Increasing vocabulary retention of university prep class students through language learning strategies

The aim of this study is to determine the language learning strategies used by university prep class students and their effects on the retention of vocabulary.Using experimental design within this framework, 23 students in the experimental group and 23 students in the control group, total 46 students, from Kocaeli University Department of Foreign Languages Basic English Pre-Intermediate groups participated this study. To determine the experimental and control groups, Strategy Inventory for Language Learning and Vocabulary Test were applied to these both groups and the results were taken into consideration to make these groups equal.In order to determine the language learning strategies of the groups, ?Strategy Inventory for Language Learning? , developed by Rebecca Oxford(1990), and translated into Turkish and reliability and validity of which was checked by Melek Demirel in 2007, was used. In addition, determining their Vocabulary Proficiency, a vocabulary test was developed by the researcher and of which validity and reliability was checked.According to the results of the study:1. There was not a meaningful relationship between the pre and post Strategy Inventory for Language Learning test results of the experimental group.2. There was not a meaningful relationship between the post Strategy Inventory for Language Learning test results of the experimental gruop and control group.3. A meaningful relatioship between the pre and post Vocabulary Test results of the experimental group was found.4. A meaningful relationship between the post Vocabulary Test results of the experimental and control group was found.