An evaluation of the appropriateness of the course book family and friends 4 for primary school learners in sunshine english school

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OFPOST-GRADUATE STUDIES ****** NGUYỄN THỊ BÍCH HẠNH USING GUIDED EXTENSIVE READING TO IMPR

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF

POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

******

NGUYỄN THỊ BÍCH HẠNH

USING GUIDED EXTENSIVE READING

TO IMPROVE INCIDENTAL VOCABULARY LEARNING FOR FIRST YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS

AT HUNG YEN TEACHERS’ TRAINING COLLEGE

SỦ DỤNG ĐỌC RỘNG CÓ HƯỚNG DẪN NHẰM CẢI THIỆN VIỆC HỌC TỪ VỰNG NGẪU NHIÊN

CHO SINH VIÊN CHUYÊN ANH NĂM THỨ NHẤT

TẠI TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẲNG SƯ PHẠM HƯNG YÊN

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF

POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

******

NGUYỄN THỊ BÍCH HẠNH

USING GUIDED EXTENSIVE READING

TO IMPROVE INCIDENTAL VOCABULARY LEARNING FOR FIRST YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS

AT HUNG YEN TEACHERS’ TRAINING COLLEGE

SỦ DỤNG ĐỌC RỘNG CÓ HƯỚNG DẪN NHẰM CẢI THIỆN VIỆC HỌC TỪ VỰNG NGẪU NHIÊN

CHO SINH VIÊN CHUYÊN ANH NĂM THỨ NHẤT

TẠI TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẲNG SƯ PHẠM HƯNG YÊN

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Dr Hoàng Thị Xuân Hoa

Hanoi – 2015

I hereby certify that this thesis is entirely my own work I have provided fullydocumented references to the others‟ work The material in this thesis has notbeen submitted for assessment in any other formal course I also accept all therequirements of ULIS relating to the retention and use of M.A GraduationThesis deposited in the library

Hanoi, October 2015

Nguyen Thi Bich Hanh

I owe my deepest gratitude to my supportive supervisor, Dr Hoang ThiXuan Hoa, for her whole-hearted assistance, encouragement as well as theprofound guidance she gave me while I was doing my research

I would like to take this opportunity- to express my thanks to all myteachers and lecturers in Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, University ofLanguages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi fortheir valuable instruction and assistance throughout the realization of thisthesis

I am heartily thankful to the administrators, my colleagues, and firstyear English major students at Hung Yen Teachers‟ Training College for theirwillingness to participate in the research Without their help, this programcould not be fulfilled

Last but not least, I am indebted to my beloved family and friends whohave always inspired me to complete this study

The study aimed to examine whether EFL extensive reading could lead toincrease incidental vocabulary of elementary-level EFL learners and evaluatethe learners‟ opinions about the ER program The participants were 25freshmen majored in English at Hung Yen Teachers‟ Training College Theywere asked to read 6 graded readers within a twelve-week EFL extensivereading program The vocabulary pretest and posttests were administered tomeasure learners‟ incidental vocabulary learning gains in the 118 selectedtarget words achieved through the program Results revealed that thesignificant vocabulary gains were achieved by the participants after the EFLextensive reading program, suggesting that the EFL extensive readingtreatment had produced a beneficial effect on the incidental word learninggains of the participants with elementary EFL competence

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi

LIST OF FIGURES vii

LIST OF TABLES vii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 3

3 Scope of the study 3

4 Method of the study 3

5 Design of the study 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Reading 5

1.1.1 The roles of reading 5

1.1.2 Extensive Reading 6

1.1.3 Effective Extensive Reading 7

1.1.4 Benefits of extensive reading 8

1.1.5 Graded readers 9

1.2 Vocabulary 10

1.2.1 Vocabulary in second language learning 10

1.2.2 Incidental vocabulary learning 11

1.2.3 Reading and incidental vocabulary learning 12

1.2.4 Difficulties in incidental vocabulary learning 14

1.3 Previous research 16

1.3.1 Researches on incidental vocabulary acquisition 16

1.3.2 Researches on attitudes towards ER 21

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 24

2.1 Participants 24

2.2 Action research 24

2.2.1 Action research procedures 25

2.2.2 Selection of reading materials 30

2.3 Instruments 31

2.3.1 Vocabulary tests 31

2.3.2 Questionnaire 31

2.4 Data presentation and data analysis 32

2.4.1 The pretest and posttest 32

2.4.2 T- test 33

2.5 Chapter summary 34

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 35

3.1 The results of the tests (Research question 1) 35

3.1.1 The pretest and the posttest 1 35

Table 3 presents the paired sample T-test of pretest and posttest 1 36

Table 3 36

3.1.2 The posttest 1 and the posttest 2 37

3.2 The results of questionnaire (Research question 2) 38

3.2.1 Results of the first part of the questionnaire 39

3.2.2 Result of the second part of the questionnaire 41

3.3 Discussion 43

3.4 Chapter summary 43

PART C: CONCLUSION 44

1 Summary of the findings 44

2 Limitations of the study and recommendations for further studies 45

REFERENCES I

APPENDICES V

APPENDIX 1: VOCABULARY TEST V APPENDIX 2: THE VOCABULARY PRETEST RESULTS IX APPENDIX 3: THE VOCABULARY IMMEDIATE POSTTEST RESULTS .X APPENDIX 4: THE VOCABULARY DELAYED POSTTEST RESULTS XI APPENDIX 5: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE XII APPENDIX 6: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE (VIETNAMESE VERSION) XIV

CÂU HỎI ĐIỀU TRA XIV

APPENDIX 7: BOOK REPORT WORKSHEET XVI

APPENDIX 8: A SAMPLE OF LESSON PLAN XVII

GRP Graded Readers Program

SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences

ULIS University of Language and International Studies

VNU Vietnam National University, Hanoi

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Action research model of Bride and Schostak (1991 ) ……… …… 25

LIST OF TABLES Table 1: The Graded Readers Program ……….……… 27

Table 2: The pretest and immediate posttest paired samples statistics ……… 33

Table 3: The sample T-test of pretest and immediate posttest ……….……… 36 Table 4: The immediate posttest and delayed posttest paired samples statistics …….… 37

Table 5: The sample T-test of immediate posttest and delayed posttest ……… 38

Table 6: Students' opinions about the graded readers program ……….…… 39

Table 7: Students' suggestion for future program ……….……… 41

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Vocabulary plays the most significant role in foreign language learningbecause it is an element linking the four language skills in English as aForeign Language (EFL) In order to communicate well in a foreign language,students should acquire a great number of words and should know how to useand where to use them

Most EFL learners learn vocabulary passively which can be resulted fromseveral factors although students realize the vital importance of vocabularywhen learning language First, they consider the teacher's techniques such asexplanation for meaning or definition In this case, language learners havenothing to do in a vocabulary learning section but to listen to their teacher.Secondly, students only focus on knowing the primary meaning of newwords Thirdly, students usually only acquire new vocabulary throughcontextualized new words in their textbooks or when given by teachers duringclassroom lessons

It is clear that comprehension is one of the most fundamental reasons forreading, and vocabulary, in turn, plays significant part in comprehension.Vocabulary clearly makes a critical contribution to understanding what hasbeen read One important way to develop vocabulary knowledge is throughextensive reading By reading extensively, students will be exposed to varietyscope of vocabulary which is necessary in reading comprehension Extensivereading (ER) is an important aspect of any English as a foreign/secondlanguage reading program Bell (2001) stated that ER is a type of readinginstruction program that has been used in EFL settings, as an effective

strategy of developing reading fluency, comprehension, and vocabularydevelopment.

The benefits of ER have been widely documented in studies which range inscope from large-scale implementation across whole school districts to a casestudy of single participant The effectiveness of extensive reading has beengenerally summarized to provide comprehensible input, to develop readingspeed and comprehension which lead to learners' motivation and confidenceand specifically to reinforce, confirm and deepen knowledge of vocabulary(Bell, 2001; Pigada & Schmitt, 2006; Rashidi & Piran, 2011; Richards &Schmitt, 2002; Soltani, 2011) Since ER offers a large number of gradedinteresting materials of various topics in an anxiety-free learning environmentfor general language improvement, it increases learners' motivation and morepositive attitude towards the target language It is believed that since thelearner is reading for pleasure, he will be eager to see what happens next andwill therefore try to read more rapidly Moreover, ER can help students toautomatically recognize the words that frequently appear in the reading texts

in a very pleasurable manner While reading extensively, learners are engaged

in reading materials as naturally and comfortably as possible withoutcompulsory or strict follow-up assessments or precise confirmation ofmeaning by teachers, so that learners experience fun and reward rather thanstress during the ER process (Allan, 2009; Hill, 2001) which can help developstudents‟ learning independence, confidence and autonomy (Bell, 2001;Pigada & Schmitt, 2006; Cha, 2009)

It is the fact that until recently, Vietnamese learners have not paid enoughattention to vocabulary learning (Tran, 2006) This is true with the context of

my students at Hung Yen Teachers‟ Training College (HYTTC) Despite the

schools for four years, their vocabulary, grammar and practical skills werelimited When being informally interviewed, these students showed that theyhad never read outside the class However, these students expressed theirwillingness to join in the study since they were really in need of improvingtheir vocabulary and reducing vocabulary learning stress All these havemotivated me to carry the study “using guided ER to improve incidentalvocabulary learning for first year English major students”.

This action research mainly aims to improve first year English-majoredstudents‟ incidental vocabulary learning in the aspect of word meaning atHung Yen Teachers‟ Training College using guided extensive reading

To reach the aims, the researcher supposes two research questions as follows:

1 To what extent can the use of guided extensive reading improve thestudents‟ incidental vocabulary learning?

2 What are the students‟ opinions about the extensive reading program?

3 Scope of the study

The study was conducted on a class of first year English major students atHYTTC only The study focused on incidental vocabulary learning through aguided graded readers program (GRP) in the aspect of meaning Therefore,the findings of the research could just reflect the effects of the extensivereading program on the subjects in the context

4 Method of the study

To find out the answers to the above research questions, an action research(AR) design was adopted The research followed the model of an AR program

as McBride and Schostak (1991) The steps were carried out as follows: (1)

identifying the problem, (2) collecting and analyzing the data, (3) planningand implementing the action, (4) collecting data to monitor change and (5)analyzing and evaluating.

5 Design of the study

The study is composed of three following parts:

Part A - Introduction

This part includes rationale, aims, scope and design of the study to introduceand to appeal the readers

Part B

Chapter 1- Literature Review– mentions some theoretical

background about extensive reading, factors affecting the effectiveness of ERand vocabulary leaning This chapter aims to provide the readers backgroundknowledge to have more understanding about the paper

Chapter 2 – Methodology– discusses the methods or approaches

employed by the authors to collect the data for the study

Chapter 3 - Results and Discussions– analyses the data collected in

the research process and introduces recommendations to make a good ERprogram

Part C - Conclusion

In this part, the author offers a summary of the findings, conclusion,recommendations, limitations, and future directions for further study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Reading

1.1.1 The roles of reading

It is a fact that reading helps in mental development and is known to stimulatethe muscles of the eyes Reading is an activity that involves greater levels ofconcentration and adds to the conversational skills of readers It is observedthat children and teenager who have habits of reading have comparativelyhigher intelligence quotients Therefore, reading skills are essential for notonly students‟ academic success but also their social and businessadvancement Gradman and Hanania (1991) investigated between English as

a Second Language learners‟ language achievement and forty-fourbackground variables which include formal learning experiences, exposure tothe language in class and outside, and opinions about English The resultsindicated that the strongest effect to be that of extracurricular reading

Walter (2004) stated that reading in a second language call for fast, automaticword decoding and access to the mental lexicon This means working onbuilding speed and fluency and on learning to recognize at least 10,000 words

in the new language By reading, students got familiar with many topics,acquired a lot of new words and were easy to deal with a number of readingtext without difficulty Students would gradually be more confident about thetopics in the text and could read and write well

Krashen (2005) mentioned to the power of reading in his work He referred tostudies that consistently report a positive relationship between the amounts offree reading done and various aspects of second and foreign languagecompetence as follows Lee, Krashen, and Gribbons (1996) regarding the

acquisition of relative clauses; Stokes, Krashen, and Kartcher (1998)regarding the acquisition of the present subjunctives in Spanish; S Y Lee(2001) regarding factors which make writing difficult To sum up, manyresearchers have agreed upon the vital role of reading in language learning.

1.1.2 Extensive Reading

Many studies have been made on working out a definition of ER Amongthem is the one done by Lewis and Hill (1992) in which extensive readingmeans that students have general understanding of the text without necessaryunderstanding every word This definition fails to help learner imagine thewhole picture of ER but an aspect of purpose of ER However, Bamford andDay (1997) defined ER as an approach to foreign language teaching ingeneral, and to the teaching of foreign language reading in particular Tofollow Bamford and Day‟s (1997) ideas, Bruton (2002) suggested that ER canapply to a number of “amounts” The amount of new reading text which isread, the amounts of text consumed and the amount of time spent reading.Furthermore, the definition that seems to be more satisfying than thosementioned before is concluded by Robb and Susser (1989) They defined ER

as a language teaching and learning procedure because it was reading (1) oflarge quantities of material or long text, (2) for global or generalunderstanding, (3) with the intention of obtaining pleasure from the text, (4)with students choosing what they want to read, (5) the books are not discussed

in class

After considering various definitions and the context of the study, ourworking definition is that extensive reading is reading authentic texts in theforeign language without help at students' own level of proficiency for general

or global understanding with primary intention of obtaining pleasure from the

materials and done out of class without the added pressure of acomprehension test to follow.

1.1.3 Effective Extensive Reading

To ensure students get the maximum benefit, extensive reading has to beconsistent and sustained (Schmitt, 2000) Lee and Hsu (2009) howeverwarned that many so called ER curriculums designed by Taiwanese educatorslast a relatively short time, fail to provide a large volume of books, andusually require some sort of oral/written reports or performance tests, whichcould reduce students‟ pleasure of reading Therefore, in planning anauthentic ER program, they suggested teachers take into consideration theduration of time, amount of reading materials accessible for students andfinance

Another key to successful ER is to supply materials that are comprehensible,relevant, interesting and varied (Nuttall, 1996; Waring & Nation, 2004; Shen,2008; cited in Lee & Hsu, 2009) According to Shen (2008; cited in Lee &Hsu, 2009), to accomplish those characters, teachers should have studentsinvolved in the book selection process

• Readability: The reading materials should be short and not far beyondstudents‟ current linguistic levels (Coady, 1997; Huang & Liou, 2007) Nuttall(1996) stated that improvement comes from reading a lot of easy material

• Appropriateness and Authenticity: Because one‟s prior backgroundknowledge has an essential impact on reading comprehension, (Blachowicz &Fisher, 2006; Paynter et al., 2006) the selected materials should be culturallyfamiliar and authentic (Coady, 1997)

7

• Attraction: The materials need to be appealing to the students (Elley,1989) When supplied with materials of high interest, students not only read more(Glazer & Giorgis, 2005), they also apply more reading strategies (Coady, 1979).

• Variety: The reading materials should deal with a wide range ofsubject matter While narrow reading focuses on in-depth studying of one topic,extensive reading instead stresses exposing students to different subjects andgenres in order to construct/expand their word schemata

1.1.4 Benefits of extensive reading

The specific benefits of extensive reading are diversified and wide-ranging Alarge numbers of researched s have provided evidence through experiencesfor these effects of extensive reading in language learning Many teacherswho have been deeply involved in this instructional approach for a very longtime wrote about these benefits From Day & Bamford (1998), Hill (2001),Nation (2005), Robb (1998), and Waring (1997) the benefits of extensivereading were reported as follows (Porcaro, 2009)

• Extensive reading builds automaticity of word recognition

• Automatic recognition of a word allows lexical access – the automaticcalling up from memory of a word‟s meanings and its phonological

representation

• Extensive reading builds vocabulary knowledge

• Comprehension and fluent reading depend on automatic word recognition and vocabulary knowledge, and thus are advanced through extensive reading

• Fluent reading allows the reader to move from word-by-word decoding tothe processing of ideas, which is essential to higher level reading and thinkingskills.

• Extensive reading builds awareness of grammatical structures and the ability

to quickly and accurately process sentence structures

• Extensive reading enhances learners‟ background knowledge

• Extensive reading promotes learners‟ positive attitude toward reading It fosters their confidence and motivation to read

•Extensive reading increases exposure to English The important role ofcomprehensible input in foreign language learning has been stronglydemonstrated by Krashen (1993)

• Extensive reading reinforces a grasp of language that is taught in class Itprovides students with an excellent opportunity to consolidate what they havelearned, which is an essential aspect of foreign language learning

• Research studies also show that extensive reading improves learners‟writing skills, listening and speaking skills, and examination results

are not identical with each other in number of levels, the amount ofvocabulary at each level, or the vocabulary lists on which they are based, theyshare a lot of the vocabulary covered Therefore, it is not important to stick toonly one series of GRs To many language teachers and learners, GRs areattractive option for several reasons GRs not only offer controlled,systematic, and comprehensive development of vocabulary and grammar,they also fulfill the different interests and levels of learners.

After investigating the available materials at the bookstores and the level of

my students, the researcher decided to choose GRs of the Oxford BookwormLibraries Stories in the series seem to be interesting and suitable for thestudents in this study Moreover, there are pictures which illustrate the content

of the stories Some of the stories are very famous and made into films orplays The researcher also took books a level 1 for my student, who havenever had habit of extensive reading before

1.2 Vocabulary

1.2.1 Vocabulary in second language learning

In the very first part of his book “Vocabulary”, Michael Mc Carthy (1990,p.2, cited in Quach, 2007) stated: “It is the experience of most languageteachers that the single, biggest component of any language course isvocabulary No matter how well the student learns grammar, no matter howsuccessfully the sounds of L2 are mastered, without words to express a widerange of meanings, communication in an L2 just cannot happen in anymeaningful way” It is impossible to deny the role of vocabulary incommunication in an L2 A leaner‟s vocabulary size plays a very significantpart in his or her ability to communicate due to the fact that “words are the

tools we use to think, to express ideas and feelings and to learn about theworld.” (Johnson and Johnson, 2004, p.1, cited in Quach, 2007)

In the book named “Understanding Vocabulary” (2000, p.16, cited in Quach,2007), Alexander wrote: “Comprehension improves when you know what thewords mean” and “words are currency of communication A robustvocabulary improves all areas of communication – listening, speaking,reading and writing”

All the above quotations highly appreciate the important role of vocabulary inlanguage learning, especially in second language learning Thus, teachingvocabulary should be a part of the syllabus and vocabulary should be paidmore attention through well- planned lesson of language teachers‟ and seriouslearning behavior of learners

1.2.2 Incidental vocabulary learning

Most of the researches in the special matter of incidental vocabulary learning(Wesche & Paribakht, 1999) have considered incidental learning as somethingthat is learned without specific focus of attention in a classroom context InWesche and Paribakht‟s definition (1999), incidental vocabulary learningrefers to the process in which learners focus on comprehending meaning ofreading and listening contexts rather than on the intentional vocabularylearning and acquire vocabulary as a “by-product” without the learner‟sconscious decision, or intention to learn the words While, Nation (2001) hasindicated that in incidental vocabulary learning the learners‟ attention isfocused on some other feature, usually the message that is conveyed by aspeaker or a writer Considerable vocabulary learning can occur even thoughthe learners‟ attention is not directed toward vocabulary learning when theamount of unknown vocabulary is low in such messages

Another explanation of the incidental learning was set by Haynes (1998, cited

by Wesche & Paribakht, 1999) The author considered attention rather thanintention as the key to clarifying the construct, as well as a separation ofteaching considerations from those of learning She proposed two continua,one of them from “indirect teaching” to “direct teaching” and the other from

“incidental learning” (or automated learning, involving the learner‟speripheral attention while focal attention is elsewhere) to “attended learning”(involving focal attention)

Although many researchers have defined incidental vocabulary acquisitionfrom different aspects, there is not an all-sided and authoritative definition ofincidental vocabulary acquisition In this paper, the researcher adopted thedefinition made by Nation and Wang (1999) that incidental learning takesplace when the focus is on the content of the story, not on vocabularylearning Learners‟ attention is on the meaning of the text and on developingreading fluency

1.2.3 Reading and incidental vocabulary learning

A case study implemented by Grabe and Stoller (1997) also found significantgains in vocabulary through incidental vocabulary learning through extensivereading

They examined the vocabulary development of an American man learningPortuguese

through extensive reading The subject received three weeks of instruction

months later.They claimed that the study “strongly suggests that reading and vocabularywill

develop as a result of extensive reading practice”

In the process of incidental vocabulary learning, word knowledge is thought

to be cumulated and developed gradually through multiple exposures invarious reading contexts Extensive reading, as a form of comprehensibleinput, has the effect of providing learners with rich contexts ideal forvocabulary learning During the reciprocal process of extensive reading, theacquisition of words is the result of successes in inferring word meaningsfrom a meaningful context and through more reading experiences thedeveloped and matured vocabulary inference ability could in turn contributes

to reading level

According to Krashen (1993), extensive reading is considered beneficial foroverall language competence and fundamental to vocabulary development aswell in the L2 learning Researchers such as Krashen believe that similar toL1 word learning, reading is the major means for acquiring vocabulary andhave thus strongly encouraged the implementation of extensive readingprograms in an L2 learning environment (Krashen, 1989) The propositionthat most vocabulary is learned incidentally has appealed to the defaultargument that learning from context is the only way to account for mostvocabulary acquisition (Wesche & Paribakht, 1999)

Many studies results support the assumption of the important relationshipbetween incidental vocabulary learning and extensive reading Milton andMeara (1995, cited by Nagy, 1997) estimated that advanced students couldlearn words at an annual rate close to 2,500 in a second language setting A

substantial proportion of this growth is possibly from incidental learning.Elley‟s (1991) survey of “book flood” studies (the essential element of suchstudies is increasing the availability of books to the students) showed that L2learners tended to benefit more from an increase in volume of reading than doL1 learners because they encountered unfamiliar words at a greater rate thanL1 learners The study suggested that language learning was for the most partincidental, and it relied on essence motivation, primarily through the use ofinteresting, well-illustrated books.

Horst, Cobb and Meara (1998) proposed a carefully controlled book-lengthreading treatment (34 low-intermediate learners in Oman read 21,232 words

of the simplified Mayor of Casterbridge text in a ten-day period) whenreplicating the well-known study by Saragi, Nation and Meiter in 1978 Theresult showed that there was an average Furthermore, Xu Hong selectedabout one in every five new words and subjects with larger L2 vocabularysizes had greater incidental word learning gains The study also found that L2learners recognized the meaning of new words and built associations betweenthem as a result of comprehension-focused extensive reading However, theresults of Day et al (1991) demonstrated that exposure to previouslyunknown or difficult words through sustained silent reading for entertainment

by Japanese EFL students had a positive effect on their ability to recognizethese words in a vocabulary test

1.2.4 Difficulties in incidental vocabulary learning

In spite of the fact that extensive reading has an influence on incidentalvocabulary learning, other researchers have found that reading for L2vocabulary development may lead to some problems First, there were wronginferences that vocabulary was learned cursorily which prevents learners from

using words actively Some lexical items such as words with a deceptivemorphological structure, idioms, words (Laufer, 1997) often misguide thelearners and make them misunderstand the words It short-circuits readers‟contextual guessing process.

Second, to have an effective guessing, the context is well understood andalmost all of the surrounding words in the text are known, which requiresgood textual clues and substantial prior vocabulary knowledge on the part ofthe learner Different from native speakers, L2 learners have some difficulties

in guessing word meanings correctly, for they always have more opportunities

to encounter new words within various contexts with their lack of sufficientword knowledge Moreover, correct guessing of word meanings depends onaccurate recognition of surrounding words and good use of reading strategies(Huckin & Coady, 1999) However, learners always feel frustrated incomprehension when facing overwhelming texts in extensive reading, fortheir word knowledge is insufficient and lack active use of different readingstrategies So the readers may decide to ignore the words, or cannot infer aword from context

Last, Huckin & Coady (1999) stated that the non-recurrence of new wordscannot guarantee the acquisition of the vocabulary This can be accounted for

by the fact that unlike native speakers, L2 learners have very fewopportunities to be exposed to the unknown words repeatedly, apart from thehigh-frequency words Accordingly, they cannot pick up the features of thewords incrementally to form the solid lexical knowledge in their mentallexicon

1.3 Previous research

Regarding the benefits of ER on improving learners‟ vocabulary learning, anumbers of studies that range in scope from case studies of single readers tolarge-scale applications through a school were widely documented Within thescope of the thesis, the researcher would like to review the previous studiesfocusing on the way that those emphasized the benefits of graded readers toincidental vocabulary acquisition and the attitudes of learners towards readingand ER

1.3.1 Researches on incidental vocabulary acquisition

A famous research known as the Clockwork Orange Study by Saragi, Nation

& Meister, 1978 reported the effectiveness of incidental vocabulary

Waring and Takaki (2003) examined the rate at which vocabulary was learned

from reading the 400 headword graded reader A Little Princess To ascertain

whether words of different frequency of occurrence rates were more likely to

be learned and retained or forgotten, 25 words within five bands of differingfrequency of occurrence (15 to 18 times to those appearing only once) wereselected The spelling of each word was changed to ensure that each test itemwas unknown to the 15 intermediate level (or above) female Japanese subjects

(e.g., beautiful into smarty, world into rumple) The full text of A Little Princess, with the substitute words, was printed for each subject and was put

into book form along with a test booklet The subjects were asked to "readthis story as usual and enjoy it." Three tests (word-form recognition,prompted meaning recognition and unprompted meaning recognition) wereadministered immediately after reading, after one week and after a threemonth delay The results show that words can be learned incidentally but thatmost of the words were not learned More frequent words were more likely to

be learned and were more resistant to decay The data suggest that, onaverage, the meaning of only one of the 25 items will be remembered afterthree months, and the meaning of none of the items that were met fewer thaneight times will be remembered three months later The data thus suggest that

very little new vocabulary is retained from reading one graded reader, and that

a massive amount of graded reading is needed to build new vocabulary It issuggested that the benefits of reading a graded reader should not only beassessed by researching vocabulary gains and retention, but by looking at how

graded readers help develop and enrich already known vocabulary.

In 2006, Pigada and Schmitt used 70 nouns and 63 verbs in their study ininvestigating incidental vocabulary acquisition with a participant, a learner ofFrench, by using four graded readers in French Since the texts were short, the

authors included only “the most common parts of speech found in naturaltext”, in the hope that further research would include other word classes Theyorganized the two word classes into six different frequency groups according

to the number of encounters and tested three types of word knowledge(meaning, spelling, and grammatical behavior) The measurement procedurewas a one-on-one interview that allowed a very good indication of whetherlearning occurred They found that substantial word learning occurred duringthe ER, although the improvement was not uniform across the three types ofword knowledge Spelling was enhanced in all noun frequency groups and inall but two verb groups For meaning, low-frequency nouns and verbs showedlimited learning, and verbs were more limited than nouns Grammaticalbehavior knowledge was improved in all frequency groups of nouns, whilethe percentage of grammatical mastery of verbs was much lower than that ofnouns Overall, the study indicates that more vocabulary acquisition ispossible from extensive reading than previous studies have suggested

Kweon and Kim (2008) conducted an experimental research to investigatehow and which unknown words can be incidentally learned and retained whileKorean learners of English read substantial amounts of authentic text over along period of time 12 Korean learners of English read authentic literary textsand were tested on their knowledge of vocabulary before reading (pretest),immediately after reading (Posttest 1), and 1 month after Posttest 1 (Posttest2) The results showed a significant word gain between the pretest andPosttest 1 and that most gained words were retained at Posttest 2 Of the 3different word classes that were used, nouns were a little easier to retain thanverbs and adjectives, the authors came to an important conclusion that wordscan be learned incidentally but that most of the words were not learned More

decay The data suggest that, on average, the meaning of only one of the 25items will be remembered after three months, and the meaning of none of theitems that were met fewer than eight times will be remembered three months

later The data thus suggest that very little new vocabulary is retained from

reading one graded reader, and that a massive amount of graded reading isneeded to build new vocabulary Finally, the authors suggested that thebenefits of reading a graded reader should not only be assessed by researchingvocabulary gains and retention, but by looking at how graded readers help

develop and enrich already known vocabulary.

Tiryaki and Tütüniş (2012) conducted a research on extensive reading andvocabulary development, and they focused on vocabulary learning ofreluctant elementary level students The study investigated whether extensivereading would make any noteworthy distinction in the vocabularydevelopment of these students To this respect, a small-scale classroomresearch was carried out at a private university in the fall term of 2010-2011academic year A hundred elementary level students were chosen and theywere divided into experimental and control groups With experimental groupthe materials for extensive reading were selected Those materials were fourgraded readers Control group was not exposed to any extensive readingduring the fall term whereas students of the experimental group were asked toread those graded readers until the end of the fall term However, both groupswere responsible from the syllabus which was designed by schooladministration and it involved studying three units of a main course book untilthe end of the fall term Then both groups took a pre-test at the beginning ofthe term to display that they were at elementary level and a post-test at the end

of the term to present whether any improvements were observed in theirvocabulary or not Finally the results were analyzed and compared to find out

whether any difference occurred between two groups in terms of vocabularydevelopment The results of the data analysis showed that extensive readingimproved the range of the words of the reluctant learners in the experimentalgroup who were asked to read graded readers However, when the resultsanalyzed and compared it was observed that the control group who were notobliged to read, distinguishably performed worse in the vocabulary test both

in the first part and in the second part

In another study by Eghtesadi and Momeni, situated in an EFL context,seventy five elementary learners of English were randomly selected with theauthors‟ aim at discovering the ways purposes behind reading activitiesinfluence vocabulary knowledge gain and retrieval The participants wereassigned to three groups of „free reading‟, „reading comprehension‟ and

„reading to summarize‟ The input text „A good night’s work’ was selected from a graded reader series Reading Comprehension 4 by Louis Fidge The

text was administered to all the three groups The data in both immediate anddelayed post-test revealed that both vocabulary learning and retention weregreatly influenced by the purposeful reading activity The Scheffe post-hoctest revealed that the mean scores of the „summarizing‟ and „readingcomprehension‟ groups were significantly different from the mean score ofthe „free reading‟ group But the results did not indicate any significantdifferences between the mean scores of the two groups of „summarizing‟ and

„reading comprehension‟ However the strength of association for theimmediate post-test and the delayed one showed that a large part of thevariance between the three groups could be explained by the reading purpose.The findings of the present study generally provided positive support of therole of readers‟ purpose on incidental gain of vocabulary knowledge

English as a foreign language context extremely suggested the explicitteaching of new lexicon on the part of teachers along with encouraging thelearners toward ER Finally, it should be noted that since the participants inthe study were female elementary language learners, the results may faceproblems of generalizability.

1.3.2 Researches on attitudes towards ER

The effects of ER on learner‟s motivation and attitude are impressive Studyafter study shows how attitudes changed toward reading in English and howthe students became eager readers Numerous studies have found favorableattitudes toward ER classes and GRs Students with high motivation naturallylike the experience of ER In regard to less-motivated students reportingpositive attitudes, their positive feelings are primarily due to the satisfactionthey felt at their unexpected accomplishment But many of these students stopreading books in English when the motivation provided by an instructor‟shomework assignment is absent But this stoppage should not mean that they

do not like reading GRs The students‟ reading success and the opportunity topractice English generates the positive attitudes and intentions mentionedabove This method also introduces students to a different way of developingtheir English proficiency

Murphy (2010) conducted a study among first and second-year non-Englishmajors at a national university in western Japan In the first class, students

were timed as they read a chapter of the graded reader The Good Earth,

(Heinemann Intermediate level) In the second to last class of the semester,they were timed again reading a different chapter of the same book Bothchapters were similar in setting and characters Students were also askedabout their reading habits In the last class of the semester, students were

interviewed in small groups in English or Japanese, and interviewed abouttheir attitudes and opinions toward the class The findings in this studyconfirm that ER should be one of the fundament of L2 curriculums.Furthermore, communicative activities can easily be incorporated into an ERcourse, with graded readers providing a treasure chest of content and ideas fordiscussion Students also enjoy feeling successful in the L2 The high levels

of positive attitude toward this type of approach seems to suggest that acommunicative approach with ER is an obvious path toward better studentperformance (versus intensive-only reading classes) and attitudes towardreading in the L2 and the language and culture in general

Pellicer-Sánchez and Schmitt (2010) conducted a research to explore thedegree to which relatively advanced L2 readers can acquire spelling, wordclass, and recognition and recall of meaning from reading the unmodified

authentic novel Things Fall Apart The participants were twenty Spanish in

the last year of their undergraduate degree from a university in Spain Readerswere simply asked to read the book for pleasure without paying specialattention to any aspect of the book for around one month Finally, a section onparticipants‟ attitudes was included so as to have the possibility of examiningthe relationship, if any, between readers‟ attitudes and vocabulary acquisition.Nine questions were prepared concerning participants‟ opinions about theirparticipation in this study The questions were asked orally, with theparticipants encouraged to answer freely The interviews revealed that allparticipants had read the complete book and that all had enjoyed taking part inthe study, although three said that participation had been a little burdensomebecause of the book topic or the limited amount of reading time available Inaddition, most participants found the level of the book appropriate for their

participants who found the level of the book a bit difficult for their level ofEnglish did not show noticeably lower scores Seventeen out of the twentyparticipants liked the book overall and found it interesting Only oneparticipant found the presence of foreign words in the book to be a problemfor general understanding, and only three participants felt that there weresometimes too many foreign words Finally, sixteen of the participants had thefeeling of having learnt something of the target words Four of these sixteenparticipants also had the impression of having learnt something of the foreignculture, and two believed they had learnt something more about English Theencouraging figures and results of this study make us think that participants‟positive attitudes and opinions had a helpful effect on vocabulary acquisition.

Yamashita (2013) studied the effects of ER on reading attitudes in a foreignlanguage with the participants of 61 second-year undergraduate students Heused a questionnaire to measure two aspects of reading, attitude-affect(feeling) and cognition (thinking)- based on a five-point scale During class,students were able to access approximately 500 GRs of different series andthey read both in and outside of class The results indicated that ER increasedstudents‟ feelings of comfort and reduced anxiety towards EFL reading, andhad a positive effect on the intellectual value that the students attached toreading However, it did not increase perceived despite the fact that thestudents knew that the amount of reading they did would be reflected in theirclass grade Yamashita (2013) concluded that the study had gone a stepfurther into the effective domain and expanded the understanding of theimpact of ER by documenting its positive effect on changes different aspects

of EFL attitudes

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Participants

The subjects of the study were 25 students (girls only) of English 2013 class(TA13) The participants‟ overall English proficiency was roughly at the level

of pre-intermediate judging from their results of the English test in the

university entrance examination and those of their Reading skill 1 final tests at

the end the first semester In addition, I was also their English teacher in

charge of Reading Skill 1 subject Another important factor is that the students

were willing to take part in the research Before this program, they had notinvolved in any English extensive reading activity They were selected in thesecond semester with the assumption that they could get used to the teachingand learning environment at college after graduating from high school

2.2 Action research

Wallace (1998) defined an action research is done by systematicallycollecting data on teachers‟ everyday practice and analyzing them to makesome decision regarding future practice According to him, AR can be helpfulbecause of the three following reasons: (1) It can have a specific andimmediate outcome which can be directly relate to practice in the teacher‟sown context, (2) the findings of such research might be primarily specific (itmeans that it is not claimed that they are necessarily of general applicationand therefore the method might be more free-ranging than those ofconventional research Nunan (1992) stated that AR is problem focus, mainlyconcerned with a single case in a specific situation and tries to find solutions

to the problem in focus An AR as defined by Kemmis and Mc Taggart (1998)

is a teacher initiated classroom research which seeks to increase the

teachers‟ understanding of classroom teaching and learning then brings aboutimprovement in classroom practice.

This action research model is a cycle and continuous process These stages arenot separate but embedded within action and reflection In addition, actionresearch can be carried out within the everyday context of the classroom

2.2.1 Action research procedures

An AR program should be flexible as different researchers may have variety

of processes in different certain situations An AR study can have a number ofsteps of phrases The researcher decided to use the model of an AR program

as McBride and Schostak (1991).The process consists of the following steps:

FIGURE 1: Action research model of Bride and Schostak (1991 )

In this study, an AR was conducted based on the above process The stages ofthis AR were described in details:

1 Identifying the problem

The researcher‟s experience, her discussion with learners and her observationhelped her find out that one of the students‟ problems is lack of vocabulary.Therefore, this feature was selected to be the focus in this study

2 Collecting and analyzing the data

To have more information, the researcher had to collect the data relating tostudents‟ vocabulary knowledge, their reading habits and their reading ability.First of all, the researcher found out that her students often complained abouthaving difficulties in reading in English Secondly, she investigated the course

book of Reading Skill 1 Thirdly, the researcher had small interviews with

students in order to know about their reading habits and opinions aboutreading outside the class All came to a hypothesis that her students‟ lack ofvocabulary items may be the result of their poor extensive reading in Englishhabits Another question was raised that if their vocabulary would beimproved when they read extensively

3 Planning and implementing the action

Based on the literature review relating to the topic, a procedure of an AR wascarried out to bring the improvements in the context of the researcher‟ssituation The researcher decided to use graded readers to help her students toimprove their vocabulary The procedure of the action was described asfollows

Table 1: The Graded Readers Program

1 Introduce the graded readers program

Carry out pretest

2 Deliver the first story “Goodbye Mr Hollywood”

Deliver book report worksheet 1

3 Collect book report worksheet 1

Deliver “Mutiny on the Bounty”

Deliver book report worksheet 2

4 Collect book report worksheet 2

Deliver “The Elephant Man”

Deliver book report worksheet 3

5 Collect book report worksheet 3

Deliver “The Phantom of the Opera”

Deliver book report worksheet 4

6 Collect book report worksheet 4

Deliver “The Witches of the Pendle”

Deliver book report worksheet 5

7 Collect book report worksheet 5

Deliver “The Withered Arm”

Deliver book report worksheet 6

8 Collect book report worksheet 6

Carry out immediate-posttestHand out Questionnaire

10 Carry out delayed -posttest

Week 1: Introduction and pretest

In this activity, the teacher introduced the ER program, its aims and benefits

to all participants and encouraged them to read the GRs extensively outsidethe classroom By doing this, the researcher was able to monitor theparticipants' reading with the belief of Vietnamese that learners had workedbetter under the time pressure The researcher integrated with investigatingstudents' attitudes and past experience of vocabulary learning Students werealso suggested not to use dictionaries to look up unknown words What theresearcher deeply sought for was students' personal experience of what theyhad read, for example, how interesting they found the materials especially theways they dealt with new vocabulary encountering during reading the selectedbooks Also, the researcher was in search of comprehensive understandingwhy and how ER worked well or not to help students enhance theirknowledge of vocabulary, especially whether ER could work to increasestudents' engagement and motivation in learning vocabulary In this section,the vocabulary test was carried out

Week 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7: Students' reading and doing worksheet

Each week, the participants were handed over one 400-headword story andencouraged to read the materials immediately Students' reading and writingworksheet were done outside the classroom To help students have fullerunderstanding of the stories, a number of pre, while and post reading activitiesdesigned at the end of each book were suggested for students to accomplish.With every graded reader chosen, students were asked to keep book reports inwhich students expressed their personal experiences of what they had read i.e.whether and why they found the materials enjoyable, whether the reading waseasy or difficult for them and especially the ways they dealt with new

vocabulary during reading through vocabulary learning strategies Throughthese activities, students had chance to review and recycle vocabulary fromwhat they had read which helped the teacher assess their progress in learningvocabulary.

Weekly meeting sessions

The researcher arranged regular Saturday meetings for about one hour with allparticipants in the school library at which the students and teacher spent most

of the meeting time discussing about students' reading and talking with someprominent/ less interested students about their progress in vocabularyacquisition, their opinions or motivation towards ER, difficulties theyencountered while reading for more encouragement to read extensively

Week 8, 10: Questionnaire, immediate protest, and delayed protest

After having finished all the GRs, the students took the immediate posttestand answer the questionnaire After two weeks, they did the delayed posttest

in order to check their words retention

4 Collecting data to monitor change

The instruments used in this study included (1) the graded readers, (2) thetests and (3) the questionnaire To collect the data, the researcher asked thestudents to read the selected graded readers, do the tests and answer thequestionnaire

5 Analyzing and evaluating

The data was analyzed to evaluate the action plan to find out whether thehypothesis is correct or not Based on the findings of the AR evaluation, someconclusions and recommendations would be made for further research