Sử dụng tiền tố, hậu tố và gốc từ gốc từ vào việc dạy từ vựng cho học sinh lớp 10 chuyên tiếng Anh tại trường THPT chuyên Biên Hòa, Hà Nam

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS BHSHS : Bien Hoa Specialized High School MOET : Ministry of Education and Training ELLs : English Language Learners VSL : Vocabulary Learning Strategies LIST OF FIG

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

TRƯƠNG THỊ PHƯƠNG THANH

USING PREFIXES, SUFFIXES AND WORD ROOTS TO TEACH VOCABULARY FOR 10 TH FORM ENGLISH-MAJOR STUDENTS AT BIEN HOA SPECIALIZED

HIGH SCHOOL, HA NAM

(Sử dụng tiền tố, hậu tố và gốc từ vào việc dạy từ vựng cho học sinh lớp 10 chuyên

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

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field : English Teaching Methodology

Code : 601410

Ha Noi – 2013

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

TRƯƠNG THỊ PHƯƠNG THANH

USING PREFIXES, SUFFIXES AND WORD ROOTS TO TEACH VOCABULARY FOR 10 TH FORM ENGLISH-MAJOR STUDENTS AT BIEN HOA SPECIALIZED

HIGH SCHOOL, HA NAM

(Sử dụng tiền tố, hậu tố và gốc từ vào việc dạy từ vựng cho học sinh lớp 10 chuyên

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

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field : English Teaching Methodology

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

BHSHS : Bien Hoa Specialized High School

MOET : Ministry of Education and Training

ELLs : English Language Learners

VSL : Vocabulary Learning Strategies

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2: Difficulty students have when remembering new words 28 Figure 3: Whether students have difficulty understanding an unfamiliar word 30 Figure 4: What students do to guess the meaning of a word in a text 30 Figure 5: Whether students know word parts (prefixes, suffixes and roots) 31 Figure 6: The percentages of students who know prefix groups 31 Figure 7: The percentages of students who know suffixes 32 Figure 8: The percentage of students who know word roots 32

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2: What students do when coming across a new word while reading 30 Table 3: Students’ assessment of the word parts introduced in the program 34 Table 4: Students’ assessment of the exercises and activities designed by the teacher

34

Table 5: Students’ assessment of the benefits gained from learning word parts 35 Table 6: Students’ assessment of the benefits gained from doing the exercises and activities in the program

35

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

List of Abbreviations iv

List of Figures iv

List of Tables v

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale for the Study 1

2 Aims of the Study 2

3 Research questions of the Study 2

4 Scope of the Study 2

5 Significance of the Study 3

6 Research Methodology 3

7 Design of the Study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Vocabulary 4

1.1.1 Definitions of Vocabulary 4

1.1.2 Classification of Vocabulary 5

1.1.2.1 According to the Language Methodology 5

1.1.2.2 According to the Concept of Morpheme 5

1.1.2.3 According to the Meaning 5

1.1.2.4 According to the Sequence of Use 6 1.1.2.5 According to the Function of Vocabulary Items in a Sentence 6

1.2 Vocabulary learning strategies 6

1.2.1 Definition of vocabulary learning strategies 6

1.2.2 Classification of vocabulary learning strategies 6

1 2 3 Vocabulary learning strategy - Morphemic analysis 8

1.3 Word structures or morphology 9

1.3.1 Prefixes 9

1.3.2 Suffixes…… 10

1.3.3 Roots 11

1.4 Word formation 14

1.4.1 Definition of word formation … 14

1.4.2 Main types of word formation 15

1.5 Previous studies on using prefixes, suffixes and roots to teach vocabulary 16

1.6 Summary 17

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 18

2.1 Research Context 18

2.2 Research Approach 19

2.3 Participants 19

2.4 Data Collection Instruments 20

2.4.1 Questionnaires 20

2.4.2 Pre-Test and Post-Tests 21

2.5 Intervention: The Vocabulary Learning Program 21

2.5.1 Word parts to be taught 21

2.5.2 The Types of Exercises and Activities 22

2.5.3 Format of a lesson 23

2.5.4 The Schedule for the Vocabulary Learning Program 23 2.6 Data Collection Procedures 25

2.7 Data Analysis Procedures 26

2.7.1 Questionnaires 26

2.7.2 Pre-test and post-tests 26

2.8 Summary 27

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 28

3.1 Preliminary Investigation 28

3.1.1 Students’ ways of learning vocabulary 28

3.1.2 Problems with unfamiliar words 30

3.1.3 Students’ knowledge of word parts 31

3.2 Evaluation 32

3.2.1 Results and discussion from the post-task questionnaire 32

3.2.2 Results and discussion from the pre-test and post-tests 37

3.3 Summary 39

PART C: CONCLUSION 41

1 Summary of Major Findings 41

2 Pedagogical Implications of the Study 41

3 Limitations of the Study 42

4 Suggestions for Further Studies 43

REFERENCES 44

APPENDICES

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationales

It is undeniable that vocabulary plays an important part in language acquisition because it is a means of communication without which nothing could be conveyed As for second language learners, it is still the main tool which learners can use to develop skills such as reading, listening, speaking and writing The importance of vocabulary knowledge

to overall academic success, especially in the area of reading and oral comprehension, is well documented (Catts & Kamhi, 1999; Nagy & Scott, 2000; Snow, Porche, Tabors, & Harris, 2007; Stahl, 1999) Recent reading reports (National Reading Panel, 2000; RAND Reading Study Group, 2002) have emphasized the central role of vocabulary in student achievement as well as the paucity of research on promoting vocabulary acquisition (Stahl

& Nagy, 2006)

However, facts have shown that not many language learners own an abundant source of vocabulary knowledge and those who study English are not an exception English, though has become an international language and has attracted a huge number of learners, has proved to be a complicating language due to its Greek, Latin and French origins Many words used nowadays have Greek, Latin or French roots, prefixes and suffixes, which is a great hindrance to second language learners especially those who want

to use English in academic and scientific areas

At Bien Hoa Specialized High School, English major students, who have to study English extensively to meet the requirements of examinations and future need have the same problems related to vocabulary knowledge The author is teaching English at Bien Hoa Specialized High School and at this moment, she is in charge of teaching 10th form English major students After lessons at class and through some tests, she found out that they do not know much vocabulary especially academic words which they often see in texts of advanced level Moreover, when the author interviewed and made a questionnaire

in the class, she also discovered that they lacked effective methods of learning vocabulary For example, when asked about how to learn new words, students were confused and most said they tried to remember words by learning by heart Also, when checking students' vocabulary through activities from tests to skill practice, she came to a conclusion that students need to study vocabulary seriously and should have an effective method of learning words This urges the author to find a proper method of teaching vocabulary to

help her students overcome this difficulty and this also motivates her to conduct this study

on using prefixes, suffixes and roots to teach vocabulary for 10 th form English major students at Bien Hoa Specialized High School, Ha Nam By slowly and steadily

studying the most prominent prefixes, roots, and suffixes, students can acquire a vocabulary that is far greater than the sum of its parts

2 Aims of the study

This research is designed to bring a new air into the teaching of vocabulary to 10th form English major students In general, the purpose of this study is:

- to use another vocabulary learning strategy using morphemic analysis

- to find out how this method benefits students in studying vocabulary

- to investigate students’ improvements and attitudes during the time the study is carried out

3 The research questions

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

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

- What changes do students have after the lessons?

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

4 Scope of the study

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

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

5 Significance of the study

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

6 Method of the study

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

7 Design of the study

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

Part A is the introduction which includes the rationale for the research topic, aims and research questions, research methodology, scope, significance and design of the study

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

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

on the related issues

Chapter 2 presents the research methodology This chapter introduces the research context, research approach, participants, intervention, data collection instruments, data collection procedures and data analysis procedures

Chapter 3 goes into details of the data analysis, results and discussion

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

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter will review some background information relevant to this study First, the ideas of researchers about the importance of learning word parts are looked into Next,

an overview of English vocabulary such as definitions, classification, vocabulary learning strategies, and a revision of words structures such as prefixes, suffixes and roots are

Diamond and Gutlohn (2006) gave a very broad definition, that is “vocabulary is the knowledge of words and word meanings” Fran Lehr, in the website http://www.prel.org/products/re_/ES0419.htm defined vocabulary as knowledge of words and word meanings in both oral and print language and in productive and receptive forms

According to Parmer (1983), the semantic unit may be a sequence of several words The phrasal verb “look after” is a typical example This phrase includes two words but its meaning can only be understood in the entire phrase and can not be interpreted by analyzing its single parts

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

However, this author also added that “a new item of vocabulary may be more than a single word, a compound of two or three words and multi-word idioms”

According to Lewis (1993), vocabulary “…may be individual words, or full sentences - institutionalized utterances - that convey fixed social or pragmatic meaning within a given community”

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

the words known and used by a particular person"

Pyles and Algeo (1970) said that “vocabulary is the focus of language with its sound and meaning, which interlock to allow us to communicate with one another, and it is words that we arrange together to make sentences, conversation and discourse of all kinds”

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

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

1.1.2 Classification of vocabulary

There have been many ways in which vocabulary is classified and below are the most common ways of classifying it

1.1.2.1 According to language methodology

Word knowledge comes in two forms, receptive (passive) and productive (active) Receptive vocabulary includes words that we recognize when we hear or see them Productive vocabulary includes words that we use when we speak or write Receptive vocabulary is typically larger than productive vocabulary, and may include many words to which we assign some meaning, even if we don’t know their full definitions and connotations – or ever use them ourselves as we speak and write

1.1 2 2 According to the Concept of Morpheme

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

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

- Derived words: A derived word is one that consists of a root and one or more derivational morphemes such as worker, singer, amusement, etc

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

1 1 2 3 According to the meaning

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

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

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

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

1.1 2 4 According to the sequence of use

The sequence of use refers to the frequency of occurrence of words Basing on this criterion, words are classified into three groups including high frequency words, low frequency words and specialized words It is of great importance for teachers to pay attention to this criterion when selecting words to teach students In addition, teachers also need to show students which group the words belong to because it is not necessary to spend too much time on low frequency words

1.1 2 5 According to the Function of Vocabulary Items in a Sentence

Vocabulary has different functions in a sentence Therefore, it can be grouped into different items as parts of speech such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions and pronouns Each part of speech has its own position complying with certain grammatical rules and relating to others Hence, teachers should point out the function of each item in a sentence so that students know how to use the word correctly in terms of grammar

1.2 Vocabulary learning strategies

1.2.1 Definition of vocabulary learning strategies (VLS)

Cameron (2001) stated a general definition that VLS are “actions that learners take to help themselves understand and remember vocabulary”

Catalan (2003) proposed a more concrete and thorough definition of VLS She suggested the following definition: knowledge about the mechanisms (processes, strategies) used in order to learn vocabulary as well as steps or actions taken by students (a) to find out the meaning of unknown words, (b) to retain them in long-term memory, (c) to recall them at will, and (d) to use them in oral or written mode

1.2.2 Classification of vocabulary learning strategies

Although VLS is a relatively new area of study, several classifications of VLS have been proposed In this part, some ways of classifying vocabulary learning strategies are discussed according to some researchers

According to Nation (1990), Rubin and Thompson (1994), and Decarrico (cited in Celce-Murcia, 2000), there are two strategies of learning vocabulary, that are, the direct and indirect one First, direct vocabulary learning is doing exercises or activities that focuses students’ attention on vocabulary Second, indirect vocabulary learning means that student’s attention is not focused on vocabulary as the main goal but on some other

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

on understanding a text or using language for communicative purposes

Harris (2011) in his research, examined two strategies as he called the word mapping strategy and the vocabulary strategy First, the word mapping strategy or the generative morphemic analysis strategy is a set of cognitive and behavioral steps students can use to predict the meanings of unknown words The strategy involves (a) Step 1 – breaking words into their morphemic parts (i.e., prefix, suffix, root); (b) Step 2 – attaching meaning to each word part; (c) Step 3 – making a prediction about the meaning of the unknown word based upon the meaning of each part; and (d) Step 4 – checking the dictionary for the definition In this study, this strategy and the steps presented above were also used to help students attain vocabulary knowledge Second, the vocabulary strategy (Ellis, 1992, cited in Harris, 2011), or the non-generative vocabulary strategy is a set of cognitive and behavioral steps that students can use to help memorize and recall the meanings of vocabulary words This process involves the use of a set of mnemonic strategies that include (a) a keyword strategy, (b) a visual imagery strategy, (c) a story strategy to link know words and information to new vocabulary words and their definitions, and (d) a self-testing method used while practicing recalling the meaning of the word

The National reading panel (2000) suggested four learning strategies, including dictionary use, morphemic analysis, cognate awareness for English language learners (ELLs), and contextual analysis Dictionary use teaches students about multiple word meanings, as well as the importance of choosing the appropriate definition to fit the particular context Morphemic analysis is the process of deriving a word's meaning by analyzing its meaningful parts, or morphemes Such word parts include root words, prefixes, and suffixes For ELLs whose language shares cognates with English, cognate awareness is also an important strategy Contextual analysis involves inferring the meaning of an unfamiliar word by scrutinizing the text surrounding it Instruction in contextual analysis generally involves teaching students to employ both generic and specific types of context clues

Brown and Payne (1994) identified five steps in the process of learning vocabulary in a foreign language: (a) having sources for encountering new words, (b) getting a clear image, either visual or auditory or both, of the forms of the new words, (c) learning the meaning of the words, (d) making a strong memory connection between the forms and the meanings of the words, (e) using the words

1 2 3 Vocabulary learning strategy - Morphemic analysis

Spencer (2001) named this vocabulary learning strategy morphemic analysis and

defined it as deriving the meaning of a word by combining the meaning of the parts of the word (or morphemes) The word parts with meaning include (a) prefixes, (b) suffixes, and (c) roots According to Nation (1990), morphemic analysis involves three skills: (a) breaking a new word into its morphological parts, (b) connecting a meaning to each of those parts, and (c) combining the meanings of the parts to determine the word's definition Similarly, Baumann, Edwards, Boland, Olejnik, and Kame'enui (2003) in their study on morphemic analysis suggested four steps for analyzing the meaning of a word using word-part clues: (a) looking for the root word and remember its meaning, (b) looking for a prefix and remember its meaning, (c) looking for a suffix and remember its meaning, and (d) combining the meanings to build the meaning of the whole word This is also the foundation of the method which the researcher later used to teach students in this research

Morphemic analysis is thought to be a useful vocabulary-learning tool because, as Nagy and Scott (2000) estimated, "about 60 percent of the new words a student encounters

in reading are analyzable into parts that give substantial help in figuring out their meanings" (p 275) Some authors (Nation, 1990; Sirles, 1997) have suggested that learning the meaning of Greek and Latin roots is critical because estimates regarding the number of words that are derived from Greek and Latin roots range from approximately 50% (Moore & Moore, 1997) to as much as 65% of what is termed academic vocabulary (Sirles) Thus, teaching one word part, like a root, has the potential to enable students to unlock the meaning of many words since word families comprised of as many as 20 to 30 words tend to be organized around a given root (Baumann & Kame'enui, 2004; Graves, 2006; Marzano, 2004; Nagy & Anderson, 1984; Nation; Stahl & Nagy, 2006; White, Power, & White, 1989, cited in Harris, 2011)

1.3 Word structures or morphology

Fromkin (2000) talked about the structures of words in which words are not the smallest units of meaning Words may include many parts, for example, the word promised has two parts, promise and -ed; friends is composed of friend plus -s; carefully may be divided into careful and -ly, etc Therefore, the word which cannot be divided into even smaller parts is called a morpheme We have free or lexical morphemes like promise,

friend or Mary and bound or grammatical morpheme like -ly, -ful, -ed, and -s Thus, words

may be a combination of many morphemes, which is also called derivation In this study, the researcher does not want to focus on inflection, such as the addition of -ed and -s at the

end of words Indeed, she would like to have a look at the formation of words by means of derivation or the addition of affixes to the roots, which would produce multiple numbers of words that are used every day

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

1.3.1 Word parts - Prefixes

A prefix is a word, or letter(s) placed at the beginning of another word (a base word) to adjust or qualify its usage or meaning A prefix rarely changes syntactic category

in English The inflectional prefix un- applies to adjectives (healthy → unhealthy), some verbs (do → undo), but rarely nouns A few exceptions are the derivational prefixes en-

and be- En- (em- before labials) is usually used as a transitive marker on verbs, but can

also be applied to adjectives and nouns to form transitive verb: circle (verb) → encircle (verb); but rich (adj) → enrich (verb), large (adj) → enlarge (verb), rapture (noun) →

enrapture (verb), slave (noun) → enslave (verb) It is not easy to remember quite a big

number of prefixes in English, and, at the intermediate level of a high school student, I just put emphasis on the most common prefixes in English McEwan (2008) suggested the common prefixes as follows:

Common prefixes

1.3.2 Suffixes

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

of semantic languages, a suffix is called an afformative, as they can alter the form of the words to which they are fixed Suffixes used in English frequently have Greek, French or

illiterate, irreverent

Latin origins Here are some predominant suffixes in English, provided by McEwan (2008)

Common suffixes

-al, -ial having characteristics of universal, facial

-ed past tense verbs; adjectives the dog walked,

the walked dog

person connected with teacher, professor

present participles sleeping -ion, -tion, -ation, -

submission, motion, Relation, edition

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

-ous, -eous, -ious having qualities of riotous, courageous, gracious

1.3.3 Roots

In order to have a deeper and closer understanding of the formation of words, I would like to present another aspect of words, the root It is the primary lexical unit of a word, and of a word family (root is then called base word), which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents The traditional definition allows roots to be either free morphemes or bound morphemes Root morphemes are essential for affixation, that is, words can be built up through the addition of affixes Study of root words provides a strong foundation for vocabulary development For example if the student knows the Latin root “script”, which means

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

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

Greek and Latin origins and here is a partial list of the most prominent Greek and Latin roots given by McEwan (2008)

Common Greet roots

anthropo man; human; humanity anthropologist, philanthropy

mono one monologue, monotonous

Common Latin roots

mater mother maternal, maternity

1.4 Word formation

1.4.1 Definition of word formation

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

on which a language forms new lexical units, i.e words Word formation can only treat of composites which are analyzable both formally and semantically (Marchand, 1974)

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

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

The website http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Word+Formation defines word formation as the process or result of forming new words, called derived words, from words or word groups with the same root Word formation occurs through formal means established within a given language that give a new or more precise meaning to the original elements Word formation is a means of deriving (generating) linguistic units in order to create a new one-word name having a semantic and formal connection with the

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

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

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

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

1.4.2 Main types of word formation

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

 Prefixation is the addition of a prefix in front of a base, for example: pro-life, recycle, deselect, etc

 Suffixation is the addition of a suffix at the end of a base, for example: ageism, marginalize, additive, careless, etc

 Compounding (or composition is the combination of two or more bases, for example: hands-on as in hands-on experience, helpline, spindoctor, etc

 Conversion is the change of a base from one word class to another without any change in form, for example: the verbs emails, fax and microwave derive from the nouns of the same form

Generally, prefixation and suffixation are types of affixation (or derivation) that differ most obviously in positioning but also in another important aspect Typically, prefixation is class-maintaining in that it retains the word class of the base For example, the noun pair choice/pro-choice; the adjective pair green/ungreen and the verb pair select/deselect Suffixation tends to be class-changing Change when suffix is added is illustrated by the shift from the adjective “fat” to the noun “fattism”, the verb “lug” to the adjective “luggable” and the verb “highlight” to the noun “highlighter” There are exceptions in both directions Prefixation brings about a shift from the adjective “sure” to

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

to the verb “befriend” Suffixation has no effect on the word class of the noun pairs martyr/martyrdom, author/authorships, host/hostess, or the adjective pairs kind/kindy, economic/economical, though there is a shift in subclass from concrete noun to abstract noun in the first two noun pairs

1 5 Previous studies on using prefixes, suffixes and word roots to teach vocabulary

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

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

Still on the effectiveness of this VLS compared to other ones, Baumann, Edwards, Boland, Olejnik, and Kame'enui (2003) conducted a study with 157 students in 8 fifth-grade social studies classes The students were divided into two groups, experimental and control groups Experimental-group students were taught a total of eight prefixes and suffixes, along with example words to which those word parts may be added Students were also taught steps for analyzing the meaning of a word using word-part clues The control group was taught a different set of words derived from their textbook They used a dictionary to find word meanings and completed a variety of activities The results were that students in the experimental group earned statistically higher scores than students in the control group

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

and other students enrolled in general education classes a morphemic analysis strategy for analyzing and predicting the meaning of words A comparison-group design was used with random assignment of three intact classes to each of two conditions: (a) the Word Mapping condition, where students learned the morphological analysis strategy; and (b) the Vocabulary LINCing condition, where students learned a mnemonic strategy The results were that Word Mapping students with and without disabilities earned higher scores

on a test of morphological analysis than students in the other groups Thus, he came to conclusion that students were able to learn morphemic analysis techniques to analyze and create meaning for unknown words, an important skill while reading and taking reading tests

As for L2 teaching, Pittman (2003), applied the similar strategy into his teaching of Japanese students at Nagasaki University Faculty of Environmental Studies He incorporated the teaching of prefixes, suffixes and roots and morphemic analysis into reading lessons and spared 10 minutes each class for this part He found out that his students had become comfortable with the ability to recognize words they were not immediately familiar with and their confidence with vocabulary went a long way in reading, writing, listening, speaking, and with standardized test-taking

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

1 6 Summary

This chapter has reviewed the key issues related to the study First, it presents an overall review of some aspects related to vocabulary such as the definitions and classification of vocabulary, and also the definitions and classification of vocabulary learning strategies following by an overall look at morphemic analysis Next, word structures and word parts such as prefixes, suffixes and Greek and Latin word roots are examined Last, some previous findings of researchers to the effectiveness of teaching prefixes, suffixes and roots to English learners are presented From all this information, learning vocabulary through morphemic analysis promises to be an effective strategy and provide a firm base for developing vocabulary knowledge in the future With this theoretical background, it is expected that the study would yield reliable findings

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents a detailed description of how the research was carried out The information about the research context, research approach, participants, data collection instruments, intervention, data collection procedures and data analysis procedures will be presented in detail

2.1 The research context

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

As regards teaching staff, there are about 100 teachers for all subjects in the school,

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

The students in this school come from all parts of Ha Nam province In fact, about 70% are from five districts of Ha Nam and 30% live in the city or near the city All of them are major in a subject like Maths, Literature, English and they have 6 classes in the afternoon for this subject apart from lessons in the morning As for English, each week in the morning, students who are not major in English have 3 periods with the textbook provided by MOET compared to 5 periods English major students have to study with the textbook for advanced learners by MOET, not mention 6 ones in the afternoon for advanced and supplementary activities and practice They study a thorough curriculum during 3 years from class 10 to 12 and have to take the examinations for gifted students held within and outside Ha Nam and the entrance examination to university Both these types of exams are of the same level and require a deep and thorough knowledge of English and skills Thus, besides the textbooks, they have to study from various sources with the help of the teachers The teachers also have to prepare more lessons, conduct activities for practice to meet the expectations of students

The reason why the researcher chooses 10th form English major students in her research is that she is teaching them and she finds that her students have problems studying vocabulary These students are quite motivated in studying English and they have more time to study English in class These favourable conditions help the researcher have chances to implement new ways of teaching and learning English, especially English vocabulary, which has been assumed to be far from being effective for years

2.2 Research Approach

This study was carried out under the approach of Action Research Good

understanding of action research will lead to a deeper understanding and analysis of the research Thus, it is very important for the researcher to explain the rationale for choosing this type of research

Action research is one of the most common research approaches in applied linguistics Action research, as defined in Cohen and Manion (1994, p.186), is “small-scale intervention in the functioning of the real world and a close examination of the effects of such intervention” According to Wisker (2001), “action research is research that we carry out with our students in order to try out an idea or an innovation, test a hypothesis about their learning and to see what would happen if…” Another definition is that “action research is simply a form of self-reflective enquiry undertaken by participants in social situations in order to improve the rationality and justice of their own practices, their understanding of these practices and the situations in which the practices are carried out” (Carr and Kemmis, 1986, p 162, as cited in Burns, 1999, p 30)

Kemmis and McTaggart (1988, as cited in Nunan, 1992, p 17) stated the three defining characteristics of action reasearch Firstly, it is carried out by practitioners rather than outside researchers Secondly, it is collaborative Thirdly, it is aimed at changing things

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

at the researcher’s own class at BHSHS In addition, the researcher and the students had to work together during the process of doing the research Last but not least, the aim of the study was to improve the current situation of teaching and learning vocabulary

In order to carry out an action research, Nunan (1992) suggested seven steps They include initiation, preliminary investigation, hypothesis, intervention, evaluation, dissemination, and follow-up This research follows the main steps of an action research

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

2.3 Participants

The participants are 34 tenth form English major students at Bien Hoa Specialized High School, of whom there are 32 female students and only 2 males They study English with a textbook during five classes of 45 minutes in the morning each week Besides, they have 6 classes of advanced English lessons in the afternoon All of them started studying English at grade 6 and have quite a full knowledge of grammar; however, not many have a rich vocabulary and most often have problem understanding complicated texts or conversations or lectures of teachers in English When looking into this problem, the researcher found out that students often find it difficult to remember lists of new words or they forget them quickly unless they revise them regularly

2.4 Data collection instruments

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

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

questionnaire was handed out at the end of the program after students have finished all the vocabulary lessons The purpose of this one is to investigate the attitudes of students towards the program and the new vocabulary learning strategy

2.4.2 Pre and post - tests

Two tests were given during 9 weeks, a pre and post test The pre test was given at the beginning of the program in which the researcher tried to check students’ knowledge of the target items The post test was of the same format and content as the first one and was carried out at the end of the program The purpose of this test was to check the improvement and the knowledge that students had obtained from the lessons In this study, students were presented with a list of 20 target words and asked to use what they had learned to match the words with their meaning The reason why the researcher chose this type of exercise in the test is that as the purpose of the program is to acquaint students with word parts and morphemic analysis so that students can use them to guess the meaning of new words, the matching exercise is quite suitable for students to use the new VLS to deal with it The 20 target words were chosen after the researcher had considered their suitability with students’ levels and the program which she was going to design and also after she had consulted with other English teachers in her department

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

The most important step of doing an action research suggested by Nunan (1992), as presented in “Research method” is the intervention carried out by the researcher To achieve the aims of this study, a vocabulary learning program was designed to help the students consolidate and develop vocabulary

2 5 1 Word parts to be taught

Aforementioned, as time was limited, a certain number of common prefixes, suffixes and roots were chosen to teach students From the data collected in the pre-task questionnaire, the researcher chose to teach the ones that most students did not know their meaning and the ones that form the words in the pre and post test For those that students had had their meaning in their mind, the researcher still employ ed some because these prefixes, suffixes and roots are used in a wide variety of words, especially academic and complicated ones, which students though know the meaning of their parts still cannot analyze the meaning of the whole word This was also the chance for students to practice

analyzing the meaning of a word through its morphemes In addition, through each lesson, students were given a group of words, or word families, which was helpful for them to remember words with the same prefixes, suffixes or roots

As for the words employed in the exercises and the practice activities, the researcher chose ones which are both included in the textbook “ Tieng Anh Nang Cao lop 10” and in some supplementary vocabulary exercises which students are often assigned at class However, as the aim of this program is to give students a base for analyzing morphemes from which students can use this technique into decoding any complicated words which they come across in any documents, especially academic and scientific ones, the words used in this program are just examples of the word parts presented and ones for students to practice analyzing morphemes

According to Ebbers (2011), the most effective sequence for teaching morphemes

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

of speech words are and thus, are related to syntax or grammar For students to grasp abstract academic word meanings and become adept at using words correctly when speaking and writing, they must get a sense of the suffix and they must tune their ears to hear - the “ring of right” in terms of grammar, syntax, and usage (Ebbers, 2009) Next come prefixes Prefixes are the key to meaning and they are always at the beginning of a word and are easy to identify Therefore, learning prefixes will broaden and deepen the knowledge of words As students learn the prefixes, they will continue to encounter the suffixes they learned in the first section This provides an opportunity to review suffixes and check for understanding over time Finally, students master the meaning found in Greek combining forms and Latin roots Previously taught suffixes and prefixes are integrated into the roots section, to ensure a more complete understanding of the word This allows the student to revisit and rehearse previously learned prefixes and suffixes All things considered, this program was designed in the sequence suggested by Ebbers (2011) with the hope that it would benefit students’ vocabulary learning process

2 5 2 Types of exercises and activities

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

researcher chose these types of exercises Additionally, she also consulted with other English teachers who commented and gave her necessary improvement on the exercises so that the exercises would really help students improve vocabulary The types of exercises are mainly as follows

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

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

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

- Matching: Students are provided with word parts separated into 2 columns and they have to match them with each other to create a correct word

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

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

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

2 5 4 Schedule for the vocabulary learning program

Week Lesson Activities

1 Introducing the new vocabulary learning program

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

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

-age; -ness, -ity, -hood, -ship, -dom Asking students to do exercises Asking students to practice identifying suffixes in words

2 2 Teaching adjective suffixes: ive (ative, itive), ous (ious), al, ent,

-ful, -less Asking students to do exercises Asking students to practice identifying suffixes in words

3 Teaching prefixes: pre-, post-, re-, super-, over-

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

3 4 Teaching negative prefixes: un-, de-, dis-, mis- and mal-

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

5 Teaching negative prefixes: il-, in-, im-, ir-, non-, counter-, contra-

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

4 6 Teaching prefixes: be-, en-(em-) and suffixes : -ify, -ize and -en

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

7 Teaching number prefixes: uni-, mono -, bi -, di -, tri-,multi-, poly-

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

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

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

9 Teaching roots: -cred-, -vis(e)-, scribe- (script-)

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

of words

6 10 Teaching roots: -dict-, -gress- and -ject-

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

of words

11 Teaching roots: -form-, -port-, spect-, -mit- (-miss-)

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

of words

7 12 Teaching roots: -flect-,-tract-, -tend-

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

of words

14 Practicing morpheme analysis

8 15 Practicing morpheme analysis

16 Practicing morpheme analysis

9 Asking students to complete the pre-task questionnaire

Asking students to do the post-test

2 6 Data collection procedures

This program was carried out from the beginning of October to the end of December and lessons were taught in two afternoon classes each week at Class 10 C3 and were dealt with in no more than 30 minutes each The researcher asked another English teacher in her department to join her to teach one afternoon class This teacher also taught this class with the researcher from the beginning of the school year Thus, she knew clearly

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

Step 1: At the beginning of October, the copies of the pre-task questionnaire were

handed out to 34 students and they had 20 minutes to complete the 9 questions

Step 2: In the next class, students were asked to do a pre-test including 20 target

words, which aimed to test students’ vocabulary knowledge These words contained mostly the word parts that were going to be taught next Students were given 30 minutes for the test and were not allowed to consult with their friends during the test

Step 3: From the second week of October, the program was exploited with 16

lessons which were divided into 2 parts: the first part including 12 lessons was to teach word parts like prefixes, suffixes and word roots; the second one with 3 lessons was for practicing morpheme analysis

Step 4: At the end of December, after all the lessons had been taught, a post-task

questionnaire was administered, which collected students’ feedback and attitudes towards the program Students were also given a copy of the pre-task questionnaire and completed

9 questions during 20 minutes Next, to check the effectiveness of the program and what students had got from the lessons, a post test was handed out to students Students were asked to finish the test in 30 minutes The format and content of the test was the same as the pre-test

Step 5: Based on the results and findings of the first cycle of the study, the

researcher decided whether to carry out the next cycle

2 7 Data analysis procedures

After the questionnaires and the pre and post tests were collected, the researcher and the teacher who helped her teach half of the lessons in the program checked the results together All the data are analyzed in the following procedures

2 7 1 Questionnaires

First, the researcher started from the questionnaires, and worked out the percentage

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

2 7 2 Pre and post tests

All the tests were checked, marked and grouped according to the scores which students got Scores ranged from 0 - 10 All these data were collected quantitatively

2 8 Summary

This action research on using prefixes, suffixes and word roots to teach vocabulary for 10th form English major students at BHSHS was carried out during 2 months of the first term of the school year with the purpose of finding out how effective the new vocabulary learning strategy was to students After obtaining some information related to how students learn vocabulary from the pre-task questionnaire and pre test, the researcher continued to conduct lessons to teach word parts in combination with morpheme analysis practice At the end of the program, the post task questionnaire and post test were handed out to students to get the feedback from them All these ones were valuable data for the researcher to reflect so as to come to a conclusion about the new learning and teaching method she had applied All the discussion about the results of the research is presented by the researcher in the next chapter

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In this chapter, the main procedures of this action research will be briefly presented under two major headings: Preliminary investigation (pre-task questionnaire) and Evaluation (post-task questionnaire, pre-test and post-tests)

3.1 Preliminary Investigation

From the first lessons the researcher taught the students, she found out that students lacked much vocabulary and an effective way of learning words Therefore, to discover how students learned vocabulary and to get some information related to the new learning method, the researcher conducted a preliminary via a pre-task questionnaire The questionnaire was divided into 3 main points: (1) students’ ways of learning vocabulary, (2) problems with unfamiliar words, (3) students’ knowledge of word parts The results for the questionnaire are discussed below

3 1 1 Students’ ways of learning vocabulary

94%

6%

a Yes

b No

Figure 1: Whether students often study vocabulary

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

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

6 % do not learn vocabulary regularly

100%

0%

a Yes

b No

Figure 2: Difficulty students have when remembering new words

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

Question Answers Results

3

a reading aloud new words and writing down in the notebooks

many times

73.53%

b writing a list of new words in a piece of paper and sticking it in

some books or somewhere in your house

32.35%

Table 1: Students’ ways of learning vocabulary

The table presents the ways students choose to study vocabulary From the information in the table, it is clear that reading aloud new words and writing down in the notebooks many times and looking up words’ meaning in a dictionary are always the first choice when students want to study new words with 73.53% and 100% respectively Learning other forms of words also falls into this group with 82.35% of the students choosing it This is not surprising as it is a popular kind of exercise teachers often assign to students Next, around 30% to 50% of the students say that they learn vocabulary by writing a list of new words in a piece of paper and sticking it in some books or somewhere

in their house and learn new words from English songs Last, making sentences with new words, playing language games with words, reading English books and learning word parts that form a word attract few students with the two former ones accounting for equally only 1.47% and the two latter ones even making up 0% Similarly, no students give other options for ways of learning vocabulary

From the table, it is easy to see that students still use the old and ineffective method of learning new words while the others which focus on learning vocabulary through skills seems strange to students Also, learning word parts that form a word is

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

3 1 2 Problems with unfamiliar words

100%

0%

a Yes

b No

Figure 3: Whether students have difficulty understanding an unfamiliar word

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

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

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

5

a look it up in the dictionary 88.23%

c try to guess its meaning 58.82%

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

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

47%

21%

32%

a guess its meaning from context

b guess its meaning from understandin

g the word parts (roots,

c both

Figure 4: What students do to guess the meaning of a word in a text

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

3 1 3 Students’ knowledge of word parts

100%

0%

a Yes

b No

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

Figure 5 shows the percentage of students who know word parts (prefixes, suffixes and roots) From the chart, all students (100%) response that they know what words parts are It is because word formation is a popular kind of exercise students often do, and all students are taught previously some word parts

For the rest 3 questions related to the word parts that students know, the researcher listed 23 common prefixes, 29 suffixes and 45 roots and asked students to tick  the ones that they know their meaning The data collected were grouped as follows For question 8 about prefixes, the number of prefixes that students know is put into 3 groups: from 0-10, 11-15 and 26-23 The results are presented in the chart below

0-10 6%

11-15 53%

16-23

11-15 16-23

Figure 6: The percentages of students who know prefix groups

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

know about 10 or lower prefixes In addition, the prefixes that most students do not know are de-, en-, em-, for-, mid-, sub-, trans-, super-

0-10 0%

11-20 10%

21-29 90%

0-10 11-20 21-29

Figure 7: The percentages of students who know suffixes

As for question 9, 29 suffixes are divided into 3 groups: 0-10, 11-20 and 21-29 As seen from the chart, most students (90%) know among 21-29 suffixes while only 10% know 11-20 suffixes No student knows less than this number

0-10 24%

11-20 61%

31-45 0%

21-30 15%

0-10 11-20 21-30 31-45

Figure 8: The percentage of students who know word roots

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

11-20, 21-30, 31-45 The chart shows that no student knows the number of roots within 31-45 Next, 11-20 roots are known by most students (61%) while the other two groups (21-30 and 0-10) comprise 15% and 24% respectively In general, most students know an average number of roots, which will be better if it is raised to the first group (31-45)

3 2 Evaluation

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

3.2.1 Results and discussion from the post-task questionnaire

The post-task questionnaire was conducted at the end of the program with the following purposes: (1) students’ feelings and attitudes towards learning vocabulary

through prefixes, suffixes and word roots, (2) students’ assessment of the word parts introduced in the program, the exercises and activities designed by the teacher, (3) students’ evaluation of the effectiveness of developing vocabulary through morpheme analysis

3 2 1 1 Students’ feelings and attitudes towards learning vocabulary through prefixes, suffixes and word roots (Question 1, 2)

c not very motivated

d not motivated at all

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

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

94.00%

6.00%

Yes, I do

No, I don't

Figure 10: Students’ attitudes towards the program

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

32 of them accounting for 94% admit they prefer this way of studying vocabulary and there are two students (6%) answering that they do not like developing vocabulary through learning word part and morpheme analysis

In short, the results of questions 1, 2 show that most of the students have positive reactions towards studying vocabulary through the supplementary reading texts The findings can help the researcher not only confirm the effectiveness of studying vocabulary

through morpheme analysis proposed by many famous linguists but also be more confident when applying this way of studying vocabulary to other students

3 2 1 2 Students’ assessment of the word parts introduced in the program, the exercises and activities designed by the teacher (Question 3, 4)

3

a They are very common, so they help me understand words better 67.64%

b I have known most these word parts, so they do not help much 8.82%

c Many of them are new to me, so I find it difficult to identify them 14.70%

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

As can be seen from table 3, the highest percentage of the students think that the word parts are helpful to them and help them understand word better (67.64%) 8.82% of the students express that they have known most these word part and so they do not help much, the same as that of the ones who have no idea Last, 14.7% regard the word parts as new to them, so they find it difficult to identify them

4

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

Table 4 reveals students’ assessment of the exercises and activities designed by the teacher The highest percentage of students (44.11%) think that the exercises and activities are well-designed, a little higher than that of the ones who claim that they are very well-designed Next, 4 students (11.76%) admit that the exercises and activities are not well-designed while the rest (14.7%) have no idea Last, no students give any other ideas about the exercises and activities This information helps the researcher much in improving the quality of the exercises and activities next time

3 2 1 3 Students’ evaluation of the effectiveness of developing vocabulary through morpheme analysis (Question 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)