VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** PHẠM THỊ HOA AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE USEFULNESS OF THE TECHNIQUES FOR GUESSING THE MEANING OF NEW WORDS THROUGH CONTEXT FOR THE 11TH FORM STUDENTS AT PHUC THANH HIGH SCHOOL NGHIÊN CỨU LỢI ÍCH CỦA THỦ THUẬT ĐOÁN NGHĨA TỪ MỚI DỰA VÀO NGỮ CẢNH CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 11 TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT PHÚC THÀNH M.A MINOR THESIS (SUMMARY OF THE THESIS) Field: English Methodology Code: 60.10 HA NOI – 2011 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** PHẠM THỊ HOA AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE USEFULNESS OF THE TECHNIQUES FOR GUESSING THE MEANING OF NEW WORDS THROUGH CONTEXT FOR THE 11TH FORM STUDENTS AT PHUC THANH HIGH SCHOOL NGHIÊN CỨU LỢI ÍCH CỦA THỦ THUẬT ĐOÁN NGHĨA TỪ MỚI DỰA VÀO NGỮ CẢNH CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 11 TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT PHÚC THÀNH M.A MINOR THESIS (SUMMARY OF THE THESIS) Field: English Methodology Code: 60.10 Supervisor: Trần Hiền Lan, M.A HA NOI – 2011 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Declaration .iii Table of contents .iv List of figures and tables.vii Part I: Introduction. Aims and Objectives of the study. Method of the study. Scope of the study.
Significance of the study. Design of the study .3 Part II: DEVELOPMENT .5 CHAPTER ONE: Literature Review. Theoretical background to acquiring vocabulary through reading .1 An overview of a context- based approach .1 Definition of context .2 Context-based approach to vocabulary acquisition .2 Some previous studies on contextual guesswork .3 Guessing or inferring technique .4 Types of context clues .5 Factors that affect contextual guessing .12 CHAPTER TWO: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .14 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.2 Context of the study .3 The Rationale of Using Quasi-Experiment .8 Instruments for Data Collection. Pretest and Posttest .23 CHAPTER THREE: DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS.
DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS. Reports of the results collected by means of Pretest and Posttest. Comparison of Pretest and Posttest Performance. Comparison of Both Groups' Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension Gains after the Experiment.
Reports of the results collected by means of questionnaires. The results of the pre-experiment questionnaires .1 The results of the pre-experiment questionnaire for students .2 The results of the pre-experiment questionnaire for teachers. The results of the post-experiment questionnaire. Discussion of Research Questions.
Discussion of Both Groups' Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension Gain s after the Experiment. Discussion of the Experimental Students' Opinions of the Guessing Techniques.40 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vi Part III: CONCLUSIONS. Limitations of the study. Recommendations for the Application of the Guessing Techniques.
Suggestions for Further Study .I Appendix 1: The pre-experiment questionnaire for the students (Vietnamese version) .I Appendix 2 : The pre-experiment questionnaire for the teachers .X Appendix 5: The post-experiment questionnaire for the experimental students (Vietnamese version) .XV LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vii LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figure 1: The differences between the mean scores on the paired pretests and the paired posttests Figure 2: Difference in gain values obtained by both groups after the experiment Figure 3: The experimental students' attitudes towards the guessing techniques Table 1: Background information about the subjects of the study Table 2: The results of the pretest and posttest of the two groups Table 3: The classifications of pretest and posttest scores of the two groups Table 4: Descriptive statistics for the pretest and posttest of the experimental and control groups Table 5: Mean gains of the experimental and control groups after the experiment Table 6: Experimental participants' feedback and evaluative attitudes towards the guessing techniques LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1 PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Reading, as a basic and vital skill, has always received a great deal of attention in English teaching programs for foreign learners, especially at upper secondary education level in Vietnam. For example, reading is the first skill in each unit in the textbook English 11 proves its important role. This is understandable as reading is considered not only an essential means to gain knowledge but also a means by which further study takes place.
However, from my professional experience, I realize that most of grade 11 students in my school confront many problems while learning reading. They often find it difficult to understand the reading texts in the textbook English 11; they encounter a lot of troubles in dealing with unknown words which occur frequently in the reading texts. In fact, the main reason for this is that they are used to reading the texts word by word, looking up every unfamiliar word in the dictionary when reading and they never try to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words from the texts. Consequently, although a great deal of time and energy is devoted to teaching and learning reading, the result has been dissatisfactory.
Many students are unable to read effectively in English and they perform poorly in their reading comprehension which is tested in almost all examinations. Therefore, this problem is well worth being taken into consideration. In spite of the evidence that the use of contextual clues can be one of the best ways to improve students' reading skills. Also, the use of contextual clues can provide a means by which students can quickly increase their existing vocabulary base and guessing or deducing word meaning from context has proved to be an invaluable technique in the learning of English vocabulary and the teaching of reading, it has not attracted much attention in terms of classroom instruction.
Some research on reading techniques has mentioned this technique as a good one but little attempt has been made to integrate this technique training into normal teaching. Even little has been made to investigate the usefulness of developing students' techniques for guessing unknown words through context on the improvement of their proficiency of vocabulary and reading comprehension. All these have motivated the researcher to conduct this quasi-experimental research on the topic given, namely an investigation into the usefulness of the techniques for guessing the meaning of new words through context for 11th form students at Phuc Thanh High School. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Aims and Objectives of the study Within a framework of a minor thesis, the study is aimed at improving the proficiency of vocabulary and reading comprehension for the 11th form students through developing the students' techniques for guessing the meaning of new words through context. To achieve this aim, the study sets out to obtain the following specific objectives: - To discover whether or not the techniques for guessing the meaning of unknown words through context make students' vocabulary acquisition and their reading comprehension skill improve. - To examine the experimental students' attitudes towards the application of guessing techniques to their reading process, and then to make some recommendations for further study. Research Questions To achieve the aims and objectives of the study, an attempt is made to seek the answers to the following research questions: (1) Do techniques for guessing the meaning of unknown words through context make the 11th form students' vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension skill improve as measured by their scores in the pre-test and post-test? (2) What are the students' attitudes towards the application of guessing techniques to their reading process after experimental period? 4.
Method of the study The main research method employed in this thesis to find out the answers to the proposed research questions is a quasi-experimental research, with the uses of two instruments: survey questionnaires (including the pre-experiment questionnaires and the post-experiment questionnaire) and pre-test and post-test. The pre-experiment questionnaire for students was carried out to find out the students' perceptions and attitudes towards reading comprehension, as well as to identify what the students might commonly do to deal with unknown words and what techniques they used to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words during their reading process. The pre-experiment questionnaire for teachers was not only used to investigate the teachers' perceptions and attitudes towards reading comprehension but it also aimed at examining what activity the LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 3 teachers might frequently utilize to teach the meaning of new words and what techniques they used to teach their students to know how to deduce the meaning of unfamiliar words while reading. A design of pretest and posttest was employed as the main research method to measure both groups' English vocabulary and reading comprehension proficiency before and after the trial period.
The post-experiment questionnaire was used as the supplementary instrument to elicit the experimental students' comments and evaluative attitudes towards the techniques for guessing the meaning of unknown words through context after the experimental period. Scope of the study The study is concerned with investigating the usefulness of developing the techniques for guessing the meaning of unknown words through context for the 11 th form students at Phuc Thanh High School, Hai Duong province. Given the time constraint, the researcher could just carry out an experiment upon a small sample of grade 11 students who were non - randomly assigned to a control class and an experimental class, (25 students each). As the study examined only grade 11 students at Phuc Thanh High School, few claims to generalization over a wider set of situations can be made, as students with different English proficiency or from a different background may yield different results, even where the text is of the same level of difficulty.
Significance of the study The present research was carried out with the hope that it would help reading teachers as well as grade 11 students to be able to aware of the important role of the guessing techniques in reading lessons. Moreover, the findings of the study hopefully could help the 11th form students in particular and high school students in general improve their reading skills. Design of the study The study comprises three main parts. Part I, the introduction, presents an overview of the study, including the rationale for the study, aims and objectives, research questions, research method, scope, significance and design of the study.
Part II, the development, consists of three chapters. Chapter one presents some general theories relating to guessing LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 4 techniques including an overview of a context- based approach, a summary of some research on contextual guesswork, guessing or inferring technique, types of context clues, and factors that affect contextual guessing. Chapter two deals with the methodology, which provides the context of the study, the rationale for using quasi-experiment, the variables, the background information about the subjects of the study, the materials, the procedures as well as the data collection instruments. Chapter three analyzes the data collected, reports and discusses the results of the research.
It gives details of the significant findings from data collection, i., the presentation of the two groups' pretest and posttest scores, reports of the results collected by means of questionnaires. Part III, the conclusion of the study, recapitulates the findings of the research. This part also points out some limitations of the study, several recommendations for the application of the guessing techniques as well as some suggestions for further study. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 5 PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT chapter one: Literature Review 1.
Introduction Reading has been considered a difficult skill for many learners of English as a foreign language. It is evident that English learners need a wide range of techniques to deal with reading texts, among which techniques of dealing with unknown words in context are of importance.