Luận văn using prefixes suffixes and word roots to teach vocabulary for 10th form english major students at bien hoa specialized high school ha nam

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, ITANOL UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES TRƯƠNG THỊ PHƯƠNG THANH USING PREFIXES, SUFFIXES AND WORD ROOTS

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, ITANOL UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

TRƯƠNG THỊ PHƯƠNG THANH

USING PREFIXES, SUFFIXES AND WORD ROOTS TO TEACH VOCABULARY

FOR 10" FORM ENGLISII-MAJOR STUDENTS AT BIEN IO SPECIALIZED

HIGH SCHOOL, HA NAM

(Sir dung tén £4, hau to va gic tir vao viée day br vung cho hạc sinh lớp 10 chuyên

tiếng Anh tại trường THPT chuyên Biên Hỏa, Hà Nam)

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

TieldỎ : English Teaching Methadology Code — :601410

Ha Noi - 2013

VEEILNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOL UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

TRUONG TH] PHUONG THANH

USING PREFIXES, SUFFIXES AND WORD ROOTS TO TEACH VOCABULARY FOR 107" FORM ENGLISILMAJOR STUDENTS AT BIEN HOA SPECIALIZED

HIGH SCHOOL, HA NAM

(Sir dung tiền tổ, hậu tô và gốc bir vao viéc day từ vụng cho học sinh lớp 10 chuyên

tiếng Anh tại trường THPT chuyên Biên Hỏa, Hà Nam)

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field _: English Teaching Methodology Code — :601410

Supervisor: Taang Thi Tang Fai, M.A

HaNöi - 2013

iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

BISHS Bien Toa Specialized Tigh School

MOET : Ministry of Education and Training

VSL : Vocabulary Learning Strategies

LIST OF FIGURE:

Figure 1: Whether students often study vocabulary

Figure 2; Difficulty students have when remembering new words

Figure 3; Whether students have difficulty understanding an unfamiliar word

Figure 4; What students do Lo guess the mcaning ofa word ina text

Figure 5: Whether students know word parts (prefixes, sultixes and roots)

Figure 6: Tho percentages of studonts who know prefix groups

Figure 7; The percentages of students who know suflixes

Figure 8: The percentage of students who know word roots

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31

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LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Students’ ways of learning vocabulary

Table 2: What stadents do when coming across a new word while reading

Table 5: Students’ assessment of the bencfits gaincd from Icarning word parts

‘Table 6: Students’ assessment of the benefits gained from doing the exercises and

activities in Ihe program

Table 7: Results of the pre-test

Table 8: Results of the post-test

‘Table 9: Results of the pre-test and posi-test

Deel

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS tralion

Aims of the Sludy

Research questions of the Stndy

Scope of the Sludy

Significance of the Study

1.1.2.4, According to the Sequence of Use

1.1.2.5 According to the Function of Vocabulary Items in a Sentence

1.2 Vocabulary loarning stralcgics

1

1.2.1 Definition of vocabulary learning slratogios

1.2.2 Classification of vocabulary Isarting stratogi

1.2 3 Vocabulary learning strategy - Morphemic analysis

3 Word structures or morphology

1.4.1 Definition of word formation

142 Main types of word formation

2.4.2 Pre-Test and Post-Tests

2.5 Intervention: The Vocabdlary Learring Program «

2.5.1 Word parts to be laugh(,

2.5.2 The Types of Exercises and Activities

2.5.3 Format of a lesson

2.5.4, The Schedule for the Vooubulay Leaning Programm

2.6 Data Collection Procedures

2.7 Data Analysis Procedures

3.1.1 Students’ ways of loaning vocabulary

3.1.2 Problems with unfamiliar words

3.1.3 Students’ knowledge of word parts

3.2 Evaluation

3.2.1, Results and discussion from the post task questionaire ¬

3.2.2 Results and discussion from the pre-test and post-fesfe

3.3 Summary

PART C: CONCLUSION

1, Summary of Major Findings oo assessment metneneseeenemes

2 Pedagogical Implications of the Sludy

3 Limitations of the Study

4 Suggestions for Further Studies

such as reading, listening, speaking and writing The importance of vocabulary knowledge

to overall acaclemic snecess, especially in the area of reading and oral comprehension, is

well documented (Calls & Kami, 1999, Nagy & Scott, 2000, Snow, Porche, Tabors, & Harris, 2007; Stahl, 1999), Recent reading reports (National Reading Panel, 2000; RAND

Reading Study Group, 2002) have emphasized the central role of vocabulary in student achievement as well as the paucity of research on promoting vacabulary acquisition (Stahl

& Nagy, 2006)

However, facts have shown that not many language leamers own an abundant

sonrce of vocabulary knowledge and those who study English are not an exception

English, though has become an infcrnational language and has attracted a huge number of

learners, has proved to be a complicating language due to its Greek, Latin and French

origins Many words used nowadays lave Greek, Latin or French rools, prefixes and suffixes, which is a great hindrance to second language leamers especially those who want

to-use English in academic and scientific areas

At Bien Hoa Specialized High School, English major students, who have to study

s of cxamminations amt falure need have te

English extensively to inet tha requiremcr

same problems related to vocabulary knowledge The author is teaching English at Bien 1Joa Specialized Iigh School and at this moment, she is in charge of teaching 10 form

English major students Alor lessons at class and through some tests, shz found out that

help her students overcome this difficulty and this alse motivates her to conduet this study

on using prefixes, suffixes and rapts to teach vocabulary for 10” form English major students at Bien Hoa Specialized High School, Ha Nam, By slowly and stcadily studying the most prominent prefixes, roots, and suffixes, students can acquire a vocabulary thal is far greater than (he sum af its parts

2, Aims of the study

This rescarch is designed to bring a new air into the teaching of vocabulary to T0th foum English major students In general, the purpose of this study is

- to use another vocabulary learning strategy using morphemic analysis

~ ‡e find out how this method benefits students in studying vocabulary

~ to investigate stulents? improvements and altitudes during the time the study is

carried out

3 The research questions

‘To achieve the aims which are mentioned above, the following research questions are raised for exploration:

- How does the method benefit the building of students’ vocabulary?

- What changes do students have after the lessons?

- What are the attitudes of students towards the new method of leaning vocabulary?

4, Scope of the study

In this study, because of limited time and students’ level, the researcher just wants

to focus on teaching sludents the most popular prefixes, suffixes and word roots whihi help them to understand the most common words that they often come across while reading advanced level passages Also she just does research on teaching vocabulary to a limiled mumber of students, that is 34 tenth form Tngtish major students during 9 weeks However, the study is hoped to be beneficial to those who want to improve their knowledge of acadsmic vocabulary and those who find understanding a word through its parts hefpfal

5, Significance of the study

Affixes including prefixes and suffixes make up a big part it the formation of words, Knowing as many words as possible will help develop practical skills (reading, listening, speaking and writing) and knowing as many affixes and roots as possible will enable students to remember words in an easier way This study which the researcher is going to carry out is hoped to satisfy this goal Moreover, teaching vocabulary through prefixes, suffixes and roots, though is not alien to researchers in the history of education, is sill quite a now inothod which vory fow foachrs think of in Their leaching Therefore, the researcher wants to look into and try this method with the hope that it will help her solve this current problem and benefit both fearing and teaching vecabulary in the future

6 Method of the study

The method employed in this study is an action research, using a mumber of instruments such as a pre-task and post-task questionnaire, a pre and post test After analyzing the data, conclusions will be drawn and some suggestions will be made in this

thesis

7 Desipn of the study

This study ineludes three main parts, which are presented as follows:

Part A is the introduction which includes the rationale for the research topic, aims and roscarch questions, rescarch methodology, scape, significanve and design of the siudy

Part B is the development which consists of three following chapters:

Chapter 1 reviews some theoretical background relevant to the study It includes gencral knowledge of English vocabulary in foreign language tcaching and learning and an overview of word structures or morphology as well as previous studies of other researchers

on the related issues

Chapter 2 presents the resaarch methodology This chapler introduces the research

context, research approach, participants, intervention, data collection instruments, data

collection procedures and data analysis procedures

Chaplor 3 gous into details of the data anelysis, results and discussion

Part C is the conclusion which includes the summary, implications, limitations of the study and suggestions for further stucties

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter will review some background information relevant to this study First,

the ideas of researchers about the importance of learning word parts are looked into Next,

an overview of English vocabulary such as definitions, classification, vocabulary leaning

strategies, and a revision of words structures such as prefixes, suffixes and roots are

others refer to it according to the phonological or potential one

Diamond and Gutlohn (2006) gave a very broad definition, that is “vocabulary is

the knowledge of words and word meanings’ Fran Lehr, in the website hitp://www.prel.org/products/re_/ES0419.htm defined vocabulary as knowledge of words

and word meanings in both oral and print language and in productive and receptive forms

According to Parmer (1983), the semantic unit may be a sequence of several words

The phrasal verb “look after” is a typical example This phrase includes two words but its

meaning can only be understood in the entire phrase and can not be interpreted by

analyzing its single parts

Ur (1996) defined vocabulary “as the words we teach in the foreign language”

However, this author also added that “a new item of vocabulary may be more than a single

word, a compound of two or three words and multi-word idioms”

According to Lewis (1993), vocabulary “ may be individual words, or full

sentences - institutionalized utterances - that convey fixed social or pragmatic meaning

within a given community”

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, vocabulary is commonly considered as "all

the words known and used by a particular person”

Pyles and Algeo (1970) said that “vocabulary is the focus of language with its

sound and meaning, which interlock to allow us to communicate with one another, and it is

words that we arrange together to make sentences, conversation and discourse of all kinds”.

It can be inferred from the statement that vocabulary is of vital importance in learning a language

In short, it can be concluded that it is very hard to give a provise definition of vocabulary ¥or the pedagogical purposes of this study, the researcher agrees most with the definition by Fran Tek

1.1.2, Classification of vocabulary

‘There have been maany ways in which vocabulary is classified and below are the

most common ways of classifying it

1.1.2.1 According to language methodalagy

Word knowledge comes in two forms, receptive (passive) and productive (active) Receptive vocabulary includes words that we recognize when we hear or see them

1.1 2 2, According to the Concept of Marpheme

Words can be divided into three types: simple words, derived words and commponnd words,

- Simple words: A simple word consists of a root morpheme like red, tail, car

- Derived words: A derived word is one that consists of a root and one ar more derivational mnorphermos such es worker, singor, amnscment, oto

- Compound words; A compound word has at least two roots with or without derivational morphemes like man-killer, greeting-cards, etc

In terms of meaning, vocabulary may have two kinds of meaning: lexical and grammatical Thus, vocabulary can be divided into notional words and functional words

Notional words are words with clear lexical meaning They address objects, actions, qualities, ete, and they have meaning in themselves Notional words form a large number of each speaker's vocabulary

Functional words are words whose 1ucsring is grammatical and only have meaning

in relation to the other words with which they are used Functional words are particles,

articles, prepositions

1.1 2.4, According to the sequence of use

The sequence of v

refers to the Frequency of necrence of words, Basing on this critction, words arc classified into three groups including high ficquency words, low frequency words and specialized words It is of great importance for teachers to pay

allention to this enterion when selecting words Lo teach sludents In adsbtion, teachers also

need to show students which group the words belong to because it is not necessary to spend too rauch time on low frequency words

1.1 2.5 According Lo the Function of Vocabulary Tlems in a Sentence

Vocabulary has different functions in a sentence, Therefore, it can be grouped into different items as parts of speech such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions and pronouns Lach part of speech has its own position complying with certain grarmnalical rules and relating lo others Henec,

hers should point oul the function of each item in a sentence so that students know how to use the word correctly in terms of grammar

1.2 Vocabulary learning strat

1.2.1 Definition of vocabulary learning strategies (VLS)

Cameron (2001) stated a general definition that VIS are “actions that, learners

take to help themselves understand and remember vocabulary”

Catatan (2003) proposed a more concrete and thorough definition of VLS She suggested the following definition: knowledge about the mechanisms (processe

strategies)

used in order (o Iearn vocabulary as well as slops or actions taken by students fa) lo find out the meaning of unknown words, (b) to retain them in long-term memory, (6) to recall them at will, and (d) to use them in oral or written mode

1.2.2, Classification of vocabulary learning strategies

Although VLS is a relatively new area of study, several classifications of VLS have been proposed In this part, some ways of classifying vocabulary leaming strategies are discussed according (o some Tesearchers

According to Nation (1990), Rubin and Thompson (1994), and Decarrieo (cited in Celce-Murcia, 2000), there are two strategies of leaning vocabulary, that are, the direct and indirect one Firsl, ditcet vocabulary loarring is đọng cxoroisos or activities thal focuses students’ attention on vocabulary Second, indirect vocabulary learning means that studeni’s attention is not focused on vocatndary as the main goal but on some other

~

feahures (Nation, 1990) Rubin and ‘Thompson (1994) proposed three strategies for vocabulary Iearning, that is, reading # scrics of lexts on a related topie, guessing the meaning of new words from context, and breaking up a word into components Decarrico (2000) believed it is the learning that occurs when the mind is focused elsewhere, such as

on understanding a texL or using language for communicative purposes

Harris (2011) in his research, examined two strategies as he called the word mapping strategy and the vocabulary swategy Kirst, the word mapping strategy or the

generative morphemic analysis strategy is

sol of cognitive and behavioral stops students can use to predict the meanings of unknown words The strategy involves (a) Step 1 breaking words into their morphemic parts (Le., prefix, suffix, root); (b) Step 2 — attaching meaning to each word part; {¢) Step 3 — making a prediction about the meaning of the

unknown word bas upon the meaning of cach parl; and (d) Slep 4 - dl

dictionary for the definition In this study, this strategy and the steps presented above were also used to help students attain vocabulary knowledge Second, the vocaulary strategy (Ellis, 1992, cited in Harris, 2011), or the non-generative vocabulary strategy is a sct of cognitive and behavioral steps that students can use to help memorize and recall the

king the

meanings of vocabulary words This process involves the usa of a sel 9Ÿ trmemorie strategies that include (a) a keyword strategy, (b) a visual imagery strategy, (c) a story strategy to link know words and information to new vocabulary words and their detinitions, and (4) a self:testing method used while practicing recalling the meaning of the ward

The National roading panel (2000) suggested four learning stratogics, including dictionary use, morphemic analysis, cognate awareness for English language leamers (KLLs), and contextual analysis, Dictionary use teaches students about multiple word meanings, as wall as ihc jnporlanice of choosing the appropriate definition to Gil the particular context, Morphemic analysis is the process of deriving a word's meaning by analyzing its meaningfil parts, or morphemes Such word parts include root words, prefixes, and suffixes, For HI1 whose language shares cognates with English, cognate awareness is also an important statepy Contextual analysis involves inferring the meaning of an unfamiliar word by scrutinizing the text surrounding it, Instruction in conlexlual analysis generally involves teaching students to cmploy both generic and specitic types of context clues

Brown and Payne (1994) identified five steps in the process of leaming vocabulary in a forcign language: (@) having sources for cneomlcring new wards, (b} actting a clear image, cither visual or auditory or both, of the forms of the new words, (c) leaming the meaning of the words, (d) making a strong memory connection between the forms and (he meanings of the words, (¢) using the words

1 2 3 Vocabulary learning strategy - Morphemic analysis

Spencer (2001) named this vocabulary leaming strategy morphentic analysis and defined il as deriving the moaning of a word by combining the moaning of the parts of the word (or morphemes), The word parts with meaning include (a) pretixes, (b) suffixes, and

(c) roots According to Nation (1990), morphemic analysis involves three skills: (@)

breaking a new word into its morphological parts, (b) connecting a meaning to each of those pasts, and (¢) combining the meanings of the parls to determine the word's definition Similarly, Baumann, Edwards, Boland, Olejnik, and Kame'enmi (2003) in their study on morphemic analysis suggested four steps for analyzing the meaning of a word using word- part clucs: (a) looking for the root word and remember its meaning, (b) looking for a prefix and remember its meaning, (e) looking for a suffix and remember its meaning, and (d) combining the meanings to build the meaning of the whole word This is also the foundation of the method which the researcher later used to teach students in this research,

Morphemic analysis is thought to be a usefidl vocabulary-leaming tool because, as

Nagy and Scott (2000) estimated, "about 60 percent of the new words a student encounters

in reading ere analyvable into parts that give substantial help in figuring oul, their meanings” (p 275) Some authors (Nation, 1990; Sirles, 1997) have suggested that leaming the meaning of Greek and Latin roots is critical because estimates regarding the nucriber of words thal arc derived from Greck and Latin soots range from approximately 50% (Moore & Moore, 1997) to as much as 65% of what is termed academic vocabulary (Sires) Thus teaching one word part, like a root, has the potential to enable students to unlock the meaning of rmmy words since word farnilies comprised of as many as 20 lo 30 words tend to be organized around a given root (Baumann & Kame'enui, 2004, Graves,

2006, Marzano, 2004, Nagy & Anderson, 1984; Nation; Stahl 4 Nagy, 2006; White, Power, & While, 1989, cited in Hanis

1.3 Word structures or morphology

Fromikin (2000) talked about she souciures of words in which words are nal the smallest units of meaning Words may include many patts, for example, the word promised has two parts, promise and -ed; friends is composed of friend plus -s, carefidly may be divided into earefid and -fy, ec Therefore, the word which cammot be divided inlo even smaller parts is called a morpheme We have free or fexical morphemes like promive, fitend or Mary and bound ot grammatical morpheme like -fy, -fid, -ed, and -s, ‘Thus, words may be @ combination of many morphemcs, which is also called derivation Tn this sludy, the researcher does not want to focus on intlection, such as the addition of -ed and -s at the end of words Indeed she would like to have a look ai the formation of words by means of derivation or the addition of affixes to the roots, which would produce multiple numbers of word that are used avery day

Wikipedia (an online encyclopedia} (hitp://en.wikipedia.org) gives an overall overview of affixes, suffixes and roots

1.3.1 Word parts - Prefixes

A prefix is a word, ot letter(s) placed at the beginning of another word (a base word) fo adjust or qualify ils usage or meaning A prefix rarely changes syntactic calegory

in English, The inflectional prefix un- applies to adjectives (healthy — unhealthy), some verbs (do > undo), but rarely nouns, A few exceptions are the derivational prefixes en- and be- En- (em- before labials) is usually used as a transitive marker on verbs, but can

also be applied to adjectives and nous to formn transitive verb: civele (verb) > encircle (verb), but rick (adi) > enrich (verb), large (adj) enlarge (verb), rapture (noun) > enrapture (verb), slave (noun) —+ enslave (verb), It is not sasy to remember quite a big number of prefixes in English, and, at the intermediate lovel ofa high schoal student, [just put emphasis on the most common prefixes in English McEwan (2008) suggested the common prefixes as follows:

Common prefixes

illiterate, irreverent

a suffix is an affix which is placed afler the stern or root of a word Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs, Particularly in the study

of semantic languages, a suffix is called an alformativa, as thay ean after the form of the words to which they are fixed, Sulfixes used in English frequently have Greek, French or

Latin origins Ilere are some predominant suffixes m Linglish, provided by McLwan

(2008)

Common suffixes

-al, al having charactenstics of ‘universal, facial

the dog walked, -ed past lense verbs; adjectives

the walked dog

one who;

person conneolod with

varb forms,

present participles

-ion, -tion, -ation, -

-ive, -ative, -itive | adjective form of noun active, comparative, sensitive

1.3.3 Roots

In erder to have « deeper and closer und

anding of the formation of words, I

would like to present another aspect of words, the root It is the primary Icxical unit of a

word, and of a word family (root is then called base word), which camies the most

signtifican aspecls of semantic content, and carmoi be reduced into smalter constituents

The vaditional definition allows roots to be either free morphemes or bound morphemes Root morphemes are essential for affixation, that is, words can be built up through the addition of affixes Study of toot words provid

a strong foundation for vocabulary

development For example if the student knows the Latm root “script”, which means

“write” they can better understand the meaning of the words scribe, transcribs,

aianuscript, prescription inscription, describe, transcript Many English roots have the

Common Latin roots

struct to build destruction, restructure

voc voice; to call vocalize, advocate

1.4, Word formation

1.4.1 Definition of word formation

Word formation is that branch of the science of language which studies the pattems

on which a language forms new lexical units, i.e words Word formation can only treat of

composites which are analyzable both formally and semantically (Marchand, 1974)

The website http://grammar.about.com/od/tz/g/Word-Formation.htm gives the definition of word formation which is the ways in which new words are made on the basis

of other words or morphemes Word-formation can denote either a state or a process, and it

can be viewed either diachronically or synchronically

The website http://encyclopedia2 thefreedictionary.com/Word+Formation defines

word formation as the process or result of forming new words, called derived words, from words or word groups with the same root Word formation occurs through formal means

established within a given language that give a new or more precise meaning to the orginal elements Word formation is a means of deriving (generating) linguistic units in order to create a new one-word name having a semantic and formal connection with the

original unit It is an important means of supplementing vocabulary and forming spociatived terms,

Word fonmation has traditionally becn considered a branch of lexicotogy or a branch of grammar equal in importance to morphology and syntax, or it has been assigned

to morphology Usnally viewed as an independent linguistic discipline, word formation ascertains and describes the structure and meaning of derived words, the components, classification, and patterns of derived words, and the basic devices and means of derivation Word formation studics the alignment of derived words in sories and families,

as well as derivational meanings and categories It establishes the structural and organizational principles of the derivational system as a whole Ward formation is distinct from inflection and the derivation of word forms

1.4.2 Main types of word formation

According to Greenbaum (1996:441), present-day English has four main processes that result in the formation of new words,

© Prefixation is the addition of a prefix in front of a base, for example: pro-life,

Generally, prcfixation and suffixation arc types of affixation (or derivation) that differ most obviously in positioning but also in another important aspect ‘Iypically, prefixation is class-maintaimng im that it retains the word class of the base For example, the noun pair choise/pro-choiee; the adjective pair groon/ungrsen and the verb pair selectdeselect Suifixation tends to be class-changing Change when suffix is added is illustrated by the shift from the adjective “fat” to the noun “fattisma”, the verb “lug” to the adj

exceptions in both directions Prefixation brings about a shift from the adjective “sure” to

ctive “Iuggabie” and the verb “highlight” to the noun “highlighicr" There are

the verb “ensure”, from the noun “mark” to the verb “unmark” and from the nonn “friend”

to the verh “beftiend” Suffixation has no effect on the word class af the noun pairs martyr'martyrdom, author/authorships, host/hostess, or the adjcetive pairs kind/kindy, economic/economical, though there is a shift in subslass fom concrete noun to abstract noun in the first twa norm pairs

1 5, Previous studics om using prefixes, suffixes and word roots te teach vocabulary

‘Through the history of leaming and teaching English, methods of learning and tsaching vocabulary have varied much Of these oncs, looking back al the origin of a word and looking into its components to see its meaning has proved to be effoctive, Thus, many researchers have focused considerable attention on the value of teaching roots, prefixes, and suffixes for purposes of vocabulary development

So far, there have been many studies on how morphonri¢ analysis benefits the leaming and understanding of vocabulary Most of these studies were carried out on groups of native students Baumann et al, (2002) implemented a study of fifth-graders who participated in lessons on how to usc morphemic analysis and contextual analysis and he came to conelusion that morphemic knowledge enabled students to infer meanings of untaught words immediately following instruction The study alsa showed thai students of all ability levels benefited equally from the instruction This study gives the evidence that students when equipped with a certain amount of knowledge of word parts can immediately and easily infer meaning of unfamiliar words

Sul on the effcetiven

s of tis VLS compared to other oncs, Baumann, Rélwards, Boland, Olejnik, and Kame'enai (2003) conducted a study with 157 students in 8 fifth- grade social studies classes ‘he students were divided into two groups, experimental and control groups Experimental-group studenls were taught, a total of cight prefixes: and suffixes, along with example words to which those word parts may be added Students were also taught steps for analyzing the meaning of a word using word-part clues The control group was laught a different sel of words derived from their lexthook, They used a dictionary to find word meanings and completed a variety of actwities, The results were that students in the experimental group eamed statistically higher scores than students in the control group,

Harris (2011) looked into another aspect of this strategy when he cartied out a study which tested the effects of teaching high school students with leaming disabilities

17

and other students enrolled in general education classes a morphemic analysis strategy for analysing and predicting the meaning af words, A comparison-group design was used with random assigmment of three intact classcs to cach of two conditions: (@) the Word Mapping condition, where students eared the morphological analysis strategy, and (b) the Vocabulary LINCing condition, where students leaned a mmemonie strategy ‘The results were that Word Mapping students with and without disabilities eamed higher scores

on a test of morphological analysis than students in the other groups ‘I'hus, he came to

conclusion thal students wore able to Iearn morphermic analysis techniques to analyze and create meaning for wknown words, an important skill while reading and taking reading tests

As for L2 teaching, Pittman (2003), applied the similar strategy into his teaching of Japanese students at Nagasaki University Facully af Emviremucnud Studies He

incorporated the teaching of prefixes, suifixes and roots and morphemic analysis into reading lessons and spared 10 mimntes cach class for this part He found out that his students had become comfortable with the ability to recognize words they were not immediately fiuniliar with and their confidence with vocabulary went @ long way in

reading, writing, lislening, speaking, and with standardized test-taking,

In Viet Nam, there have been few studies on the effectiveness of developing, vocabulary through learning prefixes, suflixes and word roots Hence, the researcher decided to carry out an action research to investigate the effectiveness of leaning vocabulary through word paris and marphemnic analysis,

1 6, Summary

‘This chapter has reviewed the key issues related to ths study Lirst, it presents an overall review of some aspects related to vocabulary such as the definitions and classification of vocabulary, and also the definitions and classification of vocabulary Teaming strategies following by an overall look at morphemic analysis Next, word structures and word parls such as yrefixes, suffixes and Greek and Latin word roots are examined Last, some previous findings of researchers to the effectiveness of teaching prefixes, suffixes and roots to English leamers are presented Krom all this information, Icarning vocabulary through morphemie analysis promises io be an elective stralagy and provide a fim base for developing vocabulary knowledge in the future With this theoretical background, it is expected that the study would yield reliable findings

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents a dslailed description of how the research was carried out

The information about the rescarch context, rescareh approach, participants, data colfcction instruments, intervention, data collection procedures and data analysis procedures will be presented in detail

2.1 The research context

‘The study was carried out at Bien Hoa Specialized High School, a school for gifted sludents ILis locatsd in the conter of Phu Ly city, Ha Nam provinee, about 60 km from Ha Noi, The school has 27 classes with an average of 30 students per class, Since 1997, this school has been in charge of educating gifted students at upper-secondary education in Ha

Nam province

As regards (caching staff, there are ubout 100 teachers for all subjects in the school,

of whom teachers of English account for 8 Most English teachers graduated fiom the university of language international studies They teach both English major students and others within 15 to 17 classes a week The rescarcher is a teacher of English and she is now teaching 10" form English major students She is nearly 30 years old and has been traching Tnglish for 6 years Thus, she has certain knawledge and experience, which is helpfid during the time she conducts the research,

The students in this school come trom all parts of Ha Nam provinee In fact, about 70% are from five districts of Ha Nam and 30% live in the city or near the city All of them

I ke Maths, Literatu

arc tajor in a subj English and thoy have 6 classes in the

afternoon for this subject apart trom lessons in the moming, As for English, each week in the morning, students who are not major in English have 3 periods with the textbook provided by MORT compared to 5 periods English major students have to study with the textbook for advanced leamers by MOET, not mention 6 ones in the attemoon for advanced and supplementary activities and practice They study a thorough curriculum during 3 years from class 10 to 12 and have lo lake the examinations for gifled siudenls held within and outside Ha Nam and the entrance examination to university Both these types of exams are of the same level and require a deep and thorough knowledge of English anit skills, ‘Thus, besides the textbooks, they have to study from various souress with the help of the teachers The teachers also have to prepare mare lessons, conduct

activities for practice to meet the expectations of students.

‘The reason why the researcher chooses 10 form Linglish major students in her

Action research is onc of £ mosl COMMON 1 arch approach

linguistics, Action research, as detined in Cohen and Manion (1994, p.186), is “small-scale

in applied

intervention in the functioning of the real world and @ close examination of the effects of such intervention”, According to Wisker (2008), “action rescarch is roscarch that we cany out with our students in order to try out an idea or an innovation, test a hypothesis about their learting and to see whal would tappen if ” Another definition is thal “action research is simply a form of self-reflective enquiry undertaken by participants in social situations in order to improve the rationality and justice of their own practices, their understanding of these practices and the situations in which the practices are carried out”

(Carr and Kommis, 1986, p 162, as ciled in Burns, 1999, p 30)

Kemmis and MeTaggart (1988, as cited in Nunan, 1992, p 17) stated the three

defining characteristics of action reasearch Lirstly, it is carried out by practitioners rather

than outside researchers Scoondly, itis collaborative Thirdly, il is aimed al changing things

These features were reflected in this study First of all, this research was carzied out

at the researcher’s own class at BLISHS In addition, the researcher and the students had to work logelher during the process of doing the research Last bul not feast, the aim of the study was to improve the current situation of teaching and learning vocabulary,

In order to carry out an action research, Nunan (1992) suggested seven steps ‘They

inehuds initiation, preliminary investigation, hypothesis, inlarvention, evaluation, dissemination, and follow-up This research follows the main steps of an action research

cycle suggested by Nunan (1992), and this will be demonstrated in Chapter 3: Results and Dis

on 2.3, Participants

‘The participants are 34 tenth form English major students at Bien Hoa Specialized

Tigh School, of whom there are 32 female students and only 2 males, They study English with a textbook during five classes of 45 minutes in the morning each week Besides, they have 6 classes of advanced English lessons in the aftemoon, All of them started studying English al grado 6 and have quile a full knowledge of grammar, however, nol many have a rich vocabulary and most often have problem understanding complicated texts or conversations or lectures of teachers in English When looking into this problem, the researcher found out that students offen find it difficult to remember lists of new words or

they forget thơm quickly unless they revise them regularly

2.4, Data collection instruments

The study aims to implement and evaluate the effectiveness of developing vocabulary for English major students through teaching prefixes, suffixes and words roots accompanied by some exercises and activities for practice, In order to collect data for the study, the following instruments were employed: a pretask questionnaire, a post-task

questionnaire, a pre-test and a post-test

2.4.1 Questionmaires

Questionnaires are common instruments to collect data in educational research in

gonral and BLT research in particular According lo MeDonough & McDonough (1997,

pp 170-171), questionnaires have some advantages as follows: the knowledge needed is controlled by the questions, questionnaires can be used on a small scale, data can be gathered in several different time slots and sclf-completion questionnaires allave access 10

outside contexts

In this study, the researcher used two questionnaires, the pre-task and post-task ones The pre-iask questionnaire was given to sludents al the begining, in which studenls answered questions related to their ways of learning vocabulary and their knowledge of prefixes, suffixes and roots This questionnaire brought the researcher a good understanding of how students learn words aud what thoy think of profixas, snffixes, and roots and it was also a kind of warm-up activities with a view to motivating stadents and recalling any information and knowledge related to this subject Next, the post-task

questionnaire was handed out at the end of the program after students have finished all the vocabulary lessons, The purpose of this one is to imvc: Mtiludes of students

iwale the

towards the program and the new vocabulary lcaming strategy

2.4.3 Pre and post - tests

Two tesls were given during 9 weeks, a pre and post lest The pre lest was given at the beginning of the program in which the researcher tried to check students’ knowledge of

the target items ‘The post test was of the same format and content as the first one and was

carried out al the end of the program The purpose of this test was to check the

improvement and the knowledge that students had obtained from the lessons In this study,

students were presented with a list of 20 target words and asked to use what they had

learned to match the words with their meaning ‘I'he reason why the researcher chose this

type of excreise in the 4

Lis that as the purpose of the program is lo acquaint students with

word parts and morphemtic analysis so that students can use them to guess the meaning of new words, the matching exercise is quite suitable for students to use the new VLS to deal with it The 20 target words were chosen after the sescarcher had considered their suitability with students’ levels and the program which she was going to design and also after she had consulted with other Dnglish teachers int her department

2 5, Intervention: The new vocabulary learning strategy: leaching students prefixes, suffixes and word roots

‘The most important step of doing an action research suggested by Nunan (1992), as

presented in “Rescarch method” is the itlervention carried oul by the rescarcher To achieve the aims of this study, a vocabulary learning program was designed to help the students consolidate and develop vocabulary,

2.5 1 Word parts to be taught

Aforementioned, as time was limited, a certain number of common prefixes, suffixes and roots were chosen to teach students From the data collected in the pre-task questionnaire, the researcher chose lơ teach the ones thal most students did not know their meaning and the ones that form the words in the pre and post test For those that students had had their meaning in their mind, the researcher still employ ed some because these prefixes, suffixes and sols are uscd in a wide varicly of words, especially aeadoric and

complicated ones, which students though know the meaning of their parts still cannot analyze the meaning of the whole werd his was also the chance for students to practice

morphemes from which students cam uss this technique inlo decading any complicated words which they come across in any documents, especially academic and scientific ones, the words used in this program are just examples of the word parts presented and ones for students to practice analyzing morphemes

A

is first suffixes, then prefixes and word roots It is because sullixes offen decide the parts

of speech words are and thus, are related to syntax or grammar For students to grasp

cording lo Rbbers (2011), the most effective sequence for tcaching morphemes

abstract academic word incanings and become adspt at using words cousctly when speaking and writing, they must get a sense of the suf ix and they must tune their ears to hear - the “ing of righl” in terms of grammar, syntax, and usage (Ebbers, 2009) Next come prefixes Prefixes are the key to meaning and they are always at the beginning of a word and are easy to identify Therefore, learning prefixes will broaden and deepen the Imowledge of words As students leam the prefixes, they will continue to encounter the suffixes they learned in the first scction, This provides an opporbmily to review suffixes and check for understanding over time, Finally, students master the meaning found in Greek combining forms and Latin roots, Previously taught suflixes and prefixes are

integrated into the Toots section, to ensure a more complete understanding of the word

This allows the student to revisit and rehearse previously leamed prefixes and suffixes All things considered, this program was designed in the sequence suggested by Ebbers (2011) with the hope that il would benefil students” vocabulary learning process

2 5.2 Types of exercises and activities

‘The types of exercises employed in this program are quute familiar to students as they are the oncs thal stndculs oflon do at class and the ones that are quile popular in English tests or exams, Thus, students had no difficulty understanding the requirements of the exercises and they felt quite excited about doing them ‘That is also the reason why the

researcher chose these types of exercises Additionally, she also consulted with other

ary improvernent on the excrci

+ Gap filling: This requires students lo use the words provided to fill in the blanks

to complete the sentences The words provided contain the parts taught in the lesson,

- Word formation: Students have to form a new word from the original one, using the profixes, suffixes thal they have learned Another form of this typs of exorcise is that students are supplied with the word parts and they have to use them to combine with the roots to get the new words which can fit the blanks

- Matching: Sindents are provided with word parts separated into 2 columns and

they have lo malch than with cach other to create a correct word

- Multiple choices: Students have to choose the correct answer among 4 options The words in the exercise contain the parts that students have leamed

- A quiz: It is a crossword Students have to complete the sentences and use the key words to do the crossword The quiz serves both to test the knowledge students have just attained and help students relax

As for the activities, the main one is breaking up ward parts, This is the practice of morphemic analysis techniques Students work in pairs or individually to analyze the prefixes, suffixes and roots of the words provided ‘The second one is creating word farniliss, Tho teacher gives some word parls and asks students to find as many words which have the parts as possible, This type of activity helps students build up their vocabulary,

there were Š minules for revision in which sludenls were provided some words with the

morphemes of the previous lessons and were asked to break them up and explain the meaning of the words from the analysis of the morphemes

2 5 4 Schedule for the vocabulary learning program

Weck | Lesson Activities

1 Introducing the new vocabulary leaming program

Asking students to complete the pre-task questionnaire Asking students to do the pre-test

1 Teaching noun suffixes: -tion(-ation, ition), -ment, -ance(-enee), -al,

-ags; -ness, -ity, -hood, -ship, -dom

Asking students to do exercises

Asking students to practice identifying suffixes in words

2 2 Teaching adjective suffixes: -ive Cative, ~itive), -ans Gious), -al, -ont, -

fal, Less

Asking students ta do exercises

Asking students to practice identifying suffixes in words

3 Teaching prefixes: prc-, post-, 1e-, super, over-

Asking stadants to do exercises Asking students to practice identifying prefixes and suffixes in words

3 4 ‘Teaching negative prefixes; wn-, de- dis-, mis- and mal-

Asking students to do cxoroisos Asking students to practice identifying prefixes and suftixes in words

3 Teaching negative prefixes: il-, inc, ime, ir, non-, counler-, contra-

Asking students to do exercises Asking students to practice identifying prefixcs and suffixes in words

1 § Teaching profixes: bơ-, em(pmr) and sullixes: -ily, -iza and -on

Asking students to do exercises Asking students to practice identifying prefixes and suffixes in words

7 Teaching number prefixes: uni-, mono-, bi-, di-, ti-amulti-, poly-

Asking students to do exercises Asking students to practice identifying prefixes and suffixes in words

5 8 ‘Teaching prefixes: call-,(con-, com, cor-), inter-, and trans-

Teaching roots: -flect-,-tract-, -tend-

Asking students to do exercises Asking students to practice analyzing morphemes and guessing meaning

Practicing morpheme analysis

Asking students lo cornplete the pre-task questionnaire

Asking students to do the post-test

2 6 Data collcction procedures

This program was carried out ftom the beginning of October to the end of

December and lessons were taught in two afternoon classcs cach weck at Class 10 C3 and

were dealt with in no more than 30 minutes each ‘he researcher asked another English

teacher in her department fo join her fo teach one aflemoon class This leacher also taughe this class with the researcher fiom the beginning of the school year Thus, she knew cleatly

the students and their vocabulary level ‘To collect data for the study, the procedures were implemented in steps as follows

Step 1: At the beginning of October, the copies of the pre-task questiounaire were handed out to 34 students and they had 20 minutes to complete the 9 questions

Step 2: in the next class, sindsnls were asked to do a pre-test imcluding 20 target words, which aimed to test students’ vocabulary knowledge These words contained

mostly the word parts that were going to be taught next Students were given 30 minutes

for the test and wore nol allowed to consull with their friends during the test

Step 3 From the second week of October, the program was exploited with 16 lessons which were divided into 2 parts: the first part including 12 lessons was to teach word parts like prefixes, suffixes and word roots; the second one with 3 lessons was for practicing morpherne analysis

Step 4: At the end of December, after all the lessons had been taught, a post-task questionnaire was administered, which collected students” feedback and attitudes towards the program, Students were also given a copy of the pre-task questionnaire and completed

9 questions during 20 mimntes Next, to check the effectiveness of the program and what

siudents had got from the lessons, 4 post lest was handed aul ta sluderts Stnderis were

asked to finish the test in 30 minutes The format and content of the test was the same as

the pre-test

Step 5: Based on the results and findings of the first cycle of the study, the rossarcher decided whether ta carry oul the next ey

2.7 Data analysis procedures

After the questionnaires and the pre and post tests were collected, the researcher and ths teacher who helped her tcach hatf of the lessons in the program checked the Tosults together AU the data are analyzed in the following procedures,

2 7.1 Questionnaires

First, the researcher started frarn the questiormaires, and worked onl the percentage

of stadents of the same group for each question, The results are presented quantitatively in forms of charts and tables

2.7.2, Pre and post testy

All the tests were checked, marked and grouped according to the scores which

students got Scores ranged from - 10 All these data were collected quantitatively.

arch on using prefix for 10” form English major students at BHSHS was camticd out during 2 months of the first term of the school year with the purpose of finding out how efiective the new vocabulary

affixes and word ronis to teach vocabulary

learning strategy was lo students Aer oblaining some information relaled to how students leam vocabulary from the pre-task questionnaire and pre test, the researcher continued to conduct lessons to teach word parts in combination with morpheme analysis practice At the ond of the program, the pos! task questionaire and pos! lost wore handed aut to students to get the feedback from them, All these ones were valuable data for the researcher to reflect so as to come to a conclusion about the new leaming and teaching method she had applied All the discussion about the results of the research is presented by the researcher im the next chapter

28

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In this chapter, the main procedures of this action research will be briefly presented

under two major headings: Preliminary investigation (pre-task questionnaire) and

Evaluation (post-task questionnaire, pre-test and post-tests)

3.1 Preliminary Investigation

From the first lessons the researcher taught the students, she found out that students

lacked much vocabulary and an effective way of learning words Therefore, to discover

how students learned vocabulary and to get some information related to the new learning

method, the researcher conducted a preliminary via a pre-task questionnaire The

questionnaire was divided into 3 main points: (1) students’ ways of learning vocabulary, (2) problems with unfamiliar words, (3) students’ knowledge of word parts The results for the

questionnaire are discussed below

3.1.1 Students’ ways of learning vocabulary

Figure 1: Whether students often study vocabulary

‘The pie chart shows the percentage of students who often lea vocabulary As can

be seen from the table, most students say they often learn new words (94%) while only

6 % do not learn vocabulary regularly

Figure 2: Difficulty students have when remembering new words

In figure 2, all 34 students say they find it difficult to remember new words This is easy to understand as learning vocabulary is really a challenge to all English learners.

Question Answers Results

b writing a list of new words in a piece of paper and sticking itm 32.35%

some books or somewhere ïn your housc

¢, reading English books

Table I: Students’ ways of learning vocabulary

‘The table presents the ways students choose to study vocabulary Krom the information in the table, it is clear that roading aloud now words and writing down in the notebooks many times and looking up words’ meaning in a dictionary are always the first

choice when students want to study new words with 73.53% and 100% respectively

Leaming other forms of words also falls into this group with 82.35% of the students choosing it, This is not surprising as it is a popular kind of exercise teachers often assign to

students Next, around 30% to 50" of the students say that they learn vocabulary by

waiting a list of new words in a picee of paper and sticking if in some books or somewhere

in their house and lcam now words fiom English songs Last, making scntenecs with new words, playing language games with words, reading English books and learning word parts thal form a word attract few students wilh the two former ones accounting for equally anly 1.47% and the two latter ones even making up 0%, Similarly, no students give other options for ways of learning vocabulary

From the table, it is easy 1o sco that studenls still usc tho old and ineffective method of learning new words while the others which focus on leaming vocabulary through skills seems strange to students Also, leaming word parts that form a ward is

30

completely new to students That is the reason why they complain that they have a lot of

difficulties when they learn vocabulary

3 1 2 Problems with unfamiliar words

aa Yes

No

Figure 3: Whether students have difficulty understanding an unfamiliar word

‘The pie chart indicates the percentage of students who find it difficult to understand

an unfamiliar word while reading a text Unsurprisingly, 100% of the students do so This

is because students do not have a proper way of learning words as well as the techniques to

guess the meaning of a word

Question ‘Answers Results

a look it up in the dictionary 88.23%

5 ignore it 4411%

c try †o guess its meaning 58.82%

Table 2: What students do when coming across a new word while reading

As can be seen from the table, most students when seeing a new word in a text will look it up in the dictionary (88.23%) Over a half of the students (59.82%) also try to guess its meaning, which is good new However, 44.11% still say they will ignore a new word

and keep on reading

a guess ite

‘meaning from context

47% Db guess its

‘meaning from understandin

‘athe word Parts (roots,

From figure 4, it is easy to see that most students choose to guess the meaning of a word from the context when they are reading a text (47) while the percentage of students who guess the meaning of a word from understanding its word parts was the lowest with 21% The rest (32%) say they do both

3.1 3, Students’ knowledge of word parts

100%

Figure 5: Whether students know word parts (prefixes, suffixes and roots)

Figure 5 shows the percentage of students who know word parts (prefixes, suffixes

and roots) From the chart, all students (100%) response that they know what words parts are It is because word formation is a popular kind of exercise students often do, and all

students are taught previously some word parts

For the rest 3 questions related to the word parts that students know, the researcher

listed 23 common prefixes, 29 suffixes and 45 roots and asked students to tick V the ones

that they know their meaning The data collected were grouped as follows For question 8

about prefixes, the number of prefixes that students know is put into 3 groups: from 0-10, 11-15 and 26-23 The results are presented in the chart below

Figure 6: The percentages of students who know prefix groups

As can be seen from the chart, 53% of the students know 11-15 prefixes, the highest of all while a little lower percentage know 16-23 prefixes (41%) Only 6% say they

know about 10 or lower prefixes, In addition, the prefixes that most students do not know

are de-, en-, em-, for-, mid-, sub-, trans-, supeT-

Figure 7: The percentages of students who know suffixes

As for question 9, 29 suffixes are divided into 3 groups: 0-10, 11-20 and 21-29 As

seen from the chart, most students (90%) know among 21-29 suffixes while only 10%

know 11-20 suffixes No student knows less than this number

21-39]

Iast4s|

41-20 61%

Figure 8: The percentage of students who know word roots

Question 10 is related to 45 word roots which are divided into 4 groups: 0-10, 11-

20, 21-30, 31-45 The chart shows that no student knows the number of roots within 31-45

Next, 11-20 roots are known by most students (61%) while the other two groups (21-30

and 0-10) comprise 15% and 24% respectively In general, most students know an average number of roots, which will be better if it is raised to the first group (31-45),

3 2 Evaluation

To evaluate the effectiveness of the supplementary reading program and find out the answers to the research questions, the post-task questionnaire, the results of the pre-test

and post-tests were taken into consideration

3.2.1 Results and discussion from the post-task questionnaire

The post-task questionnaire was conducted at the end of the program with

the following purposes: (1) students’ feelings and attitudes towards learning vocabulary

33

through prefixes, suffixes and word roots, (2) students’ assessment of the word parts

introduced in the program, the exercises and activities designed by the teacher, (3) students’ evaluation of the effectiveness of developing vocabulary through morpheme

analysis

3 2 1 1 Students’ feelings and attitudes towards learning vocabulary through

prefixes, suffixes and word roots (Question 1, 2)

De not very motivated 76% | Od not

motivated at all

Figure 9: Students’ feelings while taking part in the vocabulary learning program

It can be seen from figure 9 that three-quarters of the students show great motivation towards the program (76%) while a small percentage are not very motivated (6%) The rest express that they are quite motivated and no student was not motivated at all

Figure 10: Students’ attitudes towards the program

‘As can be seen from figure 10, most of the students express that they like consolidating and developing vocabulary through learning word parts Among 34 students,

32 of them accounting for 94% admit they prefer this way of studying vocabulary and

there are two students (6%) answering that they do not like developing vocabulary through learning word part and morpheme analysis

In short, the results of questions 1, 2 show that most of the students have positive

reactions towards studying vocabulary through the supplementary reading texts The

findings can help the researcher not only confirm the effectiveness of studying vocabulary

Table 3: Students’ assessment of the word parts introduced in the program

‘As can be scon from table 3, the highest porcentage of the students think that the word parts are helpful to them and help them understand word better (67.64%) 8.82% of the students express that they have known most these word part and so they donot help much, the same as that of the oncs who have no idea Last, 14.7% regard the word parts as new to them, so they find it difficult to identify them,

Table 4: Students’ assessment of the exercises and activities designed by the teacher

Table 4 reveals students

sesstnent of (he exercises and acti

es designed by the teacher The highest percentage of students (44.11%) think that the exercises and activities are well-designed, a little higher than that of the ones who claim that they are very well- designed Noxt, 4 sluilsnis (11.76%) admit that the oxercises and activities ara nol well designed while The rest (14.796) have no idea, Last, no students give any other ideas about the exercises and activities ‘hus information helps the researcher much in improving the quality of the excreiscs and activities next time

3, 2 1 3, Students’ evaluation of the effectiveness of developing vocabulary through

morpheme analysts {Question 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)