VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES --- --- NGUYỄN THỊ KIỀU NGA EFFICIENCY OF GAP-FILL EXERCISES TO 10TH FORM STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY ACQUISITION (Hiệu quả của bài tập điền khuyết đối với sự tiếp thụ từ vựng của học sinh lớp 10) MINOR M.A THESIS Field: English Methodology Code: 601410 HANOI - 2011 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES --- --- NGUYỄN THỊ KIỀU NGA EFFICIENCY OF GAP-FILL EXERCISES TO 10TH FORM STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY ACQUISITION (Hiệu quả của bài tập điền khuyết đối với sự tiếp thụ từ vựng của học sinh lớp 10) MINOR M.A THESIS Field: English Methodology Code: 601410 SUPERVISOR: LE VAN CANH, Ph.D HANOI - 2011 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com -iv- TABLE OF CONTENTS Pages Declaration i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii Tables of contents iv Lists of Tables, Figures vii Lists of Abbreviations viii PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. Aims and Objectives of the study 2 3. Research Hypotheses and Questions 2 4. Method of the Study 3 5.
Scope of the study 3 6. Significance of the Study 4 7. Organization of the thesis 4 PART II: DEVELOPMENT 5 CHAPTER ONE : LIRETATURE REVIEW 5 1. What is vocabulary? 1.
The role of vocabulary in second language learning 5 1. The vocabulary acquisition 6 1. Vocabulary teaching techniques 7 1. Vocabulary activities and exercises 9 1.
Criteria of a good vocabulary exercise 10 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Gap-fill exercises and the acquisition of vocabulary 11 1. Summary 17 CHAPTER TWO: THE STUDY 18 2. Context of the study 18 2.
Rationale for using a Quasi-experimental method 18 2. Designing and applying gap-fill exercises 20 2. Instruments for data collection 23 2. Pretest and Posttest 23 2.
Summary 25 CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 26 3. The Effectiveness of GFEs on students’ vocabulary acquisition 26 3. Comparison of Pretest and Posttest Performance 26 3. Comparison of both group’s vocabulary gains after the experiment 27 3.
Students’ attitudes towards GFEs 29 3.1 Vocabulary gains as resulted from the application of GFEs 32 3. Students’ attitudes towards GFEs 33 3. Summary 34 PART III: CONCLUSION 1. Summary of main findings 35 2.
Limitations of the study 36 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Recommendations for the application of GFEs 37 4. Suggestions for further study 38 REFERENCES 39 APPENDICES Appendix A: Test Scores I Appendix B: Vocabulary pretest & key II Appendix C: Vocabulary posttest &key VI Appendix D: The Questionnaire X Appendix E: Word lists XI LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com -vii- LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES Pages Table 3.1 Descriptive statistics for the pretest and posttest of 26 experimental and control groups.2 Means gains of the experimental group and control groups 28 after the experiment.3 Students’ attitudes towards GFEs 30 Figure 3.1 The differences between the means scores on the paired pretest 27 and the paired posttests.2 Differences in gain values obtained by both groups after the 29 experiment LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com -viii- LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS df Degree of Freedom DTH Dinh Tien Hoang EFL English as Foreign Language ESL English as Second Language GFEs Gap – Fill Exercises H0 Null Hypothesis H1 Alternative Hypothesis L1 First Language L2 Second Language MOET Ministry of Education and Training M Means N Number of Cases or Subjects of the study p Probability of chance (indicator of significance) SD Standard Deviation SPSS Statistic Package for Social Science t Obtained Value tcrit Critic Value TOEIC Test of English for International Communication X Independent factor Y Dependent factor LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com -1- PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Vocabulary is an important language element that links four language skills, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing together and makes communication flow smoothly.
Reality shows that many students have fairly good knowledge of grammar but are hardly able to express themselves properly because of their vocabulary deficiency. Vocabulary learning, therefore, becomes the central to language acquisition and interest in its role in second language learning has grown rapidly in recent years. Scholars and teachers now emphasize the need of systematic and principled approach to vocabulary by both the teacher and the learner (Decarrico, 2001; Nation, 1990). One of the concerns in vocabulary is how to help students acquire their English vocabulary.
However, at upper secondary schools, the teaching and learning of English language in general, English vocabulary in particular are still far from satisfaction as students’ final results in most English examinations remain unchanged at low levels. In fact, most secondary school students have not paid enough attention to vocabulary learning as they mainly receive basic lessons of grammar together with four skills from their teachers and textbooks. It is common knowledge that there are various techniques of learning vocabulary, mastering and using it in different contexts and one of the effective techniques to help students to reinforce vocabulary is giving them appropriate vocabulary exercises, namely, gap-fill exercises. This type of vocabulary exercises typically consists of leaving a gap or a blank space in a sentence or a passage which students have to fill in with the correct letter, word, phrase or whatever is missing.
Though vocabulary is vitally important to master any foreign languages, in reality, many grade 10 students’ English vocabulary is still limited even though they have learned English for four years at the lower secondary school. It is their limited vocabulary that explains their poor performance in using English and in their test performance. All these have motivated me to conduct this quasi-experimental research on the topic given, namely efficiency of gap- fill exercises to 10th form students’ vocabulary acquisition. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Aims and Objectives of the Study The main aim of this study is to experiment gap-fill exercises in helping grade 10 students acquire their English vocabulary. To be more specific, the primary objectives of the study are set as follows: To experiment gap-fill exercises and examine their effects on grade 10 students’ English vocabulary acquisition. To investigate the students’ attitudes towards gap-fill exercises. how effective they think doing gap-fill exercises is to their vocabulary learning.
Research Hypotheses and Questions To achieve the aims and objectives, the study is designed to test the hypothesis: H1: Grade 10 students who apply gap-fill exercises will make more significant improvement in their English vocabulary acquisition as measured by both pre-test and post-test scores than those who do not apply such exercises. If the above hypothesis was fully accepted, the following null hypothesis would be obviously rejected or vice versa: H0: There is no difference in English vocabulary acquisition as measured by both pre-test and post-test scores between grade 10 students who apply gap-fill exercises and those who do not apply such exercises. In order to identify which hypothesis would be accepted, the following research questions are formulated and needed to answer satisfactorily: (1) What effect do gap –fill exercises have on students’ vocabulary acquisition as measured by their scores in the pre-test and post-test? (2) What are the students’ attitudes towards gap-fill exercises after the experimental period? LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Method of the Study Because the purpose of the study is to test out the impact of gap-fill exercises on students’ acquisition of vocabulary, a quasi-experiment with a pre-test- and post-test design was adopted in this study.
Two non-randomized groups of 82 students (one control group and one experimental group, N= 41 each) participated in this experiment. The pre-test and post-test scores were analyzed by means of t-test to find out the correlation of the two means to accept or reject the null hypothesis, namely gap-fill exercises do not have any effect on grade 10 students’ English vocabulary learning. In addition, a post-experiment questionnaire was also used as the supplementary instrument to elicit the students’ evaluative attitudes towards gap-fill exercises after the experimental period. Scope of the Study The experiment was conducted to examine the impact of one type of vocabulary exercises, i., gap-fill exercises on students’ acquisition of vocabulary.
The sample was a small group of grade 10 students who were non-randomly assigned to a control class and an experimental class (41 students for each). Therefore, no intention was made to generalize the findings. Significance of the Study Although no generalization was intended, the findings of the study could inform teachers of the effectiveness of gap-fill exercises on students’ vocabulary learning 7. Organization of the thesis This thesis is organized in three parts.
Part I is The Introduction which presents the rationale for the research topic, aims, research hypotheses, scope, significance, and method of the study. Part II is The Development which consists of three chapters. Chapter one reviews theoretical background to teaching and learning vocabulary in a second language including vocabulary’s definition, its role in second language learning, the vocabulary acquisition, vocabulary exercises and the relationship between gap-fill exercises and vocabulary LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Chapter two describes the context of the study, rationale of using a Quasi- experimental method, variables, participants, design of gap-fill exercises, instruments of the study as well as the procedure employed to carry out the research.
Chapter three presents detailed analyses of the data given by the pretest and posttest and discusses the findings that the researcher found out from the data collected. Part III is The Conclusion which discusses the major findings and limitations of the research, recommends the application of gap-fill exercises and suggests further studies. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com -5- PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW 1. What is vocabulary? Up to now there have been many definitions of vocabulary.
Some linguists define it according to semantic criterion while others refer to it according to the phonological or potential one. According to Michael Lewis (1993:89), vocabulary “….may be individual words, or full sentences – institutionalized utterances – that convey fixed social or pragmatic meaning within a given community. (1996) defines vocabulary as the words we teach in the foreign language. The author also emphasizes that a new item of vocabulary may be more than a single word; for example, post office and mother-in law, which are made up of two or three words but express a single idea.
There are also multi-word idioms such as call it a day, where the meaning of the phrase cannot be deduced from an analysis of the component words. Therefore, a useful convention is to cover all such cases by talking about vocabulary “lexical items” rather than “words”. From a pedagogical perspective, Ur’s (1996) definition of vocabulary is easy to understand. However, the definition also suggests that it is not easy to define what a word is.
The role of vocabulary in second language learning If language structures make up the skeleton of a language, vocabulary provides vital organs and the flesh, so, vocabulary plays a very essential role in any language. Concerning the significance of vocabulary, Wilkin (1972:110) states: “Vocabulary is one of the three dimensions of a language (phonetics, grammar, vocabulary). Without grammar, very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed”. Wallace (1982) points out that “failure to find the words one needs to express himself is the most frustrating experience in speaking another language”.
LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com -6- Thus, for the success of learning a language, it is very essential for learners to master its vocabulary. The vocabulary acquisition Rivers (1981: 463) argues that Vocabulary cannot be taught. It can be presented, explained, included in all kinds of activities, but it must be learned by the individual. The vocabulary we understand and the vocabulary we can use varieties in nature and in quantity from one person to another even in our native language.
She, then, recommends seven strategies for “learning how to learn vocabulary”.