An investigation into the usefulness of the techniques for guessing the meaning of new words through context for the 11th form students at Phuc Thanh High Schoo

Aims and Objectives of the study Within a framework of a minor thesis, the study is aimed at improving the proficiency of vocabulary and reading comprehension for the 11th form student

PHẠM THỊ HOA

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE USEFULNESS OF THE TECHNIQUES FOR GUESSING THE MEANING OF NEW WORDS THROUGH CONTEXT FOR

NGHIÊN CỨU LỢI ÍCH CỦA THỦ THUẬT ĐOÁN NGHĨA TỪ MỚI DỰA VÀO NGỮ CẢNH CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 11 TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT PHÚC THÀNH

M.A MINOR THESIS

(SUMMARY OF THE THESIS)

Field: English Methodology

Code: 60.14.10

HA NOI – 2011

PHẠM THỊ HOA

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE USEFULNESS OF THE TECHNIQUES FOR

GUESSING THE MEANING OF NEW WORDS THROUGH CONTEXT FOR

NGHIÊN CỨU LỢI ÍCH CỦA THỦ THUẬT ĐOÁN NGHĨA TỪ MỚI DỰA VÀO

NGỮ CẢNH CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 11 TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT PHÚC THÀNH

M.A MINOR THESIS (SUMMARY OF THE THESIS)

Field: English Methodology

Code: 60.14.10 Supervisor: Trần Hiền Lan, M.A

HA NOI – 2011

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Declaration i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

Table of contents iv

List of figures and tables vii

Part I: Introduction .1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims and Objectives of the study 2

3 Research Questions 2

4 Method of the study 2

5 Scope of the study 3

6 Significance of the study 3

7 Design of the study 3

Part II: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER ONE: Literature Review 5

1.1 Introduction 5

1.2 Theoretical background to acquiring vocabulary through reading 5

1.2.1 An overview of a context- based approach 5

1.2.1.1 Definition of context 5

1.2.1.2 Context-based approach to vocabulary acquisition 6

1.2.2 Some previous studies on contextual guesswork 6

1.2.3 Guessing or inferring technique 7

1.2.4 Types of context clues 8

1.2.4.1 Structural clues 9

1.2.4.2 Inference clues 11

1.2.5 Factors that affect contextual guessing 12

1.2.6 Summary 12

CHAPTER TWO: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .14

2.1 Introduction 14

2.2 Context of the study 14

2.3 The Rationale of Using Quasi-Experiment 15

2.4 Variables 16

2.5 Participants 16

2.5.1 The students 16

2.5.2 The teachers 18

2.6 Materials 18

2.6.1 Textbook 18

2.6.2 Handouts 20

2.7 Procedures 20

2.8 Instruments for Data Collection 22

2.8.1 Pretest and Posttest 22

2.8.2 Questionnaires 23

CHAPTER THREE: DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 25

3 DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 25

3.1 Introduction 25

3.2 Reports of the results collected by means of Pretest and Posttest 25

3.2.1 Comparison of Pretest and Posttest Performance 25

3.2.2 Comparison of Both Groups' Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension Gain s after the Experiment 28

3.3 Reports of the results collected by means of questionnaires 29

3.3.1 The results of the pre-experiment questionnaires 29

3.3.1.1 The results of the pre-experiment questionnaire for students 29

3.3.1.2 The results of the pre-experiment questionnaire for teachers 33

3.3.2 The results of the post-experiment questionnaire 36

4 DISCUSSIONS 39

4.1 Introduction 39

4.2 Discussion of Research Questions 39

4.2.1 Discussion of Both Groups' Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension Gain s after the Experiment 39

4.2.2 Discussion of the Experimental Students' Opinions of the Guessing Techniques 40

Part III: CONCLUSIONS .42

1 Conclusions 42

2 Limitations of the study 43

3 Recommendations for the Application of the Guessing Techniques 43

4 Suggestions for Further Study 44

REFERENCES 45

APPENDICES I Appendix 1: The pre-experiment questionnaire for the students (Vietnamese version) .I Appendix 2 : The pre-experiment questionnaire for the teachers III Appendix 3 The pretest V

Appendix 4 The posttest X Appendix 5: The post-experiment questionnaire for the experimental students (Vietnamese version) XV

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure 1: The differences between the mean scores on the paired pretests and the paired posttests

Figure 2: Difference in gain values obtained by both groups after the experiment

Figure 3: The experimental students' attitudes towards the guessing techniques

Table 1: Background information about the subjects of the study

Table 2: The results of the pretest and posttest of the two groups

Table 3: The classifications of pretest and posttest scores of the two groups

Table 4: Descriptive statistics for the pretest and posttest of the experimental and control groups

Table 5: Mean gains of the experimental and control groups after the experiment

Table 6: Experimental participants' feedback and evaluative attitudes towards the guessing techniques

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Reading, as a basic and vital skill, has always received a great deal of attention in English teaching programs for foreign learners, especially at upper secondary education level in Vietnam For example, reading is the first skill in each unit in the textbook English

11 proves its important role This is understandable as reading is considered not only an essential means to gain knowledge but also a means by which further study takes place However, from my professional experience, I realize that most of grade 11 students in

my school confront many problems while learning reading They often find it difficult to understand the reading texts in the textbook English 11; they encounter a lot of troubles in dealing with unknown words which occur frequently in the reading texts In fact, the main reason for this is that they are used to reading the texts word by word, looking up every unfamiliar word in the dictionary when reading and they never try to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words from the texts Consequently, although a great deal of time and energy is devoted to teaching and learning reading, the result has been dissatisfactory Many students are unable to read effectively in English and they perform poorly in their reading comprehension which is tested in almost all examinations Therefore, this problem is well worth being taken into consideration

In spite of the evidence that the use of contextual clues can be one of the best ways to improve students' reading skills Also, the use of contextual clues can provide a means by which students can quickly increase their existing vocabulary base and guessing or deducing word meaning from context has proved to be an invaluable technique in the learning of English vocabulary and the teaching of reading, it has not attracted much attention in terms of classroom instruction Some research on reading techniques has mentioned this technique as a good one but little attempt has been made to integrate this technique training into normal teaching Even little has been made to investigate the usefulness of developing students' techniques for guessing unknown words through context

on the improvement of their proficiency of vocabulary and reading comprehension All these have motivated the researcher to conduct this quasi-experimental research on the topic given, namely an investigation into the usefulness of the techniques for guessing the meaning of new words through context for 11th form students at Phuc Thanh High School

2 Aims and Objectives of the study

Within a framework of a minor thesis, the study is aimed at improving the proficiency

of vocabulary and reading comprehension for the 11th form students through developing the students' techniques for guessing the meaning of new words through context

To achieve this aim, the study sets out to obtain the following specific objectives:

- To discover whether or not the techniques for guessing the meaning of unknown words through context make students' vocabulary acquisition and their reading comprehension skill improve

- To examine the experimental students' attitudes towards the application of guessing techniques to their reading process, and then to make some recommendations for further study

3 Research Questions

To achieve the aims and objectives of the study, an attempt is made to seek the answers

to the following research questions:

(1) Do techniques for guessing the meaning of unknown words through context make the

11th form students' vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension skill improve as measured by their scores in the pre-test and post-test?

(2) What are the students' attitudes towards the application of guessing techniques to their reading process after experimental period?

4 Method of the study

The main research method employed in this thesis to find out the answers to the proposed research questions is a quasi-experimental research, with the uses of two instruments: survey questionnaires (including the pre-experiment questionnaires and the post-experiment questionnaire) and pre-test and post-test

 The pre-experiment questionnaire for students was carried out to find out the students' perceptions and attitudes towards reading comprehension, as well as to identify what the students might commonly do to deal with unknown words and what techniques they used

to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words during their reading process The pre-experiment questionnaire for teachers was not only used to investigate the teachers' perceptions and attitudes towards reading comprehension but it also aimed at examining what activity the

teachers might frequently utilize to teach the meaning of new words and what techniques they used to teach their students to know how to deduce the meaning of unfamiliar words while reading

 A design of pretest and posttest was employed as the main research method to measure both groups' English vocabulary and reading comprehension proficiency before and after the trial period

 The post-experiment questionnaire was used as the supplementary instrument to elicit the experimental students' comments and evaluative attitudes towards the techniques for guessing the meaning of unknown words through context after the experimental period

5 Scope of the study

The study is concerned with investigating the usefulness of developing the techniques for guessing the meaning of unknown words through context for the 11th form students at Phuc Thanh High School, Hai Duong province Given the time constraint, the researcher could just carry out an experiment upon a small sample of grade 11 students who were non

- randomly assigned to a control class and an experimental class, (25 students each) As the study examined only grade 11 students at Phuc Thanh High School, few claims to generalization over a wider set of situations can be made, as students with different English proficiency or from a different background may yield different results, even where the text

is of the same level of difficulty

6 Significance of the study

The present research was carried out with the hope that it would help reading teachers as well as grade 11 students to be able to aware of the important role of the guessing techniques in reading lessons Moreover, the findings of the study hopefully could help the 11th form students in particular and high school students in general improve their reading skills

7 Design of the study

The study comprises three main parts Part I, the introduction, presents an overview of the study, including the rationale for the study, aims and objectives, research questions, research method, scope, significance and design of the study Part II, the development, consists of three chapters Chapter one presents some general theories relating to guessing

techniques including an overview of a context- based approach, a summary of some research on contextual guesswork, guessing or inferring technique, types of context clues, and factors that affect contextual guessing Chapter two deals with the methodology, which provides the context of the study, the rationale for using quasi-experiment, the variables, the background information about the subjects of the study, the materials, the procedures

as well as the data collection instruments Chapter three analyzes the data collected, reports and discusses the results of the research It gives details of the significant findings from data collection, i.e., the presentation of the two groups' pretest and posttest scores, reports

of the results collected by means of questionnaires Part III, the conclusion of the study,

recapitulates the findings of the research This part also points out some limitations of the

study, several recommendations for the application of the guessing techniques as well as

some suggestions for further study

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT

chapter one: Literature Review 1.1 Introduction

Reading has been considered a difficult skill for many learners of English as a foreign language It is evident that English learners need a wide range of techniques to deal with reading texts, among which techniques of dealing with unknown words in context are of importance This chapter is concerned with some of the important issues in theories of acquiring vocabulary through reading, the relationship between vocabulary and context, the guessing techniques, and various context clues

1.2 Theoretical background to acquiring vocabulary through reading

1.2.1 An overview of a context- based approach

1.2.1.1 Definition of context

Context is "textual or discoursal place in which a particular word or structure can be

found' (Gu, 2003:2) It can be as short as a sentence or as long as several paragraphs, and it will usually contain unknown words (Rapaport, 2003)

According to Gough (1984), defining context is not as easy as it may seem At a basic level, context can be seen as information which, in turn, reduces uncertainty In reading, context can be defined as information which decreases uncertainty about the element of a text, their meaning, and the meaning of a text as a whole Traditionally, context was seen

as a given, existing fully and completely in any properly written text and the key to using it was linguistic knowledge This view is claimed by today's cognitive theorists to place emphasis on linear, bottom-up processing In response, different definitions of context have been proposed that comprise language knowledge but emphasize the role of high-level knowledge sources and personal experiences However, it is useful, especially regarding the guessing technique and second language readers to note the commonly used general distinction between local context provided by intrasentential and sentential information and global context provided by intersentential to discourse level information and world knowledge

Bialystok's (1983; cited in Barnett, 1989) proposes that context exists in relation and

proportion to the reader's implicit knowledge, other knowledge ( knowledge of other languages and world knowledge), and context which provide clues to From this perspective, context is not an absolute presence in a text, but is instead created by the reader and is thus affected by the reader's linguistic and world knowledge

1.2.1.2 Context-based approach to vocabulary acquisition

All of us know that words are the basic units of a text; therefore, to be able to understand the whole text, it is necessary for us to understand words in it As Thomas Scovel (cited in Yeli Shi, 2005:35) puts it, the comprehension of words is a very complex psycholinguistic process, which involves a dynamic, growing and active process of searching for relevant relationships in spreading activation networks In different contexts,

a word may have different meanings; thus, simply learning the definition of a word in isolation will not help learners to fully understand its meaning Hence, the ability to determine the word meaning from context is considered one of the most essential aspects

of successful reading

Nagy (1997:76) distinguishes three types of knowledge that readers possess to contribute to contextual inferring, which include linguistic knowledge, world knowledge and strategic knowledge He claims that much of the information provided by context lies

in the linguistic structure of the context, and its use can depend on the reader's knowledge

of the structure Linguistic knowledge consists of syntactic knowledge, vocabulary knowledge, and word schema which is knowledge of what constitutes possible word meanings in a language Nagy emphasizes vocabulary knowledge, a key factor affecting readers' ability to make use of context According to him, to infer the meaning of any unknown word in context, it is helpful to know the meaning of the words around it World knowledge contributes to effective use of context The context that helps learners deduce the word meaning must be construed to consist of the learners' knowledge of the world; learning a word from context sometimes simply requires determining which of the several already familiar concepts the word refers to Strategic knowledge involves conscious control over cognitive resources Nagy points out that training students in use of context has improved their ability to guess the meaning of unknown words

1.2.2 Some previous studies on contextual guesswork

Contextual guesswork means making use of the context in which the word appears to derive an idea of its meaning Knowledge of the word information, e.g prefixes and suffixes, can help guide students to discover meaning Teachers can help students with specific guessing techniques, for example, the understanding of discourse markers and identifying the function of the word in the sentence ( e.g verb, adjective, noun, adverb)

So far, several studies have been conducted and some research has been undertaken on the reading technique which involves guessing in both optimistic and pessimistic views Bensoussan and Laufer (1984) set a guessing task which learners responded to in writing The general finding from analyzing the result shows that learners make a lot of wrong guesses which resulted from giving the wrong meaning of a word containing several meanings, mistranslating an idiom, and confusing the target word with one that looks or sounds similar

Liu and Nation (1985), who studied learners' ability to guess the meaning of nonsense word used to replace real words at regular intervals in written texts, found that success depended on the relative density of unfamiliar words Where there was one nonsense word per ten words, they were more difficult to guess than when there was only one every twenty five words These researchers estimated that about 85% of the unfamiliar words can

be derived if learners worked together to pool their relevant knowledge and skills

1.2.3 Guessing or inferring technique

Guessing is 'figuring out' a meaning for a word from context cues Another similar term

to guess is 'infer' which will be used interchangeably in this study Other terms were also

used in related literature, such as 'construct', 'deduce', 'derive', or 'predict' Guessing from context most commonly refers to inferring the meaning of a word from surrounding words

face of the evidence available." (McCarthy, M., 1990:125)

Gairns and Redman (1986:83) use the term "contextual guesswork" for the strategy of making use of context in which word appears to derive an idea of its meaning, or in some cases to guess from the word itself For example

I overworked last night

In this example, the unfamiliar word consists of a part which is already familiar and the learner might have met the same prefix "over-" in other words e.g., "overeat" This

knowledge enables the learner to work out the meaning of "overworked"

In support of the idea of inferring word meanings from context, Clarke & Nation (1980) suggest that learners should take the following steps to infer or guess the meanings from the context

 The first step is to identify the part of speech of the new word By examining the context

of the phrase or clause within which the word is placed, clues to its identity can be found Determiners, adjectives, adverbs and prepositions can all be used to establish the word's linguistic role

 The next step is to examine the role of the phrase, clause or sentence within which the new word rests How does it relate to the paragraph or the passage? What kinds of

conjunctions or adverbials are used?

 One of the last approaches that language learner can take is to see if the new word can

be broken down into constituent parts that already hold meaning Prefixes, roots and

suffixes all contribute to each word's meaning Clark and Nation feel that this technique should be reserved for last since the context in which the word resides actually holds more clues to its meaning than the word's components

 Finally, the learner can substitute a 'guessed" word for the new word and see if the passage is any way altered If not, then the substitution can serve as an acceptable paraphrase and the reader can move on

In the end, there is always the dictionary, which can now be used to verify a guessed meaning rather than furnish a definition

1.2.4 Types of context clues

"Context clues" are also called "contextual clues", "contextual cues", or "context cues"

by some other scholars (Dubin & Olshtain, 1993; Goodman, 1965; LI, 1988; SUN &

ZHOU, 2005) Whatever name they have, they are generally defined as ' the clearly stated

or implied words or phrases which help to comprehend unfamiliar words in context' (SUN

& ZHOU, 2005, p.49) Context clues vary a great deal, and thus can be classified into different types according to different criteria

ZHANG Wei-you (1997, pp 157-159) has noted eight kinds of context clues:

"definition", "explanation', "example", "synonym", "antonym", "hyponym", "relevant details" and "word structure" Sternberg and Powell (1983, p 890) have summed up eight basic types of context cues utilized by high school students in first language learning: " temporal', "spatial", " physical properties", "functional properties", "word or affect",

"causal", "class membership" and "equivalence" ZHAI Xiang-jun, et al (1997, pp 65 & 83-84) introduces another seven distinctive types: " definition', "restatement", "general knowledge", "related information", "example", "comparison" and "contrast"

These are some context clues that Nation (1983) suggests learners can learn to watch for

* Synonyms and Antonyms

Quite often, a writer will restate this thought in different words in order to make his meaning clear or sometimes a word or phrase is clarified by the presentation of the

opposite meaning somewhere close to its use Words that signal synonym: be, also known

as, sometimes called, or and words that signal antonym include but, however, unlike, yet

For example:

'Jim wanted to go to haberdashery but Tim wanted to shop at the boutique.' In this example, the signal word 'but' tells the reader that an opposite thought is going to be stated

* Hypernyms and hyponyms

Readers can see that the relationship between an unfamiliar word and a familiar one is that

of a general concept accompanied by a specific example (a hypernym) or a specific

example accompanied by a general concept (a hyponym)

For instance: Animal is "hypernym" of "cat", "camel", "elephant"; “Chair” and “table” are hyponyms of “furniture.”

* Restatement

The writer may provide further explanation to make the meaning clear or sometime a hard

word or phrase is said in a simple way Words that signal statement: that is, in other words

Example: A birthday party is an observance, that is, a remembrance of someone's day of birth The use of 'that is' in the above example makes the meaning of the word 'observance' clear It means 'a remembrance of someone's day of birth'

* Definitions

Sometimes the meaning of a word or phrase is explained immediately after its use The definition may be stated outright, or it may be merely implied Often, it is included in a set

of parenthesis ( ), after a dash -, or after a comma , Note the following example:

The boys declared the long climb up the steep cliff a grueling experience-one that left them utterly exhausted The dash in the example indicates that 'grueling' means 'exhausting'

* Reference words

The meaning of an unknown word or phrase may be clarified by identifying the referents

of pronouns For example:

Designers are concerned with the direction of lines, the size of shapes, and the shading

of colors They arrange these patterns in ways that are satisfying to viewers Obviously, readers can infer that the word 'They' in the second sentence refers to 'designers', not 'lines', 'shapes' or 'colors'

* Punctuation

Readers can also use clue of punctuation and type style to infer meaning, such as quotation marks (showing that the word has a special meaning), dashes, parentheses or brackets

(enclosing a definition), and italics (showing the word will be defined)

Example: Tom's father was a haberdasher (men's shop keeper) in the story Readers easily understand that 'haberdasher' in the example means 'men's shop keeper'

* Alternatives

The author may give an alternative of a new word to make the meaning known

Example: Lunar New Year, or Tet, is Vietnam's main holiday Learners can easily infer that the phrase 'Lunar New Year', means 'Tet' in this example

1.2.4.2 Inference clues

Sometimes a word or phrase is not immediately clarified within the same sentence; the reader must look for clues within, before, and after the sentence in which the word appears Relationships, which are not directly apparent, are inferred or implied Inference clues which require a higher level of analytical skill and practice than the types mentioned above comprise the following:

*Example

The meanings of the unknown words can be inferred from examples, often by using

physical clues such as, i.e., e.g., for instance, for example The sample sentence follows:

Perceiving, learning, and thinking are examples of cognitive processes The reader can

realize that 'cognitive processes' means ' perceiving, learning, and thinking'

* Summary

By using the sum of the information in a sentence or paragraph, students can understand an unfamiliar word Here is the example:

Many products are sold to stop perspiration This wetness comes from our body whenever

we are too warm, work very hard, or are afraid, and it usually doesn’t smell very good The reader can understand that the word 'perspiration' means 'the wetness comes from our body'

* Comparison and contrast

Readers can infer the word meaning by recalling similar situations or experiences and by

showing differences Comparisons are usually preceded by such signposts as like, as, in

the same way, similar to while contrasts can usually be detected by words of negative

meaning such as although, on the contrary, on the other hand For example:

The ancient mammoth, like other elephants, is huge The word 'like' in the sentence helps the reader realize that 'the ancient mammoth' is a type of elephant

* Causes and result

Learners can often guess a word because it causes a result, or it is the result caused by

something described in the text Words that signal cause and result include as a result of,

because, consequently, due to, for this reason, in order to, since, so, therefore, this led to, thus, then, may be due to, on account of

Although context clues can be classified into different categories based on distinctive

criteria from different angles, the above classifications are not contradictory Instead, there

are always some overlaps among them This shows that context clues are of a wide variety,

and that no one type is superior to the other by nature

1.2.5 Factors that affect contextual guessing

Mondria and Wit-de Boer (1991) have provided a relatively complete list in the effects

of contextual richness on the guess ability and the retention of words in a foreign language They said that whether or not a word could be predicted was determined by "contextual factors", "the reader/learner factors" and "word factors" together

According to Mondria and Wit-de Boer (1991, p 252), contextual factors mainly consist of "the redundancy of the context, the occurrence of synonyms and antonyms or words that are typically associated with the word concerned" From a general overview of literature, many studies on contextual factors have focused on "contextual richness",

"context clues", and 'unknown-word density" (Beheydt, 1987; Chern, 1993; Goodman, 1965; LIU & Nation, 1985; LI, 1988; Hatch & Brown, 1995) The reader/learner factors mainly include the guesser's knowledge and skills Mondria and Wit-de Boer (1991, p 253) pointed out that the following were useful and could not be ignored:

"knowledge of the words that occur in the context, the ability to analyze the word-form, the ability to make use of the syntactic and semantic context, knowledge of the world, a good knowledge of words in one's mother tongue, and a good knowledge of words in other foreign languages"

Word factors, according to Mondria and Wit-de Boer (1991, p 253), may involve some categories such as "part of speech, the degree of concreteness or abstraction, the transparency of the word structure, the likelihood of interference, the degree of correspondence between the referential meaning of the foreign word and that of the word

in the reader's mother tongue, the extent to which the word-form and the meaning bear with each other, and the frequency of the equivalent word in the reader's mother tongue"

1.2.6 Summary

In this chapter, all the concerning theoretical background to acquiring vocabulary

through reading has been presented such as a brief overview of context-approach to vocabulary acquisition, major issues relating to deducing the word meaning from context, a

summary of the previous studies on contextual guesswork, and the presentation of several factors that affect contextual guessing

In general, the use of contextual clues has been considered one of the best ways to enhance learners' existing vocabulary and reading skills In order to be able to infer the meaning of unknown words from context effectively, learners of English need to have a good knowledge of context clues and spend time and energy on guessing activities

CHAPTER TWO: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

2.1 Introduction

As mentioned in Part I, the purpose of this study was to investigate the usefulness of

developing students' techniques for guessing the meaning of unknown words through context on improvement of their proficiency of vocabulary and reading comprehension To achieve the aim of the study, a quasi-experiment was designed and implemented in two grade 11 groups at Phuc Thanh High School This chapter provides a detailed description

of the experiment carried out to get the results for the study, which is composed of the information about the context of the study, the rationale of using quasi-experiment, the variables, the participants, the materials, the procedures as well as the data collection instruments

2.2 Context of the study

The study was conducted in a natural learning environment of grade 11 students at Phuc Thanh High School, which is a non-specialized school in Kinh Mon District, Hai Duong Province The school has 25 clean classrooms and a large school yard Moreover, it has a small library, two functional rooms with computers and projectors

In terms of places, the experimental lessons were carried out in two large classrooms of Phuc Thanh High School, where there are 21 classes with 842 students and an average of

40 students per class for the 2010-2011 academic year Moreover, the school has five teachers of English and 45 others who are teaching different subjects

As for the students of the school, about ninety percent of them come from mountainous villages and ten percent live in rural villages Many of them are not aware of the importance of English; their English is limited Most of the students major in Maths, Physics and Chemistry and these students just see English as a compulsory subject and learn just what is taught in the classroom Only some of them major in English and find it

an interesting subject to study Most of them have an average of 3 periods per week The teaching materials involve textbooks prescribed by Ministry of Education and Training and other supplementary materials selected by the classroom teachers In order to improve the

current situation of English learning in general, English reading skill in particular, which has been assumed to be far from being successful or effective for years, this experiment was carried out with the group of students who are not majoring in English

In terms of time, the study was implemented in the second semester of the 2010-2011 academic year, which began on February 7th, 2011 and ended on April 29th, 2011 The experiment lasted 12 weeks; due to the time limitation, the researcher only chose 6 units (from Unit 11 to Unit 16) to do the experiment for this study

2.3 The Rationale of Using Quasi-Experiment

Of the three designs within the scope of experimental method including

true-experimental, quasi-experimental and pre-experimental designs which are different from one another in terms of the degree to which they impose control over the variables being studied and the degree of randomness that enters into the design (Salkind, 2006; 218), the quasi-experimental design was chosen for the study for the following reasons Firstly, the subjects of the study have already been assigned prior to the study In this study, the two classes 11A1 and 11A2 were assigned to the researcher as well as another teacher by the person who was in charge of arranging the teaching schedule for the teaching staff In addition, the two classes in the study were not removed from normal teaching and learning context This characteristic made up the external validity of the study which helps to increase the validity of the later generalization of the result to the population Involving the generalization of the results, extraneous variables need controlling prior to the experiment like the gender, the group size, the age, English proficiency With regard to the group size, some students were removed from the researcher's observation and study during the experimental period That is, despite receiving the same treatment either in control group

or experimental group, these students' scores were not counted in the research To control the gender, two male students in the control group and two female students in the experimental group were removed to make the number of male and female students in the former group equal to that of the latter one Moreover, as this design is less intrusive and disruptive than the true-experimental design, it is easier to gain access to the subject to the population and thus more convenient to conduct such research (Selinger & Shohamy (1989: 149) Consequently, it helps the researcher save a lot of time in grouping the participants

Since all the participants were Vietnamese of the same age and had lived in Vietnam

since they were born, they were thought to be of the same level of social and cultural background Furthermore, their English proficiency was the same according to their scores

in the placement test they had done

In a word, as all above factors are examined, the quasi-experimental design becomes the most practical and feasible for the researcher to conduct the present study

2.4 Variables

As mentioned above, the aim of this study is to improve the proficiency of vocabulary and reading comprehension for the 11th form students through developing students' techniques for guessing the meaning of new words through context In other words, experimental design is used in this study to determine how the techniques for guessing the meaning of new words through context (the independent variable) cause the changes in students' proficiency of vocabulary and reading comprehension (the dependent variable)

 Independent variable: Guessing techniques as a word-attack skill versus word lists and dictionary use during reading sessions

 Dependent variable: Students' proficiency of vocabulary and reading comprehension

The values of the dependent variable were measured from the scores that the students gained in a test designed and administered to the students in both control and experimental groups In order to measure students' improvement of the vocabulary and reading comprehension proficiency from developing the techniques for guessing the meaning of unknown words through context, the pretest and posttest were used as a valid and reliable means for the study The test scores of both control and experimental groups were

carefully computed and compared before and after the experiment by a t-test

2.5 Participants

2.5.1 The students

Of the 80 students attending the program, the subjects of the study were 50 students selected from 2 classes as a subset of the population by means of cluster sampling They were both male and female students aged sixteen or seventeen and had been learning English at least five or six years These groups were equally distributed in terms of number

and gender: 25 students each and seventeen out of 25 were boys in each group Moreover, the groups which students belonged to were arranged in accordance with their level of English based on the results of their placement test and their results of the previous year (this subject at grade 10), which made it possible to select two groups of equal level of English The reason for this choice will be explained as follows:

In making an experimental research, to make sure that differences in the results of the study are due to differences in the two different treatments, rather than to other factors,

"nothing except the planned treatment being studied is different for the two groups" (Johnson, 1992; 177) To obtain this result, other conditions - such as the teacher, curriculum, environment, materials - should be exactly the same in the two groups The following table shows main background information about the participants

Table 1: Background information about the subjects of the study

Experimental Controlled Total number of participants

to apply the guessing techniques to deal with unfamiliar vocabulary during reading sessions and did a series of vocabulary guessing exercises based on the underlined words from these main readings before answering the accompanying comprehension questions A

dictionary was only used for checking the guessing The reading texts that both groups took were of fixed selections from the textbook Tieng Anh 11, which was designed for the 11th form students as a whole

2.5.2 The teachers

The two instructors were the researcher herself and another teacher at Phuc Thanh High School They both had been teaching English at Phuc Thanh High School for 10 years, so they had a good knowledge of the students Before the experiment period, the students were arranged to meet and discuss the methods, contents, outcomes and time allocation for the experiment

2.6 Materials

2.6.1 Textbook

* The materials used for the participants taking part in this study include the textbook Tieng Anh 11, which was used as the main source of material and the handouts designed and selected by the researcher English 11 was developed based on the new national curriculum and the methodologies the book is claimed to follow are the "learner-centered approach and the communicative approach with task-based teaching being the central teaching method" There are 16 teaching units and 6 review units in the book Each teaching unit covers a topic and is structured in five sections: Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing, and Language Focus Since the authors of the book expect to use the reading text to supply language inputs and ideas for practice of other language skills, reading texts are provided at first and foremost in each unit Reading section is structured

according to the conventional stages of a reading lesson It begins with one or two Before you read activities, the aim of which is to introduce students to the topic, activate their

background knowledge of the topic, motivate them to read and elicit new vocabulary A

short text followed by While you read activities is presented then, the aim of which is to

develop such reading skills and strategies as scanning, skimming and guessing meaning in

context This section ends with one or two After you read activities to offer learners further

practice

* Popular context clues used for guessing the meaning of unknown words in the new textbook Tieng Anh 11

An investigation of about 10 reading passages in the new textbook Tieng Anh 11 by the researcher shows that popular context clues which can be used to guess the meaning of

unknown words belong to these two following groups:

1 Structural clues

* Morphology

Example: - Such changeable and uncertain people are incapable of a lifelong friendship

(Unit 1, Tieng Anh 11)

*Synonyms and antonyms:

Examples: - The competition was sponsored by the Students' Parents Society Mrs Lien,

our English teacher, explained the competition's rules to the students " To participate in

the contest, you have to work in groups of three." (Unit 6, Tieng Anh 11)

- It is time governments and international organizations did something to help them so that

the world population growth can start to decrease instead of continuing to increase (Unit

7, Tieng Anh 11)

*Restatement

Example: Entry qualifications to weekend courses are generous, that is, generally no

qualifications are necessary, apart from an ability to pay the fees, which may be quite

high (Unit 6, Tieng Anh 11)

*Definitions (Explanation)

Example: - Another alternative source of energy is geothermal heat, which comes from

deep inside the earth (Unit 11, Tieng Anh 11)

* Reference words

Examples: - However, human beings have a great influence on the rest of the world They

are changing the environment by building cities and villages where forest once stood

(Unit 10, Tieng Anh 11)

2 Inference clues

* Example

Example: Each nation has many people who voluntarily take care of others For example,

many high school and college students in the United States often spend many hours as volunteers in hospitals, orphanages or homes for the aged (Unit 4, Tieng Anh 11)

* Comparison and contrast

Example: Everyone has a number of acquaintances, but no one has many friends, for

true friendship is not common, and there are many people who seem to be incapable of it

(Unit 1, Tieng Anh 11)

* Cause and result

Example: - I didn't want to make a fuss, so I decided just to take my money back from the

schoolboy's bag, without saying a word about it (Unit 2, Tieng Anh 11)

1 Study the literature review to set up the theoretical background for the study before carrying out the research;

2 Establish the methodological framework for the study;

3 Design and administer the experiment questionnaire to teachers, the experiment questionnaire and the pretest to both groups (experimental and control groups);

pre-4 Identify difference in the pretest scores between the two groups as well as find out the preliminary information about students' and teachers' perceptions and attitudes towards reading comprehension;

5 Apply the techniques for guessing the meaning of new words through context on the experimental group;

6 Design and administer the posttest (version of the pretest) to both groups;

7 Analyze both groups' posttest scores to set up the difference in the proficiency of vocabulary and reading comprehension between the two groups after twelve weeks;

8 Distribute the post-experiment questionnaire to the experimental group to get their feedback about the techniques for guessing the meaning of new words through context;

9 Collect all the data for analysis;

10 Analyzing the data for findings;

11 Draw out conclusions, limitations, recommendations and suggestions for further study based on the findings;

The procedure of the experiment was presented in detail as follows:

Initially, right at the beginning of the experimental period, week 1, a pre-experiment questionnaire for teachers was given to four teachers of English at Phuc Thanh High School, a pre-experiment questionnaire for students and a pre-test were given to both groups The pre-experiment questionnaire for students aimed at identifying the students' perceptions and attitudes towards reading comprehension, how the students dealt with unknown words and what techniques they used to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words during their reading process The pre-experiment questionnaire for teachers was employed

to examine the teachers' perceptions and attitudes towards reading comprehension, what activity the teachers might frequently utilize to teach the meaning of new words as well as what techniques they used to teach their students to know how to infer the meaning of unfamiliar words while reading The pretest on vocabulary and reading comprehension was also given to 50 students on the same day The primary goal of the pretest was to measure and compare the proficiency of vocabulary and reading comprehension between the two groups

Next, the teacher-researcher explained guessing techniques to deal with unknown words while reading to the experimental group The experiment continued for ten weeks During this period, the students from both groups received two different treatments to deal with unknown words in reading passages To be more specific, the treatment for each group is described as follows:

The students in the experimental group were not provided with a word list before each reading session, but they were encouraged to apply guessing techniques to guess the meaning of new words they met in the reading text Then, they did the tasks following each reading text Some context clues encouraged to guess the word meaning include morphology, synonyms and antonyms, restatement, definitions (explanation), reference words, example, comparison and contrast, cause and result Dictionaries were not allowed

to use during the experimental period

On the other hand, the teachers provided the control group with a word list with Vietnamese equivalents before each reading session The students in this group were

allowed to use the word list or dictionaries for any new words they encountered during their reading process Then, they did the tasks following each reading text

Finally, both groups were distributed a posttest on vocabulary and reading comprehension at the end of the experimental period, week 12 After that, the test results of the two different periods were compared In addition, the post-experiment questionnaire was delivered to 25 students in the experimental group to collect information about the students' comments and evaluative attitudes towards the treatment after the experimental period

2.8 Instruments for Data Collection

2.8.1 Pretest and Posttest

The use of pretest and posttest in this study was seen as the main instrument to collect

data about the subjects' vocabulary and reading comprehension proficiency Thus, in order

to know students' results exactly, the teacher must design a good test which should cover main characteristics such as validity, and reliability The validity of a test is the extent to which the test measures exactly what is intended to measure, and the reliability of a test is

an indication of the consistency of scores across evaluators or over time (Hughes, 1995)

To ensure its validity and reliability, designing the vocabulary and reading comprehension test for this study was carefully examined All the test items had been sent to the other teachers to get some suggestions for modification before delivering them to the participants Both pretest and posttest consisted of thirty items with two different sections: Vocabulary Section and Reading Comprehension Section The first section which aimed at testing students' ability to guess vocabulary from context on the sentence level included ten items with two parts each: the statement with one underlined word or phrase and the four options (A, B, C, or D) Students were asked to choose one option that best substitutes the underlined part in each sentence The second section that was designed to test students' ability to deduce word meaning from context on the passage level consisted of twenty items with three reading passages The number of items in each passage varied from six to nine Each correct answer was rated one point, each score was the total number of correct answer and the maximum score that a student was able to get would be 30 The time allowance for each test was 55 minutes including the time of delivering the test paper The test was administered under the surveillance of the researcher and another teacher at Phuc

Thanh High School to make sure that no students could copy the answers from the others After the experimental period, the posttest, the version of the pretest in which some changes were made to avoid the similarity in question order of both tests and to avoid the fact that the pretest was more or less difficult than the posttest and vice versa, was employed again to measure the two groups' vocabulary and reading comprehension gains for twelve weeks

2 Questionnaires can be used on a small scale, in house, and on a large scale

3 Data can be gathered in several different time slots: all at once in a class at convenience when a suitable respondent happens to come along, and different locations at different times, but in all of these data is comparable

Questionnaire can be easily qualified as multiple choice questions are used (Seilinger & Shohany (1989) In reality, questionnaires have some strong points as follows:

- Questionnaire does not take time to prepare and administer,

- The collected data are standard and accurate as the same questionnaire is given to all the subjects at the same time,

However, "the construction of valid and reliable questionnaires is a specialized business" (Nunan 1992:143) In this study, written questionnaires were administered to the students and the teachers In order that the respondents could be free to express their specific thought about the items raised in the questionnaires, some questions were open-ended and the respondents had freedom to give their answer

Of the three questionnaires, one for students and one for teachers were delivered to 50 students of both groups and 4 teachers at Phuc Thanh High School before the experimental period, and the rest for students was administered to 25 students of the experimental group after the experimental period

In this research, questionnaires were used as a complementary tool to find out more information for the study To be more specific, as stated in Part I, the pre-experiment questionnaire for students which consisted of 9 items with four options each aimed at finding out the students' perceptions and attitudes towards reading comprehension, identifying what the students might commonly do to deal with unknown words and what techniques they employed to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words during their reading process The pre-experiment questionnaire for teachers including 6 items with four options each was utilized to observe the teachers' perceptions and attitudes towards reading comprehension, to investigate what activity the teachers might frequently use to teach the meaning of new words as well as what techniques they used to teach their students to know how to infer the meaning of unfamiliar words while reading The post-experiment questionnaire with 7 items was employed to elicit the experimental students’ feedback and evaluative attitudes towards the techniques for guessing the meaning of unknown words through context after the experimental period In order to receive the objective results, questionnaires were carefully designed The steps of administering the questionnaires were also well-established Before answering the questions, all the students and teachers were made to feel safe to give their true responses to all the questions and the statements as their own ideas were just for study, not for any other reasons In the pre-experiment questionnaires, the students and teachers were asked to put a cross (x) in the box which shows their choice or write down the answer in the space provided In the post-experiment questionnaire, the experimental students were asked to give their opinions to all the statements in three ways If they agreed with the statement, they would mark a cross (x) in the Agree-column If they disagreed with the statement, they would mark a cross (x) in the Disagree-column In case they did not have any idea about the issue mentioned, they would put a cross (x) in the No idea-column In order to avoid any language difficulties due to lack of English proficiency that might affect the objectiveness of the research results, the questionnaires for students were written in Vietnamese

CHAPTER THREE: DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

3 Data analysis and findings

3.1 Introduction

This section presents the findings of the study in detail It consists of the two main

subsections: reports of the results collected by means of pretest and posttest and the results

of the questionnaires

In terms of quantitative analysis, the data collected from the pretest and posttest scores were employed to set up grade 11 students' English vocabulary and reading comprehension proficiency before and after experimental period All the tests after that were collected and crossed-marked by the researcher and another teacher of English at school, the test scores were computed and analyzed with the statistical software named SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) to compare and find out means (M), mode, median, standard deviation (SD) to determine whether the treatment caused the experimental group to score higher than the control group after twelve weeks of learning English In order to work out the

value of the t-test, the chronological steps were carried out as follows:

First of all, both groups' pretest scores were calculated and recorded to identify the difference in their vocabulary and reading comprehension proficiency before the experimental period Next, individual subject's gain in the test was computed by subtracting the pretest score from the posttest score Finally, the mean (M) and standard deviation (SD) of each group's gain were calculated for comparison

Apart from the quantitative analysis, the qualitative method was also used to find out the students' and teachers' perceptions and attitudes towards reading comprehension, how they dealt or taught unknown words in reading sessions, what guessing techniques they used and to make reference to the experimental group's views on the techniques for guessing the meaning of unknown words through context

3.2 Reports of the results collected by means of Pretest and Posttest

3.2.1 Comparison of Pretest and Posttest Performance

The table below shows the results of the comparison of English vocabulary and reading comprehension performance in the pretest and posttest within and between the two groups This section could help the researcher find out the answer to the first research question

Table 2: The results of the pretest and posttest of the two groups

Table 3: The classifications of pre-test and post-test scores of the two groups

Table 4 below summarizes some descriptive statistics of the results gained by both groups in the pretest and posttest As the table shows, before the experiment the students in the control group outperformed themselves in the pretest The mean scores of the experimental group and the control group were 15.32 and 15.60 respectively It means that there was a small difference (0.28) between the two groups at the onset of the experiment The pretest scores in both groups ranged the same i.e., from 9 (the lowest score) to 24 (the highest score) However, the standard deviation of the pretest scores of the control group was a little bit bigger than that of the experimental group (3.92 compared to 3.54), showing that the individual score in the pretest of the control group was less homogeneous than that

of the experimental group As both groups were in the same size, this inhomogeneity would have little influence on the results This confirms the conclusion that no significant difference existed between the two groups at the beginning of the experiment

Table 4: Descriptive statistics for the pretest and posttest of the experimental and control groups