This paper reports on the study of the strategy use of Chinese English majors in vocabulary learning; the individual differences between effective and less effective learners in employing vocabulary learning strategies and the relationship between their strategies and their outcome in English learning. In this research, 118 junior English majors inChineseUniversitywere investigated. The participants were asked to take a vocabulary test and complete a vocabulary-learning questionnaire.

The data collected was analyzed using the SPSS (the Statistical Package for Social Science) and the result indicates that there are significant differences between effective and less effective learners. Effective learners use strategies more frequently and flexibly, while less effective learners turn out to be rote learners. They employ repetition strategy more often and they rely more on their mother tongue, Chinese, in vocabulary learning. Thus the translation strategy was extensively used among them. The result also shows that seven strategies, namely applied, categorization, self-monitoring, cooperation, media, elaboration and dictionary strategy are positively correlated with the vocabulary test scores and the Test for English Majors (Grade 4) scores. The above findings have certain implication for both learners and teachers.