Perceived Importance, Use and Instruction of Vocabulary Learning Strategies from Students' and Teachers' Perspectives

Abstract

This study aimed to unearth and compare students' and teachers' perspectives inrelation to the perceived importance, use and instruction of vocabulary learningstrategies (VLS). A total of 548 ninth grade students studying at ten differentAnatolian high schools in Antalya, Turkey and 56 English language teachersworking at these schools participated in the study. Data were collected by meansof a questionnaire based on Schmitt's (1997) taxonomy of VLS. Following avalidation process and conducting confirmatory factor analysis, further statisticalanalysis was carried out. The results indicated that the students and teachers whoascribed a higher level of importance to VLS used and taught them to asignificantly larger extent. The study found no statistically significant differencebetween the levels of importance attached to the use and instruction of VLS by thestudents and teachers. However, teachers' frequency of strategy instructionappeared to be significantly higher than students' frequency of strategy use exceptfor cognitive strategies. Therefore, it was concluded that while teachers reportedactively teaching a wide variety of VLS, students implemented the strategies to amore limited extent. Based on the results, it was recommended to explore thereasons for this discrepancy between the students and teachers.