ELI 72: Reflection of Vocabulary Learning Strategies
Before writing a reflection on vocabulary learning strategies, think about the following
questions.
1. What are some of the vocabulary learning strategies you have tried out? When did
you use the strategies? Which ones were more useful to you?
2. What were the vocabulary learning goals you set at the beginning of the semester?
How much have you accomplished? What words/expressions have you recorded in
the vocabulary log? Where did those words/expressions come from? Have you
encountered these words/expressions in other contexts? Have you tried to use these
words/expressions in speaking or writing?
3. Skim through your vocabulary log. How many words/expressions do you think you
have acquired? Do you think you will be able to understand the meanings when you
hear them in a conversation or a speech? Do you think you will be able to understand
the meanings when encountering them in readings? Have you used them in speaking
or writing?
Read the following passages from vocabulary learning strategy reflections written by
students. Which ones do you think are good examples? Which ones are not? Write in
the space below to indicate the strengths and weaknesses of each passage. What should
be included for a good reflection? (*note: Since the following passages are student
samples, there might be grammatical errors in the following passages. Please,
concentrate on the content only when doing the exercise.)
1. This semester I learned some new vocabulary learning strategies like how to build
vocabulary, using context clues or using word parts. These help me a lot. I used those
methods to memorize new vocabulary, faster and more effective than I did before.
2. Students in this class, they are not the same level. Building up own vocabulary log is
better than everyone memorizes same words. That is too narrow and does not improve
our amount of vocabulary. During this semester, I learned about sixty to seventy new
vocabulary. I also make my own vocabulary for my other academic classes.
3. I have been learning reading section of English as a second language in the ELI
reading courses. Especially, I was interested in affixes which mean bound morpheme
attached to a stem or root that I learned in linguistics class. I am interested in linguistics
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especially Japanese. However, between English and Japanese, the basic system for
understanding words or to infer meaning is same. It is from affix if you don’t understand
the word meaning. When we read the material, but we found the word that we don’t know,
we have to find anyhow strategy to get the meaning of the word. Otherwise, you lose the
sentence. I picked up prefix and suffixes from affix because most language has both
prefixes and suffixes.
4. I use different word learning strategies when encountering different texts. For example,
if the article is about technology, I could learn many words relating to the same topic at
the same time. I could use the strategy of example clues to help me infer what the
meaning of the word is. If the word has various parts, I could use word parts to analyze
the meaning. I used the prefix “ex-“ and “co-“ to analyze the words “export” and “cooperation.” Furthermore, identifying supporting details and transitions is useful too.
5. Vocabularies are really important for academic reading and writing. So I think all of us
should try to know as many as words possible. I think I am really good at guessing the
meaning of word using context clues. I always can understand the main point without
knowing the exact meaning of some words. I don’t need to try out other strategies
because I don’t need them to understand articles. So I think I’ll keep using context clues
for understanding articles.
6. I don’t look up every word I don’t know when I am reading. I have learned in class that
even though we do not know several words in the paragraph, we can still get the idea of
the paragraph. So I did not use the vocabulary skill so much for words that are not very
important or words that will not stop me from understanding the paragraph. I used
vocabulary skills when I was reading the information that I found is useful for my
research paper. Usually, I skipped the words that I do not know; but it is the main idea of
the paragraph and I couldn’t skip it, I used the skill which I learned. For example, I don’t
know the meaning of the word “fuel”. It is in sentence “Day by day people require ever
more space, more food, more water, more belongings, more fuel, and more roads.” From
the context, I knew this word is some kind resource. The vocabulary skills are useful for
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my research.
7. I have read several articles in my other classes until now. They are not that difficult to
understand. So I don’t actually have many chances to apply any vocabulary learning
strategies to my reading. Because I could understand the content without using those
strategies. Also I haven’t had much time to memorize new vocabulary using some
strategies like vocabulary logs or word parts.
8. Making vocabulary logs or write down definitions beside vocabulary help me a lot and
I highly recommend. Our native language and definitions help us easily memorize new
vocabulary and transform into people’s long term memory. Even through making
vocabulary log is not from reading textbook, from textbook word parts and context clue
help me guess words’ meaning. Based on understanding, I memorize.
9. I think I am so poor at memorizing words. Even though I have learned some strategies,
I’m not sure how I can use it. So I haven’t tried any special strategies until now. My
vocabulary level is so low. I usually have a hard time to read an article because I can’t
understand many of the words in it. It takes me a long time to look up a dictionary
whenever I come across new words and finish reading just one short article. I need to
build up vocabularies and I know it. But I have no idea which one I might use next time. I
think vocabulary learning is too hard for me.
 Now you are ready to write your own reflection of
vocabulary learning strategies. Keep in mind the elements that
make a good reflection while writing!

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