The use of etymology to improve students engagement on vocabulary learning

To discover whetherthe use of folk etymological intervention helps improve the three aspects of engagement of students, namely behavioural engagement, cognitive engagement, and emotional

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE

THE USE OF ETYMOLOGY TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ ENGAGEMENT ON

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Long and treacherous this journey has turned out to be I never expected thecompletion of this thesis would require such a huge amount of effort and time.Nonetheless, like a protagonist in a role-playing game, I have to face endless waves ofchallenges, never-ending stress-inducing thoughts and repeated levelling of my “thesis”character before everything has come to fruition

The success of this path I took would not have been possible without the help of

my supervisor, Dr Le Hoang Dung His knowledgeable insight, invaluable instruction,and boundless patience have been of tremendous importance to me Although he alwaysseems to be snowed under a mountain of work and meetings, Dr Dung would never turn

a blind eye whenever I am faced with research-related issues He would try his best togive a detailed evaluation of what I had written, provide suggestions on what I shouldcorrect or omit, as well as remind me of the deadline ahead of time For everything he hasdone, I am forever feel grateful to Dr Le Hoang Dung He has always been a greatmotivational figure to me before, during, and even after this thesis journey of mine Notonly did he help me navigate through the dilemma of identifying the right track for myresearch, but he also offered priceless advice on important decisions for my careerprogress

I would also like to extend my thank to Mrs Nguyen Trinh Hanh Phuc, Mr.Nguyen Nhat Nam, and the whole staff of Vietop English Learning Center for theirsupport in allowing me to conduct my research within one classroom of the centre and forendless provision of necessary equipment and facilities I am also grateful for all mystudent participants who had agreed to take part in this research Although I cannot revealthe name of each participant, I will never forget their important contributions to thisresearch

Finally, I would like to dedicate this thesis to my mother who always believes in

me even when I have serious doubts about myself She listens to me whenever I am lost

on my track, encourages me to get back up and try again, and most importantly, cooksdelicious meals every time I feel hungry and exhausted in the face of this researchchallenge Because of her, I can always keep up my belief that when all else fails, motherlove doesn’t.

Ho Chi Minh, October 2022

Nguyễn Minh Quân

RETENTION OF USE

I hereby state that I, Nguyễn Minh Quân, being the candidate for the degree ofMaster in TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention anduse of the Master’s Thesis deposited in the library

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

Ho Chi Minh City, October 2022

ABSTRACT

Folk etymology, a linguistic field that touches on the creation and history of wordsthroughout the test of time, has long been regarded as a novel yet effective approach todelivering fascinating vocabulary lessons to students The utilization of folk etymology inlexical acquisition has been applied in foreign studies to promote students’

comprehension, retention, and most of all, motivation in the learning of new wordmeanings and usages Nonetheless, the application of folk etymology has not beenconsidered a common approach in the vocabulary learning process in the Vietnamclassroom context, especially in the IELTS classroom environment To discover whetherthe use of folk etymological intervention helps improve the three aspects of engagement

of students, namely behavioural engagement, cognitive engagement, and emotionalengagement in their vocabulary learning, this study combined the Meaningful LearningTheory of Ausubel and Robinson (1969) and the Engagement Theory of Kearsley andShneiderman (1999) to devise the fitting intervention First, the study collected baselinedata on student participants’ engagement before the intervention During and after theintervention, the study employed three different research instruments to collect threetypes of engagement from student participants: classroom observation for behaviouralengagement, individual interviews for cognitive engagement, and journal writing foremotional engagement From the data analysis, the application of folk etymologicalintervention provided positive results on student participants’ behavioural, cognitive, andemotional engagement For student participants’ behavioural engagement, resultssuggested that student participants engaged in a more active manner of behaviours, andbody language, as well as their confidence in giving answers to the task For studentparticipants’ cognitive engagement, results revealed that student participants developedbetter metacognitive strategies for study, willingness for evaluation and clarification ofideas For student participants’ emotional engagement, results demonstrated that studentparticipants felt emotionally connected with folk etymological lessons, activities, andhome assignments From these results, the study provides a range of pedagogicalimplications and suggestions for future studies of the same topic in a different researchcontext

Keywords: folk etymology, engagement, meaningful learning, IELTS, vocabularyacquisition

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS IV

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background to the study 1

1.1.1 Vietnamese university admission and scholarship opportunities 1

1.1.2 IELTS and vocabulary learning 1

1.1.3 Etymology and vocabulary learning 2

1.2 Rationale for the study 4

1.3 Aim of the study 5

1.4 Research questions 5

1.5 Significance of the study 5

1.6 Scope of the study 6

1.7 Organization of the study 6

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 Etymology 7

2.1.1 Definitions of Etymology 7

2.1.2 Classifications of Etymology 7

2.1.3 Etymology and its application 10

2.1.4 Folk Etymology 10

2.2 Engagement 12

2.2.1 Definitions of Engagement 12

2.2.2 Types of Engagement 13

2.2.3 Operational definition of Engagement 17

2.3 Meaningful Learning Theory 17

2.3.1 Definitions of Meaningful Learning Theory 17

2.3.2 Meaningful Learning Theory and Etymology 19

2.4 Engagement Theory 20

2.4.1 Definitions of Engagement Theory 20

2.4.2 Engagement Theory and Vocabulary Learning 21

2.5 Conceptual Framework 22

2.6 Research questions 27

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 28

3.1 Research design 28

3.2 Research site 30

3.3 Research sampling 30

3.4 Research participants 31

3.5 Research instruments 32

3.5.1 Classroom observation 35

3.5.2 Student interview 35

3.5.3 Student journal writing 36

3.6 Data collection procedure 37

3.6.1 The first phase of the folk etymological intervention 38

3.6.2 The second phase of the folk etymological intervention 38

3.6.3 The third phase of the folk etymological intervention 39

3.7 Data analysis 41

3.7.1 Classroom observation 41

3.7.2 Semi-structured interview 42

3.7.3 Journal writing 42

3.8 Chapter Summary 43

CHAPTER 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 44

4.1 Data analysis 44

4.1.1 Results from the preliminary classroom observations 44

4.1.2 Results from the classroom observations of the three phases 67

4.1.3 Results from the semi-structured individual interviews 76

4.1.4 Results from the journal writings of the three phases 89

4.2 Discussion of results 102

4.2.1 Discussion of behavioural engagement results from classroom observations 102

4.2.2 Discussion of cognitive engagement results from semi-structured individual interviews104 4.2.3 Discussion of emotional engagement results from journal writings 105 4.2.4 Discussion of suitable applications for folk etymology in Vietnamese classroom context.107

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION 110

5.1 Summary of findings 110

5.2 Evaluation of research methodology 114

5.2.1 Contribution 114

5.2.2 Limitations 114

5.3 Suggestions 115

5.3.1 For the teachers 115

5.3.2 For English institutions and schools 117

5.4 Recommendation for further study 117

5.5 Chapter Summary 118

REFERENCES 119

APPENDICES 138

APPENDIX A: CLASSROOM OBSERVATION PROTOCOL 138

APPENDIX B: STUDENT INTERVIEW PROTOCOL 141

APPENDIX C: STUDENT JOURNAL WRITING PROTOCOL - PHASE 1 143

APPENDIX D: STUDENT JOURNAL WRITING PROTOCOL - PHASE 2 145

APPENDIX E: STUDENT JOURNAL WRITING PROTOCOL - PHASE 3 147

APPENDIX F: BASELINE CLASSROOM OBSERVATION PROTOCOL 149

APPENDIX G: PRELIMINARY RESULTS OF BEHAVIOURAL ENGAGEMENT 152

APPENDIX H: PRELIMINARY RESULTS OF COGNITIVE ENGAGEMENT 157

APPENDIX I: PRELIMINARY RESULTS OF EMOTIONAL ENGAGEMENT 160

APPENDIX J: LESSON PLAN FOR TEACHING THE FOLK ETYMOLOGY OF “TREADMILL” 162

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL English as a Foreign Language

IELTS International English Language Testing System

CEFR Common European Framework of Reference for Languages

S Student participant

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1: Engagement framework 26

Table 3.1: Student participants’ demographic information 31

Table 3.2: Alignment between conceptual framework and research instruments 34

Table 4.1: Student participants’ frequency of use for phones to chat 44

Table 4.2: Student participants’ frequency of use for google translation 45

Table 4.3: Student participants’ frequency of passive body language 47

Table 4.4: Student participants’ frequency of lack of interest in learning new words 48

Table 4.5: Student participants’ frequency of sharing work unevenly 51

Table 4.6: Student participants’ frequency of using notebook as the only learning materials 52

Table 4.7: Student participants’ frequency of discussing teacher’s ideas 54

Table 4.8: The number of word’s usage and context left unexplored by student participants 55

Table 4.9: Low-level student participants’ frequency of accepting high-level students' solutions 56

Table 4.10: The number of learned words require teacher’s explanation for meaning 58 Table 4.11: The number of words that student participants did not rely on past knowledge and social understanding to explore in and out of class 59

Table 4.12: The number of learned words student participants’ found unenjoyable 62

Table 4.13: The number of words student participants were unwilling to cooperate to discover 63

Table 4.14: The number of words uninteresting for memorizing 64

Table 4.15: Student participants’ frequency of unenjoyment of home assignment, albeit having been instructed 65

Table 4.16: The number of words student participants enjoyed learning with new approaches 66

Table 4.17: Comparison of assive body languages before and after the intervention 68

Table 4.18: Comparison of sharing work unevenly before and after the intervention 69

Table 4.19: Comparison of limited reliance on past knowledge and social

understanding to explore in and out of class before and after theintervention 70Table 4.20: Comparison of unenjoyment of home assignments, albeit having been

instructed before and after the intervention 71Table 4.21 Comparison of using notebook as the only learning materials before and

after the intervention 73

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1: Classifications of Etymology 8

Figure 2.2: Different indicators between meaningful and rote learning 18

Figure 2.3: Engagement Theory Framework 21

Figure 2.4: Conceptual framework 25

Figure 3.1: Methods of data collection 29

Figure 3.2: Data collection procedure 40

Figure 4.1: Student participants’ behavioural engagement after the intervention 74

Figure 4.2: Student participants’ cognitive engagement after the intervention 87

Figure 4.3: Student participants’ emotional engagement after the intervention 100

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION1.1 Background to the study

1.1.1 Vietnamese university admission and scholarship opportunities

Vietnamese students spend the utmost effort every year to prepare for universityadmission or scholarship opportunities for higher education One important requirement

of university and scholarship is performance on English standardized tests, especially theInternational English Language Testing System – IELTS This is because, besides theresults of English tests, another criterion for university admission is the IELTS Whenstudents have finished high school, it is sometimes compulsory to score high on theIELTS test to get admitted to a university or applied a scholarship (Pham & Bui, 2019).Since the demand for tertiary education is crucial to Vietnamese, it has shaped the needfor IELTS certificates among students They believe that IELTS open the door to tertiaryeducation and opportunities for professional development

The use of IELTS in determining English proficiency for tertiary education or scholarship

is due to the highly recognized international credibility of the test itself and thesignificant need for English programs (Le, 2017; Nguyen, 2013; Tannenbaum & Cho,2014) Henceforth, IELTS has been of paramount importance in students’ future

1.1.2 IELTS and vocabulary learning

Despite the growing trend of IELTS, there are challenges in taking the test One concern

is the lack of lexical input (Hsiao, Cheung, & Yu, 2016) The limited vocabulary ofIELTS test-takers leads to several difficulties in learning Without sufficient lexical input,students are unable to reach the necessary score requirements for university andscholarship (Ho, 2020; Kim, 2011; Maharani & Setyarini, 2019; Poulaki et al., 2020).Vocabulary plays a crucial role since students often have to rely on schemata to solvecomplicated linguistic aspects in the IELTS

Previous IELTS studies showed that the lack of lexical resources is mostly caused by lowengagement (Ho, 2020; Kim, 2011; Tran, 2017) Traditionally, English lessons aredelivered from a teacher-focused point of view This involves the teacher taking on therole of a classroom lecturer with high authority, delivering lessons to students Theapproach limits students’ proactivity and promotes the rote-learning environment,reducing interest and engagement in activities.

For many years, the teacher-centred approach has grown in popularity and emerged in theIELTS context The approach is effective in some cases, enabling students to achieve theIELTS certificate within a short time frame Nevertheless, its employment also holdssome disadvantages to vocabulary learning experiences Rote-learning and traditionalmemorization of vocabulary gradually reduce students’ engagement and interest, makingstudents less likely to focus on vocabulary Thus, it is important to change the currentteaching approaches and raise students’ engagement in vocabulary learning

1.1.3 Etymology and vocabulary learning

One pivotal requirement for IELTS high scores is the learning of vocabulary It iscommon for courses to be designed with vocabulary sessions for each unit with differentlearning topics Each features its respective vocabulary with a high frequency ofoccurrence in the IELTS To enrich vocabulary input, students are provided with newvocabulary revisions and home assignments to help reinforce learned vocabulary.Unfortunately, traditional assignments fail to captivate students’ interest and engagement

To tackle the issue, several studies have tried to seek effective approaches Apart fromauthentic materials or portfolios, etymology has been considered a possible solution Pastresearch also indicates engagement may improve through etymology in the classroom(Baleghizadeh & Yousefpoori-Naeim, 2011; Flory & Perkins, 1984; Hashemi &Aziznezhad, 2011) The use of etymology involves learning changes in history and themeanings of words The knowledge conjures up mental images within students’ mindsand assists in the comprehension of lexical items (Baleghizadeh & Bagheri, 2012; Boers

of etymology appears to offer an improvement in students’ vocabulary learningexperience.

Although etymological studies are common in foreign contexts, it seems that, throughpersonal observations, classrooms in Vietnam rarely employ etymology due to the fixedcurriculums of school administrative bodies Furthermore, it is suggested that Vietnamesestudents learning English often study vocabulary for meaning and usage only Althoughthere are certain cases indicating vocabulary instruction in Vietnamese classrooms caninvolve the breaking down of word parts into roots and affixes so students can gaingreater lexical knowledge of vocabulary forms and improve their usage of vocabulary,the study of historical changes in a word’s forms and meanings is believed to be leftuntouched by the majority of English schools and institutions

By contrast, many foreign studies often focus on stories depicting the origins of Englishwords These capture students’ curiosity in vocabulary learning and provide a novel yetinteresting way to improve the learning experience Therefore, it could be the case thatwhen Vietnamese students are introduced to etymology, they probably engage better in

vocabulary learning and acquire novel yet interesting vocabulary origins If theapplication of etymology extends a positive influence on vocabulary acquisition, there’s apossibility that students’ results on the IELTS test perhaps will be improved.

1.2 Rationale for the study

Etymology is of importance to the vocabulary learning of IELTS due to the followingreasons First, there is a rich amount of Latin in English Etymology will widen students’knowledge of the English language through Latin culture, providing novel ideas anduseful insights for the four IELTS skills

Second, etymology will heighten students’ impression of English through word creation,benefiting retention of the word and encouraging students more effectively than rotelearning

Third, there has been much foreign research proving the effectiveness of etymology.(Green, 1996) While foreign studies focus on the teaching of original changes in wordmeanings and forms in the classroom context (Pongweni & Alimi, 2013; Vasiljevic, Z.,2015), Vietnamese studies claimed that Vietnamese classrooms often emphasize themorphological aspect of vocabulary in teaching more than the etymological aspects.Teachers and educators seem to build their lessons around morphology so that studentswould become better at identifying prefixes and suffixes of vocabulary (Duong, 2015;Kieffer & Michael, 2012; Le, 2019; Trinh, 2017; Truong, 2013) In essence, the use ofetymology to improve students’ engagement and performance in vocabulary learning islikely limited in Vietnam

Accordingly, the study's purpose is to explore the use of etymological stories to improveIELTS students’ engagement on vocabulary learning This is beneficial in that it explores

a new intervention – etymological stories – in the Vietnamese IELTS classroom context.When etymological stories could reduce low engagement, the study may pave the way forfuture Vietnamese studies to apply the same approach Thus, the conduct of the study isreasonably necessary

1.3 Aim of the study

This study aims to use etymology to improve students’ behavioural, cognitive, andemotional engagement on vocabulary learning Furthermore, the study provides suitableimplications for employing etymology effectively The following are the specificobjectives of the study:

+ To explore the use of etymology in the improvement of students’ behavioural,cognitive, and emotional engagement on vocabulary learning

+ To explore the suitable approaches to apply etymology to effectively improve students’engagement on vocabulary learning

1.4 Research questions

To realise the above-mentioned aims and make exploration on the use of etymology toimprove students' three different types of engagement – behavioural engagement,cognitive engagement, and emotional engagement, the researcher devised the fitting firstresearch question as follows:

(1) How does the use of folk etymology improve students’ engagement on vocabularylearning?

Additionally, the study also aimed to discover the most suited methods for applyingetymology with high efficiency in developing students’ engagement within the classroomcontext of Vietnam Based on this second aim, the second research question was writtenaccordingly:

(2) How can folk etymology be applied to effectively improve students’ engagement

on vocabulary learning?

1.5 Significance of the study

Since the present study focuses on using folk etymology to improve engagement onvocabulary learning, the study provides valuable contributions to Vietnamese students’behavioural, cognitive, and emotional engagement, especially in IELTS learning

Moreover, the study employs folk etymology lessons and activities in an IELTSclassroom Thus, it offers recommendations for appropriate lessons and activities to beused.

Finally, as teachers hold a key role in delivering folk etymology, teachers need to equipwith well-versed knowledge of folk etymologies Having understood folk etymologies,teachers can determine the suitability of word origins for students Thus, this studyprovides suitable applications of folk etymology to improve students’ engagement so thatother researchers with similar interests can replicate it for future studies

1.6 Scope of the study

In this study, the researcher focuses on folk etymology to improve IELTS students’engagement in vocabulary learning The study took place in an IELTS Speaking andWriting course at the Vietop English Learning Centre and included 9 students ofintermediate levels As a result, these findings on students’ engagement can be mostuseful when being applied to other future studies with participants of similar IELTSlevels The study has not been able to cover the use of folk etymology on other higher orlower levels of IELTS learners, however

1.7 Organization of the study

The study structure comprises five chapters Chapter 1 introduces the background of thestudy, the aims and the significance that set this study apart, the proposed researchquestions, and the scope and organization of the entire study Chapter 2 provides aliterature review on etymology, the different types of etymology and applications,definitions and types of students’ engagements, past studies on the use of MeaningfulLearning Theory and Engagement Theory, and the conceptual framework Chapter 3shows the research methodology, research design, research site, research participants,research instruments, and data collection procedure Chapter 4 presents the study’sfindings, discussions and analysis of data The study analyzes findings from interviews,classroom observations, and journal writing Chapter 5 will provide suggestions,recommendations and conclusions about the study

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW2.1 Etymology

2.1.1 Definitions of Etymology

Etymology has been defined by many as the study of a word’s history of creation.According to Durkin (2011), etymology is the investigation of word histories, uncertainlexical facts, and hypotheses for word origin When one learns etymology, one candiscover and trace back native roots Similarly, Richards and Schmidt (2010) definedetymology as the study of perspectives of the word through modification in meanings andforms They stated that etymology enables one to identify influential aspects contributing

to what the words originally meant and currently mean Since the meaning of a word andhow it was coined is highly influenced by events in the past, the study of etymology isbelieved to provide a glimpse of a language’s chronological development

To stress on its definition more, etymology has been considered a lexical approachenabling a greater understanding of the lexical changes throughout the history of theword’s creation Ross’ (1969) viewpoint viewed the etymological study as the scientificstudy of historical changes within word meanings Etymology gives researchers adiachronic perspective over the targeted lexical item relating one chronological andhistorical stage of a language to another (Mailhammer, 2014) It presents people with theoriginal meaning and form of the targeted lexical item or cultural aspects embeddedwithin the very root of the word

2.1.2 Classifications of Etymology

As defined above, etymology is the lexical approach which delved deeper into the word’shistorical progress of creation However, since the English language is reported todevelop from different languages like Romans, French, German or Norse, Englishetymology is divided into classifications with distinct word-formation processes (Bragg,2011; Crystal, 1998) They are acronymy, blending, borrowing, clipping, coinage, folk

etymology, and onomatopoeia (Campbell & Mixco, 2007; Finegan, 2007; Fromkin,Rodman & Hyams, 2003; Richards & Schmidt, 2010; Stageberg & Oaks, 2000; To,2019) Although there are other sub-divisions of classifications of etymology, these bearsomewhat similar attributes to the seven classifications discussed above This sectionmentions briefly the seven classifications of etymology before diving deeper into themain focus of this study.

Figure 2.1 Classifications of EtymologyFirst, acronymy is defined as the process in which the formation of a word begins withthe initials of a succession of words (Stageberg & Oaks, 2000) The prime example forthis is “USA”, which stands for The United States of America This shortening of wordsegments results in what we call acronyms

Blending is the combination of two words into one (Richards & Schmidt, 2010) Theblended constituents are mostly clipped away This can be clearly seen in the case of

“smog”, which is the combination between the clipped words of “smoke” and “fog” Theblended parts also have partial overlapping should word segments are identical inphonological aspects

The third classification, borrowing, is defined as loan words borrowed from a nativelanguage like French (croissant), Mexican (macho), or Italian (piano) (Finegan, 2007).These adopted words are used without translating into the target language

The fourth classification, clipping is the cutting off of the beginning or end of the word,resulting in a new word with a similar meaning to that of the original one (Stageberg &Oaks, 2000) This is the case of “lab” and “laboratory”, which share similar meaningdespite the differences in semantic form Specifically, the cut-off part does not changethe original meaning

Coinage, the fifth classification, is the creation of a new word from scratch (Fromkin,Rodman, & Hyams, 2003) Coinage and borrowings are among the approaches used often

to increase the vocabulary range of a language Some notable examples for this are:google or COVID19

Folk etymology, the sixth classification, is the adaptation of changes in lexical items overmeanings and forms One famous example for folk etymology is the adjective

“herculean”, which originated from the demi-god Hercules himself Folk etymology isalso the chosen intervention for this study Folk etymology and its definition will befurther discussed in the sections below

Finally, onomatopoeia has been termed the act of inventing words to imitate sounds ofnature Onomatopoeia depicts the sounds of living things or audible noises frominanimate objects under the influence of external forces

Previous research has explored different classifications of etymology above but folketymology in teaching English (Aljarf, 2011; Ali & Ilyas, 2020; Echandy, 2017; Eliza,2019; Fazeli, 2010; Lehreh, 1996; Nemati, 2009; Paramita, 2019; Ramachandran, 2004;Redouane, 2003; Santoso, 2004; Silaski & Durovic, 2013; Sowers, 2017; Tahaineh,2012) This study focuses on folk etymology as an intervention to improve engagement

on vocabulary learning

2.1.3 Etymology and its application

Etymology has been integrated with different approaches to promote vocabulary retention.Pierson (1989) claimed that etymology offers intermediate or advanced students

“practical and theoretical linguistic knowledge”, enhancing their retention (p 57) Whilecomparing etymological support and pictorial support on retention of idioms, Vasiljevic(2015) concluded that students receiving etymological input would produce mentalimages of words, assisting the recall of verbal description and creating a deep impression

of vocabulary Besides, etymology helps students reduce spelling errors, and distinguishnew words from similar learned words (Ilson, 1983, Jie, 2013; Zheng, 2013) Moreover,Jie (2013) and Zolfagharkhani (2011) claimed that etymology improves understanding ofunknown words and avoids any ambiguities in vocabulary

But most importantly, etymology is crucial in improving interest, confidence, andengagement in vocabulary learning (Barnhart, 1998; Ilson, 1983; Jie, 2013) Students canexplore cultural and historical values, expanding their knowledge of the targetedlanguage (Baleghizadeh & Yousefpoori-Naeim, 2011) Besides, etymology can beemployed as a didactic tool to assist students in understanding figurative language(Moreno, 2010) He utilized fascinating histories of idioms in combination with colours

to improve experiences of figurative languages Etymology has also been researched inyoung learners Hutcheon et al (2012) showed that etymological intervention offerspositive results on the spelling performance of students, especially girls This is inagreement with another study by Gahroei and Tabatabaei (2013) These results indicatethat etymological application can be combined with various activities to suit students ofdifferent levels

2.1.4 Folk Etymology

Originally, folk etymology is a popular hypothesis on changes in words due tosimilarities of phonological and meaningful aspects and historical processes (Winner,1992) This understanding was shared by Olschansky (1996), in which folk etymologywas a new interpretation of a word's constituent meaning based on similarities in

phonological and morphological aspects with another well-known word Otherexplanations focus on the human impacts of certain times One explanation is that folketymology describes the theories, the thoughts people have on the original forms of aword, gradually leading to changes in the word itself (McArthur, 1992)

Folk etymology can also have its origin in different native languages Researchconducted by Fliatouras (2019) and Seiciuc (2017) defined it as the analogical changes inmeanings of loanwords which result in a “false connection of a lexical unit to another”and affect the word’s morphosemantic transparency (p 59) Many English words canhave folk etymologies from Latin-based or Roman-based origins due to theoverwhelming influences of these languages

From the definitions of folk etymology discussed above, folk etymology is a term for thediscovery of changes in the historical aspects of a word based on various elementsranging from the word’s constituents, the thoughts and views of people, to the influencefrom other languages Together, these elements are believed to breed new words as weknow them in English While these definitions above provide benefits in helping readers

to grasp the whole concept of what folk etymology is and is not Readers will know thatfolk etymology involves the changes and development in phonological, morphological oranalogical aspects, leading to changes within lexical meanings and morphosemantictransparency These enable readers to take a more holistic view of the aspect of theword’s constituent to discover the word’s folk etymology

However, approaching these definitions in the chosen research classroom context mightprove to be a challenge since the student participants have not been equipped with theknowledge of morphology, etymology, or analogy of words Their unfamiliarity towardsthat advanced lexical knowledge could prevent them from fully understanding the variousaspects contributing to the creation of folk etymology

Moreover, the current research focused on students in an IELTS-focused classroom sothere was no chance for any advanced morphological or phonological lessons to be

applied beside strictly IELTS ones Because of this, it can be argued that a simplermeaning of folk etymology, one that shifted the stress more on general knowledge andthoughts of historical events than sophisticated morphological or phonological terms,might be suitable for students to ensure their understanding of the whole meaning andprocedure for using folk etymology effectively in a classroom setting.

The research took into account the fact above and produced the simplified version of thefolk etymological operational definition, which embraced the emphasis on historicalstories and cultural aspects of foreign languages instead of the complicated wordanalogies to bring a friendlier experience of folk etymology to students:

Folk etymology is a popular story about the origins of words Folk etymologytakes place when speakers – based on their knowledge and thoughts of historicalevents at the time – interpret and make changes in word meaning (i.e loanwords

or foreign words) to create a new explanation of the word

2.2 Engagement

2.2.1 Definitions of Engagement

The term “engagement” has been defined as various factors involving students’ attention,willingness or preparedness in their learning experience According to past research,engagement relates to students’ motivation, autonomy, and cognition (Christenson et al.,2012; Fredricks et al., 2004; Haddad, 2016; Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2003; Redmond etal., 2018; Russell et al., 2005) Engagement is also viewed as students’ feelings,behaviours, and thoughts on school aspects (Taylor et al., 2016) Moreover, Krause’s(2005) study found engagement is reflected through time, energy, and resources inactivities Brown, McCord, Matusovich & Kaifez (2015) identified that students’engagement equals competence, autonomy, and relatedness in learning For the affectivefactor in engagement, Fredricks and others (2004) claimed that engagement presentswhen students draw energy and turn thoughts and feelings into deeds Overall, based onthe above definition, it is suggested that engagement is important to students' thoughts,feelings, behaviours, and efforts

Since engagement is reported to bear connection with students’ own emotions and theirwillingness to learn, it might be that students’ engagement is important to autonomy andmotivation Many suggest a correlation between engagement, motivation, and autonomy.Mercer (2019) found motivation fuels willingness and engagement in activities Bycontrast, low engagement will retain a low interest in academic outcomes (Chapman,Laird, & Kewalramani, 2011; Rumberger & Rotermund, 2012) Besides, severalresearchers have stated that autonomy is also affected by engagement Students’autonomy is a core component of their engagement (Brown et al., 2015; Mercer, 2019;Rawan, 2016) To sum up, for students to develop motivation and autonomy, engagementshould be prioritized with great care and attention

2.2.2 Types of Engagement

Besides its definition, to understand and develop students’ engagement better, pastresearch on engagement classified the concept differently Redmond et al (2018) dividedengagement into 5 types: social engagement, cognitive engagement, behaviouralengagement, collaborative engagement, and emotional engagement Social engagementfocuses on social investment in learning like participation in activities (Knight, 2013;Redmond et al, 2018) Cognitive engagement relates to the active process of learning, orcomprehension of complex ideas Behavioural engagement includes positive and negativebehaviours in in-class participation Collaborative engagement involves networking withpeers and instructors Finally, emotional engagement relates to affective feelings andattitudes towards learning

Other researchers shared similar ideas with the study of Redmond and her team,suggesting three major components for engagement are the behavioural component,cognitive component, and emotional component (Cooper, 2014; Fredricks et al., 2004;Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2003; Oga-Baldwin & Nakata, 2014; Yazzie-Mintz &McCormick, 2012) These three components are chosen in measuring engagement onvocabulary learning with folk etymology Since the study focuses on an IELTS classroom,social and collaborative engagements are not available for measurement to the full extent

In sum, the three selected engagements for the current study will be behaviouralengagement, cognitive engagement, and emotional engagement The indicators for theseengagement components will be discussed below.

be of positive manner when they follow the teacher’s expectations or of negative mannerwhen they turn ignorant of the teacher’s words (Jones, Marrazo, & Love, 2008; Wang, &Holcombe, 2010) It is possible that behaviour engagement may not be illustrated through

a single aspect but by different aspects of students’ performance in the classroom

Nguyen, Cannata, and Miller (2016) classified behavioural engagement into passive andactive types The passive type is attributed to obedience, negative body language andparticipation in activities whereas the active one stresses more the exceeding expectations

of performance in class like actively asking questions, contributing to discussions, orresisting distractions This classification is in agreement with the result of Stipek (1996),stating that actively engaged students are more eager to tackle challenging tasks and useproblem-solving strategies Besides, Linnenbrink and Pintrich (2003), behaviouralengagement encompasses students’ effort, persistence, and strategies in help-seeking Forthis current study, to measure correctly the behavioural engagement of students, thefollowing chosen aspects had been selected from the above definitions as behaviouralengagement indicators due to their suitability to the classroom setting and students’ level:obedience to classroom rules, participation in group work, contribution to academicactivities, and help-seeking strategies

2.2.2.2 Cognitive engagement

Cognitive engagement is the train of thoughts students process while being engaged inlearning tasks In identifying the indicators of cognitive engagement, past researchershave looked at it from different and unique aspects of exerting motivation, self-regulation,and self-efficacy (Nolen, 1995; Pintrich & De Groot, 1990) Nevertheless, they did notpoint out the accurate measuring approach for students’ cognitive engagement within anIELTS classroom setting

In contrast, Meece, Blumenfeld, and Hoyle (1988) divided cognitive engagement intotwo aspects, active cognitive engagement, and superficial cognitive engagement, enablingmore accurate measurement of students’ cognitive engagement The former involvesstudents employing cognitive strategies and self-regulation processes while the latterdescribes students seeking help from peers and teachers using effort-avoiding strategies.Other researchers focused on the active process of learning, psychological investment,thoughtfulness, and willingness to spend effort on complicated ideas (Cooper, 2014;Fredricks et al., 2004; Redmond et al., 2018; Shernoff, 2013; Yazzie-Mintz &McCormick, 2012) Fredricks and others (2004) also classified cognitive engagement assurface cognitive engagement and deep cognitive engagement While surface cognitiveengagement focuses on the concept of accepting solutions without judgment, andrepeating ideas without clarification or need for prior explanations from teachers, deepcognitive engagement emphasizes the capacity of comparing ideas and solutions, makingintegration of ideas from different sources, or higher academic goals

For this current study, to measure correctly the behavioural engagement of students, thefollowing chosen aspects had been selected from the above definitions as behaviouralengagement indicators due to their suitability to the classroom setting and students’ level

In this study, to measure correctly, students’ cognitive engagement is divided into twolevels, deep level and surface level Deep-level cognitive engagement focuses on studentscomparing ideas and solutions, clarifying ideas both in class and at home, and having noneed for explanations from teachers Surface-level, by contrast, involves students

accepting ideas and solutions without judgments, repeating ideas without clarifications,and requiring the teacher’s explanations.

2.2.2.3 Emotional engagement

Emotional engagement touches on interests, feelings, or attitudes to learning (Fredricks etal., 2004; Redmond et al., 2018) Students who take interest in learning experiences aremore likely to engage greater in the study By contrast, students with low interests wholack affective connections are prone to become inactive (Finn, 1989; Wang & Fredricks,2014) This means that emotional engagement has an influential impact on performancesand cognitive and behavioural engagement in class (Fredrickson, 2001; Isen et al., 1987).Because of the above definitions, it might be suggested that emotional engagement is inclose connection with attributes that students perform in learning

In search for these attributes from students, many researchers stated that emotionalengagement can involve the affective factor of engagement, both negative and positiveemotions in activating attention from students (Cleveland-Innes & Campbell, 2012;Renninger & Bachrach, 2015; Shernoff, 2013; Sinatra, Heddy, & Lombardi, 2015; Stipek,2002; Walker & Greene, 2009; Yazzie-Mintz & McCormick, 2012) Redmond and others(2018), four indicators of emotional engagement are: managing expectations, articulatingassumptions, recognizing motivations, and learning commitment Besides, self-efficacy isimportant in emotional engagement, providing the necessary framework andmeasurement (Appleton et al., 2006; Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2003; Schunk & Mullen,2012)

In short, for this study to collect and measure students’ emotional engagement with highaccuracy, students’ emotional engagement indicators encompass the following crucialfactors composed from other relevant past research: students’ attitudes, enthusiasm,interest, anxiety or enjoyment, expectations management, assumption articulation,motivation recognition, and learning commitment

2.2.3 Operational definition of Engagement

Based on the chosen indicators for students’ engagement - the definition of students’engagement in this study had been written accordingly below:

“Students’ engagement is divided into three main elements: behaviouralengagement, cognitive engagement, and emotional engagement Behaviouralengagement is the participation and behaviour in learning activities, effort,persistence, and view of seeking help in tasks Cognitive engagement includes twolevels of cognition – surface and deep cognitive engagement – and focuses onlearning strategies, metacognitive activity, and self-regulation of learning tasks.Emotional engagement involves emotional reactions, feelings, and attitudes towardlearning tasks.”

2.3 Meaningful Learning Theory

2.3.1 Definitions of Meaningful Learning Theory

The theory states that students learn meaningfully when they relate new knowledge torelevant knowledge already gained, which enables new knowledge to interact withstudents’ knowledge structure (Ausubel, 1968) One fundamental notion in Ausubel’stheory is the differences between rote and meaningful learning According to Ausubel,rote learning is when students incorporate new knowledge into a cognitive frameworkwithout integrating it with learned knowledge This process leaves the newly learnedknowledge out of the functional knowledge of students, making them gradually forgetrotely learned components By contrast, meaningful learning happens when students exerteffort to integrate new with pre-existing knowledge, letting them retain and generalizenewly learned knowledge to other learning aspects (Ausubel, 1968)

Figure 2.2 Different indicators between meaningful and rote learning (Ausubel &

Robinson, 1969, as cited in Novak & Cañas, 2016)Ausubel’s theory was supported by other researchers in the same field Thelen (1986)stated that meaningful learning happens when students make a connection between newlearning and what they already knew Nevertheless, learning requires certain conditionswhen students are cognitively prepared for the knowledge, and what is learned isdelivered in a systematic manner (Ausubel & Robinson, 1969) From what they figuredout, Ausubel and Robinson stated that there were several important factors influencingmeaningful learning: the level of quantity, clarity, and organization of current knowledge– cognitive structure Moreover, the delivery style and nature of new knowledge alsomatter to the meaningful learning conditions

Based on the above reasons, the current study employed the following three conditions tocreate a meaningful learning environment in the chosen classroom setting:

(1) The new knowledge must relate to the cognitive structure and existingknowledge to make connections and internalize ideas

2.3.2 Meaningful Learning Theory and Etymology

According to Pierson (1989), etymology is regarded as meaningful learning due to threementioned important conditions Students can recognize etymological knowledge withprior acquired knowledge, a good dictionary, and a teacher’s support (Pierson, 1989).The application of etymology under the influence of meaningful learning theory is based

on these reasons:

First, etymology lessons under meaningful learning theory let students associate newknowledge with previously learned knowledge Traditionally, English vocabularyteaching is based on a synchronic perspective and a rote learning method, focusing onlinguistic aspects like spelling, pronunciation, meanings of words, etc However, Englishvocabulary includes words of many origins which makes learning challenging forstudents (Nagy et al., 1989) Moreover, rote learning with a synchronic perspective onlyallows students to remember learned words but cannot apply them to new contexts(Chamot, 2004) Thus, this will not enable a deep connection with the histories of words,leading to low vocabulary retention and lack of engagement (Sun & Sun, 2013) Bydelivering etymology with meaningful learning theory, the teacher helps increase lexicalknowledge and improve retention

Second, etymology lessons and a meaningful learning environment provide incorporation

of vocabulary On the one hand, vocabulary teaching with a synchronic perspective givesabundant knowledge of pronunciation, spelling, meanings, etc On the other hand,etymology in a meaningful learning environment offers a diachronic perspective ofvocabulary teaching, allowing students to understand the evolution of lexical meaning.Combined, this can provide better acquisition of vocabulary, interest and engagement

Third, recent research has employed meaningful learning theory in designing etymologylessons (Chatzisavvas, 2015; Matthews, 2001; Sun & Sun, 2013; Weber, 2007) Sun andSun (2013) stated that etymology plays an important part in providing a meaningfullearning environment The meaningful learning of etymology can strengthen the memoryprocess when acquiring new words (Anderson, 2008; Ally, 2013; Carroll, 2000) Thesefindings show that etymology improves vocabulary and engagement through its practicalbenefits.

In general, meaningful learning of vocabulary can be offered by etymology lessons toimprove vocabulary acquisition and enhance engagement

2.4 Engagement Theory

2.4.1 Definitions of Engagement Theory

The Engagement Theory states that when students are meaningfully engaged in activities,achieve interest in tasks, and interact with others, they experience effective learning,greater retention, and connections with authentic contexts (Kearsley & Shneiderman,1999) Kearsley and Shneiderman (1999) noted that Engagement Theory can be appliedboth in technology-based and non-technology-based teaching O’Brien and Toms (2008)claimed that students when meeting learning with suitable challenges, aesthetic andsensory aspects, will display improvement in awareness, motivation, and interest.Therefore, once students receive meaningful, collaborative, and authentic interaction inlearning, they will become engaged

The Engagement Theory has been employed in educational activities Miliszewska andHorwood (2014) proved that students will increase engagement once they receiveintriguing coursework Additionally, collaborative activities, based on EngagementTheory, increase engagement in learning Marshall (2007) also mentioned that, forEngagement Theory, assessment tasks and encouraging information help engage students.All in all, the success of the Engagement Theory relies on fascinating assignments, thecollaboration of peers, effective assessments, and encouragement

To clearly illustrate the Engagement Theory, Kearsley and Shneiderman (1999, p 20)summarized three crucial components to engage students:

(1) Relate: learning must include collaborative efforts Motivation and engagement

in learning will increase when students discuss ideas with classmates

(2) Create: learning must include creative and purposeful activities If studentscomplete worthwhile activities, they will perceive learning as engaging

(3) Donate: learning must provide useful and meaningful outcomes Whenstudents do authentic activities with meaningful results, they will be betterengaged

Figure 2.3 Engagement Theory Framework (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 1999, p 20)

2.4.2 Engagement Theory and Vocabulary Learning

Different past research employed Engagement Theory to design technology-based andnon-technology-based activities to enrich vocabulary acquisition Prihatin (2012) claimedthat meaningful interaction within activities based on Engagement Theory createsengagement and improves communicative skills Cojocnean (2019) also mentioned thatactivities based on Engagement Theory assist vocabulary acquisition This is supported

by Tu and others (2020), stating that students feel connected with peers, growengagement, and deepen vocabulary processing if participate in interest-arousing,attention-catching, and authentic projects Activities following three crucial components

of Engagement Theory – Relate, Create, Donate - reinforce vocabulary retention withrepeated encounters with learned words Sun (2010) showed that the Engagement Theory

in literacy activities like reading picture books yields beneficial values for engagingyoung adult EFL students

Engagement Theory can be applied to students of different age groups Huang and others(2017) demonstrated that activities influenced by Engagement Theory grant easy entryfor both low-level students and adequate challenges for high-achievers When studentsare offered opportunities to exchange ideas, their engagement will be aroused Pange andothers (2010) showed agreement with the study above which illustrated that differenttheories can improve vocabulary enrichment

Overall, learning activities designed with the Engagement Theory will aid in vocabularyacquisition, an improvement over linguistic aspects, and learning experience of differentcompetency levels

2.5 Conceptual Framework

Although there have been other popular theories that can be used to explore students’motivation and engagement like the Self-Determination Theory proposed by Ryan andDeci (2000), the Meaningful Learning Theory and Engagement Theory fit more in thisstudy due to the following reasons:

First, the Self-Determination Theory is the combination of the two sub-theories, theCognitive Evaluation Theory and the Organismic Integration Theory The CognitiveEvaluation Theory states that humans are intrinsically motivated to do activities to satisfythe needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness, while the Organismic IntegrationTheory argues that there are different extents to which we conduct self-regulationtowards extrinsically motivated activities This means that the more students feel satisfied

psychologically with the learning activities, the more they improve their intrinsicmotivation towards the activities and become better engaged in learning The Self-Determination Theory itself may be suitable for pointing out that feedback, praise, orrewards might be able to help reinforce extrinsic motivation and develop the intrinsicmotivation of students; however, the theory lacked a detailed description of how idealconditions or requirements of how the lessons and activities should be designed anddelivered to build up students’ engagement from low to a higher level The theoryprovided only a general view of situations which are desirable for intrinsic motivation orengagement, not the steps or criteria taken to create those motivating situations

On the other hand, the presence of Meaningful Learning Theory lies in the fact that itprovides crucial conditions for a meaningful learning environment to happen in theclassroom, which, based on the theory, can boost students’ emotional connection withboth the newly learned and formerly learned knowledge Once students feel connectedand emotionally hyped for their received knowledge, they might have their engagement

in vocabulary learning improved The Engagement Theory, it offers detailedrequirements for designing learning activities that can attract students’ attention andengagement These conditions are important since the learning of folk etymologyrequired the design of engaging and interesting activities to further ensure theimprovement of students’ engagement in vocabulary learning Together, these twotheories can help the researcher to guarantee the improvement of students’ engagementthrough folk etymological lessons and activities

The two theories are chosen due to their relevance to the study's purpose of improvingstudents’ engagement in vocabulary learning For this study, both Meaningful LearningTheory and Engagement Theory are used in the conceptual framework to choose suitableetymological vocabulary and design lessons Specifically, three conditions of MeaningfulLearning Theory are criteria in choosing vocabulary with suitable etymology, while threecomponents of Engagement Theory are employed to design lessons to teach vocabularywith etymology Specifically, Meaningful Learning Theory is chosen to incorporate both

synchronic and diachronic perspectives of vocabulary teaching The selection of stories isbased on three conditions of Meaningful Learning Theory:

(1) Folk etymology relates to students’ existing knowledge of different fields sostudents can understand the etymology better

(2) Folk etymology has intriguing origins to encourage students to use existingknowledge to understand the selected folk etymology better

(3) Folk etymology with intriguing origins is presented through realia, images,videos, or stories to improve student familiarity and understanding of it

Then, Engagement Theory is used to design vocabulary activities Thus, onceetymological stories have been chosen, these are integrated into lessons under theinfluence of three essential components based on the Engagement Theory to maximizethe effectiveness of etymological learning for students’ engagement:

(1) Relate: Folk etymology activities include group work to collaborate.Discussions are employed to help students work together in activities

(2) Create: Folk etymology activities include presentation practice so students canchoose the folk etymology, and search for relevant information, increasingengagement and autonomy

(3) Donate: Folk etymology activities include reading and listening practices ofword origins This lets students gain knowledge of the historical origin, andbuild up social understanding for speaking and writing

Additionally, many past studies used Engagement Theory to design online learningactivities (O’Brien & Toms, 2008) Nevertheless, O’Brien and Toms (2008) stated thatthis theory can be applied offline Hence, a distinctive feature of this study is the use ofEngagement Theory for offline and online activities which past studies have not done.This enhances students’ engagement in both online and offline folk etymology activities.During and after folk etymological activities, the researcher collects students’engagement data The research tools are based on the indicators of three engagements –

behavioural, cognitive, and emotional engagement Behavioural engagement indicatorsare used to design a classroom observation form checklist to observe behaviouralengagement data Cognitive engagement indicators are used to design questions ininterview form to elicit cognitive engagement data Emotional engagement indicators areused to design questions for journal writing homework to interpret emotional engagementfrom written work

Once the selection and design for folk etymological lessons and activities had beencompleted, the folk etymological intervention was conducted and followed by themeasurement of students’ behavioural, cognitive, and emotional engagements after theintervention On the foundation of the above-mentioned theories and indicators, theconceptual framework for the study was created:

To effectively collect and analyze students’ behavioural, cognitive, and emotionalengagements after the intervention, the following indicators were used to create accuratemeasurement tools for these engagements – participation, behaviour, effort, persistence,help-seeking strategies, deep and surface level, feelings and attitudes towards learning.These indicators, which are not hierarchical or linear, are presented in the table below.The combination of these indicators let the researcher measure in detail students’engagement

Figure 2.4 Conceptual framework

Table 2.1 Engagement framework

Behavioural Engagement Participation and behaviour in learning

Effort and persistence Help-seeking strategies

Cognitive Engagement + Surface level

Acceptance of solution without judgment Repetition of ideas without clarification Need for prior explanations from teachers + Deep level

Comparison of ideas and solutions Repetition of ideas with clarifications

No need for prior explanations from teachers

Emotional Engagement Attitudes towards learning activities

Enthusiasm and interest Anxiety or enjoyment Expectation management Assumption articulation Motivation recognition Learning Commitment

Also, in the research by Ponciano and Brasileiro (2014), they proposed four engagementmetrics – activity ratio, daily devoted work, relative activity duration, and variation inactivities These metrics with selected indicators of engagement increase the accuracy ofmeasurement tools

To sum up, folk etymologies are selected based on the Meaningful Learning Theorywhile the activities are designed from the Engagement Theory Unlike previous studieswhich only utilized one of two theories, this study combines both to maximize folketymology in evaluating accurately students’ engagement

2.6 Research questions

As discussed in Chapter 1, to deliver folk etymology and determine its effectiveness tostudents’ engagement, the study focused on first discovering the use of folk etymology inimproving students’ engagement on vocabulary learning in the IELTS classroom context

As a result, the previously mentioned research question is:

(1) How does the use of folk etyology improve students’ engagement on vocabularylearning?

Secondly, the study sought for effective approaches to apply folk etymology properly toimprove students’ engagement., giving rise to the second research question:

(2) How can folk etymology be applied to effectively improve students’ engagement

on vocabulary learning?

For the first research question, to gain details on how folk etymology improves eachstudent’s type of engagement – behavioural engagement, and emotional engagementwithin the selected classroom context, three additional sub-questions are raised to collectand analyze in detail each type of student’s engagement after the intervention The threesub-questions will possibly provide a more specific view of the development or changeswithin each engagement type and allow the researcher to understand students’engagement aspects better Three sub-questions mentioned are as follows:

(1.1) How does the use of folk etymology improve students’ behavioural engagement

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY3.1 Research design

The study aims to explore folk etymology for the improvement of engagement onvocabulary learning Additionally, the researcher sought to provide approaches to usingfolk etymology in the future classroom Accordingly, the researcher employed the use of

a Practical Action Research Design to realize the study's aim This design involves theresearcher observing an issue in teaching and searching for a solution (Burns, 2010) Bycontrast, Creswell (2014) once stated that Participatory Action Research is conducted tosolve social issues or make “life-enhancing changes”, which is unsuitable for this study.Plus, the present study was conducted with 9 student participants Such limited numberwould be nigh impossible for control and experimental groups Also, the study aimed tocollect qualitative data on student participants’ engagement in vocabulary learning.Because of that, Experimental Research which heavily relied on the use of quantitativedata from control and experimental groups for research implication was not the befittingchoice to be chosen for this study With such a small sample of 9 student participants andthe need for collecting pure qualitative data, the Practical Action Research Design hasbeen chosen by the researcher

The small student sample had been proven to still yield comprehensive data through pastresearch Dworkin (2012) stated that the sample size for single case studies can rangefrom four to thirty This means that the size could be as limited as a one-digit number formore rigid data Backing up this, the research of Morse (2000) stated that the sizedepends on: the scope of the research question (the more condensed, the smaller thesample size); the nature of the research topic (the more ‘transparent’, the smaller thesample size); and the data quality (the ampler, the smaller the sample size) For this study,the scope of the question was condensed to the point of only exploring three types ofengagement in learning Moreover, the nature of the research topic was transparent sincethe researcher focuses solely on folk etymology Finally, the research quality was ensured

Figure 3.1 Method of data collection

through the three data colletion methods including classroom observation, individualinterviews, and journal writing to gain detailed data on the three types of students’engagement mentioned in the three sub-research questions, further improving the dataconcreteness

The study employed three phases of classroom observation including 12 preliminaryclassroom observations for baseline data and 14 classroom observations for behaviouralengagement data after the intervention, 9 individual semi-structured interviews for each

of the student participants in the study, and three phases of individual journal writingincluding 18 collected journals for the first 2 phases and 8 journals for the final phase.Specifically, classroom observation obtained results on behavioural engagement withchecklists and fieldnotes Semi-structured interviews to acquire data on cognitiveengagement For journal writing, it included open-ended and sub-questions to exploreemotional engagement data Below is the presented plan for triangulation in the currentstudy