Abstract:
The purpose of the present study was to identify any significant relationship between critical thinking ability, L2 vocabulary knowledge, and L2 vocabulary learning strategies of Iranian EFL learners. To this aim, the productive vocabulary levels test was administered to measure the learner’s L2 vocabulary knowledge and observe homogeneity in terms of vocabulary knowledge. At the second stage, a critical thinking questionnaire was administered, along with a newly-developed L2 vocabulary learning strategies questionnaire; the questionnaires were developed to specify the critical thinking ability and L2 vocabulary learning strategies of the individual participants. The results of the statistical analysis revealed that Iranian EFL learners’ L2 vocabulary knowledge was significantly related to their critical thinking ability. The participants’ critical thinking ability also correlated positively with their self-assessed degree of determination, memorization, cognitive, and meta-cognitive strategies of L2 vocabulary learning. The study also showed a positive relationship between participants’ L2 vocabulary knowledge and their L2 vocabulary learning strategies
Machine summary:
"Along the lines of the above argument, the present researchers tried to examine the relationship between critical thinking ability, L2 vocabulary knowledge, and L2 vocabulary learning strategies of Iranian EFL learners.
For the purposes of a large-scale study (involving over 700 learners), she designed a questionnaire (Vocabulary Learning Strategy Inventory or VOLSI) with 53 individual strategies grouped into the following nine categories: (1) strategies involving authentic language use, (2) strategies involving creative activities, (3) strategies used for self-motivation, (4) strategies used to create mental linkages, (5) memory strategies, (6) visual/auditory strategies, (7) strategies involving physical action, (8) strategies used to overcome anxiety, and (9) strategies used to organize words.
The 91statements of the Vocabulary Learning Questionnaire (VLQ Version 3) devised by Gu and Johnson corresponded to the following groups of strategies: (1) Meta-cognitive regulation (selective attention, self-initiation); (2) Guessing strategies (by using the existing knowledge/wider context or by using linguistic cues/immediate context); (3) Dictionary use strategies (for comprehension, extended strategies of dictionary use, strategy of looking up words in a dictionary); (4) Note-taking strategies (meaning oriented, usage oriented); (5) Memory strategies: rehearsal (using a list of words, oral repetition, visual repetition); (6) Memory strategies: encoding (associating/elaborating, creating mental linkages, visual coding, auditory coding, word structure, semantic coding, contextual coding); and (7) Activation strategies.
The findings of the present study revealed that critical thinking ability of Iranian EFL learners correlated positively and significantly with their L2 vocabulary knowledge, on the one hand, and their L2 vocabulary learning strategies, on the other hand."