Investigating Vocabulary Learning Strategies: a Case Study of Romanian Undergraduates with a Professional Interest in Learning English As a Foreign Language

The study presented in this book is based on the assumption that the learning of a foreign language involves some conscious manipulation of input. Thus, language learning is comparable to the learning of other cognitive skills. ¿Conscious manipulation¿ in language learning can take the form of the adoption of learning strategies. Though much work has been done in the investigation of language learning strategies, and a certain amount in that of the more specific vocabulary learning strategies, few studies have examined the strategies that are used by experienced language learners, and none specifically those used by learners who are studying to become language teachers. Moreover, there has been no attempt to investigate the vocabulary learning strategies used by Romanian learners of English to date. This book details an exploratory study examining the vocabulary learning strategies of Romanian undergraduates majoring or minoring in English and was designed to a) identify and classify vocabulary learning strategies b) explicate the relationship between individual differences and vocabulary learning strategy use, and c) supplement an existing learner strategy typology (Oxford, 1990).