However, with its great importance, vocabulary always presents one of the greatest challenges for FL learners. Although being eager to learn as many

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3 Preface This book is aimed at exploring self-directed vocabulary learning (SDVL) in an FL learning environment. Vocabulary learning plays a crucial role in the success of FL learning because words lie at the foundation of sentence construction as basic building blocks. Vocabulary knowledge is the most important factor in academic achievement for FL learners (Saville-Troike 1984). The degree of grasping it affects the accuracy and efficiency of language communication directly, including language comprehension and production. Comprehension is a process of message decoding by learners during listening and reading, whereas production is a process of message encoding during speaking and writing. In common, both processes are inseparable from the activation of vocabulary knowledge, such as spoken or written form, meaning and usage. For a long time, vocabulary has received relatively little attention by both FL teachers and researchers. With the gradual recognition of the importance of vocabulary in language communication, a research interest in vocabulary learning and teaching has grown since the 1980s. Vocabulary acquisition research has established itself as a central research focus for language acquisition researches. (Henriksen 1999:303) A large amount of research has shown that vocabulary knowledge is a key indicator of overall language ability and that vocabulary learning is significantly relevant to the development of all language learning skills. For instance, vocabulary learning is strongly correlated with reading comprehension (Anderson & Freebody 1981; Coady et al. 1993; Nagy 2005; Nassaji 2003; Nation 1990, 2001, 2006; Qian 1999, 2002; Read 1997, 2000) and quality writing (Astika 1993; Engber 1995; Laufer 1994; Laufer & Nation 1995; Lee 2003; Lee & Muncie 2006; Muncie 2002; Uzawa & Cumming 1989). Without a large vocabulary base and precise vocabulary knowledge, learners are most likely to be in trouble when they intend to create a smooth communication.

4 However, with its great importance, vocabulary always presents one of the greatest challenges for FL learners. Although being eager to learn as many words as they can and take in a large amount of knowledge of these words in depth, they have the most trouble in vocabulary learning and express a strong desire for good learning abilities. The exact same situation also happens to college students in Mainland China. The students often complain about their vocabulary learning with such remarks as dullness, inefficiency, painfulness and even desperation. The logical relation of cause and effect is applicable here. Regarding FL teaching in Mainland China, teachers explanation of vocabulary in class is usually confined to a particular context only for the purpose of reading comprehension. Besides, the time in class is necessarily limited and so teachers are often unable to focus on vocabulary in more depth. As a result, a large amount of remaining work on vocabulary learning is left to students out-of-class time. According to a study on Chinese college students SDVL (Wu 2011), about 68% of the students declared that the time they spent on vocabulary learning out of class was more than double that spent in class. Consequently, the strict requirements are laid on learner autonomy. However, based on a few surveys (H. Li 2010; Liu & Zhang 2005; Wang 2002; Wu & Wu 2008; Xu, Peng, & Wu 2004; Zhang 2012), Chinese college students depend too much on their teachers and are used to being passive recipients so that they seriously lack autonomy. The majority of them engage mostly in rote memorization with word lists and mechanical drills during their SDVL. That is, they seldom think of or utilize more useful and appropriate vocabulary learning strategies (VLSs) due to the lack of strategy knowledge, resources and tools. With only mechanical repetitions and drills, the depth of processing and elaboration of words are obviously restricted at different stages of vocabulary learning. Therefore, long-term word retention is hard to achieve, to say nothing of good word transfer. This way of learning vocabulary in self-direction is most likely to result in a decrease of both learning interest and efficiency. Therefore, in order to solve the serious problem above, this book will target how to improve the SDVL of FL college students in Mainland China and attempt to find an effective way for the students 8

5 to learn vocabulary independently as well as successfully. Although there is numerous work on vocabulary knowledge and learning (Jiao 2007; Meng 2007; Yan 2006), few studies make a thorough investigation of the enhancement of SDVL from a comprehensive aspect. Thus, this book will investigate it by exploring both theoretical and practical solutions to the attainment of successful SDVL. As seen from above, there exists a central problem that learners are over-reliant on rote memorization and mechanical drills in SDVL mostly with the superficial processing of words, i.e., they seldom think of or utilize more useful and appropriate VLSs. In order to address this problem, a new approach derived from constructivism, called the Strategy-based Constructivist Approach (SBCA) particularly for SDVL, is proposed from a cognitive perspective to complement the conventional FL vocabulary learning method. Constructivism underscores that learners should be active in participating in the learning process either individually or collaboratively, during which they make sense out of learning materials and build meaningful cognitive representations based on their prior knowledge. It gives considerable insights for building up the SBCA. This new approach assumes that learners should discover and construct new word knowledge actively in an authentic environment based upon their existing mental lexicon, working either by individual or through collaboration. During this process, learners are encouraged to go through a variety of both cognitive and social processes. Responding to students over-reliance on rote memorization and mechanical drills in the traditional vocabulary learning, the utilization of various VLSs is highlighted as a crucial component in the SBCA for facilitating their word knowledge discovery and construction and attaining their SDVL objectives. Some of the strategies serve the different levels of depth of processing (Craik & Lockhart 1972) and elaboration of words (Craik & Tulving 1975) towards long-term word retention. Besides, according to the social development theory of Vygotsky (1978), other strategies may be interactive, i.e., learners discover and construct new word knowledge with their teachers or peers through negotiation of meaning and problem solving in order to enhance word transfer. However, according to a study (Wu 2011), some of the strategies need to be initiated and explicitly instructed, 9