Luận văn efficiency of gap fill exercises to 10th form students’ vocabulary acquisition

Reality shows that many students have fairly good knowledge of grammar but atc hardly able lo express themselves properly becauss of their vacubulary doficicney Vocabulary leammg, theref

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNTVERSITY-HANOL UNIVERSITY OF LANGL AGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDLES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

~ đe LE) o& -

NGUYÊN THỊ KIỂU NGA

EFTICIENCY OF GAP-ETLL EXERCTISES TO 10”8

FORM STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY ACQUISITION

(Hiéu qua của bải tập điền khuyết đối với sự tiếp thu

từ vựng của học sinh lớp I0)

MINOR M.A THESIS

Field: English Methodology

Cade: 601410

HANOI - 2011

NGUYÊN THỊ KIỂU NGA

EFTICIENCY OF GAP-ETLL EXERCTISES TO 10”8

FORM STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY ACQUISITION

(Hidu qua của bài tập điền khuyết đối với sự tiếp fhụ

từ vựng của học sinh lớp I0)

MINOR M.A THESIS

Field: English Methodology

Code: 601410

SUPERVISOR: LE VAN CANH, Ph.D

TIANG! - 2011

Aims and Objectives of the study

Rescarch Hypothescs and Questions

Method of the Study

Scape of the study

Significance of the Study

7 Organization of the thesis

PART I: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER ONE : LIRETATURE REVIEW

1.1, What is vocabulary?

1.2 The role of vocabulary in second language learning

1.3 The vocabulary acquisition

1.3.1 Vocabulary teaching techniques

1.3.2 Revising vocabulary

LA Vocabulary activities and oxcrcises

1.5 Criteria of a good vocabulary exercise

-1.6 Gap-fll exercises and the acquisition of vocabulary

L7 Summary

CHAPTER TWO: THE STUDY

2.1, Context of the stuty

2.2 Rationale for using a Quasi-experimental method

Instruments for data collection

2.7.1 Pretest and Posttest

2.7.2, Questionnaire

2.8 Summary

CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 The Effectiveness of GFEs on students’ vocabulary acquisition

3.1.1 Comparison of Pretest and Posttest Performance

3.1.2 Comparison of both group’s vocabulary gains aller the experiment

3.2 Students’ attitudes towards GFEs

3.3 Discussion

3.3.1 Vooubulary gains as resullsd fram the application of GFEs

3.3.2 Students’ attitudes towards GFEs

3.4, Summary

PART II: CONCLUSION

1 Summary of main findings

2, Limitations of the study

26

tr Si

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3 Recommendations for the application of GIs

4, Suggestions for further study

REFERENCES

APPENDICES

Appandix A: Tost Scores

Appendix B: Vocabulary pretest & key

Appendix C: Vocabulary posttest &key

Appendix D: The Questionnaire

Appendix E: Word lists

tà 3

39

LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Descriptive statistics for the pretest and posttest of experimental and control groups

Means gains of the expatimental group and control groups after the experiment

Students’ altitudes towards GFFs

The differences between the means scores on the paired pretest and the paired posttests

Differences in gain values obtainsd by both groups after the experiment

Dinh Tien loang

English as Forzign Language English as Second Language

Gap — Fill Exercises

Null Tlypothesis Alternative Hypothesis

First Language Second Language

Ministry of Education and Training

Means

Number of Cases or Subjects of the siudy Probability of chance (indicator of significance) Standard Deviation

Statistic Package for Social Science Obtained Value

Critie Value

‘Tesi of Pnglish for International Communication Independent factor

Dependent factor

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Vocabulary is an important language clement that links four language skills, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing together and makes communication flow smoothly Reality shows that many students have fairly good knowledge of grammar but atc hardly able lo express themselves properly becauss of their vacubulary doficicney Vocabulary leammg, therefore, becomes the central to language acquisition and interest in its role in second language learning has grown rapidly in recent years Scholars and

teachers new emphasize the need of systematic and principled approach lo vocabulary by both the teacher and the learner (Decarzico, 2001; Nation, 1990) One of the concerns in vocabulary is how to help students acquire their English vocabulary,

However, at upper secondary schools, the teaching and learning of English language in

general, L’nglish vocabulary in particular are still far from satisfaction as students’ final results in most Tinglish examinations remain unchanged at low levels In fact, most

secondary school students have not paid cnough: attention to vocabulary learning as they

mainly receive basic lessons of grammar together with four skills from their teachers and textbooks IL is common knowledge thal there are various techniques of learning vocabulary, mastering and using it in different contexts and one of the effective techniques

to help students to reinforce vocabulary is giving them appropriate vocabulary exercises,

namely, gup-fill cxcrciscs This lype of vocabulary excreises typically consists of leaving a zap or a blank space in a sentence or a passage which students have to fill in with the correct latter, word, phrase or whatever is missing,

Though vocabulary is vitally important to master any forcign languages, in reality, many grade 10 students’ English vocabulary is shll limited even though they have learned English for four years at the lower secondary school, It is their limited vocabulary that explains their poor performance in using English and in their test performance All these have motivated me to conduct this quasi-experimental research on the topic given, namely

sto 17" form students’ vocabulary acquisition

efficiency of gap- fill exer

2, Aims and Objectives of the Study

‘The main aim of this study is to experiment gap-fill exercises in helping grade 10 students acquire their Lnglish vocabulary

To be more specific, the primary objectives of the study are set as follows:

© To experiment gap-Gill exercises and examine their effects on grade 10 students’ English vocabulary acquisition

= To invesligals the stutkenls? allitudes towards gap-fill excreiscs., ic how effeative they think domg gap-fill exercises is to their vocabulary learning

3 Research [lypotheses and Questions

‘To achieve the aims and objectives, the study is designed to test the hypothesis:

Hi Grade 10 students who apply gap-fill exercises will make more significant

impravement in their English vocabulary acquisition as measured by both pre-test and

post-test scores than those who do not apply such exercises

If the above hypothesis was fully accepted, the following null hypothesis would be

obviously rejected or vice versa:

HO: There is no difference in English vocabulary acquisition as measured by bath pre-test and post-test scores between grade 10 students who apply wap-fill exercises and those

who do nol apply such exercises

In order to identify which hypothesis would be accepted, the following rescarch questions

are formulated and needed to answer satisfactorily:

(1) Whal effect do gap fill exarcises have on studenls” vocabulary acquisition as measwed by their scores in the pre-test and post-test?

Q) WHal sre the studenls’ attitudes towards gup-fill excreises afler the expermentall period?

4 Mcthod of the Study

Because the purpose of the study is to test out the impact of gap-fill exercises on students” acquisition of vocabulary, a quasi-experiment with a pre-test- and post-test design was adopted in this study Two non-randomized groups of 82 students (one control group and one experimental group, N~ 41 cach) participated in this experiment The pre-test and post-test scores were analyzed by means of t-test to find out the correlation of the two

means lo accepl or reject the null hypothesis, namely gap-fill exercises do nol have any effect on grade 10 students’ English vocabulary leaming In addition, a post-experiment questionnaire was also used as the supplementary instrument to elicit the students” ovaluative allitures towards yap-fill exercises aller the experimental porind

5 Scope of the Study

‘The experiment was conducted to examine the impact of one type of vocabulary exercises,

€., gap-fill exercises on students’ acquisition of vocabulary ‘Ihe sample was a small group of grade 10 sindenis who were non-randomily assigned lo a control eless and an experimental class (41 students for cach) Therefore, ne intention was made to goncralins the findings

6 Significance of the Study

Although no generalization was intended, the findings of the study could inform teachers

of the effectivencss of gap-fill excreiscs on students’ vocabulary learning,

7 Organization of the thesis

This thesis is organized in three parts

Part Lis The Introduction which presents the rationale for the research topic, aims, rescareh

hypotheses, scope, significance, and method of the study

Part Il is The Development which consists of three chapters Chapter one reviews theoretical background to teactting and leaming vocabulary in a second language including vocabulary’s definition, its role in second language learning, the vocabulary acquisition, vocabulary exercises and the relationship between gap-fill exercises and vocabulary

acquisition, Chapter two describes the context of the study, rationale of using a Quasi-

experimental method, variables, participants, design of gap-fitt exercises, instruments of the study as well as the procedure cmployed to carry out the research, Chapter three presents detailed analyses of the data given by the pretest and posttest and discusses the findings thal the researcher found out from the dala collected

Part II is ‘The Conclusion which discusses the major findings and limitations of the research, recommends the application of gap-Fill exercises and suggests further studies

pragmatic meaning within a given community.”

Ur (1996) defines vocabulary as the words we teach in the forsign language The author also emphasizes that a new item of vocabulary may be more than a single word, for example, post office and mother-in few, which are made up of two or three words but express a single idea There are also multi-word idioms such as calf iz a day, where the moaning of the phrase carol be deduced from an analysis of the eomponcnt words, Therefore, a useful convention is t0 cover all such cases by talking about vocabulary

“lexical items” rather than “words”

From a pedagogical perspective, Ur’s (1996) definition of vocabulary is easy to

understand ifowever, the definition also suggests that it is not easy to define what a word

is,

1.2, The role of vocabulary in second language learning

If language structures make up the skeleton of a language, vocabulary provides vital ongans and the flesh, so, vocabulary plays a very essential role in any languags Cơncsming the significance of vocabulary, Wilkin (1972:110) states: “Vocabulary is one

of the three dimensions of a Janguage (phonetics, grammar, vocabulary) Without grammar, very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed” Wallace (1982) points oul thal “failure to find the words one needs lo express himsel fis the most frustrating experience in speaking another language”

"Thus, for the success of learning a language, it is very essential for learners to master its vocabul:

1.3

ary

The vocabulary acquisition

Rivers (1981; 463) argues that

‘Vocabulary cannot be taught It can be presented, explained, included in all kinds

of activities, but it must be learned by the individual The vocabulary we

understand and (he vocabukay we can use varieties in nalure and in quantily from one person to another even in our native language

then, recommends seven strategies for “leaming how to leam vocabulary” ‘These

strategies arc:

@

Gi)

Students need to learn how to commit vocabulary to long-term memary

Students must learn to discriminate variations in distribution and new boundaries

of meaning

Git) Students do not always realize that words are constructed of morphemes which

share the burden of the meaning among them,

{iv) Students should leam to penetrate disguises

@ Students mus! lear how lo điscovơr new words [or (homselvœ

(vi) Students need to leam that vocabulary is elastic and that they can make much of

fhe little they know by paraphrase, circumocution cle

(vii) Students must leam how to augment their own vocabulary steadily and

systematically

‘What Rivers implies is that vocabulary needs to be taught in a systematic, reasonable and scientific way Furthermore, vocabulary acquisition is a matter of leaming over a period of time Ni jast (1981, 14) makes the point that,

Leaning the vocabulary of a foreign language lakes lime There are no short cuts

to a contzol of tie complele vocabulary of a foreign language One carmol have

complete control of the vocabulary of a new language in cight wecks or cight

months or eight years,

In a nutshell, vocabulary acquisition is increasingly viewed as crucial to language acquisition, However, there is much disagreement as to the cffectivencss of diffcrent approaches for presenting vocabulary items Moreover, leaming vocabulary is often

1.3.1 Vocabulary Teaching Techniques

‘There are numerous techniques concerned with vocabulary presentation However, there are a few things that have to be remembered irrespective af the way new lexical items are presented If teachers want students to remember new vocabulary, it needs to be learnt in context, practised, and then revised to prevent students fiom forgetting Teachers must make sure students have understood the new words, which will be remembered better if introduced in a “Memorable Way” (Hubbard, ot al 1983: 50) Bearing all this in rind, teachers have to remember to employ a variety of techniques for new vocabulary presentation and revision

Gains and Redman (1986) suggest the following types of vocabulary presentation techniques:

@ Visual techniques,

According Zcbrowska (cited in Gaim and Redinan (1999), visual techniques pertain to visual memory, which is considered especially helpfidl with vocabulary retention Leamers remember better the material that has been presented by means of visual aids such as flashcards, photographs, blackboard drawings, wall charts and relia (ie objects themselves) can stimulate students to speak the language Regarding visual aids, students can benefit from communicative activities since they help to provide the situation which

light up the meaning of the x mime and gesture are often used lo supplement other ways of conveying meaning, Teachers can make use of the blackboard and gesture fo reinforce the concept Lior example, make the typical gesture with your

hands as you say "Stand up", “come here", or "sit down";

the answer s", or mime distributing things as you say, “Ph

(ii) Verbal explanation

This pertains to the use of illustrative situations, synonyms, opposites, scales (Gains and Redman, 1986: 74), definition (Nation, 1990; 58) and categories (Allen and Valette, 1972:

116)

- Use of illustrative situations (oral or written): oo ensure that students understand,

leachers oflen make use of mors than one situation or context lo check (hat leamers have grasped the concept

- Use of synonym and definition: Teachers ofien use synonymy, where inevilably they have to compromise and restrict the length and complexity of their explanations Besides, definition alone is often inadequate as a means of conveying meaning, and clearly contextualized exermples are gonerally required lo clarify the limits of the item

- Contrasts and opposites: As with synonymy, this is a lockurique which students themselves use, often asking "What's the opposite ”

- Examples of the iype: To illustmic the meaning of supsr ordinals such as

‘furniture’, ‘vegetables’, 'meat' and ‘transpout', it is a common procedure to exemplify them e.g table, chair, bed and sofa are all fumiture Some of these can

of source also be dealt with through visual aids

(ii) Use of dictionaries

Using a dictionary is another technique of finding out meanings of unfamiliar words and expressions Students can make use of a variety of dictionaries: bilingual, monolingual, piclorial, thesauri, and the ike (Thombury, however, disapproves overusing bilingual dictionaries as they can lead the student to misusing words- they oversimplify meaning and often do not offer notes on their usages)

1.3.2 Revising vocabulary

‘The revision process aims at helping students acquire active vocabularies, Students need to practise regulatly what they have learnt, otherwise, the material will be faded away Teachers can resort to many techniques for vocabulary consolidation and revision, To begin with, a choice of graphs and grids can be uscd Students may give a definition of a given item to be found by other students Multiple choice and gap fill exercises will activale the vocabulary while sludents select the appropriate response Teachers can use lists of synenyms or antonyms to be matched, sentences to be paraphrased, or just some

words or expressions in context to be substituted by synonymous expressions Doing cloze

tests will show students” understanding of a passage, its organisation, and delermmins the choice of lexical items Visual aids can be of great help with revision Pictures, photographs, or drawings can facilitate the consolidation of both individual words as well

as idioms, phrases and structures There is also a large variety of word games that are

1⁄4 Vocabulary activities and exercises

Nation (2001) recommends the following cxcreiscs for vocabulary leaming, These

exercises are believed to help the students acquire all aspects of vocabulary learning:

meaning, form, and use

(1) Meaning

Word and meaning matching

Labeling sentence completion

Crossword puzzles

Semantie analysis

Completing lexical sets

(ti) Form

Follawing spelling rules

Recognizing word parts

Building word family tables

(He

Sentence completion

Collocation matching

Collocation tables

Interpreting dictionary entries

1.5 Criteria of a good vocabulary exercise

According lo Nation (2001), a good vocabulary excreise

(i focuses on usefil words, preferably high frequency words that have already been mel before

Gi) focuses on a useful aspect of Isamning burden It has a useful leaning goal;

(iii) gets leamers to meet or use the word in the ways that establish new mental connections for the word It sets up usefid leaming conditions involving generative

can be achieved by giving students opportunities

preferably within a few days, so that too much forgetting docs not occur Later moctings of the words can be widely spaced with several weeks between each meeting The following

section reviews the usefulness of one Lype of vocabulary exercises — a gap-fill exercise

1.6 Gap-fill exercises and the acquisition of vocabulary

According to Nation (2001) creative or generative use of new words enhances word retention He defines creative or generative use of a word as using the word in a way that is different, Fron the original sneaunter

One big question about vocabulary is what kind of exercises is best for practicing vocabulary The commen beliclis that teachers need to use a great variety of vocabulary exercises Given the aum and scope of the study, what follows 1s just a discussion of one type of vocabulary exercises — the 8ll-in-the-blank cr gap-fill exercise type

a passage, its organization, and determine the choice of lexical items

When the vocabulary of students has increased to a certain extent, old words may be instruments for leaching new words This is done by placing new words in verbal conlexts

that provide meaning Mackey (1978: 252) writes,

Contests help us Lo guess the meaning of the words In faết, thal is whal we do

when we leam our native language A child leams many of his words by drawing,

tentative canclusiona from a variety of contexts Multiplication of cantexts helps to

make meaning clear

As the meaning of all the words in a sentence interact on one another, a missing word may

be easily inferred, Lior example, in the sentence: “Ile into the river”, students can guess (hut the missing word shows some movernent

Cloze testing was first introduced by W.L ‘Taylor (1953: 416), who developed it as a reading test for alive speakers He defined the term “clove” from a gestall concepl whieh teaches that an individual will be able to complete a task only after its pattern has been discerned:

A dove unit may be defined as: any single occurence of a successfnl attempt to

reprodnee accurately a par deleted from a ‘message! (any langnage product), by

deciding from the context that remains, what the missing part hould be

Cloze tests consist of a text (usually two or three paragraphs) which has had words or parts

of words deleted from it Test subjects must draw from their knowledge of the language in order Lo write appropriale words in the blanks

Thre arc at least five main types of eloze tests available to language teachers: The fixed- rate deletion, the selective deletion (also known as the rational cloze), the multiple-choice clove, the clove elide and the C-test (Tkeguchi 1995; Weir 1990; Klein-Braley and Raalz, 1984)

In the fixed-rate deletion, after one or two sentences, every nih word is deleted Usually cvery filth or seventh ward is deleted, bul Brawn (1983) suggests thal loryer texts with cvery cleventh or fifteenth word deleted can be uscd with subjects who have a lower level

of language proficiency Multiple choice cloze tests provide the subjects with several

or rational cloze, the tester chooses which i

ans he or she wishes 10 delsle from the lexl The goal for teachers using this test is not only to fine tune the level of difficulty of the text, but also to measure the knowledge of vocabulary items and specific grammatical

points,

Folse (2004) suggests the following types of gap-fill vocabulary exercises that are useful in enhancing students’ retention of words and learning how to use words appropriately,

() Close sentences

For example: Fill in the blanks wilh one of 10 words given to complete the following

sentences: army, catile, donkey, foe, ivory, lament, oath, portray, tortoise, venom

a Sometimes a srake’s can kill a human being

b, When a soldier comes across an unknown person, he or she has to determine if the unknown person is friend or

ete

(ii) Cloze passage

Example: Fill in the blanks with one of 10 words given lo complete the following passage army, cattle, donkey, foe, ivory, lament, oath, portray, tortoise, veriomt

Snakes have a bad reputation, but they do not seek lo allack When a snake comes across an unknown object, the snake determmes whether the object is friend or (I)

If the objectis a threat to the snake, the snake will bite the object with the

ention of injacting ils deadly (2) cle

There are usually five men in the crew of a fire engine One o — them dĩ

the eng _The lea sits bes _ the dn The ot _ firemen s _amside

LÔ cab o the £ engine, T leadler h _ usually be in 1 Fire

Se forma = yeusH wilkn howt fight diff =~ sortso——ifites S _, when t _firemen arr at a fire, it is always the leader who decides how to fight a fire Ie lells each firerran what to do,

(Klein-Braley and Raatz 1984)

In his book “Vocabulary Myths,” Keith Folse (2004) notes that

ESL students sec acquisition of vocabulary as their greatest source of

problems However, vocabulary is not dealt with sufficiently zome teachers

cover some vocabulary, but this is something that everyone assumes that leamers

will somehow pick up, nmch the same way everyone assumes that students will just

pick up good pronunciation

le sees a lot of value in the use of different variations of gap-fill exercises for things like: drawing allcntion lo pattems, checking undarstanding, discovery leaming (if designed properly), ete It is therefore essential that vocabulary which is introduced in class be reviewed and reinforced repeatedly The following are some ideas for recycling vocabulary both inside and outside of the ESL classroom, using Gerry's Voeabulary Teacher

- The Standard Multi-W ord Gap-fill

Gap-fill exercises can take various forms; the most common is the standard mult-word exercise with a number of sentences and words to choose from lor example:

a The plane soon afler takeoff, but na one was killed.

b Advertising on the Intemst has helped to our sales

ete

= The Gap-Fill with Clues in Root Form

A challenging variation of the above exercise is a gap-fill exercise in which the words which are gapped are presented in their rool form In this way, slurients have to choose ths correct word from the contexts given, and supply the appropniate form of the word, such as

a different derivation or different tense, Example

factor cmoll — harvest global immigrate

a in our classes has increascd by 10% this year

b Many contributed to my bad marks at school

etc

- Mubtiple Contexts for One Word

Another variation which can help students to understand the varions derivations for a word

is a gap-fill cxcreise with several different contexts for onc word, cach showing a different

form or derivation A short example exercise is shown below

theoretical theories theory theorize theorists

a Finstein’s famous that Tr =mc2 has been shown ta be tus

b Efforts to solve global problems often require broad understanding of

cultural systems, as well as detailed understanding of specific local cultures

ete

- Listening Practice with Gap-Fills

Giap-fill exercises can he presented as listening exercises In this exercise, students hear the sontoneg rathor thin roading it, and have to choose the appropriale answer The next day in class, students can be shown the sentences that they heard in the language lab, Atthis time,

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they can see if what was said is the same as what they thought they heard It also offers an

additional opportusily Lo review and loam the target vocabulary For example

- Listen to the following words and repeat

abuse committed distracted harmful injuries victims

Listen to the following sentences and fill m the blanks with the appropriate word from the

list above

- Crossword Puccies with Gap-Fill Clues

Gap-Lll excreises can be presented as crossword puzwles, Rather than presenting dictionary definitions as clues, use gap-fill sentences in context Crossword puzzles are an excellent way to review vocabulary, as students will immediately know their answers are incorrect if they do nol fil Ihe puede In addition, if the students can’t figure out the answer, they can simply count the squares in the puzzle, find words of equal length and then try to deduce the correct answer

- Interactive Web- Based Gap- Fill Exercises

Using Hot Potatoes formals JClove and TMalch, Gerry's Vocabulary Teacher will automatically generate interactive Web-based gap-till exercises for posting on a class or institutional website, Web-based exercises are an excellent way of reviewing vocabulary,

time fiom any computer with Intemet access

All in all, using the different lypes af gap-fill exercises described sbove, teachers can review and reinforce vocabulary in a variety of ways, help the students develop a greater understanding of vocabulary, and mest the students’ various verbal and non-verbal learning styles,

17 Summary

This chapter reviews the literature on the role of vocabulary in second language learning and different types of vocabulary exercises and activities to be suggested in the literature with a focus on gap-fill exercises The chapter, thus, reviews the benefits of gap-fill vocabulary cxerciscs as well as how these oxcrcises can be uscd in the classroom Next chapter- Chapter II- will deseribe the study including the context and the design of the

indy,

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CHAPTER TWO: THE STUDY

2.1 Context of the study

The shuly was conducted at Dinh Tien Hoang high school, which is situated about 2 kilometers to the East of the center of Ninh Binh city, Ninh Binh province There are also three other schools in Ninh Bình city including a specialized one which attracts almost all advan:

students fiom the city as well as different districts of Nin Binh Compared 1o the others in the city, this is the new school founded 15 years ago with only 15 class rooms and a small yard at first Llowever it has changed a lot now

For the 2010-2011 academic year, the school had over one thousand and two hundred students being grouped in 30 classes, with an average of 42 students per class ‘There were

10 leachers of Frygtish and 70 others in teaching staff The schoot has # quite big library with plentiful sources of reference books, magazines and newspapers convenient for all students to make reference Moreover, it has five well-equipped classroom with projectors,

Ic available In fact, il is considered lo be one of the besl schools im

2.2 Rationale fer using a Qu:

i-experimental method

Experiments are carried oul in order to explore ths strengths of the relationship between variables This study was aimed at exploring the relationship between gap- filling exercises and grade 10 students’ acquisition of their English vocabulary ‘Iwo types of variables were identified for the study: the dependent variable and the independent variable The

and after trealment, The paired-sample t-lest is (he appropriate Lest for (his purpose

Despite the advantage of the experimental method in the study which sets out to investigate the corelation belween the intervention and ils outcome, il is not always feasible to camry out a true experiment This is because of the impossibility of randomly assigning subjects to experimental and the control groups in many educational contexts

Instead, a quasi-experimenl is cmployed with the subjeets for both the oxperimental group and the control group being the intact groups of students, As this study was conducted on the students in 2 classes which were assigned by the high school where the researcher was working , a quasi-experimental method was naturally chosen

2.3 Variables

As mentioned above, the quasi-experimental design was used in the study as an

approptate approach to establish the cause- effect relationship between gap-fill exercises

and grade 10 students” English vocabulary acquisition Therefore, the study was designed

to cxamine the relationship between the independent (gap- fill cxerciscs} and the

dependent variable (the vocabulary test score)

In this quasi-cxperimental study, gap-fill exercises were seen as the comprchensive input acquired outside the classroom by students who were encouraged to do more exercises at their disposal The values of the independent variable were defined fiom the experimental students’ weekly reports which covered the mformation on the exercises they had done and the amount of time spent on exercises per week

In order to measure students’ vocabulary acquisition tiom gap-till exercises, the pretest and posttest were employed as a valid and reliable means for the study The vocabulary test scores of both control and experimental groups were carefully computed and compared boftre mđ nÍTer thơ experiment by a (-lest

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24 Participants

In the study, 82 students all of whom were non-major English students tiom 2 classes;

10A1 and 10A3 Lach class consisted of 4] students All of the students were majored in

natural sciences They had been learning English since they were at grade 3, [lowever, most of thom were not really motivated in Icaming English and they didn’t intend to take English as one of the subject in their entrance exam, their English knowledge was just at the average level, some wers even bad at English Based on their grades of their fintal exam

in the preceding semester, the researcher found out that they were generally homogeneous

in learning English The two classes studied the same textbook of ‘Hiéng Anh 10 with three

poriods a weck As can he scon, the textbook is theme-based, inchuding 16 nnits and 6 tests yourself for students to check their own knowledge Each unit cotresponds with a topic and consists of 5 parts (Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing, and Language Foous) There is

no separate part for Vocabulary Vocabulary is indirectly tanght and leamt (Le, learning vocabulary as a by-produet of doing other things such as reading or listening, cle) Il is taught integratedly with skills such as reading, speaking, listening, and writing The textbook is, obviously, designed on the basic principles of CLT; however, there still romain some problems in themselves For cxample, the reading texts arc often long and rather tough for students while their levels are not the same Moreover, the tasks are sometimes overloaded for students These may create demotivation among students in the class These two classes were assigned to an expermental group and a control group The researcher taught the two classes the same content but in two diffrent ways for the vocabulary acquisition ‘he experimental group received treatment through various types

of gap- fill exercises designed by the roscarcher in rocyoling previcusly met wards to help them reinforce the vocabulary The control group received traditional treatment, that is recycling werds just through exercises given in the textbook,

2.5 Designing and applying gap-fill exercises on the experimental group

Gip-RHH exercises designed by the sescareher wers mainly adopted from English Vocabulary in Use by Michael McCarthy Felicity O’Dell, Fest Your Vocabulary Books by Peter Watcyn-Jones and Check Your English Vocabulary for TOEIC by Rawdon Wyatt

All of these cxerciscs were carefully chosen to cnsurc that they were appropriate to

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students’ Lnglish proficiency and they contained the vocabulary taught during the experimental period, In order to help students retain vacabulary and know haw to put il into practice, the rescarcher modified cxcreiscs in which the same words to be filled in were repeated in different contexts By this way, the researcher believed that students right wot feel burdensome when doing vocabulary exercises

Cloze exercises were constructed by selecting segments of text of approximately twenty-

five to thirty-five words in length and deleting five words, usually every fifth The five deleted words, which were replaced by blanks, were placed in a list to the right of the passage ‘The stucent’s task was to write the correct word, selecting from the words in the list on the right, in each of the blanks For advanoed students, a sixth or seventh word was added to the list at the right of the passage

The rescarcher handed oul a worksheet of gap-fill oxcretscs lo students every two wooks The number of lexical items was the same every time, i.e., 60 target lexical items for each, However the types of exercises were different In the first two weeks, students were requiređ to do only two types of gap-fills, but another type was added every next two wecks, Gradually, students became accustomed to all kinds of zap-fill exercises after a

period of four months of experiment

2.6 Procedures

The study was conducted over a period of 4 months, beginning from January 3 2011 and

finishing by May 20, 2011 at DTH high school, Ninh Binh City The procedures of the study involved the chronological steps as follows:

G) Study the literature review underlying the study before carrying out the research, (ii) Tstablish the methodological framework (or the siudy,

Gil) Design and administer the pretest to both groups (experimental and control

groups);

(iv) Identify any difference in the pretest scores between the two groups;

(v) Apply the gap- fill exercises on the experimental group;

(vi) Design and administer the posttest (version of the pretest) to both groups,

(vii) Analyze both groups’ posttest scores to establish the difference in vocabulary

acquisition between the two groups after four months:

(viii) Deliver the questionnaire to the experimental group to get their ideas about

gap- fill exercises;

(ix) Collect and analyze all the data for the results of study,

Discuss the ñndings and draw out the conclusions and suggestions for further study

The procedure of how this quasi-cxperimental study was conducted was presented in detail

by Michael McCarthy Felicity O'Dell, Test Your Vocabulary Books by Peter Watcyn-

Jones, and Check Your English Vocabulary for TOIL by Rawdon Wyatt to test students’

vooabulary knowledge Among 60 choscn words were 30 ones Iearnt in the Test Issam and the others being learnt, In class, either at the beginning or at the end of the lesson, the teacher asked the students to submit their worksheets for some feedback and comments which were made at home by the teacher On regular basis, students received the teacher’s

comments and feedback which mainly focused on the techniques rather on the meaning

In class, the feedback from the teacher about gap-fill exercises done at home by students took about 5 to 8 minutes The length of time was important because most of the class time

in EFL classrooms at the researcher’s school must be devoted to activities related to

authorized textbooks Therefore, in the context of this study, gap-fill exercises musl take a secondary role to these activities because the objectives of the course are not only to improve English vocabulary acquisition, proficiency but also other skills which are proscribed in the textbook In this study, the experimental ieatment was done logother

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with the new texthook Liểng Anh 10 'The treatrnert period lasted for 4 months, started on

* 2011

January 3" and finished on Iu

2.7 Instruments for Data collection

‘Two instruments which were employed to collect data in this study were the tests and the students’ questionnaire, The tests (see Appendix B & C) were used to measure the impact

of gap-fill exercises on the subjects’ 1.2 vocabulary acquisition and retention, The students? questionnaire (see Appendix D) which was administered by the end of the treatment, was used to find out the students’ attitudes towards gap-fill exercises

2.7.1 Pretest and Posttest

The test consisted of 40 taught lexical items and divided into 4 parts In the first part, students were required to do the multiple — choice cloze Part 2 required them to do the C- esl In cach senlcnee there was an important ward which was intentionally deleled sxecpL for the first letters of the word, Students were obliged to write the missmg words Part 3 involved Fixed-Rate cloze test Test subjects must draw from their knowledge of the language in order to write appropriate words in the blanks And in the last part of the test, test-takers were asked to do the open gap-fill exercise in which they were not given any words to choose from ‘They must read the text after the gap as well as before if to be sure thal the word they chose fillad completely into the conlexl ach correct answer was raled one point, each score was the total number of correct answer and the maximum score that a

student was able to get would be 40 he time allowance for each test was 32 mimutes

including the lime of delivering the test paper Specifically, before the experiment, the pretest was given to both groups at the same time on the same day In order to measure the amount of vocabulary the students achieved in the experiment period, the pretest and posllast mainly Ieslzd the same texieal ilewns, bul changes in order and types of exercises The test was administered under the surveillance of the rescarcher and another teacher at DTH high school to make sure that no student could copy the answers from the others Aller the experimental period, the postlesl, the version of the pretest in which some

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the posttest scores were also employed to evaluate the effect of the gap- fill exercises on

jen HHCTL 407055

their 1⁄2 vocabulary acquisition Finally, in order to have con

raters and scoring occasions, the researcher tried to gct good coordination with another teacher at DTH in rating the test scores of beth groups Furthermore, all the students’ test scores were compuled and analyzed wilh the assistance of the compuler soflwars (SPSS

15.0 version), so the score values of each subject was always expected to be reliable

2.7.2 Questionnaire

According to McDonough, J & McDonough, S (1997), questionnaires are commonly

used in educational researelt in general and in BLT research in particular Iì facl,

questionnaires have several advantages as follows

= Questionnaire does nol take tims to prepare and administer,

- The collected data are standard and accurate since the same questionnaire is given

lo all the subjects al the same time,

- Questionnaire can be easily qualified as multiple choice questions are used (Selinger & Shohany (1989)

However, “the construction of valid and reliable questionnaire is a specialized business” (Numan1992:143) In Unis study, a wri

admimstered to all the students of the experimental group at the same time In order to

am questionnaire (soo Appendix D) was

achieve the objective results from 41 subjects who used gap- fill exercises for their vocabulary acquisition, 10 multiple choice questions were carefiilly designed to draw their cvaluative opinions of gap- fill excroiscs after thc experiment All the written questions were related to students’ feedback to the effect of gap- fill exercises on students” 1⁄2 vocabnlary acqnisilion The step of administering tke questionnaire was also established, Before answering the questions, all the experimental students were made to feel safe and easy to give their true responses to all the statements since their own opinions were just for study, nat for any other reasons, Tn the questionnaire, the students were asked

lo give their ideas lo all the quostions in three ways If they agreed with the slalcment, they would mark in the Agree-colhemn with a tick, uf they disagreed, they would maik in the Disagree-cohann with a tick In case, they did not know or have no idea about the issue

mentioned, they would put a tick in the No øpirdon-columm 'Tho questionnaire was written

in Victnamesc tn assure thal respondents did nol have any language problems in

understanding every statement item

The data collected from the questionnaire were then analyzed in detail in the following sections, The result of the questionnaire would help the rescarcher draw out supplemental statements on the issue discussed,

2.8 Summary

This chapler prasenls the context and the design of the study The research procedures and research instruments are also presented, Next chapter presents the findings and the discussion of the study

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CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 The Effectiveness of GFEs on students’ vocabulary acquisition

3.1.1 Compurisan of pretest and pasties! performance

‘Table 3.1 summarizes some significant descriptive statistics of the results achieved by both groups in ths protes! and poslisst This section could help readers find out the satisfactory answer to the first research question of the study (For more comprehensive information on

students’ test performance, see Appendix A)

Descriptive Experimental Group (N41) Control Group (N=41)

With regard to the means, the modes and the medians for the posttest scores in both

groups, they were observed to be really greater than those of the pretest scores It was proved that both groups generally made some remarkable improvements after the four- month experiment As compared to the control group’s posttest score, it could be assumed

that the experimental group made greater improvements (22.22 compared to 20.46) Figure

3.1 presents the overview of the means scores gained by both groups in the pretest and

=ControlGroup = Experimental Group

Figure 3.1: The differences between the means scores on the paired pretests and the

paired posttests

3.1.2 Comparison of both groups’ vocabulary gains after the experiment

The following table presents the means, the standard deviation, the t value, the degree of

freedom and the critical values, which were calculated to establish the differences in the gains between the pretests and posttests performed by the experimental and control groups

Here, the t-test was used again to compare the means gains made by both groups to see if

the treatment might have been associated with any difference in vocabulary acquisition.