of interacting 
with native speakers. 
Pham Thi Thu Trang TNU Journal of Science and Technology 199(06): 31- 36 
 Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 34 
Table 3. Social strategies: Means and Standard Deviations 
 N Mean Std. Deviation Strategy use 
Ask classmates for meaning 99 3.12 .982 M 
Ask teacher for an L1 translation 100 2.93 .946 M 
Ask teacher for paraphrase or synonym 
of a new word 
100 2.67 .943 
M 
Study and practice meaning in a group 100 2.45 .978 L 
Ask teacher for a sentence including the 
new word 
100 2.41 .944 
L 
Teacher checks students‟ flash cards or 
word lists for accuracy 
100 2.33 .933 
L 
Discover new meaning through group 
work activities 
100 2.21 .946 
L 
Interact with native speaker 100 1.79 .967 L 
3.2.3. Memory strategies 
Table 4. Memory strategies: Means and Standard Deviations 
 N Mean Std. Deviation Strategy use 
Say new word aloud when studying 100 3.49 1.000 M 
Study the sound of a word 100 3.38 .896 M 
Image word form 100 3.11 1.063 M 
Image word‟s meaning 100 3.06 .886 M 
Affixes and roots (remembering) 100 3.05 .999 M 
Part of speech (remembering) 100 3.05 1.009 M 
Associate the word with its synonyms and 
antonyms 
100 3.03 .926 M 
Paraphrase the word‟s meaning 100 2.91 1.055 M 
Study the spelling of a word 100 2.87 .991 M 
Use keyword method 100 2.86 1.110 M 
Use new word in sentences 100 2.85 .936 M 
Group words together to study them 100 2.85 1.123 M 
Associate the word with its coordinates 100 2.84 1.002 M 
Learn the words of an idiom together 100 2.80 1.015 M 
Study word with a pictorial presentation of 
its meaning 
100 2.79 .957 M 
Connect word to a personal experience 100 2.74 1.060 M 
Use physical action when learning a word 100 2.53 1.049 M 
Underline initial letter of the word 100 2.35 1.114 L 
Use „scales‟ for gradable adjectives 100 2.32 1.014 L 
Group words together within a storyline 100 2.15 1.067 L 
Use semantic maps 100 2.01 .937 L 
It can be seen in table 4 that most of the strategies employed to consolidate the word in the 
memory were used at medium level (mean score from 2.53 to 3.49). No high use of VLS by these 
students in order to retain the knowledge of newly-learned vocabulary items. Seventeen VLS in 
this category were reported being employed at medium frequency level, whereas four VLS were 
reported at the low frequency level. It is implied that besides using strategies to discover a word‟s 
meaning, the learners also used some strategies to consolidate it in memory. 
Pham Thi Thu Trang TNU Journal of Science and Technology 199(06): 31- 36 
 Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 35 
Table 5. Cognitive strategies: Means and Standard Deviations 
 N Mean Std. Deviation Strategy use 
Take note in class 100 3.93 .935 H 
Verbal repetition 100 3.40 .995 M 
Written repetition 100 3.36 .980 M 
Use the vocabulary section in your 
textbook 
100 3.22 1.011 M 
Keep a vocabulary notebook 100 2.97 1.235 M 
Listen to tape of word lists 100 2.72 .965 M 
Word lists 100 2.64 1.020 M 
Flashcards 100 2.51 1.193 M 
Put English labels on physical objects 100 2.26 1.169 L 
Table 6. Metacognitive strategies: Means and Standard Deviations 
 N Mean Std. Deviation Strategy use 
Use English-language media (songs, 
movies, newscasts, etc.) 
100 3.05 .947 
M 
Continue to study word over time 100 2.65 .903 M 
Testing oneself with word tests 100 2.46 1.049 L 
Skip or pass new word 100 1.90 .810 L 
3.2.4. Cognitive strategies 
The information in table 5, in general, showed 
that cognitive strategies were used at medium 
level. Only taking note in class was selected 
as the highest frequency use with mean score 
was 3.93 and the lowest mean score was put 
English labels on physical objects with 
M=2.26. 
Cognitive strategies were preferred by the 
students when every strategy was used at 
medium level. The most strategies use were 
taking note in class, verbal and written 
repetition, studying the vocabulary in the 
textbook, keeping a vocabulary notebook. 
These are very simple and feasible activities 
for the students, so that they should be 
encouraged to use them as often as a habit. 
3.2.5. Metacognitive strategies 
Four metacognitive strategies in consolidating 
words were shown in table 6 with two 
medium use strategies and two low use 
strategies. 
In a whole, metacognitive strategies were not 
frequently used. Mean values of this group 
ranged from 1.90 to 3.05. Most of the 
students used television, radio, newspapers, 
magazines, computers, etc. with quite high 
frequency. The public internet has become 
more popular, so that students should make 
use of this kind of modern technology for the 
purpose of learning English in general and for 
learning English vocabulary in particular. It 
was hoped that there would be a large 
proportion of the students continuing to study 
words overtime or study words every day 
with high frequency; however, a small 
number of them always did this. Teachers 
should know this and think of ways to 
encourage, even request their students to 
employ this strategy. 
4. Conclusions and recommendations 
4.1. Conclusion 
The findings from the study proved that 
second year students of English at TUAF 
were medium strategies users. Among the 
strategies used to discovery and consolidate 
the meaning of new word, the students used 
determination strategies most frequently 
while metacognitive strategies were used least 
frequently. Among fifty strategies, most of 
the students used these strategies in the 
Pham Thi Thu Trang TNU Journal of Science and Technology 199(06): 31- 36 
 Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 36 
medium level; about one fourth of them used 
those ones in the low level, and only two 
items (Use bilingual dictionary and Take 
notes in class) was in the high level. These 
strategies, on the other hand, were considered 
to be simple and support for individual 
learning. Thus, some practical suggestions 
would be made to help students learn 
vocabulary more effectively. 
4.2. Recommendations 
Firstly, some other aspects which should be 
further explored include students‟ 
socioeconomic or academic backgrounds, or 
attitude and motivation towards vocabulary 
learning. 
Secondly, there should be a greater variety of 
instruments produced to elicit students‟ VLS 
of different language learners in different 
contexts. 
Thirdly, there is a need for future research to 
investigate a larger research population 
consists of students studying in different years 
(1
st
, 2
nd
, 3
rd
 , 4
th
 ) to explore if this aspect 
associates with students‟ reported choices of 
strategy use for vocabulary learning. 
Finally, the present study only concentrated 
on the current situation of vocabulary learning 
and did not take into account the fact that 
learning strategy use changes over time when 
the learner‟s skills develop and mature. Thus, 
a longitudinal study of vocabulary learning 
strategies training long-term effects should be 
considered. 
REFERENCES 
[1]. Schmitt, N., Researching vocabulary: A 
vocabulary research manual, London, 
England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 
[2]. Oxford, R. L., Language learning strategies: 
What every teacher should know, New York: 
Newbury House, 1990. 
[3]. Schmitt, N., “Vocabulary learning strategies”, 
In N. Schmitt and M. McCarthy (Eds), 
Vocabulary: description, acquisition and 
pedagogy (pp. 237-257). Cambridge: 
Cambridge University Press, 1997.