Does the Method of Vocabulary Presentation Make a Difference? : Focus on Form in Second Language Vocabulary Learning

Lina Yuliani

Does the Method of Vocabulary Presentation Make a Difference?

: Focus on Form in Second Language Vocabulary Learning

1. Introduction

  Vocabulary is basically used as a minimal means to deliver the message in oral and written language. Broadly defined, vocabulary is the knowledge of words and word meaning in both oral and print usage and in productive and receptive forms. Thus there is no doubt that vocabulary is one of several important components of language skills. There has been a number of studies under both frames of first language learning (L1) and second language learning (L2) showing evidence that non is more important than the contribution of vocabulary knowledge to reading comprehension. Reading is a very crucial tool for L2 learners to get input for extending their vocabulary range. The National Reading Panel (2000) concluded that comprehension development cannot be understood without a critical examination of the role played by vocabulary knowledge in first language learning. The extent of students' vocabulary knowledge relates strongly to their reading comprehension and overall academic success (Baumann, Kame'enui, & Ash, 2003; Becker, 1977; Davis, 1942; Whipple, 1925). It is clear that the relationship between learners' vocabulary knowledge and their general reading skills is positively correlated. Thus it could be said that a major cause of comprehending difficulty is the students' lack of understanding of unfamiliar English words.

2. Research design

a.      Lesson observation

The first stage of the data-collection process involved observing and recording in the research in SMP islam padangratu, totaling three group.

b.      Questioner

The questionnaire used in this research contained which three levels of class based on the result of a placement test; all followed the same curriculum provided by SMP Islam Program. The three classes were randomly assigned to the three different conditions: story-only (n=15), word-noticed (n=15), and L2-word-definition (n=10). Word-noticed, L2-word-definition condition groups worked with the same language instructor, and story-only group worked with another language instructor. three levels of class based on the result of a placement test; all followed the same curriculum provided by SMP Islam Program. The three classes were randomly assigned to the three different conditions: story-only (n=15), word-noticed (n=15), and L2-word-definition (n=10). Word-noticed, L2-word-definition condition groups worked with the same language instructor, and story-only group worked with another language instructor.

3. Method

 3.1. Participants

Learners who participated in this study enrolled in SMP Islam melinting, during a 2016 vacation in communicative EFL classroom. They were 40 eighth-grade junior high students between the ages of 13-15 are divided into three classes. In most cases, they had been studying English for more than 2 years. participants was 40. At the beginning of the course they were placed into three levels of class based on the result of a placement test; all followed the same curriculum provided by SMP Islam Program. The three classes were randomly assigned to the three different conditions: story-only (n=15), word-noticed (n=15), and L2-word-definition (n=10).

Table 1 .

The story of a group-only Word-L2-word look-definition

number	Story-only		Word-noticed		L2-word-definition
	Subjects	Group	Subjects	Group	Subjects	Group
1	lina (Lyan)	A	Dimas  (Kaisar)	B	Fitri (bayu)	B
2	ryan (Kristin)	C	Darul  ( layla)	C	Lulu (Tari)	B
3	septi (Annie)	B	Rahman  (Ria)	B	Fadil  (kanaya)	B
4	Ani (Richo)	B	muhammad (ana)	A	Melly  (Harri)	A
5	Indah ( Mia )	B	Imma (Karno)	B	Mega (aries)	A
6	Lista  (Jarot)	C	Reihan (Lizna)	A	Dennis  (linda)	A
7	Nury (Marko)	A	Riska  (Kevin)	B	Yongki  (Rachel)	A
8	Adi  (Tina)	C	Ayu  (Martin)	A	Zahra ( ziddan)	C
9	Putri (Sally)	C	Farel (Layra)	C	Siska  (Surya )	B
10	Rio (Rany)	C	Deny (Susi)	B	Erwin  (Ryna)	A
11	Mitha  (Daniel)	A	Riki (Winny)	B
12	Lusi  ( bowo)	A	hendra (Kiki)	A
13	Fania (Bintang)	C	Okta (hendrik)	A
14	Dwi  (Dian)	A	Alim (Nicky)	C
15	Maya  (Tomi)	B

                                                * Most students attend the middle school.

3.2. Materials

·         Reading Text

All subjects read 4 extensive stories approximately consisting of 2000 words each class of 40 minutes. Those texts were two works of nonfiction and two of fiction selected from Ellie's Fun Readers written by Eric Prochaska, entitled "Space Exploration and Our Lives"(T1), "Video Game Championship"(T2), "Extreme Animals"(T3) and "Carter the Kid Cyborg"(T4). The format of texts was familiar in genre and difficulty level. About more than 90% vocabulary were familiar and high frequent, so the safe threshold was formed for text comprehension. 

·         The target words

The target words consisted of 20 nouns, 6 verbs and 6 adjectives (32 words in total), which were unlikely to be familiar to the subjects. This unfamiliarity was verified in a pilot test in which all subjects who participated in the experiment were asked to see a vocabulary list including targets words plus distracters and to check the words whose meaning they know and they do not know. The 32 target words were the only words that most of students marked they do not know. Those 32 target words are listed in table 2 according to the extracted reading texts. The frequency of each word appeared in the reading was also indicated in order to examine the effect of word frequency on in the retention of new words. However, unfortunately in this study the result related to word frequency was eliminated due to lack of the number of target words.

Table 2

Text	Text 1 Space Exploration and Our Lives	freq.	Text 2 Video Game Championship	freq.	Text 3 Extreme Animals	freq.	Text 4 Carter the kid Cyborg	Freq
1	v. benefit from	5	n. arcade	12	n. endurance	8	n. malfunction	2
2	n. exploration	5	n. cluster	1	a. ultimate	2	n. scar	2
3	n. microorganism	5	a. smug	1	n. tern	6	a. mechanical	3
4	n. radiation	3	n. disgrace	1	n. sperm whale	9	n. limb	4
5	n. purifier	2	v. mock	1	n. sonar	3	v. surround	2
6	n. contribution to	2	v. tease	2	n. arctic	5	n. hostage	1
7	v. detect(or)	3	a. gracious	1	v. immigrate	3
8	n. spectator	2	n. tuition	1	a. immense	2
9	a. unique	3
10	n. spin-off	4

·         Test 

 Pre- and post- tests were administrated immediately before and after the treatment, they measured the retention of target words' forms and the acquisition of the meaning (Appendix 1). The same testing procedure was used for both tests in which students had to complete fill-in-the-blank or multiple choice word tasks within 10 minutes. The distracting questions doubled target words each text are presented and different distracters are used on pre- and post- test. Each test took about 7-10 minutes to complete. Subjects were not allowed any test related questions or dictionary searching while testing. Students scored one point for the correct answer, even if the form was spelled somewhat incorrectly (for example, detector instead of detecter) but there was good evidence of word acquisition. However, imperfect answers (for example, immen instead of immense) received a zero score. 

3.3  Procedures

 The treatment was carried out during the first two weeks of a one month course. One preliminary familiarity test was administered on the first day in order to ascertain the degrees of familiarity to target words. The goal was to select a group of target words unknown to all participants. All participants showed no previous knowledge of the final 32 words (see Appendix 2).

All learners in the three groups participated in a regular class session on the school program. As usual, they had four 40 minute reading classes with 4 different story books every other day for 2 weeks. Before reading the text book, students were asked to take a pre-test about the target words. After that, they were asked to read through a text while listening to a story script. Here, hearing stories has been able to result in considerable incidental vocabulary development. They had several comprehension questions for the teacher in the middle of reading. Especially, for story-only group, students listened to a story containing target words without any noticing of the words. Yet in the class of word-enhanced group, they listened to a story containing the underlined and in bold target words. And in the class of L2-word-definition group, they were presented with the target words as discrete items with their word parts and meanings in L1 below each page. A post-test was presented with the purpose of measuring students' immediate retention of target words. The test tasks were composed of target words and distracters. The reliability of the pretest and post tests were satisfactory (.83 and .77). Some classes in the camp program were only 2 weeks in length, so a delayed post test could not be administrated remaining for the further study of measuring their usage of target words in way that could show results.

3.4  Analysis and Results 

Mean scores on the pre-test were nearly identical (Table 3). On the immediate post-test the word-noticed group did only far better than the other groups of story-only and word-noticed, and also significantly different F(2,115)=15.515, p<.05. The L2 word-definition group performance was slightly higher than the story-only group, but the difference was not statistically significant. The word-noticed group mean was nearly double that of the story-only group.

Table 3 Mean Score and SD of Pre and Post Test of Three Treatment Groups

Test	Pre-test					Post-test
Text	Text 1	Text 2	Text 3	Text 4	Mean	Text 1	Text 2	Text 3	Text 4	Total Mean
Story-only	1.57 (1.01)	2.14 (1.37)	3.12 (1.53)	1.69 (1.59)	2.13 (1.49)	2.85 (0.77)	3.57 (2.25)	3.75 (0.98)	3.30 (2.48)	3.37 (1.77)
Word-noticed	2.87 (1.45)	2.70 (1.23)	2.81 (1.10)	1.87 (1.15)	2.56 (1.25)	4.62 (2.55)	6.25 (2.47)	5.15 (2.70)	8.12 (2.50)	* 6.03 (2.79)
L2 word-definition	2.20 (1.47)	1.33 (1.72)	2.75 (1.53)	2.25 (1.74)	2.13 (1.64)	3.90 (1.44)	3.83 (2.22)	3.50 (2.48)	4.87 (2.59)	4.02 (2.20)

  Mean (SD)

            As can be seen in Figure 1, as for all subjects of the treatment groups of story-only, word-noticed, L2 word-definition they scored higher on the post vocabulary retention test than the pre-test and yet the greatest improvement came with the words in the word-noticed group. The students from L2-definition group remembered somewhat better than the story-only group, but were not significantly different. The results of this investigation demonstrate that the only exposure to unknown or unfamiliar words through story-listening while reading has a positive effect on their ability to remember and recognize the target words. However, the word presentation based on form-focused method such as word-noticed and L2 word-definition has a lot better effect on results in word retention test, especially showing a significant score difference of pre- and post-test in a word-noticed within the context than in L2 word-definition presented below the context.

  Figure 1 Score Changes of three groups according to different texts 

 This result did not meet the expectation that L2-word-definition presented below the context would give clearer word knowledge so that students' performance will be better on word retention test, which represents the word presentation out of the context do not affect positively on the enhancement of word-notice. And even through distracting the process of word-guessing, the way of L2-definition presentation consequently can lead to reduce the skill of reading comprehension.    

  Moreover, as can be seen in Table 3 there has been found a main effect on text variable F(3,115)=6.365, p<.05). The reading texts used in the treatment are two works of fiction- "Video Game Championship"(T2) and "Carter the Kid Cyborg"(T4), and two works of non-fiction- "Space Exploration and Our Lives"(T1) and "Extreme Animals"(T3). Students' performance was better on the words from two works of nonfiction- "Video Game Championship"(T2) and "Carter the Kid Cyborg"(T4) than the other fictions. This result implicates that topic of the story could be one of the factors influencing success of word-learning from context. For the further study the level of intact group and the difference of individual instructor should be considered more seriously.    

4. Conclusion and Implications

The investigation reported here provides empirical evidence for the claim that students can better learn target vocabulary through reading with target word-noticed within the context than through reading-only or L2-word-definition explicitly presented below the text. In addition, regarding the topics of reading texts, reading in an easier genre and more interesting topic would have to be provided for younger and lower proficiency level of the learners. N.C. Ellis (1995) suggested that according to the strong implicit vocabulary learning hypothesis new words are acquired totally unconsciously. From this we could infer that the reading-only without any noticing to words still help the students learn new words. However, in accordance with a weak implicit vocabulary learning hypothesis Ellis (1995) asserted it is at least necessary for learners to notice that a word is new to them. The word presentation method of word-noticed used in this study which was to induce the students to take notice of the target vocabulary is a teaching strategy informed by the weak implicit hypothesis. This results could be said that learning knowledge of words and word meaning is a conscious process that requires noticing and attention.