Developing Vocabulary Strategies During Study Abroad

This chapter provides a detailed description as to the strategies which Ji and Qa deployed for building English vocabulary during their study abroad and shows how their strategic approaches to vocabulary learning developed through different kinds of strategy instruction on the Opal site. A number of factors that have been identified appeared to affect the effectiveness of strategy instruction, such as the length of strategy instruction, types of activities, the role of the teacher and learners’ learning styles. Their attempts to learn vocabulary were not always successful. In particular, they encountered various challenges learning and using colloquial, spoken vocabulary. They sought solutions to deal with their problems and continued to improve their strategy use. Drawing on their data, the case studies have identified some key factors that facilitated and enhanced their vocabulary learning.