Students' Approaches to Vocabulary Learning and Their Relationship to Success

Students’ approaches to vocabulary learning were surveyed in two distinct learning environments: one where English was studied as a second language (ESL), and another where it was a foreign language (EFL). A questionnaire, adapted from Sanaoui's (1992) work, was administered to 47 ESL and 43 EFL students. They were asked to indicate, among other things, the amount of time they usually spent on vocabulary learning, the extent to which they engaged in independent language study, the type of vocabulary learning activities they did on a regular basis, the frequency and elaborateness of their note‐taking and reviewing efforts, and the frequency and elaborateness with which they used dictionaries. Whereas students in the two settings exhibited significant differences in the use of some of the strategies, other parts of their strategic behaviour were strikingly similar. Cluster analysis, a technique used for finding relatively homogeneous subgroups in a population, identified 8 different profiles of student approaches to lexical learning. Some clusters exhibited a remarkably “flat” profile in that they used either all or none of the strategies. The majority of learners, however, fell into the more saw‐toothed profile clusters, exhibiting clear preferences for certain types of strategic behaviour. Analyses were also conducted to determine a possible relationship between strategy use and achievement level. Students’ performance on two tests, a Yes/No test assessing knowledge of academic vocabulary and a cloze test assessing overall English proficiency, were compared for the clusters. More frequent and elaborate strategy use was associated with higher levels of achievement, whereas lack of self‐reported effort on the students' part was linked to poor performance. Results also suggested that time and learner independence were the two measures most closely related to success in vocabulary learning and higher overall English proficiency.