English Vocabulary Learning Strategies of Engineering Science Students

This study investigated the use of vocabulary learning strategies by the students of engineering sciences. It focused on the frequency of use of strategy by them in learning technical terms and investigated the strategies related to success and failure of learning technical terms in the target language, English. In brief, this study enumerated the most frequently used strategies and least frequently used strategies by the participants. A comparison was also made between the highly proficient and less proficient learners in the least and most frequently used vocabulary learning strategies. The results of this study showed that learners prefer to use written repetition, verbal repetition, and bilingual dictionary strategies. A significant use of learning strategies among successful learners was found and the findings showed that proficient l earners used a variety of strategies while less proficient learners used a comparatively smaller number of strategies. Neither the proficient learners nor the low proficient learners are good at employing social strategies to discover the meaning of new technical terms.