VOCABULARY LEARNING STRATEGIES OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

Strategy for learning vocabulary has an important role in English language acquisition. This study describes the vocabulary learning strategies that the students used when they learned new words. It attempted to find out if vocabulary learning strategies differed across school levels, gender, and ability groups as indicated by their English grades. This study involved 706 students from 8 secondary schools. The data were collected using a questionnaire developed using a taxonomy consisting of cognitive, metacognitive, memory, and determination categories. The overall results indicate that the students appear to rely more on determination strategies. This reliance on determination strategies is consistent across gender, ability groups, and school levels.


INTRODUCTION
One essential component in language learning is vocabulary knowledge.An interest in vocabulary acquisition has been increasing and language educators now have recognized the essential role of vocabulary in second language proficiency.In communication, it is the vocabulary knowledge that helps learners to convey meanings.The learners' awareness of the role of vocabulary in language learning is reflected in their learning behavior when they consult dictionaries for difficult vocabulary items.Despite the importance of vocabulary and various ways of teaching it, learners' vocabulary acquisition has been problematic in EFL context such as that in Indonesian schools especially those schools in poor-acquisitional environment.Studies on vocabulary learning in such an environment has been very rare.It is, therefore, necessary that such research be conducted to better assist teachers and students develop effective vocabulary teaching and learning strategies.
Mastering vocabulary is one of the tasks that EFL learners have to face during learning.Therefore, learners find it necessary to find ways to improve their vocabulary.More evidence in an EFL environment where daily exposure to English is often very limited and knowledge of vocabulary does not happen naturally.Thus, the importance of learning strategies to develop vocabulary knowledge should receive sufficient attention by teachers and consider individual differences in terms of, for example, gender, level of proficiency, or the environment in which learners learn and live.Vocabulary learning strategies may not be planned exclusively for that purpose but it can be effectively taught in combination with regular classroom (Mizumoto and Takeuchi, 2009).This study explores the students' vocabulary learning strategies and identify what strategies they used in learning vocabulary.

LITERATURE REVIEW
In language learning, use of learning strategies for vocabulary acquisition is very important and researchers have identified a number of vocabulary learning strategies that can be taught to students.Language learning strategies are defined as activities used by learners in order to make their learning easier and more effective and can be used or transferred to other situations (Oxford, 1990).These strategies are learning tools for students that they can use independently to acquire vocabulary and make them become responsible for their own learning (Nation, 2001).With the skill and knowledge of vocabulary learning strategies learners can learn new vocabulary without the presence of the teacher.In other words, they can learn new words independently at their own convenient time.Learners may utilize different learning strategies and they should be taught how to use the strategies.
Vocabulary acquisition has a very important role in English language learning.McCarthy (1992) states that meaningful communication cannot take place without having sufficient knowledge of vocabulary.Vocabulary knowledge has been acknowledged as crucial to using language, therefore, insufficient vocabulary knowledge will lead the learners to difficulties in communication.In learning vocabulary, learners have to put certain amount of efforts which Nation (2000) describes as 'learning burden'.According to him, different words have different weight of learning burdens and each aspect of knowing a word may contribute to the learning burden.In learning English vocabulary, students have to be educated and taught the strategies for learning vocabulary.Students have to be persuaded to use appropriate strategies in order to learn vocabulary.Thus, teachers have an important role to decrease the students' learning burden by guiding them to use appropriate strategies.
With regard to proficiency levels, Cusen (2005) found that advanced learners use many types of strategies from Oxford framework.While Lo's (2007) study with low proficiency learners found that spelling the words, taking notes, and reviewing were the strategies perceived most useful by the learners.Nemati (2008) investigated 60 pre-university learners in India showing that learners with higher proficiency in English used more strategies in learning vocabulary than lower proficiency learners.This study also revealed that male and female learners did not differ significantly with regard to their strategy use.However, Liao's (2004) study with Taiwan freshmen students showed a different result; female students used more strategies than male students.With regard to age groups, Wu's (2005) study found that there were different patterns of strategy use in learning vocabulary among Taiwanese EFL students.Yang (2008) investigated the journalistic vocabulary learning strategies among EFL college students in Taiwan.In this study the participants used electronic, bilingual and web dictionaries in a similar way.Repetition and memorization were also the strategies used frequently by the participants.Strategies for learning vocabulary can be taught.IJOLTL (2016),1(1): 1-18.

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According to Rubin, Chamot, Harris, and Anderson (2007), if vocabulary learning strategies are effectively done, it can increase students' motivation for learning and it can improve their performance.
The role of vocabulary in language use is very obvious as it is an inseparable aspect of every language.Students who have insufficient range of lexical knowledge will not be able to effectively communicate and negotiate meaning in conversation.In order to be able to negotiate meaning properly in interactions, students must understand the sentence structure and vocabulary.Lacking vocabulary will result in learners being unable to comprehend any text or understanding the meanings of the vocabulary.Proficiency in vocabulary holds a key role in language use; the more vocabulary a learner has, the more successful the learner is in expressing ideas or thoughts.It is especially obvious in speaking where learners have to remember and produce words necessary for successful communication.
Training on strategy for learning vocabulary will provide students with the skill and knowledge about why, when, and where the strategies should be used.Through strategy training teachers will be able to identify what strategies successful and less successful learners use in learning vocabulary.Strategy training will also help students to become autonomous learners so that students will take more responsibility for their learning.Strong vocabulary knowledge will enable students to acquire and use their knowledge in the language (Oxford, 1990) Based on the discussion above, the purpose of this study was to identify vocabulary learning strategies of secondary school students in Salatiga.Specific research questions to be addressed were as follows: 1. What are the most frequently used English vocabulary learning strategies by secondary school students in Salatiga?2. What are the least frequently used English vocabulary learning strategies by secondary school students in Salatiga?3. What are the differences in use of English vocabulary learning strategies across school levels, gender, and ability groups?

METHOD
This study describes the vocabulary learning strategies that the students used most and least frequently when they learned new words.It also attempted to find out if vocabulary learning strategies differed across school levels, gender, and ability groups as indicated by their English grades.Therefore, the data analysis used descriptive statistics to provide answers to the research questions formulated above.

Participants
The participants of this study were students from four junior and four senior high schools in Salatiga, Central Java, using stratified random sampling technique which produced a total of 24 classes or groups, with 25 to 30 students in each group.The total number of students for the study was 706 with 61% female and 39% male.IJOLTL (2016),1(1): 1-18.4

Research instrument
The decision to use an approach to investigate learning strategies depends on the prespecified research questions formulated of a study since learning strategies vary widely (Cohen, 1998).Based on the questions formulated above, it was decided to use a written questionnaire to obtain the data.The framework for the questionnaire for this study was based on the taxonomy of Schmitt (1997) where the items were grouped into four categories: cognitive, metacognitive, memory, and determination categories.The questionnaire items in Appendix B were selected andadapted from Takac (2008) with three Likert Scale options: never (1), sometimes (2), always (3).It was translated into Indonesian in order to ensure that the items were well understood by the participants.The first part of the questionnaire aimed to obtain personal information of the participants regarding gender, school, and their English grade.Information about these variables were important for analysis to answer the research questions.The second part of the questionnaire aimed to elicit their responses with regard to their strategy in learning vocabulary.
The items in the student questionnaire (Appendix B) were classified into four categories (Schmitt, 1997, as cited in Asgari & Mustapha, 2011) as described below.

Data collection
In this study, the data were collected by using a closed-ended questionnaire as described in the research instrument.The questionnaire was distributed to the school samples and with the help of the English teachers at the schools, the questionnaire was administered to the students during an English lesson.The completion of the questionnaire took approximately about ten to fifteen minutes.As described above, there were 24 classes selected for the study with a total of 706 students all together.In completing the questionnaire, the students were instructed to select 1 (never), 2 (sometimes), or 3 (always).The data from the questionnaire were tabulated and calculated in percentages.

Data analysis
Using the Survey Monkey research tool (www.surveymonkey.com),frequency counts were obtained to see the overall patterns of vocabulary learning strategies (VLS) used by all participants in the study.Then, patterns of individual category of VLS were presented with its questionnaire items and their frequency counts.The next sections in the analysis present comparisons of VLS across gender (male vs. female), ability groups (high, mid, and low), and school levels (Junior High School, Senior High School, and Vocational School) with reference to each category.The purpose of the comparison was to see if there was any difference across variables above in any aspect of the VLS as indicated by differences of the frequency counts.Please note that the difference was not calculated for its statistical significance.The data for the comparison were calculated for the frequencies of choices made by the students with regard to the three scale options for the questionnaire items; never, sometimes, and always.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
This study was designed to obtain answers to the research questions formulated above through a questionnaire that elicited the participants' recall of their vocabulary learning strategies.The results of the study have been reported in the following order: First, the overall results of vocabulary learning strategy is discussed.Then, follows discussions of each strategy type; cognitive, metacognitive, memory, and determination strategy.Next, the comparisons of strategies by gender, ability level are presented.Finally, the comparison of strategy types by school level is reported.
Figure 1 presents the general patterns of VLS by the participants (706 students) under cognitive, metacognitive, memory, and determination strategies.In terms of those strategy types, the most frequently used strategy was determination strategy (49.8%), then memory strategy (25.92%), and the least frequently used strategy was cognitive strategy (13.26%).

Figure 1. Overall results of vocabulary learning strategy
Table 1 below shows the results of the cognitive strategy with the questionnaire items under the strategy.Further examination of the students' responses to the items under cognitive strategy, the following results were found: to the statement no 5, about 87,7% of the students chose 'sometimes' and 'always'.In other words, in order to understand a new word, the students need to see it in writing.The second finding under cognitive strategy was: about 78.9% of the students sometimes and always selected item 1to be applied in learning new words; they used a new word in new sentences in order to remember it.The third finding under this category was: as much as 91% IJOLTL (2016),1(1): 1-18.

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of the students never and sometimes made small pocket dictionaries in which they could write new words.It appears that the students relied heavily on classroom activities when the teachers wrote new words on the board but the students seemed to place little values of organizing new words they learned in another form such as small pocket dictionaries.The high proportion of students not keeping pocket dictionaries to learn new words may be due to the amount of time they would need to write new English words and learn their meanings in Indonesian.As Loucky (2002) found, the students in his study took more time to learn words in traditional dictionaries compared to learning words using electronic dictionaries.The students in this present study may have been familiar to electronic dictionaries that are more preferable and more convenient to traditional bilingual dictionaries.The results of metacognitive strategy is presented in Table 2 below.IJOLTL (2016),1(1): 1-18.

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Under metacognitive strategy, sub-category 1 and 4 were applied most frequently (30.2% and 43.9% respectively) and sub-category 3 was never used by 58.1% of the students.Metacognitively, the students seem to favor learning new vocabulary through non-conventional mode of learning such as learning from TV, music, and the internet.However, as indicated by the finding for sub-category 3, as much as 58,1% never made notes of new words when they were watching films or TV.It appears that receptive mode of learning vocabulary such as listening and watching TV are more preferable to productive mode such as writing or using new words themselves.This finding seems to confirm Nation's (2000) assertion that learning new words imposes a certain amount of 'learning burden' and that producing or using new words in writing or speaking would put more cognitive effort than listening or watching new words used by other speakers.In line with this finding we may expect that the students' receptive vocabulary should gradually increase as the amount of learning or instruction at school increases.Considering that vocabulary acquisition is an incremental process (Schmitt, 2000:117) and the amount of time for classroom learning is very limited, it is necessary that vocabulary learning should provide students with more exposure through learning activities in and outside classroom.This is needed to compensate for insufficient quantity of input in the classroom.Another pattern of strategy use was found in memory strategy which sub-categorized five items.As seen in Table 3, the students always applied strategies 2, 3, and 5 almost equally frequently (31.3%, 33%, and 33.9% respectively).They associated non-verbally meanings of new words to what they have learned.This is in accordance to the finding of sub-category 1, by which as much as 57.6% indicated that they never read new words aloud.Repetition drills were apparently not a popular technique of learning new vocabulary by the students in this study.
According to Schmitt (2000:132), to memorize new words involves …'finding some preexisting information in the long-term memory to connect the new information to'.As revealed in this study, about 82-88% of the students sometimes and always used their previously learned vocabulary knowledge to remember new words.This way of learning new vocabulary should not be ignored due to its essential role and retrieval function in vocabulary learning.The memory strategies in items 2, 3, and 5 could be used as a technique by the teacher to enhance structured review of new words.However, it should be noted that learning words by heart may be effective just for accuracy in an exam but it may not be helpful to develop word fluency (Wang, 2000).In Schmitt's (1997) VLS taxonomy, determination strategy refers to the discovery of word meaning such as what students do when they come across new words.In this study, determination strategy sub-categorized two strategies: using a dictionary and translation.The finding shows that translation from English into Indonesian was more valued (65%) than using a dictionary for word meaning (34.6%).It appears that direct short-cut to learning word meaning was more convenient to the students than making efforts to finding meanings of new words in a dictionary.
An examination of teaching excerpts in Ayu & Timotius (2013) show that the English teachers in the school sample used much translation in teaching which appears to be the norm in the school.In fact, according to O 'Malley et.al (1985), translation is an ineffective strategy to use with students at the beginner and intermediate levels of English learning.A study by Sakurai (2015) indicates that translating extensive reading stories from Japanese into English interfered with the students' reading comprehension and decreased their reading rate.It may suggest that, in spite of its convenience for quick word reference, translation alone is not sufficient for understanding texts because comprehension involves understanding of messages in a larger discourse context.If O' Malley's (1985) assertion is generalizable across EFL contexts, it is justifiable to suggest that translation techniques as used in the school sample in this study should be avoided as it is not effective to develop language skills.

Comparison by gender
Figures ( Figures 2-5) shows the comparisons of strategy applications by male and female groups in this study across four types of strategies; cognitive, metacognitive, memory, and determination strategies.It is interesting to see in the figures that the female groups used the four learning strategies more frequently than the male group as indicated by the higher proportions of female students selecting the two options; sometimes and always.Further examination of comparison of the English grades between the male and female groups indicated that the female group outnumbered the male group across the low, medium and high grade scales, as displayed in Table 4.As seen in the table 4, there was a larger proportion of the female group (61.41%) who belonged to the medium ability scale (grade 60-79) than the male group (38.58%), and there was a larger proportion of the female group (63.73%) who belonged to the high ability scale (grade 80-100) than the male group (36.26%).The higher frequency of strategy use and the variety of strategy types used may have contributed to the larger proportions of the female group achieving the higher ability grade scales in English.This evidence provided further support to the study by Lin (2011).IJOLTL (2016),1(1): 1-18.

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In her study, she examined whether there were significant differences between males and females in comprehension, vocabulary acquisition, and vocabulary retention in video-based computer assisted language learning program.Her study shows that female students achieved higher percentage scores than male students in comprehension and vocabulary tests.

Comparison by ability level
The following finding shows the comparisons of VLS by students across ability groups; high, mid, and low.The comparisons were made with reference to the four types of strategies: cognitive, metacognitive, memory, and determination strategies.

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As displayed in Figures 6-9, there were more proportions from the mid ability group who applied the four strategy types than the high ability group.The difference was even larger compared to the low ability group.It is interesting to note that proportions of the high ability group were smaller than those of the mid ability group across the strategy types.This is quite unexpected because the literature in language learning explains that higher frequency of learning may result in better performance (Brown, 1994;Shahreza & Tavakoli, 2012;and Chen & Truscott, 2010).It is quite possible that with frequent exposure through different learning activities aspects of word knowledge will develop as a result of teaching.

Comparison of strategy by school level
As displayed in Figures 10-13, there was a slight increase of the application of cognitive and metacognitive strategies by the students from Junior to High School as indicated by the higher proportions of students in Senior and Vocational Schools who sometimes and always used the strategies.IJOLTL (2016),1(1): 1-18.

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This may indicate that the students in Junior High, Senior High, or Vocational School rely more on the use of dictionary and translation in learning vocabulary in a relatively similar way.It may also be an indication of the teacher's teaching technique with more emphasis on the utilization of dictionary and translation.The present condition of teaching and learning English in the school samples may take a long time to improve.The teachers may have been comfortable with the way English lessons are planned and conducted and it may be difficult for them to come out from their comfort zone.
In spite of the studies by Samaria (2015) and O 'Malley et. al (1985) showing that translation may not be an effective technique for developing learners' vocabulary knowledge and the learners' reservation of using conventional dictionaries, language educators should find alternative ways of helping students to expand their vocabulary receptively and productively.As Loucky (2002) states that 'students' ability seems to depend on the quality of instruction', teachers should provide students with much exposure, frequent opportunity for language use, and consider students' present level of L2 vocabulary.

CONCLUSION
Although this study involved a few schools in Salatiga, some preliminary conclusions can be drawn which could be used as considerations when a similar study is designed to obtain more generalizable findings.In general, the results indicate that the students appear to rely more on determination strategy which is a more convenient way of learning new words through the use of direct translation from English to Indonesian and bilingual English-Indonesian dictionaries.This reliance on determination strategy is consistent across gender where more proportions of students (male and female) used this strategy.The comparison across ability groups also indicates a similar pattern; determination strategy was always used by a larger proportion of students in the three ability groups (low, mid, and high groups).The results of comparison across school levels show that the majority of the students across school levels used determination strategy.In accordance with the findings of Yang's (2008) study, the students in this study also revealed that they made use of bilingual dictionaries which offer an easier way of memorizing word meanings through translation.
Based on the findings of this study, it would be interesting to see how the teachers in the school samples teach vocabulary and how they help students cope with learning, using, and memorizing new words.Classroom observations could be one technique to use to reveal vocabulary teaching strategies the teachers use in the classroom.The strategies that the students believed they used could be based on how they learned vocabulary in the class and/or their intuition as students.They may not know how to learn new vocabulary unless they are taught by their teachers.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Comparison of cognitive strategy by gender

Figure 6 .
Figure 6.Comparison of cognitive strategy by ability level
IJOLTL, Vol. 1, No. 1, January 2016  p-ISSN: 2502-2326; e-ISSN: 2502-8278, Web: ijoltl.pusatbahasa.or.idCenter of Language and Culture Studies, Surakarta, Indonesia Astika, I, Gusti.2016.Vocabulary Learning Strategies of Secondary School Students.Foreign languages can be learnt in various ways.The aim of thisquestionnaire is to find out how YOU learn foreign language words.Please answer how you really learn and not how you think you should learn or how somebody else learns.Circle the response that best describes how you learn.There are no right or wrong answers to these statements.IJOLTL, Vol. 1, No. 1, January 2016 p-ISSN: 2502-2326; e-ISSN: 2502-8278, Web: ijoltl.pusatbahasa.or.idCenter of Language and Culture Studies, Surakarta, Indonesia Astika, I, Gusti.2016.Vocabulary Learning Strategies of Secondary School Students.IJOLTL (2016),1(1): 1-18.