Licenciado

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|Vol. 7. No. 2 |
|A-4 |
|September 2003 |
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VocabularyLearning in a Second Language: Person, Task, Context and Strategies
Peter Yongqi Gu

National Institute of Education
Nanyang Technological University
Abstract
This paper reviews empirical research on vocabulary learning strategies in a second/foreign language. A tetrahedral model of person, task, context, and strategies is first proposed to foreground the review. Next, empirical researchalong task, person, and contextual dimensions is reviewed. Specifically, the review focuses on task-dependent guessing strategies, dictionary strategies, note-taking strategies, rote rehearsal strategies, and encoding strategies. Instead of searching for the best strategies that produce the best results, the author argues that the choice, use, and effectiveness of vocabulary learning strategies dependon the task, the learner, and the learning context. The paper ends by calling for a diversification of effort in both top-down theory building that provides clearer guidance to future research and more bottom-up empirical research that goes beyond the presentation and retention of words.
Introduction
Psychologists, linguists, and language teachers have been interested in vocabulary learningstrategies for a long time (Levenston, 1979). Numerous studies have been conducted comparing the retention effects of different vocabulary presentation strategies. In fact, the vocabulary field has been especially productive in the last two decades. We have seen a number of classic volumes on theories (e.g., Carter, 1987; Carter & McCarthy, 1988; McCarthy, 1990; Nation, 1990), research (e.g., Arnaud& Bejoint, 1992; Gass, 1987; Meara, 1989; Nation & Carter, 1989), and practical tips (e.g., Gairns & Redman, 1986; McCarthy & O'Dell, 1994). Recent volumes, especially the CUP volumes, that shed significant light upon different aspects of vocabulary acquisition include Huckin, Haynes, and Coady (1993), Harley (1995), Hatch and Brown (1995), Coady and Huckin (1997), Schmitt and McCarthy (1997),Atkins (1998), Wesche and Paribakht (1999), Read (2000), Schmitt (2000), and Nation (2001). This article aims to provide a digest of recent research on vocabulary acquisition and to pinpoint areas that need further exploration. To this end, the article focuses on one area, i.e., vocabulary learning strategies, the purposeful analysis of the vocabulary learning task, the planning, deployment,monitoring, and evaluation of learning behaviors in order to acquire the vocabulary of a second language[1] . It is argued that despite the impressive amount of recent research on vocabulary acquisition, a person-task-context-strategy perspective that is presented here is needed in order to anchor existing research in a larger framework and to point to areas for future efforts. [-1-]
Person, task,context, and learning strategies
When a person approaches a relatively challenging task, s/he adopts certain strategies to solve the problem. This problem-solving process is constrained by the learning context where the problem is being tackled. Language learning in general and vocabulary acquisition in particular are such problem-solving tasks at different levels of complexity. The strategies a...