Concerning the limitation of the studies before and the problems unsolved, this study is planned to enrich the research on vocabulary learning strategies and find out how non-english students’ use of VLS is influenced by the factors including gender and academic major. And with the results and findings of this study, the writer wants to share the valuable information to further promote non-english major students’ ability of English.  

1.2 Purpose and Significance

    D.A Wilkins said that man can communicate with each other without grammar, but they can not express anything without vocabulary. And Harmer (1983) also claimed that if language structure makes up the skeleton of language, then it is vocabulary that provides the vital organs and flesh. Thus, vocabulary learning strategies, a part of language learning strategies, play the crucial role in learning language.

    With so many researches and studies carried out by scholars abroad and in China, there are still some limitations and field remained untouched. On one hand, most of the studies made before pay more attention to the general condition of students’ vocabulary learning strategy uses as well as the relationship between strategy employment and beliefs. However, there are many other factors influencing the strategy use,such as gender difference, major and so on. On the other hand, subjects involved in the studies before are not typical enough. In the past, most of the scholars in China focus on the study of high school students’ vocabulary learning strategies and English major students. The limitation is that on one hand, the quantity of vocabulary high school students have is less than 2000 words and in most cases, the way they employed to memorize the vocabulary is mechanical. On the other hand, although English majors’ amount of vocabulary is relatively larger, the proportion of their number in the Chinese college students is too small. And according to the comparatively poor performance most non-english major students have recently in the College English Tests, it is urgent to enlarge their vocabulary size the ability of using words by employing appropriate vocabulary learning strategies. What’s more, after reading the two researches carried out by Yang Li and Fan Lin, the author found that the difference of vocabulary learning strategies use between science and art majored students concluded by them is opposite. Yang Li concluded that art majors and science majors differ in terms of dictionary use strategies and guessing strategies but were similar in using note-taking and rehearsal strategies, while Fan Li got the conclusion totally opposite.

    Therefore, this study is planned to enrich the research on vocabulary learning strategies and find out how non-english students’ use of VLS is influenced by the factors including gender, academic majors. With the results and findings of this study, the writer wants to share the valuable information to further promote non-english major students’ ability of English. 

1.3 Layout 

    This study consists of five parts. The first part is an introduction of the study which further explain the background, purpose and significance of the research. Part two reviews the definition and classification of the VLS and gives a review of the studies made by the scholars abroad and in China. In part three, the research methodology is presented, including the description of the research questions, participants, instruments, collection and analysis of the data.Part four gives the results and discussion of the research.In the last part, the conclusion of this study and implication are given.