The Impact of repetition and recycling on grade 11 students' vocabulary retention at Long Hai-Phuoc Tinh High school = Tác động của việc luyện tập củng cố đối v20150227.PDF

The main aim of this study therefore is to investigate the impact of repetition and recycling on vocabulary learning and retention, or to put it differently, the extent to which short ta

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certificate of originality……… ………i

Acknowledgements …… ………ii

Abstract……… ……… iii

Table of content ………iv

List of abbreviations ……… v

PART A – INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 2

4 Research hypotheses and questions 3

5 Method of the study 3

6 Organization of the study 3

PART B – DEVELOPMENT 54

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1 Teaching and Learning Vocabulary 5

1.1 What is Vocabulary? 5

1.1.1 Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary 5

1.1.2 Active and passive vocabulary 6

1.2 The importance of vocabulary in second language learning 6

1.3 What is involved in knowing a word 7

1.3.1 Form 7

1.3.2 Meaning 7

1.3.3 Grammar 8

1.3.4 Collocation 8

2 Factors affecting the retention of vocabulary 8

2.1 Memory and storage system 8

2.1.1 The Keyword Method 10

2.1.2 The Visual Aids on Vocabulary Learning 10

2.1.3 The Semantic Mapping on Vocabulary Learning 10

2.2 Frequency of meeting 11

2.3 Quality of Processing 11

3 Other factors 11

3.1 Learning styles 11

3.2 Teaching method 12

4 Repetition and Recycling in Language learning 12

4.1 The spacing of repetition 13

4.2 Testing and the Retrieval Practice Effect 14

5 A review of similar studies 14

CHAPTER 2 – METHODOLOGY……….15

1.The setting of study 16

1.1 Context of Study 16

1.2 Why quasi – experimental research 17

2 Participants of the study 18

2.1 Participants 18

2.2 Sampling 18

3 Materials 19

3.1 The course book 19

3.2 The course content 19

3.3 What are relevant activities? 19

4 Data collection instruments 21

4.1 T –Test 21

4.1.1 The purpose of the test 21

4.1.2.What to test 22

4.1.3 Test 22

4.2 Questionnaires 22

4.2.1.Questionnaires for students 22

4.2.1.1.The pre-treatment questionnaire 23

4.2.1.2.The post-treatment questionnaire 23

4.2.2.Questionnaires for teachers 23

5 Procedure of data collection 23

5.1 Schedules 24

5.2 Treatment 24

5.3 Data collecting and processing procedures 25

CHAPTER 3 - DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 26

3.1 Results of the T – Test 26

3.2 The result of pre-test scores of the two groups 26

3.3 The result of post-test scores of the two groups 28

3.4 Summary of the test scores of the two groups in the pretest and posttest 32

3.5 Survey results 33

3.5.1 The pre-treatment questionnaire for students 33

3.5.2 The Post-treatment Questionnaire for students 34

3.5.2 Questionnaire for teachers 34

PART C CONCLUSION 38

1 Findings and conclusion 38

2 Pedagogical Implications 40

3 Limitations of the study 41

4 Suggestions for further studies 41

REFERENCES……… 42

APPENDIX……… I

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL : English as Foreign Language

E.Gr : Experimental group

C.Gr : Control group

SLA : Second Language Acquisition

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure 1 The quality of control group by mean

Figure 2.The quality of experimental group by mean

Chart 1 The comparison of pre – test scores of experimental and control groups

Table 1 Taxonomy of Vocabulary Learning Strategies (Adopted from Schmitt 1997:207)

Table 2 Comparison of pre – test scores

Table 3 Frequency of Pre test of Experimental Group and Control Group

Table 4 The results of the post-test

Table 5 Summary of standard deviation

Table 6 Paired Samples Correlations

Table7 The results from running Wilcoxon’s test

Table 8 The results of post test

Table 9 Descriptive Statistics of the two groups

Table 10 The response to pre-treatment questionnaire for students

Table 11 The response to post-treatment questionnaire for students

Table 12 Scores on the questionnaire

Table 13 The Cronbach's alpha of the post-treatment questionnaire for students

PART A – INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Vocabulary is central to language and is of great significance to language students Words are “the building blocks of a language since they label objects, actions, ideas without which people cannot convey the intended meaning”(Lotfi Ghazal) Given its importance to learning, vocabulary has been a prominent concern of many theorists and researchers in the field Accordingly, numerous types of approaches, techniques, exercises and practice have been introduced into the field to teach vocabulary (Hatch & Brown, 1995)

When it comes to studying vocabulary, however, the greatest challenge is likely retaining the words Researchers and teachers now have been drawn to the concern of how to make students enhance vocabulary retention for communicative value Studies have shown that practising things makes us better in learning a language and develops automaticity In other words, language learning proceeds gradually through repeated exposure and practice The course book English 11 (published by Educational Press), however, does not deal with it sufficiently

Being an EFL teacher in a high school in Ba Ria – Vung Tau, I recognize the fact that many students now suffer from considerable difficulties in retaining previously encountered English words They struggle to maintain retention But not many of them are capable of it This matter of fact leads to their poor production both in speaking and writing Furthermore, there is another fact that we have to face, that is most of students now have active social lives, families, studies with lots of compulsory subjects, sports and generally other things which make them really occupied – not just one of English That leaves me with the responsibility to

do revision lessons, review vocabulary and make sure they know what have been taught The idea of a study on how to enrich students‟ vocabulary retention of mine emerges in that situation

Currently working with 11th graders in addition to continual working with them in four recent years makes me designate them A wide range of designed activities were carried out (mostly at the beginning of the classes) when teaching two classes named 11A3 and 11A5 at Long Hai – Phuoc tinh high school And the results supported my hypothesis that teachers can

create repetitive and recycling-focused activities to help students improve their vocabulary retention

2 Aims of the study

The study aims at proving that repetitive and recycling focused activities can help 11thgrade students to retain words better These students are non-English major ones and have three classes of English a week There exists a fact that they cannot retrieve the words which they have learnt in previous lessons for communication when needed In other words, they soon forget words they have just acquired The main aim of this study therefore is to investigate the impact of repetition and recycling on vocabulary learning and retention, or to put it differently, the extent to which short tailored activities helps to retain vocabulary for the students at Long Hai – Phuoc Tinh High school and provide some pedagogical implications

3 Scope of the study

There are enormous activities as tools of enhancing vocabulary retention available on the internet that you can approach with a mouse click Most of them are easy to be applied and tested In the current study, I set the limit of investigating possibly – applied activities that can

be carried out at beginning or in the middle of 45-minute periods in such large-sized classes at Long Hai – Phuoc Tinh High school, vung Tau The activities were related to first three units (which equal to 18 lessons) of the course book English 11 introduced by Educational Press only because with the timeframe of 6 weeks it is supposed to be infeasible to conduct a research study on a larger scale which can produce very convincing results

4 Research hypotheses and questions

In order to achieve the above purposes, the study was designed to test the following hypotheses:

 Null hypothesis: The students who take part in the experiment get the same

result measured in the post-test and have the same improvement in their vocabulary retention

as those who do not

 Alternative hypothesis: Students who frequently deal with repetitive and

recycling activities will perform better overall in the post test and have some improvement in

their skills in comparison with those who do not have extra vocabulary-oriented activities

So as to draw the conclusion on the hypothesis, the study is to get the answers to the

following questions: (1) To what extent do EFL teachers encourage repetition and recycling vocabulary among their students? (2) What is the effectiveness of using repetitive and recycling focused activities on enhancing 11 th - graders’ vocabulary retention? (3) What are the students’ attitudes towards using activities in teaching and learning vocabulary?

5 Method of the study

The first method applied in this study is a quasi-experimental design which involves the three components of experiments according to Selinger and Shohamy (1989): the population (the 11th grade students at Long Hai – Phuoc Tinh high school, Ba ria Vung tau), the treatment (repetitive and recycling focused activities), and the measurement of the treatment (T-test)

In addition, questionnaires were delivered to teachers who currently teach other 11th grades to investigate how they have dealt with vocabulary teaching, especially the ways they encourage repetition and recycling vocabulary among students Another questionnaire was delivered to the subjects before treatment to get to know their own strategies of memorizing vocabulary The third questionnaire was delivered to the subjects after treatment as a supporting tool to obtain students‟ attitude towards the technique applied What is more, observation was also employed during the teaching time to recognize the participation of students in the control group and the experimental group

6 Organization of the study

This thesis is organized around three parts:

Part A is the introduction which presents the rationale for the research topic, aims of study,

scope of study, research hypotheses and questions, and method of the study

Part B is the development which consists of three chapters Chapter one reviews scholarly

theoretical background to teaching and learning vocabulary in a second language including factors which affect vocabulary acquisition process This chapter also reviews some meaningful activities which are initiated by different researchers Chapter two deals with the methodology of this research in terms of the setting of the study, sampling participants, instruments and procedure of data collection Chapter three devotes to the account of the study

in terms of data analysis and findings interpreted from the results of the T-test and questionnaires

Part C is the conclusion which discusses the major findings and limitations of the research,

then suggests teaching implications and proposes some suggestions for further research

PART B - DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter deals with theoretical base of the thesis in which notion of basic elements, and their significance were raised and discussed Accompanied with it, previous studies on similar field were mentioned as a source of references

1 Teaching and Learning Vocabulary

In the previous introduction to this thesis I have covered why I limit my interest and focus

on vocabulary in the English language teaching Before dealing with the theoretical framework of the subject, I find it necessary to explain how I understand the word vocabulary

and what terminology I will be using throughout my work

1.1 What is Vocabulary?

Learning, as a language based activity, is fundamentally and profoundly dependent on vocabulary knowledge Learners must have access to the meanings of words that teachers, or their surrogates (e.g., other adults, books, films, etc.), use to guide them into contemplating

known concepts in novel ways.(Baker, Simmons, & Kame'enui, 1997)

Broadly defined, vocabulary is knowledge of words and word meanings in both oral and

print language and in productive and receptive forms An extensive vocabulary is the bridge between the word-level processes of phonics and the cognitive processes of comprehension

(A Focus on vocabulary - by Fran Lehr, MA; Jean Osborn, Med; Dr Elfrieda H Hiebert, Visiting Research Professor,University of California, Berkeley) Vocabulary is also defined as

the total bank of words and phrases of a particular language or the sum of words used by, understood by, or at the command of a particular person or group in a number of English dictionaries

1.1.1 Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary

Productive and receptive vocabulary are two different things and they have different uses receptive vocabulary is words we understand when others use them (in listening and reading ) and expressive vocabulary refers to words we use themselves (to speak and write)

Vocabulary can also be classified as oral or written Thus each of us has four types of vocabulary: receptive-oral, receptive-written, expressive-oral, and expressive-written The four vocabulary items overlap but are not the same, and the relationships between them change over time

The acknowledgement of two categories of expressive and receptive vocabulary is extremely helpful in language teaching It is common when a receptive vocabulary item gradually becomes a part of a learner‟s everyday English This usually happens when the learner reads or hears the item repeatedly This process is gradual and can be speeded up and improved immensely if the item is well presented, practiced and revised in the course book If any stage is missing in the book, the teachers should clarify the meaning and form and encourage controlled and free practice themselves (Gairns [1990]: 65)

1.1.2 Active and passive vocabulary

Several researchers and ELT authors, with different ways of addressing, substitute the

terms expressive and receptive vocabulary with others: active and passive vocabulary Despite

the fact that the secondary literature the researcher has studied varies in interpretations of these four terms One of the earliest descriptions of active and passive vocabulary was that of Morgan and Oberdeck who said that

An individual's active vocabulary includes words of such familiarity as would allow an understanding of them as would permit their use in speech and writing; his passive vocabulary includes those of only such familiarity as would allow an understanding of them as they occurred in reading material or hearing in a lecture (1930: 213)

Their description of active and passive vocabulary persuades us that they are freely

interchangeable with expressive and receptive

1.2 The importance of vocabulary in second language learning

In order to progress in foreign language learning, students need to be able to understand what they are encountered with verbal communication, that is they need to acquire a certain amount of words In the very first part of his book on vocabulary, McCarthy (2000:2) wrote:

“It is the experience of most language teachers that the single, biggest component of any language course is vocabulary No matter how well the student learn grammar, no matter how successfully sounds of L2 are mastered, without words to express the wide range of meaning, communication in an L2 just cannot happen in any meaningful way”

1.3 What is involved in knowing a word

Usually the first things students learn about a new English word are what it means and its translation in their own language But there are other things they need to find out before they

can say that they know a word like a native speaker does Knowledge of a word is not just restricted to knowing its single meaning but this requires comprehension of the word form, meaning, grammar and collocation so that the language students can generate it for their need

1.3.1 Form

“A word is a minimal free form Hence, a word is viewed as a form which can occur in isolation and have meaning but which cannot be analyzed into elements which can all occur alone and also have meaning” (Jackson & Amvela, 2007, p 58) The basic characteristics of each lexical item are what it sounds and looks like Both these aspects ought to be accurately

presented and learned There are two parts of the form of a word – written (spelling) and

spoken (pronunciation) form “Unfamiliarity with correct pronunciation can result in the

learner failing to understand words in connected speech that he clearly understands in written English” (Gairns and Redman, 1986:50); therefore, when introducing new words to language students, the teacher should pay careful attention to both of these forms and provide them with certain general guidelines that will assist them in predicting the pronunciation of new lexis

1.3.2 Meaning

Word meaning relates to the semantic value that is conventionally associated with individual lexical This can be understood that besides word‟s core meaning in the particular context that students are working out, the word should be introduced to the students in different discourse contexts so that they can gradually comprehend all aspects of its meaning That which meaning of a word should be introduced to students at a teaching time depends

on students‟ need and their language background knowledge The teacher has to balance the amount of time spent on meaning-focused input and meaning-focused output so that he/she can both guide his/her students to get the meaning of the words correctly and get them involved in a process of semantic processing that facilitates learning and retention

1.3.3 Grammar

Learning grammar of vocabulary is learning the rules that enable students to build up different forms of a word or even different words from that word (e.g sleep, slept, sleeping; employ, employed, employment, unemployment, employer, employable…) Grammatical patterns of a word helps students to recognize whether it suits the language situation or not,

and use it correctly When students are given a task that requires them to use the correct tense

of a verb, they have to utilize their knowledge of grammar to fulfil the task Correct grammar

of words helps to function better their pragmatic use and convey message clearer in communication

1.3.4 Collocation

Collocation is defined as “the way in which some words often go together and form a

common expression”, for example: sense of humor, nuclear family, learn by heart… are

examples of collocated pairs of words Some words are often found together because they

make up a compound noun, for example sleeping bag or motor cyclist … The idea of what it

is to „know‟ a word is also enriched with the collocational component According to Lewis (1993) „being able to use a word involves mastering its collocational range and restrictions on that range‟ Thus, using all the opportunities to teach chunks rather than isolated words is normally advisable And teaching should aim at increasing students‟ collocational competence, both inside and outside the classroom

2 Factors affecting the retention of vocabulary

2.1 Memory and storage system

Learning vocabulary is one of the first steps of learning a second language, yet a learner never finishes vocabulary acquisition This process is tightly related to human memory system which plays the role of a storage According to Anderson (2000), human memory system

consists of three types: sensory, short-term (often called working), and long-term (often called permanent) The sensory memory retains an exact copy of what is seen or heard (visual and

auditory) It has unlimited capacity Short-Term Memory (STM), on another hand, is selective

attention which determines what information moves from sensory memory to short-term memory STM, which is considered as a „work bench‟ with limited capacity, is most often

stored as sounds, especially in recalling words, but may be stored as images The last types of memory - the Long-Term Memory (LTM) is relatively permanent storage Information is stored on the basis of meaning and importance This is an automatic processing procedure that ensures retrieval without effort However, to ensure moving new materials into permanent

long-term memory, requires number of principles to be followed, described by Thornbury, 2002:

- Repetition – repetition of encounters with a word is very important, useful and effective If

the word is met several times over space interval during reading activities, students have a very good chance to remember it for a long time

- Retrieval - another kind of repetition Activities, which require retrieval, such as using the

new items in written tasks, help students to be able to recall it again in the future

- Spacing - it is useful to split memory work over a period of time rather than to mass it

together in a single block

- Pacing – to respect different learning styles and pace, students should be ideally given the

opportunity to do memory work individually

- Use - putting words to use, preferably in an interesting way, is the best way of ensuring they

are added to long – term memory This is so called “Use it or lose it” principle

- Cognitive depth - the more decisions students make about the word and the more cognitively

demanding these decisions are, the better the word is remembered

- Personal organising - personalization significantly increased the probability that students

will remember new items It is achieved mainly through conversation and role-playing activities

- Imaging – easily visualized words are better memorable than those that do not evoke with

any pictures Even abstract words can be associated with some mental image

- Mnemonics – tricks to help retrieve items or rules that are stored in memory The best kinds

of mnemonics are visuals and keyword techniques

- Motivation - strong motivation itself does not ensure that words will be remembered Even

unmotivated students remember words if they have to face appropriate tasks

- Attention - it is not possible to improve vocabulary without a certain degree of conscious

attention

2.1.1 The Keyword Method

One useful method to build and retain vocabulary in a second language is the keyword method The keyword method of vocabulary learning involved forming a linkage between a to-be-learnt vocabulary word and a familiar English word that sounds like part of the to-be-

learnt item ( the key word) Then the teacher forms an interactive image between the key word and the definition referents In previous research, the keyword method has been found to facilitate students‟ recall of definitions, given vocabulary items Although these strategies tend

to take longer to implement and may take longer in recollection, they create new or unusual connections that can increase retention

2.1.2 The Visual Aids on Vocabulary Learning

Gairns and Redman (1986) claimed that the most general visual aids that were displayed

in the language classrooms included flashcards, photographs, blackboard drawings, wall charts, and realia and that other forms of visual aids such as mimes and gestures were often used to supplement other ways of conveying meanings Goodman (1987) proposed that for the most part, visuals were more easily understood by students of all ages in that a picture seemed worth a thousand words and avoided lengthy and difficult word definitions

2.1.3 The Semantic Mapping on Vocabulary Learning

According to Johnson and Pearson (1984), “semantic mapping is one technique of teaching word meanings which makes extensive use of classroom discussion in connection with a visual display.” In semantic mapping, a teacher chooses a key word and other target words from materials student will read The key word is listed on the board and students are asked to discuss terms associated with the key word The teacher writes the suggested words

in a list on the board and students discuss them This process represents the relationships between words and requires students to identify and understand the relations between words

2.2 Frequency of meeting

Joe (1996) describes “three important processes that may lead to a word being

remembered.” First, attention, where a word is noticed, followed by retrieval of its meaning in production or comprehension, and then generation, “producing new ways of using the wanted

vocabulary in new contexts.” (1) Attention - This means that students need to notice the word

to be aware of it as a useful language item (2) Retrieval - That indicates an assumption that a

word may be noticed and its meaning comprehended in the textual input to the task, and if that word is subsequently retrieved either receptively or productively during a task, then the

memory of that word will be strengthened (3) Generation - This means that a word is used

generatively if it is used in speaking in a way which is different from its use in the textual input

2.3 Quality of Processing

As I mentioned above, the sheer number of meeting with new language is important for remembering Another important factor affecting vocabulary retention is the quality of processing since this means that students gain personal connections with the target language items Language items gain rich associations as the students use them more for their own expressive intentions ad for reasons of personal, social and cultural identity The reasoning goes that the deeper the experiences the learner has in the language, deeper the language will sink in

3 Other factors

3 1 Learning styles

Teachers should keep in mind that all students are unique in terms of their memory style and learning style Teachers need to work hard to vary the types of activities they use to teach vocabulary to help accommodate all learning styles

Learning style is the individual‟s habitual and preferred way “in which individual characteristically acquires, retains, and retrieves information” (Felder & Henriques, 1995:21) and is influential in a learner‟s process of language acquisition According to Felder (1995:22), learning styles are categorized into different dimensions depending on the students‟ preferential perception (sensing, intuitive, verbal and visual), their information process (active, reflective) or understanding of materials (sequential, global, inductive, and reductive)

3.2 Teaching method

Regarding vocabulary retention, over the past two decades, research has revealed a great deal about the kind of vocabulary teaching that is most effective for helping students retain what they have learnt (e.g., Baumann, Kame„enui et al., 2003; Beck & McKeown, 1991; Blachowicz & Fisher, 2000; Nagy & Scott, 2000) There are a variety of principles that teachers should take into account when working with vocabulary, but the key principle of effective vocabulary teaching is to provide multiple exposures to a word's meaning According

to Stahl (2005), students probably have to see a word more than once to place it firmly in their long-term memories "This does not mean mere repetition or drill of the word," but seeing the

word in different and multiple contexts In other words, it is important that vocabulary instruction provide students with opportunities to encounter words repeatedly and in more than one context

4 Repetition and Recycling in Language learning

The results of teaching and learning process are affected by not only the teacher‟s teaching method, the students‟ learning styles and strategies but also by many other factors beyond language education such as personality, intelligence, aptitude, attitude, motivation, age… of the particular group of students (Lightbown & Spada, 1999:49) In terms of vocabulary, students need multiple encounters with words (Hulstijn, 1992; Folse, 1999); thus, the most important point in teaching and learning vocabulary is the number of times the learner has to retrieve the word - a factor which the teacher can influence through classroom activities Vocabulary items must not only be known, they must be known so well that they can be fluently accessed Repetition thus adds to the quality of knowledge and also to the quantity or strength of this knowledge

In many books on vocabulary teaching and learning, it is stressed that students need to be exposed to a word numerous time before it can be regarded as fully acquired Teachers then can help solidify new words in long-term memory by creating regular opportunities in their learning program that encourage students to make form-meaning connections of new vocabulary items When teaching a foreign language to young learners, these repetitions are

often referred to as “vocabulary recycling” (e.g Cameroon 2001, 87) Recycling vocabulary

at regular intervals leads to the items remaining active and in use This recycling can come in short review activities or even bi-weekly or monthly quizzes but it should happen consistently

ones are keys of teaching and learning vocabulary Dennis Grynnerup ( 2011) presented several strategies for implementing a systematic approach to recycling language These include: (1)Training learners to record language covered systematically, using language learning cards and language learner portfolios (2) Displaying language covered in the classroom as a reference and a resource for recycling (3) Using the language covered consciously to create opportunities for exposure and noticing for the learners.(4) Including regular recycling activities in lessons using, for example, vocabulary cards, and spacing rather

than chunking practice (5) Using task repetition; in practice, doing the same thing again, using the language, both in individual lessons but also during a course (6) Using texts as opportunities for consciousness-raising to get students to notice the language covered (7) Considering the three Ts: task, topic and tools - the teacher can ask students to reuse the language covered by providing a language focus in communicative tasks, written or spoken (8) Setting recycling language homework and encouraging students to recycle language outside the classroom.(9) Including testing as a regular part of the course This encourages students to revisit language

In the study, the researcher chose to use the forth and fifth strategies mentioned above That was organizing fun, competitive, and motivating vocabulary games and activities which adhere to the expanding rehearsal The researcher put together a variety of engaging vocabulary recycling activities drawn from a number of sources: resource books, websites, training courses, my colleagues and some of which are of my own invention

4.1 The spacing of repetition

Spaced repetition is a robust method memorizing large amounts of material than more fashionable accelerated learning techniques It is better to distribute practice In many cases two spaced presentations are about twice as effective as two massed presentations, and the difference between them increases as the frequency of repetition increases (Melton, 1970) This effect was apparent in of the earliest of experimental studies of learning and memory performed by Ebbinghaus (1885) who concluded that “with any considerable number of repetitions a suitable distribution of them over a space of time is decidedly more advantageous than the massing of them at a single time”

4.2 Testing and the Retrieval Practice Effect

Successful recall of a vocabulary item can have two independent benefits for future learning and retention: (1) The first is quite straightforward - knowledge of recall ability can

be used to guide future learning, i.e to treat recalled and unrecalled items differently, concentrating attention on the latter upon representation of material (2) The second benefit is perhaps more paradoxical Periodic retrieval can have a very large effect on enhancing and stabilizing long-term retention since encoding operations usually assumed to take place during

item presentation can occur equally well following item recall (Thompson, Wenger & Bartling, 1978)

5 A review of similar studies

From a literature review, it seems to be that a lot of research on vocabulary teaching and learning has been made and their major findings support the value of gaining new vocabulary (Aitchison, J -1987; Gairns, R & Redman, S 1986; Nation-1994, 2001, 2005; Lynch - 2001 ; Lewis – 1993, 1997…) O‟Mally and Chamot (1990) divide language-learning strategies into three major types: metacognitive, cognitive and social/affective Oxford (1990) has attempted the most comprehensive classification systems and divided them into six major strategy categories, including memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, affective and social strategies

Despite the fact that how to maintain and recycle the vocabulary they have learned seems

to be less touched, we can not deny the existence of a number of studies conducted by many

researchers such as Laurel Pollard, 2008; A Obermeier – 2008; Agnieszka Uberman – 1998…

in this field Ahmed (1989) found that most learners took notes on vocabulary, or wrote notes

in the margins of their books O‟Malley et al found that repetition was the most commonly

mentioned strategy, and strategies requiring more active manipulation of information imagery, inference, keyword method are much less frequent to use Therefore, it seems that mechanical strategies are often favored over ones that are more complex

To summarize, in this chapter the researcher has discussed theoretical base of vocabulary, memory, repetition, recycling vocabulary and their significance in vocabulary teaching and learning Previous studies on several aspects of vocabulary learning and teaching were reviewed in this chapter: the important role of vocabulary in SLA; varying approaches to memorize vocabulary; the principles for designing repetitive and recycling-focused activities These issues serve as a theoretical and methodological foundation of the study

CHAPTER 2 – METHODOLOGY

This chapter deals with the methodology of this research in terms of the setting of the study, sampling participants, instruments and procedure of data collection Questionnaires and T-test were employed and clearly presented in the chapter as the primary instruments of the study Relevant activities, additionally, were mentioned and discussed thoroughtly as principles of designing activities

1 The setting of study

1.1 Context of Study

Long Hai – Phuoc Tinh high school is a state-run school located in Long Hai town in Ba Ria – Vung Tau The school has a modest educational staff of 71 people who provide education to 1425 students The EFL group consists of 9 teachers Most of them graduated from pedagogical faculties in Vietnamese Universities namely Vinh University, Da Nang

University, Lac Hong University, Da Lat University and Hanoi University of Foreign Language

The typical setting of instruction is three 45-minute –long periods of English a week There are not many of reference books available in the school library Three out of 30 classrooms are equipped with computers and 32-inch LCDs There are also two portable speakers that can be directly connected to MP3 players or cell phones serving as teaching facilities

Due to the limited time in a correspondence to a wide range of words to teach and students‟ low English proficiency, EFL teachers at Long Hai _ Phuoc Tinh high school often teach vocabulary in the traditional teacher-centered method The teachers normally dominate class to explain words by words They often employ three following steps in teaching vocabulary First, teachers have students read the passage (in reading, speaking, listening or writing sections) After that, new words are raised and elicited through some games, word maps, or simple presentations Then students try to get Vietnamese equivalents of the words and read them aloud once or twice To help students practice the vocabulary, the teachers have them do some kinds of exercises such as: gap filling, word matching, definitions matching, etc available in the course book However, the effectiveness of the given steps varies in accordance with individual teachers

On completion of the study, the researcher encountered a number of problems, namely impossibility of changing the ongoing programs or reorganization of classes, choosing the best time to teach, and difficulties in manipulating and controlling other conditions under which the research was conducted

1.2 Why quasi – experimental research

According to Nunan (1992: 40), it is not always feasible to carry out a true experiment This is because of the difficulty of controlling many of the variables as well as the impossibility of random assigning subjects to experimental and the control groups for the purposes of the research In that case, a quasi-experiment is employed with the subjects for both the experimental groups and the control groups being the intact groups of students (i.e., keeps the participants in natural settings), (Nunan, 1992; Wiersma, 1995) As this study was

conducted on the students in two already existing classes which were assigned by the high school where the researcher was working, a quasi-experimental method was naturally chosen “Experiments are carried out in order to explore the strengths of the relationships between variables” (Nunan, 1992: 25) The study was aimed at exploring the relationship between

repetition and recycling and students‟ retention of English vocabulary The dependent variable

in this study was the students‟ scores in their vocabulary tests (their retention of vocabulary)

while the independent one was repetitive and recycling-focused activities The relationship

between these two variables were defined through the analytical procedure using the T-tests to compare the mean scores of the experimental group and those of the control group before and after the treatment The pre – test and post –test are supposed to be the appropriate tests for this purpose

2 Participants of the study

2.1 Participants

The population of the study were 84 ESL students coming from two classes called 11A3 and 11A5 at Long Hai-Phuoc Tinh high school in BR-VT Most of them were born in 1995 and have studied English as a Foreign Language for five years or more It is impossible for us

to assume that they are at the same level of English but they have definitely all experienced the set of English course books of Lower – Secondary (i.e English 6, English 7, English 8 and English 9) and also English 10 as the first step to Upper – Secondary Results of the pre-test showed that their English vocabulary competence differed little (see appendix 3 and 4) All in all, these two groups had a lot of common features in terms of number, gender, English level

as well as motivation to learn Moreover, these students‟ characteristics were typical of the

11th grade non-major students at Long Hai- Phuoc Tinh high school

Most of the participants live in three territories of Long Hai, Phuoc Hung and Phuoc Tinh, which are famous for tourism and fishing industry That, in turn, becomes a condition which

is worth being taken into account when working with this study The students in the regions can earn money easily by cutting fish heads and fins in the local firms They appear to be interested in it After school, many of them have to rush to these firms to take the night shift and, of course they do not have much time to review or do their homework

2.2 Sampling

The quality of a piece of research stands or falls not only by the appropriateness of methodology and instrumentation but also by the suitability of the sampling strategy that has been adopted Sample size is determined to some extent by the style of the research According to Borg and Gall (1979), experimental methodology requires a sample size of no fewer than fifteen cases Basing on the level of accuracy and the level of probability in the study, the sample size of 56 out of 84 can be referred as acceptable

“The safest way to ensure that it is representative is to use a random selection procedure.” (Will G Hopkins, 2008)) Acknowledging this, in the study the researcher adopted the systematic sampling as a strategy to select subjects from a population list in a systematic Specifically, with the required number of 56 out of the population of 84, the simple statistic should be use: f=N÷ Sn

f = frequency interval

N = the total number of the wider population

S n = the required number in the sample

Hence the frequency interval (f) is 84÷56 = 1.5

As a result, the researcher omitted every third name on the list of cases

3.Materials

3.1 The course book

The course book used in this study in the English 11 ( published by the Educational Press, 2007), the second unit of a series of thee course books namely English 10, English 11 and English 12 It is a theme-based course book comprising 16 unit and 6 review lessons Each unit focuses on a specific topic and consists of five sections: Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing and Language Focus

The English 11 is designed basing on the basic principles of Communicative Language Teaching However, the course book do not include sufficient communicative activities for practice This demands more work on the part of the teacher in selecting appropriate activities

to attract students

3.2 The course content

As being stated above, due to the limitation of time and application, the study only deals with three units among sixteen ones appearing in the current course book English 11, namely unit 1 “Friendship”, unit 2 “Personal Experience”, and unit 3 “A Party” The main content of three units is presented in appendix 1

As we can see from the content of the book, sections within a unit are theme-related Vocabulary, thus, links to each other supporting the same topic In order to cover all the required content, teacher could spend 5-10 minutes at the beginning of each session reviewing learnt words and present new ones

3.3 What are relevant activities?

What are relevant activities to increase students‟ retention of vocabulary during the teaching and learning process is the question that the author tries to answer Regarding the context of the study, the participants come from a school located in the countryside; they have few real chances to practice speaking English; additionally, they often feel too shy to speak the target language As a result, their speaking capacity is low and poor For all these reason, the researcher tent to pay more attention to repetitive and recycling focused activities, because according to many researchers, repetition and recycling are superior strategies for learning to produce words Activities that involve brief reading, repetition, making sentences, listing words and so on are supposed to be relevant to provide background for practicing certain chunks or for recycling vocabulary, thus aid language processing and ultimately vocabulary retention

On the approach to repetitive and recycling-focused activities, researcher was impressively attracted by a variety of classroom activities which may help a lot if applied However, the majority of these activities are suitable to small size class Meanwhile both control and experimental groups are in the intact classes of around 40 originally, which is far beyond the ideal class size of 10-20 students (Adopted from America National Council of Teachers of English Guidelines) Therefore, when designing some extra activities served as tools to help students keep in touch with vocabulary they have learnt, the researcher took into

account all the conditions of the participants and based on the Taxonomy of Vocabulary Learning Strategies which is adopted from Schmitt 1997:207

4.1.1 The purpose of the test

The pre-test was given to the two groups in the same week with the primary purpose of measuring students‟ vocabulary size and their level of vocabulary retention Also basing on the result of the pre-test, the researcher can make comparison to post-test result to see how much students make progress in retaining vocabulary

The post-test was implemented to assess how effective the tailored activities utilized were Through the test, the teacher wished to evaluate how well students had learnt the words presented in the units they had recently learnt in the textbook

4.1.2 What to test

The pre-test served as a means to measure students‟ vocabulary size and their level of vocabulary retention The target words in the pre-test were drawn from the word list of the course book English 10 ( from unit 9 to unit 16 inclusively) whereas ones in the progress test came from the glossary of three units of the course book and a number of words added by the teacher on assumption of they are unfamiliar to the students

4.1.3 Test

In the study, the test comprised five different types of exercises in the form of an objective test Theoretically, objective tests require careful preparation but a relatively short time to mark Here in this paper, the test frame included multiple choice, gap-filling, matching and word – formation Dealing with phonetics and phonology, grouping was employed as a way to check if the position of stressed – syllable obviously belongs to a certain category

4.2 Questionnaires

4.2.1 Questionnaires for students

4.2.1.1 The pre-treatment questionnaire

The data drawn from the questionnaire were supposed to enable teachers to find out more about the preferred strategies used by their students and help teachers design more attractive vocabulary activities The 20 random subjects in the two groups were sampled out of the 56, A questionnaire listed 15 memory strategies was used in the survey

The teacher explained the purpose of the survey discussed with the respondents vocabulary learning strategies to made sure that students understood what to do Vietnamese translation was also supplied in order to enhance accuracy of the answers

4.2.1.2 The post-treatment questionnaire

The post- treatment questionnaire was administered to get students‟ feedback about the treatment It was a brief questionnaire with 5 questions

4.2.2 Questionnaires for teachers

The third instrument used in the study was the teachers' questionnaire completed by five English language teachers involved in teaching grade 11 at Long Hai-Phuoc Tinh high school The aim of the questionnaire was to find out teachers' attitude towards enhancing vocabulary retention and approaches they use The questionnaire contains 10 questions where 3 questions

require only yes and no responses The teachers were willing to support the project because they knew the importance of teaching vocabulary and the significance of studying the issue

5 Procedure of data collection

The practice of study involves the systematic collection of information about the subjects, activities, and outcomes of the experiment measuring the impact of repetition and recycling on students‟ vocabulary retention The dependent variables are repetitive and recycling-focused activities The independent variable is students‟ vocabulary retention The populations of study, as mentioned above, were 84 students of grade 11 at Long Hai – Phuoc Tinh high school This is a experimentally quantitative research involving a trial in which the subjects (n=56) are measured before and after treatment with T-test

5.1 Schedules

The study was carried out within 6 weeks of the first semester in 2 classes Each class work with English of 3 forty-five minute periods a week So, the schedules were designed upon 18 periods The class 11A3 of 41 students was the experimental class and the class of 11A5 of 43 students were treated as control group The detailed schedule of supplemental activities for both class was in the appendix 2

5.2 Treatment

The experiment was conducted during the students' regular class times, and required eighteen consecutive 45-minute sessions The participants were all the students included in the normal class lists But the scores of 28 students in each class were randomly picked up and regarded as analytical data

In the first stage, the participants were asked to take a vocabulary pretest Then a brief questionnaire is delivered This order was implemented in order to divert students' attention from the vocabulary item before the treatment was begun The questionnaire asked for students' own strategies that they normally prefer to employ to memorize vocabulary

In the class hours, both control and experimental group received the usual instruction and exercises based on the course book Words and structures were presented to them in a same traditional manner A brief oral introduction was given to the activities Regularly at the beginning of each class, the experimental group joined a variety of activities designed by the

teacher focusing on the production and recycling of the words that they have learnt before Students were also informed that they would answer comprehension questions and complete a short survey concerning their perceptions and attitudes towards the instructional activities they have enjoyed They were not told that they would take a posttest involving vocabulary Six weeks later, students were unexpectedly given a post-test The content of the test was of the vocabulary items included in three units and some additional words in the course book.(see appendix 3) The result of the test, then, was drawn out to be compared with the prior test A follow-up questionnaire was then administered to investigate students perceptions and attitudes toward vocabulary learning A detailed description of the material and tasks used for the experimental programme is presented in the appendix 2

5.3 Data collecting and processing procedures

The following steps were carried out to collect the results from the pretest and the posttest Step 1: Doing and marking the pre-test All test - takers sat at the tests on the same day under the serious control of the teacher (who is also the researcher) The pre-test took place on

16th August, 2011 and the marking process was seriously carried out right after the tests Step 2: Conducting a brief minor questionnaire to explore students‟ preferred strategies to memorize vocabulary

Step 3: Doing and marking the post-test The post-test took place on 24th September, 2011 and the marking process was seriously carried out right after the tests

Step 4: Administering another questionnaire to investigate subjects‟ attitude towards techniques applied

Step 5: Synthesizing the results of the pretest and posttest for later analysis and comparisons

Step 6: Using the SPSS software version 16.0 as a tool to analyze the results of the tests

In short, this chapter reports the methodology employed to conduct the study in terms of data collection methods, participants, data collection procedures and data analysis Firstly, a detailed description of settings of the study and participants was given Then, data collection instruments including questionnaires and T-test were presented in detail The data collection procedures were also described in terms of schedules and treatment presented in appendix 2

Finally, the processing procedure was realized in various steps Following this chapter, a coding scheme employed for data analysis was given and illustrated with examples and

statistical procedures were explained

CHAPTER 3 - DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

This chapter explains the results of the treatment as well as the responses of the survey (questionnaires) and how they say in the interpretation The results obtained from each of the research instruments (T-test and questionnaires) will be presented in turn in this chapter The links between the analysis and conclusion will be discussed in details in Chapter 4

3.1 Results of the T – Test

After having students do the pre-test and post-test, the researcher has devoted time to seriously mark the tests The scores were given on the 10- mark-scale From each class list, only 28 students were withdrawn to serve as subjects for some reasons mentioned above (See appendices 4 and 5) The appendices 4 and 5 also show the lists of class 11A3 (as the experimental group) and class 11A5 (as the control group)

3.2 The result of pre-test scores of the two groups

As having mentioned above, the purpose of the pre-test was to make a point that the two classes were at the same level of English proficiency before the experiment was carried out According to the test result, students were grouped into three levels: very weak, weak and average To examine this assumption, the researcher would make a brief comparison of the means of both groups

N Minimum Maximum Mean

Std

Deviation Variance Statistic Statistic Statistic Statistic SE Statistic Statistic

Table 2 – Comparison of pre – test scores

As we can see from the table 2, the participants of both groups almost have the equal level

of vocabulary competence The slight difference of mean of 0.089 was not statistically significant Thus, these two groups are assumed to be equivalent on the pretest or other variables that may affect their posttest scores on the basis of random selection A closer look

at the score frequencies, however, unveils some insights on the two groups‟ performance

Table 3 Frequency of Pre test of Experimental Group and Control Group

Frequency

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

Cumulative Percent

Chart 1 The comparison of pre – test scores of experimental and control groups

As can be seen from table 3, the marks were ranged from 1 to 6.5, in which mark 3, 4, 4.5 were the most common Students in control group seemed to be of more uniform level whereas students from experimental one had more excellent individuals The mean of 3.9 revealed that experimental group was a little bit better than control group whose mean was 3.8

at the starting point The means also showed that in general the students were only at average level And both two groups have no good students They were mainly at under the conventionally average score of 5 (75.1% students in control group and 76,8% students in experimental group) The highest frequencies of experimental group went to mark 3 and the ones of control group went to mark 3.5 In general, the English proficiency and vocabulary size of students in both groups was at low level but rather equal Have a look at the two charts for a better review of what has been stated. The correlation coefficient (rxy) value of 743 means we can predict one test score from the second and that the error of prediction is relatively small Therefore, we would conclude that this test is reliable

3.3 The result of post-test scores of the two groups

The posttest was delivered in week 6 of the study with repetitive and recycling – focused activities applied to the experimental group The primary concern of the study would be on

analyzing the post – test results to see if the findings from data analysis would help to answer the research questions raised at the beginning of the study or not Therefore, the post test scores of 56 test takers were collected and analyzed by using methods of mathematical statistics in the following procedures :

Step 1: Stating the hypotheses: Ho: md = 0

H1: md 0 ( The alternative is two-tailed and alpha = 05)

Step 2: Check assumptions: The assumptions underlying the repeated samples t-test are

similar to the one-sample t-test but refer to the set of difference scores

Step 3: Calculate test statistic: The calculation of statistical parameters is done by using the

software SPSS 16.0

Step 4: Evaluate the result: Basing on the tables, charts and observation during 6 weeks of

treatment, the researcher tried to figure out the evidence that supports the validity or

truthfulness of the information in the study methodology

Step 5: Interpret the result : The researcher looked at the descriptive boxes and read out

what could be referred from the figures Comparison on parameters was also made

The results of the post - test were presented in the table below

Post-test of Experimental

Table 4 – The results of the post-test

As can be seen in table 4, there was a shift in the mark range of the two groups, in which the lowest mark was not 1 anymore but 2 (in the control group) and 4.5 (in the experimental group), and the highest one climbed to 9 (in the experimental group) This positive sign showed a certain improvement of the two groups in the way they make vocabulary their own

This argument was proved more strongly by the mean which was one two and three points

higher than the one of the pre-test However, the full mark (mark 10) was still untouched

From the table, it can be seen that the experimental group was inferior to the control group in

the below average marks, and its above average marks were higher At a glance of these

figures, it could be assumed that the experimental group made greater improvements in

retaining vocabulary than the control group

Figure 1 The quality of control group by mean Figure2 The quality of experimental group by mean

The comparison of the means reconfirmed that the experimental group left the control

group in the progress of retaining vocabulary Comparing with the mean of the pretest, we can

see that while the control group made a little bit progress (from 3.8 to 5.2) the experimental

one took big pace with a rise from 3.9 to 6.5 This big difference in the mean scores between

pre-test and post-test showed very clearly that after six weeks of enhancing repetition and

recycling words in teaching and learning vocabulary, the students‟ vocabulary capacity has

been improved significantly

Results Pre-test of C Gr Post-test of C.Gr Pre-test of E Gr Post-test of E.Gr

Std Deviation 1.3 1.5 1.2 1.1

Table 5 The comparison of standard deviation

However, the change in SD of the two classes is different The SD of 1.3 in pre-test and 1.5 in post test of the control group (students‟ test scores varied a lot) showed that absorbing vocabulary in the traditional approach depended on many other factors beyond teaching-related ones whereas steadily low standard deviation in the pre-test and post test scores of experimental group indicates that the impact of repetition and recycling on students‟ vocabulary was positive despite subjective factors The SD of 1.1 in the experimental group revealed that the scores of this group went up when the scores within the group were close together, which could be evaluated as a positive signal

Furthermore, the comparison between the pre-test and post-test scores of the experimental group showed that the groups of low scores in the pre-test (ranged from 1.5 to 4) made more progress than the group of high scores in the pre-test (ranged from 4.5 to 6.5) in term of scores

in the post-test The low-scored group possessed the average additional score of 3.02 while the high-scored only achieved 2.00 as the average additional score This could lead to the conclusion that the repetition and recycling work efficiently for weak students rather than strong students

Paired Samples Correlations

Pair 1 Pre-test of Control Group & Post-test

Pair 2 Pre test of Experimental Group &

Table 6 Paired Samples Correlations

Here the correlation between each of the pairs of variables is given Because this is a repeated measures analysis, the same people are measured twice The correlations between the

pre-test and post-test scores in the two groups were rather strong (r = 74 and 59 respectively)

This implies that the implementation of method strategy ( using regular vocabulary – focused

activities) might have succeeded in enhancing intrinsic motivation of some participants and failed to do so to other participants

Mean Std

Deviati

on

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference

(2-tailed) Lower Upper

Pair 1 Pre-test - Post-test

Pair 2 Pre test - Post test of

Experimental Group -2.6 1.1 -3.1 -2.2 -1.3 27 .000

Table 7 The results from running Wilcoxon’s test

The results from running Wilcoxon‟s test show that there is a statistically significant improvement in experimental group scores between pre-treatment and post-treatment

because the p-value (asymp Sig in the table above) is p = 0.000 <0.05 (A p-value less than

0.05 is said to be statistically significant)

p = 0.000 also shows us that there is a statistically significant finding in the experimental

group between pre –treatment and post – treatment , but no statistically significant difference

between pre-test scores of control group and experimental group (p = 0.7674, which is > 0.05)

In this case we have a logically consistent set of conclusions that the experimental group and control group have the same starting point

3.4 Summary of the test scores of the two groups in the pretest and posttest

The Descriptive Statistics:

Std Deviation