Lexical density and readability of english essays written by ielts learners at ky nguyen international language center master of tesol

i --- THESIS LEXICAL DENSITY AND READABILITY OF ENGLISH ESSAYS WRITTEN BY IELTS LEARNERS AT KY NGUYEN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE CENTER Student code: 18110054 Supervisor’s name: TRAN QU

i

-

THESIS

LEXICAL DENSITY AND READABILITY OF ENGLISH ESSAYS WRITTEN

BY IELTS LEARNERS AT KY NGUYEN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE

CENTER

Student code: 18110054 Supervisor’s name: TRAN QUOC THAO, PhD

Ba Ria - Vung Tau, 2021

i

BA RIA VUNG TAU UNIVERSITY

-

LEXICAL DENSITY AND READABILITY OF ENGLISH ESSAYS WRITTEN

BY IELTS LEARNERS AT KY NGUYEN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE

CENTER

Submitted to the School of International Training and Post-Graduate Studies in partial

fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL

Student’s code: 18110054 Supervisor’s name: TRAN QUOC THAO, PhD

Ba Ria - Vung Tau, 2021

ii

I hereby certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled:

LEXICAL DENSITY AND READABILITY OF ENGLISH ESSAYS WRITTEN BY IELTS LEARNERS AT KY NGUYEN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE CENTER

in terms of the statement of Requirements for the Thesis in Master’s program issued by the Higher Degree Committee The thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree

or diploma in any other situations

Ba Ria - Vung Tau City, June 2021

iii

I hereby state that, Tran Thi Ai Vy being the candidate for the degree of Master in TESOL, accept the requirements of Ba Ria - Vung Tau University relating to the retention and use of Master’s theses deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the library should be assessable for the purpose of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the library for the care, loan or reproduction of the thesis

Ba Ria - Vung Tau city, June 2021

Tran Thi Ai Vy

iv

I would like to express my gratitude to those who have helped and supported me during the hard time doing my research and completing this thesis

First, my gratefulness goes to my respectful supervisor, Dr Tran Quoc Thao, for pushing

me forward in writing up and revising my thesis and providing with constructive comments and precious guidance throughout the stages of doing research and thesis writing

I am thankful for the continuing support that the management of the KNILC in Vung Tau city provided when I was working on my thesis

Last but not least, I am very grateful to my incomparably caring and loving parents Without my parents, I would never have had the chance to pursue further study and to concentrate on completing my thesis

Without the encouragement, support and guidance provided by those named or unlisted, I would not have completed this Master’s thesis

I appreciate all

v

ABSTRACT

Teaching IELTS writing part 2 to IELTS learners at Ky Nguyen international language center faced a great number of challenges These learners’ writing skills for IELTS writing part 2 brought problems for their teachers and readers because of different levels of lexical density and readability found in their IELTS writing The study aimed to analyze the level of lexical density, the level of readability and the language use in terms

of vocabulary and grammar used in 200 midterm essays written by IELTS learners at this center in Vung Tau city Each of these 100 IELTS participants, whose IELTS score bands were from 5 to 6.5, turned in two midterms academic IELTS writing part 2 essays during their course, so there were in total 200 essays These essays were typed and saved into the computer Then, Ure’s (1971) formula of lexical density and Microsoft Office app named Flesch’s (1948) Reading Ease were employed to analyze the collected data The findings revealed that the average level of lexical density of 200 essays was 53.86% and the average

of readability of these essays was 45.65% Besides, the findings indicated the impacts of different levels of lexical density and readability on language use in terms of vocabulary and grammar in the 200 essays There was a relationship among the level of lexical density, the level of readability and the language use in IELTS learners’ essays at the center The results of the study are hoped to help IELTS writing teachers at this center improve their teaching methods in order to provide their IELTS learners, who would like to get their target IELTS band score from 7 above when they enrolled the IELTS course, with a useful range of academic vocabulary and grammar used in IELTS writing task 2 section and readability

Key words: IELTS writing task 2, lexical density, readability, language use, writing

skills, academic vocabulary

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Statement of originality……… …… …ii

Retention and use of the thesis……… …… iii

Acknowledgement……… …………iv

Abstract……….… v

Table of contents………vi

List of tables……… ………ix

List of figures……….…… x

List of abbreviations……….xi

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION……….………1

1.1 Background to the study………1

1.2 Statement of the problem……… 3

1.3 Aims and objectives of the study……… 4

1.4 Research questions……… …5

1.5 Scope of the study……….………… 5

1.6 Significance of the study………5

1.7 Definitions of the terms……….6

1.8 Organization of the thesis……… 7

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW……… 8

2.1 Introduction……… ……….8

2.2 Writing……… 8

2.2.1 Definitions of writing……… 8

2.2.2 The importance of writing in IELTS test……… …………9

2.2.3 Characteristics of writing in IELTS test……… ……… 9

2.3 Lexical density……… … 10

2.3.1 Definitions of lexical density……… …….10

2.3.2 The importance of lexical density in writing……… … 12

2.3.3 The level of lexical density in learner’s writing……… 13

vii

2.4 Readability……… ………15

2.4.1 Definitions of readability……… …… 15

2.4.2 The significance of readability in writing………16

2.4.3 Readability in learner’s writing……… ……….16

2.5 Language use in academic writing……… …16

2.6 Previous research……… 20

2.7 Conceptual framework………22

2.8 Summary……….23

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY……… 24

3.1 Research questions……… ………24

3.2 Research design……… 24

3.3 Materials ……… ……… ……26

3.4 Data collection procedures……… ……… ….27

3.5 Data analysis procedures……….27

3.6 Validity and reliability of the study……… 28

3.7 Summary……… …… 30

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION……… ……31

4.1 Introduction……….31

4.2 Results……….31

4.2.1 The level of lexical density of English essays written by IELTS learners at the context of KNILC 31

4.2.2 The level of readability of English essays written by IELTS learners at the context of KNILC 33

4.2.3 The language used in terms of grammar and vocabulary in English essays written by IELTS learners at the context of KNILC 37

4.2.3.1 Grammar used in English essays written by IELTS learners at KNILC…… … 37

4.2.3.2 Vocabulary used in English essays written by IELTS learners at KNILC………39

4.3 Discussion……….……… ….……….… 40

4.4 Summary……….46

viii

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION……… …………47

5.1 Conclusion……… …47

5.2 Implications……….48

5.3 Limitations……… …49

5.4 Recommendations for further research……… …….49

References……… ……… ……50

Appendices……… ……… 53

Appendix A: Level of Lexical density of each essay of 200 ones……….53

Appendix B: Level of readability of each essay of 200 ones……… 61

Appendix C: Hard and long words used in each essay……… 68

ix

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1.: Question types of IWT2………11

Table 2.2: Formula of lexical density (Ure, 1971)……… ……….13

Table 2.3: List of topics for IELTS Writing Task 2… ……… …16

Table 2.4: Band descriptions for IELTS writing task 2……… ……20

Table 3.1: Original Flesch Reading Ease……… … 30

Table 3.2: Information about IELTS learners at KNILC……… …….32

Table 4.1: Average level of lexical density of 200 essays……… …29

Table 4.2: Classification of lexical density level……… ….38

Table 4.3: Level of readability of 200 essays……… … 39

Table 4.4: The classification of readability level……… ….38

Table 4.5: Comparison of readability level and standardized tests……….42

Table 4.6: The correlation of readability level, IELTS score band and learners’ level… 42

Table 4.7: Average number of sentences per essay……… 43

Table 4.8: Sentences that contain nominalization……… …44

Table 4.9: Hard and long words used in 200 English essays……….… 46

Table 4.10: Classification and level of lexical density and reliability……….50

x

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1.: The conceptual framework of the thesis……….……27 Figure 4.1: Lexical density……… ……… 39 Figure 4.2: Level of readability……… …41

xi

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ASL: Average Sentence Length ASW: Average number of syllable per word EFL: English as a Foreign Language

ESL: English as a Second language IELTS: International Language Testing System IWT2: IELTS Writing Task 2

KNILC: Ky Nguyen International Language Center RB: Readability

TESOL: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the study

IELTS (International English Language Testing System) is an English Test which

is internationally controlled by the British Council, IELTS Australia (IDP) and Cambridge Assessment English It is recognized as a standard of English proficiency by more than 9.000 organizations among approximately 140 nations for immigration and academic purposes It primarily aims to evaluate people’s level of English, especially for those who desire to study or work in places where English is utilized as a main language to communicate According to (Shaw, 2007) because IELTS’s reputation, it is getting more common and important for organizations which hold the test to supply a reliable and value assessment Now that many people long to obtain higher education oversea, IELTS becomes one of the most common English tests This phenomenon results from many advantages of IELTS One noticeable benefit of IELTS is that it is very useful for people’s whole stages in life Thanks to IELTS, people will be able to be admitted to a variety of international schools in the world Moreover, there are also a big number of immigration authorities which require IELTS certificate for their admission on account of its great quality criteria Another strong point of IELTS which attracts many candidates to take that test is that on taking the IELTS test, they can employ their English understanding as though English is their first language Candidates can get academic assessment thanks to the 4- skill format of the test together with conversations related to real life They can be asked

to talk about their daily life at school, at work or some questions about their hobbies, celebrities or unforgettable experiences in their life There are two different sorts of IELTS tests Academic IELTS is chosen by learners for academic reasons, often studying abroad, whereas General Training IELTS is preferred by people who would like to apply for a visa

to immigrate to foreign countries The Academic IELTS is designed for those who are seeking higher education or professional purposes and the General Training version is

suitable for people who desire to be admitted for training courses or would rather acquire jobs in English- speaking nations which ask for IELTS

As mentioned above, there are 4 skills in the IELTS test namely reading, listening, speaking and writing in which writing is found the most challenging one IELTS writing is very important now that it is used widely not only in higher education but also in the workplace Unless learners know how to show their ideas in writing, they are not capable

of communicating effectively with their professors, co-workers, friends, or anyone else There is a great deal of professional communication done in writing such as reports, applications, e-mails, reports, contracts, and so on As a result, writing becomes a vital skill

in English learning Writing requires knowledge of other three language skills: listening, reading and speaking In order to master writing skill, learners have to set an objective, make a plan thoughtfully with clear outline, and organize their ideas logically Moreover, writing learners are made to utilize their cognition According to Zajicova (2011) and Rico (1984), writing can have an important role to enhance learners’ language skills

Lexical density is essential to be taken into consideration since it contains information about forms of words and sentence structures in academic writing, especially

in the IELTS writing tests Hence, learners ought to choose words and then arrange them carefully and logically in their writing Stubbs (2002) claims that essays whose lexical density is low can be easier comprehended In general, spoken texts have lower lexical density than written texts due their higher factors of content words There have been some research on lexical density in EFL writing Chaudron (2003), emphasizes that EFL learners tend to deploy some content words in each sentence in the essays which means the level of lexical density of their essays is quite low Besides, the study of To (2013, which was carried out at University of Tasmania, Australia, revealed that EFL learner’s level of lexical density and readability in EFL learners’ IELTS writing paper tests was not high This study concludes that nominalization had a strong impact on the lexical density of essays Similarly, Refnaldi (2015, pp 27-33) concludes that lexical density in learners’ academic essays is low There was a limitation in the use of grammatical metaphor, especially

nominalization in learners’ essays, which led their essays to be more similar to spoken language converted into written form

Readability is the ease with which a reader can make sense of a written test, and it

is not easily measured owing to the fact that it is dependent upon its content (how complex

of its lexical and syntax is) Readability is considered as one of the most crucial factors that ought to be taken into consideration on assess learners’ s essay Woods (1989) states that the readability was investigated to measure how complex the writing is and to estimate the reading level of the text

Lexical density in academic writing especially in IELTS writing plays an crucial part in the quality of learners’ writing At KNILC, now that learners’ essays are lexically poor, most of their writings contain not too many content words and are written complicatedly As a result, they were not able to represent a qualified academic writing They have difficulty in selecting right words to express their opinions Instead, they employ many words and written incomprehensibly Then, learners need to pay their attention to the choice of words so as to write a good essay Hence, it is essential to investigate, analyze lexical density and readability in learners’ writing in order to have good solutions to help them produce good essays to achieve high scores in IELTS writing test

1.2 Statement of the problem

There is a list of problems that the majority of IELTS learners at KNILC face Firstly, they employ the general vocabulary instead of academic words now that they are not familiar with these words Sometimes, learners can brainstorm various ideas for their essay but they do not know how to express them in English due to their lack

of vocabulary, which sometimes leads them to reuse words many times instead of using synonyms to paraphrase Secondly, they tend not to have their ideas organized coherently no matter how many ideas they have They also do not know how to use the connectives effectively and reasonably owing to their misunderstanding of the connectives’ meaning

Secondly, learners encounter grammatical mistakes in which most of them usually forget to put “s” after nouns and verbs when necessary There remain many simple grammatical errors that they do not commit when doing the multiple-choice grammar rewritten exercises but in their writing essay On account of the fact that when coming to the IELTS writing, they try to write as quickly as they can to obtain the number of required words sufficiently in the limited time, which is very challenging and can lead them to make mistakes

In writing an IELTS essay, learners had better concentrate on the language Language aspects get more important because they will have effects on the meaning that writers want to express Not only sentence structure but also the writer’s point of view, contents, choice of words and word orders are important to be taken into consideration in making a good essay Learners at KNILC have difficulty in getting their essays clear and concise, which leads them not to get good scores in writing skill The majority of them tend not to have their ideas written straightforward to make their ideas shown in an attractive way Besides, they have a tendency to use unnecessary vocabulary instead of choosing the accurate words to express the meaning In addition, learners find it is hard to choose precise words, they are not capable of arranging their ideas highly lexically and reduce the use of

as many function words as possible Consequently, it cannot enhance the level of lexical density, which causes their ideas not be conveyed sharply and clearly They are also show they carelessness in choosing and arranging the words in their writing so they do not get qualified essays

In summary, these problems mentioned above may discourage learners at KNILC from having readable essays with the precise level of lexical density It is necessary to figure out the problems and having some useful solutions to tackle these problems so as to enable the learners to have good scores in IELTS writing test

1.3 Aims and Objectives of the Study

The study aims to analyze the lexical density and readability of English essays (writing task 2) written by IELTS learners at the context of KNILC The specific objectives of the

• To determine the level of lexical density and readability of English essays written

by IELTS learners at the context of KNILC;

• To find out the language use in terms of grammar and vocabulary in English essays written by IELTS learners at the context of KNILC

1.4 Research questions

In order to achieve the aforementioned objectives, the following research questions must be addressed:

1 To what extent is the level of lexical density of English essays written by IELTS

learners at the context of KNILC?

2 To what extent is the level of readability of English essays written by IELTS

learners at the context of KNILC?

3 How is the language used in terms of grammar and vocabulary in English essays by IELTS learners at the context of KNILC?

1.5 Scope of the study

This study was conducted at KNILC in Vung Tau city, where there have been over

1000 learners at the age from 15-18 come to study IELTS The participants were the learners who were taking part in IELTS classes at (KNILC) whose levels are between 5.0 and 6.5 In order to get the results, the mixed- methods design was employed There were

100 IELTS learners in 5 IELTS classes asked to submit their task 2 essays Each learner of

100 IELTS learners had to turn in 2 midterm IWT2 writing tests, so there were 200 pieces

of IELTS writing papers Each essay consisted of around 250 words and were analyzed by the online software (Text Analyzer) and Microsoft word (Flesch)/excel with the method called document analysis

1.6 Significance of the study

and all over the world IELTS has become a global topic which attracts people’s attention considerably However, there are only few learners who can achieve the high score in IELTS writing tests Thus, it is necessary that lexical density and readability be studied and

some solutions should be utilized to enable learners to get their target scores in IELTS writing tests Up to now, a lot of research has been conducted to provide a thorough insight into the terms of lexical density and readability However, it was pointed out that such knowledge related to lexical density and readability in learners’ writings was insufficient Thus, it is a must to conduct this study whose results will be announced to both teachers and learners in order to establish a more suitable teaching and learning strategiess in IELTS writing

This study is conducted to investigate lexical density and readability of learners’ writing and explain how lexical density reflects the learners’ ability in IELTS writing test

It can also be useful to enhance all researchers’ knowledge about the lexical density and readability in learners’ essays Simultaneously, in KNILC, for teachers, this research can

be taken into consideration when teaching IELTS writing in order to help their learners produce readable essays Moreover, this study is helpful for teachers in assessing their learners’ essay more exactly

This thesis makes a valuable contribution to the choice of suitable texts and essays for the readers The thesis introduced the readability formula to help the writers choose proper data to make good texts/essays with objective criteria, which saves time and enables the writers pick up clear and understandable language suitable for the readers’ level

1.7 Definitions of the Terms

For the purpose of this study, many terms must be defined to provide a specific perspective on the issues discussed

• Essay refers to the written texts (Task 2) produced by IELTS learners at Ky Nguyen

International Language Center

• Language use refers to how language in terms of grammar and vocabulary is used

in the written texts (Task 2) produced by IELTS learners at Ky Nguyen International Language Center

• Lexical density refers to the quantity of content words divided by the total number

of words According to Daller and Treffers (2003), lexical density, lexical diversity

measure the lexical diversity of texts and it can also be employed to assess learners’ progress

• Readability is a measure of the ease of a text when it is read It may consist of

various elements namely complexity, familiarity, legibility and typography Soyibo (1996) proposes that readability level depends on how long are the sentences and how complex the language utilized in the book is

1.8 Organization of the thesis

There are five chapters in this thesis Chapter 1 outlines the background of the study, aims of the study, subject and scope of the study, significance of the study and organization

of the thesis Chapter 2 provides the literature review related to writing (definitions of writing, the importance of IELTS writing test, characteristics of writing in IELTS test); lexical density (definitions of lexical density, the importance of lexical density in writing, the level of lexical density in learners’ writing); readability (definitions of readability, the significance of readability in writing, readability in learners’ writing), previous research and conceptual framework Chapter 3 represents the methodology to carry out the study while chapter showed the results and discussion of the study Finally, chapter 5 concludes the thesis based on the findings of the study Below is the organization of the thesis

Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction

In the previous chapter, the background of the study, the research aims and questions and the scope of the research were provided This chapter presents a brief description of IWT2, the literature which the theoretical background of the present study was based on and particular studies previously carried out on the investigation of lexical density and readability

2.2 Writing

2.2.1 Definitions of writing

Writing is a form of communication that allows students to put their feelings and ideas on paper, to organize their knowledge and beliefs into convincing arguments, and to convey meanings through well-structures text In its most advanced form, written expressions can be as vivid as a work of art Spelling, vocabulary, grammar and organization come together to help the students demonstrate more advanced writing skills day by day IELTS writing is one kind of academic writing, which requires test takers to have effective writing skills to make good essays

Among four English language skills, writing appears to be a challenging skill to acquire and it is also an indispensable part in evaluating learner’s English language proficiency (Nguyen, 2019) Richards (1990), Cohen and Miller (2003) and Bailey (2011) say that writing is considered to be a demanding and daunting task for both first language and second language learners Vu (2011) and Nguyen and Le (2012) claim that writing has been seen as one of the skills that is troublesome for many Vietnamese learners in the context of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) such as Vietnam In spite of its difficulty, Zemach and Rumisek (2005) state that having good writing skill indicates the evidence of individual academic success and fulfil the requirement in a number of further educational programs and professions

2.2.2 The importance of writing in IELTS test

Most test takers find IELTS writing task 2 challenging IELTS writing tasks are communicative and contextualized IELTS learners have to write the essays to targeted audience Each kind of the writing tasks has specific purpose and belong to different types

of genre There are two modules such as academic and general training Each module consists of two tasks including task 1 and task 2 The academic writing module is taken by IELTS learners who need university admission in foreign countries, whereas general writing is designed for IELTS learners who would like to finish secondary education, to have work experience or training, or satisfying immigration demands in an English speaking country IELTS examiners who are trained and qualified will mark each writing task on their own It is common that task 1’s mark weight is lower than task 2’s one Moore and Morton (2005) state that “Task 2 has a major influence on students’ emerging understandings of what academic writing in Anglophone universities fundamentally entails” (p.46)

2.2.3 Characteristics of writing in IELTS test

In comparison to IELTS writing task 1, IELTS writing task 2 is more formidable for a great number of EFL learners (Friesen, 2017) for many reasons IELTS test takers feel stressful because writing task 2 essays must be completed within 40 minutes while writing task 1 takes only 20 minutes Also, writing assessment criteria make many IELTS test takers stressed (Cullen et al., 2014) These criteria include “task response”, “coherence and cohesion”, lexical resource” and “grammatical range and accuracy” Finally, the IELTS test takers have to pay attention to writing style They need to follow the conventions of academic writing style because IELTS academic writing is “formal and impersonal” (Teaching IELTS 2012, p.33) It means that the IELTS test takers should focus

on providing relevant facts or argument instead of embedding their personal feelings

In terms of question types for both general and academic modules, IELTS test takers have to write an essay with a minimum of 250 words to perform some writing tasks These tasks consist of responding to an opinion/ problem/ issue, providing a solution, evaluating

a problem and comparing/contrasting different ideas (Cullen et al., 2014) These writing requirements are frequently asked questions in IELTS writing task 2

Below is the summary of five types of IELTS WRITING TASK 2 questions normally seen in the writing test that IELTS test takers need to distinguish to write effective essays

Table 2.1: Question types of IELTS writing task 2 (Pell, 2017)

Questions types of IELTS writing task 2

1 Opinion

- What is your opinion?

- Do you agree or disagree?

- To what extent do you agree or disagree?

2 Advantages and disadvantages

- What are the advantages and disadvantages of this issue?

- Discuss the advantages and disadvantages and give your own opinion

3 Discuss both views

4 Problem and solution

5 Two-part question

Among the aforementioned criteria to assess IELTS writing, lexical resource is one

of the most important elements that helps create an informative essay with accurate and appropriate vocabulary in IELTS writing task 2

2.3 Lexical density

2.3.1 Definitions of lexical density

In discourse analysis, lexical density is a tool used to measure the amount of information in a text Lexical words which are also known as content words are words that convey information Texts with a high ratio of lexical words in comparison with function words which are known as grammatical words seem to achieve a high lexical density It means that spoken texts are likely to have a lower lexical density than written texts which tend to have more content items than grammatical ones Scientific texts are often high lexically dense because of their informative features Halliday (1985) defines lexical density is used to measure a text’s information package, particularly lexical words items which are also known as content words transformed into the grammatical structure

The definition of density is a category of complexity that comes from words’s

development (To, 2013) This means that density has a relationship with the notion of

“lexico-grammar” regarding the level of wording in language (Halliday, 1985) Halliday (1985) gave a brief illustration of this phenomenon Lexical density is also counted in a way that the number of lexical words (or content words) is split up by the total number of

words (Johansson, 2008; To, 2013; Ure, 1971)

“lexical sets” (Halliday, 1985) The four word classes of content words include verbs, nouns, adverbs, and adjectives because they have their own meanings even they stand alone

(Yuey & Le, 2011) Halliday (1985) treats phrasal verbs such as stand up, take over or call off as lexical items

It is worth noting that many formulas are used to measure lexical density of a text The calculation is fulfilled by the way of dividing the ratio of the number of content words per the total words (Ure, 1971; Halliday, 1985) or splitting up the number of lexical words per sentence (Halliday, 1985) The research have showed that speech in general has lower lexical density in comparison with writing (Belinda, 2007; Halliday, 1985b; Yu, 2007) The formula was proposed by Ure (1985) in the below table

Table 2.2: Formula of lexical density (Ure, 1971) Lexical density (%) = (Number of lexical words/ Total number of words) x 100

2.3.2 The importance of lexical density in writing

Lexical words bring meaning for a text They provide information regarding what the text is about It can be said that lexical words comprise nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs Nouns refer to subjects or things, adjectives mention qualities, verbs show actions and adverbs refer to the way to do something

Lexical density is the number of content words of a text that provide us with enough information to understand a text In other words, lexical density is a calculation of how informative a written or spoken text is

Below is an illustration of a sentence that is not very descriptive and progressively changing it to make it more and more informative (in this case, descriptive) Sentence 1 contains a vague personal pronoun but sentence 2 contains an actual noun instead of the pronoun, which results in more information and the lexical density increase as seen in the sentence 2 Continuing this process, adding or changing a single word at a time make the sentence progressively more and more descriptive as seen in the table below The tendency

is for lexical density to increase

Sentence 1 “He loves going to the cinema” contains a vague personal pronoun but sentence 2 “John loves going to the cinema” contains an actual noun instead of the

pronoun This results in a more informative second sentence The lexical density increases

as in the latter If ones does the same in this way, adding or changing each content word with another better word helps makes more informative sentences

It can be said that as lexical words carry meaning for used language Readers only have a look at lexical words in a text, they can get a “gist” or main ideas of a text

2.3.3 The level of lexical density in learners’ writing

Spoken language has lower lexical density than written language (Johansson, 2008;

To, 2013; Ure, 1971) This can accounted for because written texts contain more lexical words which are descriptive, expository and so informative In contrast, spoken language depends on non-verbal communication cues in a certain situational context, and thus there are less content words in the spoken language than in the written one Ure (1971) defines lexical density as the ratio of lexical words to the total number of words in a written text and a spoken text as well Lexical words convey meaning; however, function words only have grammatical functions

Identifying lexical and function words enables a writer to avoid “extraneous grammatical garbage” for a text and the writer also needs diverse grammatical structures

to make use of “content-bearing” words (Didau, 2013) As a result of this, students’ essays can become more precise and meaningful

Lexical words can explain information Generally, texts which contain many lexical words are ‘specialized academic texts’ These texts are only comprehended by a certain community Texts with few lexical words are easy to understand; however, if lexical words are just a few, the text becomes ambiguous and unclear

For the type of academic writing students need to do in schools, It is really important

to teach nominalization to students who take academic writing classes Nominalization is known as changing verbs into nouns There are many meanings packed into nominalized words, which create a highly lexically dense academic texts

Some stock phrases often make a text get baggy and heavily grammatical When teachers teach students to write academic essays, they provide the students with the stock phrases such as “the fact that” or “the first point I am making is …” Yet, these phrases

become redundant and meaningless in academic writing Another reason of redundant grammatical words is the presentation of a complex idea into many single sentences So, the solution is to use nominalization not only to improve the lexical density but also reduce the word count in students’ IELTS writing papers The nominalization means that changing

verbs or adjectives into nouns which are recognized thanks to noun endings such as “-ance, -ion, -tion, ation, -ment, -tion, -dom, -ness, -ity, -ing, -ence, -ness”

The IELTS learners tend to write about topics which ask for their points of view, arguments and social knowledge The students need to have a wide range of knowledge besides grammar, structure and vocabulary The following table presents the topics for IELTS Writing Task 2 that test takers often discuss

Table 2.3: List of topics for IELTS Writing Task 2 (Ielts Journal by Smith, 2015)

Number Topics for IELTS Writing Task 2

11 Government and society

12 Guns and weapon

13 Health

14 Housing and architecture

15 Language

16 Money

17 Personality

18 Sport and leisure

19 Television, Internet, phones

Readability is also the important criteria of your writing If the readability is high, readers can understand a text easily If the readability is not high, learners may comprehend the text with difficulty because they have to unpack complicated and sentence structures .So, it is suggested not to avoid using too many of complex words and sentences, which causes more focus on reading the text from readers

The study ranks a text on a 100-point scale The higher the score is, the easier it is

to understand the text according to the following formula ASL means average sentence length ASW means average number of syllables per word

RB = 206.835 - (1.05 x ASL) – (84.6 x ASW)

2.4.2 The significance of readability in writing

It is emphasized that lexical density is not a tool to measure the complexity or readability of a text, but an instrument to measure the amount of information the text conveys Therefore, A lexical dense text typically scores at around 56% or above, which is easily found in expository and descriptive texts

Higher readability facilitates reading effort more easily and enhances reading speed This is beneficial to those who love reading comprehension Increasing the readability level

of a text has an impact on reader’s text comprehension and incomprehension

2.4.3 Readability in learner’s writing

Readers can have difficulty in understanding a sentence for many reasons because the sentence is too lengthy and complex The sentence it is not very readable A sentence may be written grammatically correct; however, they are considered to be difficult to see Thus, readability is very helpful in this case

IELTS test takers should use a balanced set of complex, compound and simple sentences Moreover, they should use different signal words and phrases to start sentences They should also avoid “tautology” which means “a statement in which you say the same thing twice in different words, when this is unnecessary, for example “They spoke in turn, one after the other”

2.5 Language use in academic writing

A wide range of vocabulary and grammar is important in the IELTS exam especially the writing section The most important thing to remember in IELTS writing is to keep it simple and do not use complicated vocabulary and grammar if you are not familiar with them yet

There is no actual grammar test section in the IELTS test, but the IELTS examiners grade the writing test based on some criteria such as (1) task achievement/response, (2) coherence and cohesion, (3) lexical resources, and (4) grammatical range and accuracy

It is also important for the ‘lexical resource’ part This is learners’ use of such things

as vocabulary, idiomatic vocabulary, and collocations It will be easy for IELTS learners

to impress the examiner if they can use a wide range of vocabulary On the other hand, if they use the same word multiple times for different sentences in a row, it will convey a negative impression to the examiner about the lexical resources IELTS learners should update the list of familiar vocabulary (words, terms, academic idioms and collocations) frequently used in the IELTS writing task 2

The IELTS learners will be marked down on grammar and vocabulary if they make mistakes with such things as word forms, for example, using a noun form instead of a verb form So, IELTS learners should get word form right, understand how to write complex sentences, expand a wide range of grammatical structures, and use grammar accurately (i.e minimizing error density) Particularly, IELTS learners try to use a few complex sentences, some cohesive/linking/connecting words in appropriate places, accurate placement of articles and determiners, and appropriate punctuation, proper forms of parts of speech and tenses If IELTS learners can use a range of grammatical structures in their writing, IELTS examiners will get a good impression about the learners’ English writing proficiency

Table 2.4: Band descriptions for IELTS writing task 2 Band descriptions for IELTS writing task 2 (based on IELTS organization)

features; rare minor errors occur only as

‘slips’

accuracy; rare minor errors occur only as ‘slips’

fluently and flexibly to convey precise meanings

- skillfully uses uncommon lexical items but there may be occasional inaccuracies in word choice and collocation

- produces rare errors in spelling and/or word formation

- deploys a variety of structures

- most sentences are error-free

- makes only very occasional errors

to allow some flexibility and precision

- utilizes less common lexical items with some awareness of style and collocation

- may produce occasional errors in word choice, spelling and/or word formation

- uses a variety of complex structures

- produces frequent error-free sentences

- has good control of grammar and punctuation but may make a few errors

6 - deploys an adequate range of vocabulary for the task • attempts to use less common vocabulary but with some inaccuracy

- makes some errors in spelling and/or word formation, but they do not impede communication

- deploys a mix of simple and complex sentence forms

- makes some errors in grammar and punctuation but they rarely reduce communication

5 - deploys a limited range of vocabulary, but this is minimally adequate for the task

- deploys only a limited range of structures

- can make noticeable errors in spelling and/or word formation that may cause some difficulty for the reader

- attempts complicated sentences but these tend to be less accurate than simple sentences

- may make frequent grammatical errors and punctuation may be faulty; errors can cause some difficulty for the reader

4 - deploys only basic vocabulary which may

be used repetitively or which may be inappropriate for the task

- has limited control of word formation and/or spelling; errors can cause strain for the reader

- deploys only a very limited range of structures with only rare use of subordinate clauses

- some structures are accurate but errors predominate, and punctuation is often faulty

3 - utilizes only a very limited range of words and expressions with very limited control of word formation and/or spelling

- errors may severely distort the message

- attempts sentence forms but errors in grammar and punctuation predominate and distort the meaning

2 - utilizes an extremely limited range of vocabulary; essentially no control of word formation and/or spelling

- may not use sentence forms except in memorized phrases

2.6 Previous research

In terms of previous studies on lexical density, different texts were thoroughly investigated and various outputs were achieved In written texts, Narelle et al (1994) surveyed problems encountered in learners’ statistics tests at Australian university 186 students’ examination papers were analyzed with the hypothesis that language difficulty would influence student performances in the examinations After that, the lexical density

of the texts was calculated and compared with the performances of students who achieved maximum points and those who obtained no points Yet, the findings was unexpected because there was no relation between the student performance and linguistic complexity related to lexical density

Similarly, Geisler (1995) investigated the relation of lexical proficiency to the quality of ESL compositions written by Indiana University students to investigate lexical density, lexical errors and lexical variations by using lexical measurements The essay topics which were introduced to students had a comparatively average lexical density Sixty-six placement essays written by the students from mixed language backgrounds in the intermediate to advanced range of an intensive English program were holistically scored The results indicated an insignificant relationship between the ratio of content words and essays’ quality

Moreover, the study of Vidakovic and Barker (2009) saw the same result They surveyed a dataset of 36 million words taken from the Cambridge Learner Corpus Therefore, 20 students from each of five levels (Entry 1, Entry 2, Entry 3, Level 1, Level 2) were chosen to represent levels A1-C1 of the CEFR Reference The students wrote 2,300 – 14,000 words per level The results revealed that in spite of the average length of words and sentences, the number of various words or lexical variation went up with proficiency

Sholichatun (2011) states that texts with a lower density are more easily understood, but texts with a high lexical density are more difficult to understand Moreover, Khamahani (2015) says that the higher lexical density is, the more complicated the text is Therefore, the readability of texts is also influenced by the lexical density

Recently, some research has been conducted in terms of lexical density and readability of English essay written by students In the study of Nguyen (2014) and Nguyen (2014) they mainly focus on the lexical density and readability of non- English major first-year students’ writing in Vietnam In To’s (2013) study, four texts extracted from Active Skill for Reading (Anderson, 2003a, 2003b, 2003c, 2003d) were used to examine the lexical density and readability of four levels such as elementary, pre- intermediate, intermediate and upper-intermediate levels Yaumil Fadhillah (2018)’s study emphasizes on lexical density of English reading text, Hermawati and Rahmi (2018) mainly study about how lexical density reveals students’ ability in writing academic text Ramadham (2017) aims at discussing the lexical density and grammatical intricacy in written and spoken texts However, in these studies, the level of lexical density and readability of English essays written by IELTS students were not concentrated on Besides, how language used by the students in terms of lexical and syntax in IELTS students’ English essays is also not focused on

In Vietnam, Nguyen and Nguyen (2016) investigated the lexical density and readability of non-majored freshmen’ writings at a pedagogical university in Vietnam There were 2 males and 21 females who were first-year non-English majored students of Maths faculty Their study used Microsoft Word and online software (text content analysis tool) to calculate the lexical density and readability of their students’ writing papers They suggest that the readability and lexical density were not related Also, lexical density was different in each score range of readability Finally, the total number of words in one essay didn’t indicate the levels of higher lexical density and readability scores

Moreover, Luong, Nguyen and Dinh (2017) examined the text-length factor in evaluating the readability of literary texts in Vietnamese textbooks They noted that text readability plays an important role in text drafting and document selecting and that there are few studies in Vietnamese text readability and most of them were investigated on small corpora from more than two decades ago They found the role of text length in assessing the readability of literary texts Their experiment study’s results revealed that the features

related to the text length have a huge impact on Vietnamese text readability assessment for textbooks

There have been still limited number of studies on lexical density and readability of IELTS writibg task 2 writing papers This is a chance for this study to be carried out to find examine the level of lexical density and readability of English essays written by IELTS learners at KNILC

The Microsoft Word app and online software named “Text Analyzer” were used to examine the lexical density and readability of the 250 essays written by the students at KNILC Particularly, the lexical density is affected by some properties (number of sentences per essay and number of words per sentence) while the readability is determined

by some factors (hard words, long words, and lexical density) There is a correlation between the lexical density and readability, which shows that IELTS learners need to be aware of the relationship of lexical density and readability to write good essays for IELTS writing task 2 The students can improve their writing proficiency if they can combine the levels of lexical density with the levels of readability in their IELTS essays

Figure 2.1: The conceptual framework of the thesis 2.7 Summary

In summary, this chapter presented question types of IWT2 and the assessment criteria of IWT2 The chapter also provided the definitions of writing, the importance of IELTS in writing test, the characteristics of writing in IELTS test, the definitions of lexical density, the importance of lexical density in writing, the level of lexical density in students’ writing, the definitions of readability, the significance of readability in writing and readability in learners’ writing In addition, previous studies on the IWT2, lexical density as well as readability in writing were listed In the last section of Chapter 2, the conceptual framework

in this study was depicted to navigate the design of the research tools

Language use related to Vocabulary and Grammar

Content words Function words Words per sentence Sentences per essay

Hard words Long words IWT2 essays

IELTS Writing Task 2

essays

Writing proficiency of IELTS learners

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 3.1 Introduction

This chapter will present the research design, the description of research site, research participants, research tools in association with the data collection and data analysis procedures Subsequently, the research ethics are also stated

3.2 Research design

This study aims to investigate the lexical and readability of IELTS essays written

by the students at KNILC The three research questions are recognized as follows:

1 To what extent is the level of lexical density of English essays written by IELTS learners at the context of KNILC?

2 To what extent is the level of readability of English essays written by IELTS learners at the context of KNILC?

3 How is the language used in terms of grammar and vocabulary in English essays

by IELTS learners at the context of KNILC?

The study employs the method proposed by Ure (1971) which is discussed above as key measurement to count lexical density levels in texts

Formula 1 (Ure’s method):

below, in which wl shows the total number of syllables of the words in the passage and sl

shows the average number of words per sentence

Formula 2 (Flesch’s method, 1948):

Reading ease = 206.835 – 0.846 wl – 1.015 sl

(cited in Wimmer and Dominick, 2006, p.344)

In this method, the number 42.98 shows the middle of difficulty types (Courtis &

Hassan, 2002) The other numbers are presented in the following table and compared with ecademic achievement levels in the American educational system

Table 3.1: Original Flesch Reading Ease (Courtis & Hassan, 2002, p.406) Flesch Reading Ease Description of Style Educational Attainment

Regarding the first method, the increasing numbers indicate with a higher level of difficulty, whereas with the second one, ascending statistics show lower difficulty levels

of text So, the aim of the thesis is to identify the correlation between the lexical density and readability in students’ written IELTS essays

In this thesis, online software named “Text Analyzer” and Microsoft Word/Excel were utilized to analyzed some calculating and abstract statistics Text Analyzer software was used to calculate lexical density Then, Microsoft Word was deployed to count the

total words of each text and to indicate the readability figures realized by Flesch’s (1948) formula Then, Microsoft Excel was used to analyze the data and identify the correlation between the lexical density and readability in order to find out the outlook of students’ writing competence from the quantitative aspect Besides, the thesis also used some online websites to check the lexical density and readability of the 200 essays to improve the validity of the thesis findings

Teaching IELTS writing at KNILC is not problematic There are different groups

of teachers who are responsible for teaching separate skills of IELTS tests such as listening, speaking, reading and writing The teachers of IELTS writing sometimes get training on teaching IELTS writing in Vietnam However, the IELTS teachers at KNILC have difficulty teaching IELTS writing to the learners They use general vocabulary instead of academic words in their IELTS writing part 2 The learners cannot express their ideas in

an essay because they lack of vocabulary and repeat words many times instead of using synonyms to paraphrase Also, they are unaware of having their ideas organized coherently and using connectives effectively and reasonably owing to their misunderstanding of the connectives’ meaning Moreover, the learners make a lot of basic grammatical errors, in which most of them usually forget to put “s” after nouns and verbs when necessary During the IELTS writing trial test, they try to write as quickly as they can to obtain the number

of required words sufficiently in the limited time, which causes them to make mistakes for their writing papers Besides, they have a tendency to use redundant vocabulary instead of choosing the accurate words to express the ideas because they find it is hard to choose precise words and use of function words as much as possible Consequently, this have great impacts on the level of lexical density and readability of their written essays

3.3 Materials

The participants were the learners who were taking part in IELTS classes at KNILC

in Vung Tau City whose levels are between 5.0 and 6.5 There were 100 IELTS learners from 5 IELTS classes asked to submit their IELTS task 2 essays as their IELTS writing midterm tests Each IELTS task 2 essay consisted of at least 250 words to meet the requirements of the data collection

Table 3.2: Information about IELTS learners at KNILC

Information about IELTS learners at KNILC

Females (63 (learners)

IELTS score band Band 5.0 (32 learners, 0.32%)

Band 5.5 (34 learners, 0.34%) Band 6.0 (26 learners, 0.26%) Band 6.5 (8 learners, 0.08%)

Total of essay corpus 200 essays

Total of words in 200 essays 66928 words

3.4 Data collection procedures

The small corpus consisted of 200 IELTS essays written by 100 students whose IELTS score band level was from 5.0 to 6.5 at KNILC in Vung Tau City The 100 learners had to take 2 midterm writing tests for IELTS writing part 2 The learners were instructed about the 24 topics in the above Table 2.3, so the teacher chose two of 24 topics to ask the learners to write about for the two midterm tests The course lasted 12 weeks and the students took the first midterm test on the 6 th week and the second one on the 11 th week The learners had to type their written essays and sent them to the teacher’s given emails during a week since the midterm test writing topic was given to them After the written essays collected by the teacher, they were marked and saved to create a corpus of 200 essays to help the teacher analyze the data based the criteria of lexical density and readability

3.5 Data analysis procedures

Students’ written essays were analyzed and assessed via two descriptive parameters:

lexical density and readability These are not understandable assessment of learner’s

language competence, but can indicate the good definition of text complexity that is related

to productive ability The thesis followed the data analysis procedures below:

(1) 200 IWT2 written essays were collected from the two midterm tests, (2) The essays were typed and mailed to the teacher by the learners (3) The essays were saved and marked on the computer in order by the teacher, particularly the codes were given to 200 essays as follows: E1, E2, E3 … E200 and they were arranged in the boxes

(4) The Microsoft Word app calculated and analyzed the lexical density and readability of 200 essays,

(5) Microsoft Excel was used to calculate the percentages and to draw charts (6) Besides, the thesis used some online software named Text Analyzer to check the lexical density and readability to support the thesis’s findings and compare the results for validity

(7) Finally, the discussion was discussed based on the results found out from the data analysis

3.6 Validity and reliability of the study

As validity refers to quality, rigor, and trustworthiness of the study, more than one strategies was applied in order to seek for the validity and reliable principle The level of lexical density of readability in this study were analyzed with reference to previous research conducted by researchers from different countries The formulas of Ure’s (1971) lexical density and Flesch’s reading ease were employed in a great number of previous research and they have been effective in this study 200 learners’ IWT2 tests were marked

by the intra-rater

According to Nguyen (2016), rater consistency played a critical part in the rating procedure She noted that test scores can be unreliable if examiners were inconsistent in their rating and failed to agree with other raters on the relative merits of rating scale, severity, leniency and so forth She suggested that it was necessary to establish high consistency in the scores given by one rater (intra-rater reliability) and by different rater (inner-rater reliability)

Nguyen (2016) added stated that intra-rater reliability refers to the degree of