An empirical study of undergraduates' FL vocabulary learning in western China

The present study,by use of questionnaire and vocabulary tests,investigates and outlines the FL vocabulary learning of 481 undergraduates in terms of their understanding of vocabulary learning,strategy use and vocabulary size.The result shows that:(1) Objects have the belief that vocabulary should be learned in using them;the most frequently used strategies include dictionary use,guessing the meaning and note-taking;objects average out to a small vocabulary size.(2) Significant differences exist in the using of some strategies between different graders and different majors.(3) Four strategies(cognitive meta-cognitive) significantly correlate with vocabulary size.The research results may probably offer empirical reference for the issue of how to improve FL vocabulary teaching and learning.