The experiences of international students studying abroad are receiving considerable attention from teachers, parents, researchers, policy makers and programme designers as a result of the increasing internationalisation of higher education. According to UNESCO statistics (2014), the number of international students in tertiary education increased significantly from 2 million in 2000 to 4 million in 2012. In particular, Chinese students have become the largest proportion of international students in many Western countries, such as the USA, the UK and Australia. In the case of the UK, the number of Chinese students is continuing to grow, with a 44% increase predicted over the next decade (British Council 2013).

Chinese students choose to study abroad for a variety of reasons, from academic to cultural to personal. In China, students mainly learn English in the formal language classroom and English is not used as a communication tool in everyday life. Compared with the learning context in their home country, the context of everyday life in an English-speaking country provides international students with a potentially rich environment to acquire the target language and engage with cultural practices. Therefore, one of the primary reasons for studying in an English-speaking country is the desire to gain access to the target language community and improve their English language proficiency (Wu 2014; Zhu 2016).

The transition from a non-English to an entirely English learning environment is not easy, however. The language barrier is perceived as one of the biggest obstacles to international Chinese students’ academic and sociocultural adjustment (Spencer-Oatey and Xiong 2006; Gu and Maley 2008). Weak language skills have been seen to give rise to academic and social problems among Chinese students (Turner 2006; Gu 2009). Studies of the experience of international Chinese students have reported significant difficulties in communicating orally and in writing academically (Holmes 2004; Zhang and Mi 2010). Vocabulary knowledge is viewed as the basis of second language learning and use. There is also considerable research evidence supporting the crucial role that vocabulary plays in both the receptive (reading and listening) and productive (speaking and writing) skills in association with effective communication (Laufer and Nation 1995; Nyikos and Fan 2007; Schmitt 2010; Koizumi and In’nami 2013). Hence, a key way of overcoming these difficulties is for international students to expand their vocabulary and use words appropriately in order to respond to linguistically demanding academic and social tasks (Daller and Xue 2009; Hu 2010).

There is a growing literature about the impact of study-abroad settings on second language acquisition (e.g. Freed 1995; DuFon 2006; Arnold and Fonseca-Mora 2015; Cadd 2015; Taguchi 2015). In particular, empirical evidence suggests that the study-abroad context is more beneficial to L2 learners’ oral fluency, vocabulary development as well as pragmatic competence than a domestic formal classroom setting (DeKeyser 1991; Lafford 2004; Segalowitz and Freed 2004; Barron 2006; Fitzpatrick 2012; Briggs 2015). However, being in an English-speaking country cannot guarantee vocabulary expansion and development.

As part of my research projects on international Chinese students’ vocabulary learning experiences, I have had the opportunity to talk to, interview and get to know Chinese students across different British universities at different degree levels since 2010. Many of them had assumed that vocabulary growth would come naturally through access to the target language community. However, they later realised that only small amounts of vocabulary learning occurred while studying and living in the UK. Drawing on their experiences, away from the learning context, there appeared to be a variety of other factors affecting their vocabulary acquisition, such as their memory capacity, motivation, English language exposures, personality characteristics and word complexity. Most importantly, I found that vocabulary could not be learned successfully without students’ deliberate effort and personal investment.

Learning a word well involves more than just recognising its meaning in a particular context. According to Richards (1976, 2008), being a more advanced second language user means having many other aspects of word knowledge ( also see Gairns and Redman 1986; Ooi and Kim-Seoh 1996; O’Dell 1997; Jiang 2004; Read 2004; Nassaji 2006; Meara 2009b; Nation 2013):

The Chinese students whom I met also mentioned many different kinds of challenges and problems associated with their vocabulary learning and use. The most commonly reported challenges and problems are summarised below:

In order to improve their vocabulary learning, students need to play a more active role in their learning process than to simply receive language input from the study-abroad context. Vocabulary learning strategies have the potential to promote, enhance and facilitate vocabulary learning. There are many vocabulary learning strategies which have been identified in the literature (e.g. Gu and Johnson 1996; Takač 2008; Nation 2013). In particular, emerging broadly from the Oxford (1990) classification, Schmitt (1997) developed a series of vocabulary learning strategies, which is considered to be the most comprehensive classification available, including strategies for discovering and assimilating new vocabulary, strategies for memorising vocabulary and strategies for consolidating vocabulary.

It is also important to keep in mind that strategies themselves are not inherently good or bad, but have the potential to be used effectively (Cohen 1998). The effective use of vocabulary learning strategies can help international students master both receptive and productive English vocabulary for the purposes of more effective communication and adapting to a new academic and sociocultural environment. Therefore, more attention needs to be given to their experiences of strategic vocabulary learning in study-abroad contexts, and further attempts should be made to explore how international Chinese students select and deploy strategies to make their vocabulary learning more effective and productive.

There is a large body of vocabulary learning strategy research which has demonstrated patterns in the strategy use of certain groups of learners (e.g. Kojic-Sabo and Lightbown 1999; Fan 2003; Barcroft 2009) or ...