The student officers’ vocabulary learning strategies used and their vocabulary type

One of the important things in communication is vocabulary mastery. Since shipping industry communicates through maritime English as language of the sea, seafarers are demanded having proficiency in mastering maritime English which influences the safety of life at sea, ship property, pollution prevention, etc. In addition, maritime English knowldege and skills can ensure the effectiveness of communication. In fact, there are many seafarers who still encounter the problem in understanding instruction and terminology which are related to the activities on board ship. To help seafarers to achieve high quality performance, they should focus on vocabulary learning in maritime English study. Maritime English vocabulary can be divided into four types, they are: high frequency words, academic words, technical words, and low frequency words. Regarding the problems which still exist in vocabulary learning and the number of vocabulary recognition, this study intends to answer three research questions as follows: (1) What are the vocabulary learning strategies used by the student officers of Surabaya Merchant Marine Polytechnic (POLTEKPEL), (2) What vocabulary types have the student officers mastered in learning maritime English vocabulary? (3) What are the student officers’ tendencies in using vocabulary learning strategies to master vocabulary types? This descriptive study used theoretical foundation based on Schmitt’s (1997) vocabulary learning strategies taxonomy which consists of determination strategies, social strategies, memory strategies, cognitive strategies, and metacognitive strategies. There were two kinds of instruments used to collect the data, they were the result vocabulary learning strategies questionnaire and maritime English vocabulary test. Questionnaire used for answering research question 1, maritime English test used for answering research question 2 and both of the result of questionnaire and maritime English test used for answering research question 3. The researcher also discussed related theories and review of related studies. The result of research question 1 showed that 9 out of 30 students (30%) used English-Indonesian dictionary in determination strategy. Then, 5 students (16.67%) used social strategies and it indicated that they often asked classmates to discover and understand the meaning of a new word in this strategy. In memory strategies, 3 out of 30 students (10%) often learned words by paraphrasing the meaning of new words. On the other hand, 10 students (33.33%) often took notes in class and they used cognitive strategies. In addition, in metacognitive strategy, 3 students (10%) often translated the meaning of words from Indonesian into English. Research question 2 revealed 12 students (40%) were considered having mastery on vocabulary test in academic words category, 10 students (33.33%) had mastered technical words category, and only 3 students (10%) had mastered both of academic and technical words category. The result of research question 3 found that there were 9 students (30%) who used determination strategies with M 4.03 and SD 0.46 and there were no students who had mastery of academic and technical vocabulary types because they had scored less than 12 correct items. There were 5 students (16.67%) who used social strategy with mean 4.26 and standard deviation 0.61 and 4 students had mastered technical words type. In memory strategy, there were only 3 students (10%) had applied this strategy with mean 3.64 and standard deviation 0.13 and all of them only had mastery of technical words type. On the other hand, 10 students (33.33%) used cognitive strategy in vocabulary learning with mean 3.97 and standard deviation 0.43 and 9 students only had mastered academic words type and there were no students who mastered technical words type. In metacognitive strategy, 3 students (10%) had applied this strategy with mean 4.5 and standard deviation 0.31 and all of them had mastered not only academic but also technical words. In conclusion, the students who used determination strategies were not able to master academic and technical words types. The students who used social strategies tended to master technical words type. Then, the students who used memory strategies tended to master technical words type. On the other hand, the students who used cognitive strategies tended to master academic words type. Meanwhile, the students who used metacognitive strategies tended to master two vocabulary types which consist of academic words and technical words