Efficiency of gap-fill exercises to 10th form students’ vocabulary acquisition = Hiệu quả của bài tập điền khuyết đối với sự tiếp thụ từ vựng của học sinh lớp 1

It is common knowledge that there are various techniques of learning vocabulary, mastering and using it in different contexts and one of the effective techniques to help students to rein

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NGUYỄN THỊ KIỀU NGA

EFFICIENCY OF GAP-FILL EXERCISES TO 10TH FORM STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY ACQUISITION

từ vựng của học sinh lớp 10)

MINOR M.A THESIS

Field: English Methodology Code: 601410

HANOI - 2011

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NGUYỄN THỊ KIỀU NGA

EFFICIENCY OF GAP-FILL EXERCISES TO 10TH FORM STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY ACQUISITION

từ vựng của học sinh lớp 10)

MINOR M.A THESIS

Field: English Methodology Code: 601410

SUPERVISOR: LE VAN CANH, Ph.D

HANOI - 2011

PART I: INTRODUCTION

3 Research Hypotheses and Questions 2

PART II: DEVELOPMENT

1.2 The role of vocabulary in second language learning 5

1.6 Gap-fill exercises and the acquisition of vocabulary 11

2.2 Rationale for using a Quasi-experimental method 18

2.5 Designing and applying gap-fill exercises 20

3.1 The Effectiveness of GFEs on students’ vocabulary acquisition 26 3.1.1 Comparison of Pretest and Posttest Performance 26 3.1.2 Comparison of both group’s vocabulary gains after the experiment 27

3.3.1 Vocabulary gains as resulted from the application of GFEs 32

PART III: CONCLUSION

3 Recommendations for the application of GFEs 37

APPENDICES

LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Pages

Table 3.1 Descriptive statistics for the pretest and posttest of

experimental and control groups

26

Table 3.2 Means gains of the experimental group and control groups

after the experiment

28

Figure 3.1 The differences between the means scores on the paired pretest

and the paired posttests

27

Figure 3.2 Differences in gain values obtained by both groups after the

experiment

29

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL English as Foreign Language

ESL English as Second Language

GFEs Gap – Fill Exercises

N Number of Cases or Subjects of the study

p Probability of chance (indicator of significance)

SPSS Statistic Package for Social Science

TOEIC Test of English for International Communication

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Vocabulary is an important language element that links four language skills, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing together and makes communication flow smoothly Reality shows that many students have fairly good knowledge of grammar but are hardly able to express themselves properly because of their vocabulary deficiency Vocabulary learning, therefore, becomes the central to language acquisition and interest in its role in second language learning has grown rapidly in recent years Scholars and teachers now emphasize the need of systematic and principled approach to vocabulary by both the teacher and the learner (Decarrico, 2001; Nation, 1990) One of the concerns in vocabulary is how to help students acquire their English vocabulary

However, at upper secondary schools, the teaching and learning of English language in general, English vocabulary in particular are still far from satisfaction as students’ final results in most English examinations remain unchanged at low levels In fact, most secondary school students have not paid enough attention to vocabulary learning as they mainly receive basic lessons of grammar together with four skills from their teachers and textbooks It is common knowledge that there are various techniques of learning vocabulary, mastering and using it in different contexts and one of the effective techniques

to help students to reinforce vocabulary is giving them appropriate vocabulary exercises, namely, gap-fill exercises This type of vocabulary exercises typically consists of leaving a gap or a blank space in a sentence or a passage which students have to fill in with the correct letter, word, phrase or whatever is missing

Though vocabulary is vitally important to master any foreign languages, in reality, many grade 10 students’ English vocabulary is still limited even though they have learned English for four years at the lower secondary school It is their limited vocabulary that explains their poor performance in using English and in their test performance All these have motivated me to conduct this quasi-experimental research on the topic given, namely

efficiency of gap- fill exercises to 10 th form students’ vocabulary acquisition

2 Aims and Objectives of the Study

The main aim of this study is to experiment gap-fill exercises in helping grade 10 students acquire their English vocabulary

To be more specific, the primary objectives of the study are set as follows:

 To experiment gap-fill exercises and examine their effects on grade 10 students’ English vocabulary acquisition

 To investigate the students’ attitudes towards gap-fill exercises., i.e how effective they think doing gap-fill exercises is to their vocabulary learning

3 Research Hypotheses and Questions

To achieve the aims and objectives, the study is designed to test the hypothesis:

H1: Grade 10 students who apply gap-fill exercises will make more significant improvement in their English vocabulary acquisition as measured by both pre-test and post-test scores than those who do not apply such exercises

If the above hypothesis was fully accepted, the following null hypothesis would be obviously rejected or vice versa:

H0: There is no difference in English vocabulary acquisition as measured by both pre-test and post-test scores between grade 10 students who apply gap-fill exercises and those who do not apply such exercises

In order to identify which hypothesis would be accepted, the following research questions are formulated and needed to answer satisfactorily:

(1) What effect do gap –fill exercises have on students’ vocabulary acquisition as measured by their scores in the pre-test and post-test?

(2) What are the students’ attitudes towards gap-fill exercises after the experimental period?

4 Method of the Study

Because the purpose of the study is to test out the impact of gap-fill exercises on students’ acquisition of vocabulary, a quasi-experiment with a pre-test- and post-test design was adopted in this study Two non-randomized groups of 82 students (one control group and one experimental group, N= 41 each) participated in this experiment The pre-test and post-test scores were analyzed by means of t-test to find out the correlation of the two means to accept or reject the null hypothesis, namely gap-fill exercises do not have any effect on grade 10 students’ English vocabulary learning In addition, a post-experiment questionnaire was also used as the supplementary instrument to elicit the students’ evaluative attitudes towards gap-fill exercises after the experimental period

5 Scope of the Study

The experiment was conducted to examine the impact of one type of vocabulary exercises, i.e., gap-fill exercises on students’ acquisition of vocabulary The sample was a small group of grade 10 students who were non-randomly assigned to a control class and an experimental class (41 students for each) Therefore, no intention was made to generalize the findings

6 Significance of the Study

Although no generalization was intended, the findings of the study could inform teachers

of the effectiveness of gap-fill exercises on students’ vocabulary learning

7 Organization of the thesis

This thesis is organized in three parts

Part I is The Introduction which presents the rationale for the research topic, aims, research hypotheses, scope, significance, and method of the study

Part II is The Development which consists of three chapters Chapter one reviews theoretical background to teaching and learning vocabulary in a second language including vocabulary’s definition, its role in second language learning, the vocabulary acquisition, vocabulary exercises and the relationship between gap-fill exercises and vocabulary

acquisition Chapter two describes the context of the study, rationale of using a experimental method, variables, participants, design of gap-fill exercises, instruments of the study as well as the procedure employed to carry out the research Chapter three presents detailed analyses of the data given by the pretest and posttest and discusses the findings that the researcher found out from the data collected

Quasi-Part III is The Conclusion which discusses the major findings and limitations of the research, recommends the application of gap-fill exercises and suggests further studies

PART II: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 What is vocabulary?

Up to now there have been many definitions of vocabulary Some linguists define it

according to semantic criterion while others refer to it according to the phonological or

potential one According to Michael Lewis (1993:89), vocabulary “….may be individual

words, or full sentences – institutionalized utterances – that convey fixed social or

pragmatic meaning within a given community.”

Ur (1996) defines vocabulary as the words we teach in the foreign language The author

also emphasizes that a new item of vocabulary may be more than a single word; for

example, post office and mother-in law, which are made up of two or three words but express a single idea There are also multi-word idioms such as call it a day, where the

meaning of the phrase cannot be deduced from an analysis of the component words Therefore, a useful convention is to cover all such cases by talking about vocabulary

“lexical items” rather than “words”

From a pedagogical perspective, Ur’s (1996) definition of vocabulary is easy to understand However, the definition also suggests that it is not easy to define what a word

is

1.2 The role of vocabulary in second language learning

If language structures make up the skeleton of a language, vocabulary provides vital organs and the flesh, so, vocabulary plays a very essential role in any language Concerning the significance of vocabulary, Wilkin (1972:110) states: “Vocabulary is one

of the three dimensions of a language (phonetics, grammar, vocabulary) Without grammar, very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed” Wallace (1982) points out that “failure to find the words one needs to express himself is the most frustrating experience in speaking another language”

Thus, for the success of learning a language, it is very essential for learners to master its vocabulary

1.3 The vocabulary acquisition

Rivers (1981: 463) argues that

Vocabulary cannot be taught It can be presented, explained, included in all kinds

of activities, but it must be learned by the individual The vocabulary we

understand and the vocabulary we can use varieties in nature and in quantity from one person to another even in our native language

She, then, recommends seven strategies for “learning how to learn vocabulary” These strategies are:

(i) Students need to learn how to commit vocabulary to long-term memory

(ii) Students must learn to discriminate variations in distribution and new boundaries

of meaning

(iii) Students do not always realize that words are constructed of morphemes which share the burden of the meaning among them

(iv) Students should learn to penetrate disguises

(v) Students must learn how to discover new words for themselves

(vi) Students need to learn that vocabulary is elastic and that they can make much of the little they know by paraphrase, circumlocution etc

(vii) Students must learn how to augment their own vocabulary steadily and systematically

What Rivers implies is that vocabulary needs to be taught in a systematic, reasonable and scientific way Furthermore, vocabulary acquisition is a matter of learning over a period of time Nasr (1981, 14) makes the point that,

Learning the vocabulary of a foreign language….takes time There are no short cuts

to a control of the complete vocabulary of a foreign language One cannot have complete control of the vocabulary of a new language in eight weeks or eight months or eight years

In a nutshell, vocabulary acquisition is increasingly viewed as crucial to language acquisition However, there is much disagreement as to the effectiveness of different approaches for presenting vocabulary items Moreover, learning vocabulary is often perceived as a tedious and laborious process Below is a review of the common vocabulary techniques

1.3.1 Vocabulary Teaching Techniques

There are numerous techniques concerned with vocabulary presentation However, there are a few things that have to be remembered irrespective of the way new lexical items are presented If teachers want students to remember new vocabulary, it needs to be learnt in context, practised, and then revised to prevent students from forgetting Teachers must make sure students have understood the new words, which will be remembered better if introduced in a “Memorable Way” (Hubbard, et al 1983: 50) Bearing all this in mind, teachers have to remember to employ a variety of techniques for new vocabulary presentation and revision

Gairns and Redman (1986) suggest the following types of vocabulary presentation techniques:

(i) Visual techniques

According Zebrowska (cited in Gairn and Redman (1999), visual techniques pertain to visual memory, which is considered especially helpful with vocabulary retention Learners remember better the material that has been presented by means of visual aids such as flashcards, photographs, blackboard drawings, wall charts and relia (i.e objects themselves) can stimulate students to speak the language Regarding visual aids, students can benefit from communicative activities since they help to provide the situation which light up the meaning of the utterances used Besides, mime and gesture are often used to supplement other ways of conveying meaning Teachers can make use of the blackboard and gesture to reinforce the concept For example, make the typical gesture with your

hands as you say "Stand up", "come here", or "sit down"; mime writing as you say " Write

the answers", or mime distributing things as you say, "Please give out these photocopies"

(ii) Verbal explanation

This pertains to the use of illustrative situations, synonyms, opposites, scales (Gairns and Redman, 1986: 74), definition (Nation, 1990: 58) and categories (Allen and Valette, 1972: 116)

- Use of illustrative situations (oral or written): To ensure that students understand,

teachers often make use of more than one situation or context to check that learners have grasped the concept

- Use of synonym and definition: Teachers often use synonymy, where inevitably

they have to compromise and restrict the length and complexity of their explanations Besides, definition alone is often inadequate as a means of conveying meaning, and clearly contextualized examples are generally required to clarify the limits of the item

- Contrasts and opposites: As with synonymy, this is a technique which students

themselves use, often asking "What's the opposite ?"

- Examples of the type: To illustrate the meaning of super ordinates such as

'furniture', 'vegetables', 'meat' and 'transport', it is a common procedure to exemplify them e.g table, chair, bed and sofa are all furniture Some of these can

of source also be dealt with through visual aids

(iii) Use of dictionaries

Using a dictionary is another technique of finding out meanings of unfamiliar words and expressions Students can make use of a variety of dictionaries: bilingual, monolingual, pictorial, thesauri, and the like (Thornbury, however, disapproves overusing bilingual dictionaries as they can lead the student to misusing words- they oversimplify meaning and often do not offer notes on their usages)

1.3.2 Revising vocabulary

The revision process aims at helping students acquire active vocabularies Students need to practise regularly what they have learnt; otherwise, the material will be faded away Teachers can resort to many techniques for vocabulary consolidation and revision To begin with, a choice of graphs and grids can be used Students may give a definition of a given item to be found by other students Multiple choice and gap fill exercises will activate the vocabulary while students select the appropriate response Teachers can use lists of synonyms or antonyms to be matched, sentences to be paraphrased, or just some words or expressions in context to be substituted by synonymous expressions Doing cloze tests will show students’ understanding of a passage, its organisation, and determine the choice of lexical items Visual aids can be of great help with revision Pictures, photographs, or drawings can facilitate the consolidation of both individual words as well

as idioms, phrases and structures There is also a large variety of word games that are

“useful for practising and revising vocabulary after it has been introduced” (Haycraft, 1978: 50) Numerous puzzles, word squares, crosswords, etc., are useful especially for pair

or group work

1.4 Vocabulary activities and exercises

Nation (2001) recommends the following exercises for vocabulary learning These exercises are believed to help the students acquire all aspects of vocabulary learning: meaning, form, and use

Completing lexical sets

(ii) Form

Following spelling rules

Recognizing word parts

Building word family tables

(iii)Use

Sentence completion

Collocation matching

Collocation tables

Interpreting dictionary entries

1.5 Criteria of a good vocabulary exercise

According to Nation (2001), a good vocabulary exercise:

(i) focuses on useful words, preferably high frequency words that have already been met before;

(ii) focuses on a useful aspect of learning burden It has a useful learning goal;

(iii) gets learners to meet or use the word in the ways that establish new mental connections for the word It sets up useful learning conditions involving generative use;

(iv) involves the learners in actively searching for and evaluating target words in the exercise;

(v) does not bring related unknown or partly known words together It avoids interference

He also suggests that it is necessary to get students’ repeated attention to vocabulary This can be achieved by giving students opportunities to meet the learned words closely, preferably within a few days, so that too much forgetting does not occur Later meetings of the words can be widely spaced with several weeks between each meeting The following section reviews the usefulness of one type of vocabulary exercises – a gap-fill exercise

1.6 Gap-fill exercises and the acquisition of vocabulary

According to Nation (2001) creative or generative use of new words enhances word retention He defines creative or generative use of a word as using the word in a way that is different from the original encounter

One big question about vocabulary is what kind of exercises is best for practicing vocabulary The common belief is that teachers need to use a great variety of vocabulary exercises Given the aim and scope of the study, what follows is just a discussion of one type of vocabulary exercises – the fill-in-the-blank or gap-fill exercise type

Gap-fill exercises are commonly used, but Sciarone and Meijer (1995) found in their study that gap-fill exercises do not contribute more to acquisition than conversation practice However, they caution that this does not mean teachers should abandon this type of exercises for conversation practice Their conclusion is that it is more likely that there is no strong reason to do only one of these exercises to the exclusion of the other Schouten-van Parren’s (1995) review of the literature revealed three possible factors that require deeper processing which leads to better learning of vocabulary These factors are: elaboration, distinctiveness, and difficulty Filling in a cloze exercise with target vocabulary words requires more elaboration by the learner than just looking at the list of target words The author suggests that gap fill exercises will activate the vocabulary while students select the appropriate response Gap-fill exercises are an excellent way to reinforce vocabulary, and allow the student to encounter the vocabulary in a variety of contexts The exercises can be worked on individually or in pairs in class, or can be assigned as homework to be quickly reviewed in class the next day Doing cloze exercises will show students’ understanding of

a passage, its organization, and determine the choice of lexical items

When the vocabulary of students has increased to a certain extent, old words may be instruments for teaching new words This is done by placing new words in verbal contexts that provide meaning Mackey (1978: 252) writes,

Contexts help us to guess the meaning of the words In fact, that is what we do when we learn our native language A child learns many of his words by drawing tentative conclusions from a variety of contexts Multiplication of contexts helps to make meaning clear

As the meaning of all the words in a sentence interact on one another, a missing word may

be easily inferred For example, in the sentence: “He _ into the river”, students can

guess that the missing word shows some movement

Cloze testing was first introduced by W.L Taylor (1953: 416), who developed it as a reading test for native speakers He defined the term "cloze" from a gestalt concept which teaches that an individual will be able to complete a task only after its pattern has been discerned:

A cloze unit may be defined as: any single occurrence of a successful attempt to

reproduce accurately a part deleted from a 'message' (any language product), by

deciding from the context that remains, what the missing part should be

Cloze tests consist of a text (usually two or three paragraphs) which has had words or parts

of words deleted from it Test subjects must draw from their knowledge of the language in order to write appropriate words in the blanks

There are at least five main types of cloze tests available to language teachers: The rate deletion, the selective deletion (also known as the rational cloze), the multiple-choice cloze, the cloze elide and the C-test (Ikeguchi 1995; Weir 1990; Klein-Braley and Raatz 1984)

fixed-In the fixed-rate deletion, after one or two sentences, every nth word is deleted Usually

every fifth or seventh word is deleted, but Brown (1983) suggests that longer texts with every eleventh or fifteenth word deleted can be used with subjects who have a lower level

of language proficiency Multiple choice cloze tests provide the subjects with several

possible items to choose from for each blank The cloze elide inserts words which do not belong in the text, and requires the subjects to identify the incorrect words plus write appropriate items in their place The C-test consists of deleting only part of every second word in a text, and asks subjects to complete each truncated word In the selective deletion

or rational cloze, the tester chooses which items he or she wishes to delete from the text The goal for teachers using this test is not only to fine tune the level of difficulty of the text, but also to measure the knowledge of vocabulary items and specific grammatical points

Folse (2004) suggests the following types of gap-fill vocabulary exercises that are useful in enhancing students’ retention of words and learning how to use words appropriately

(i) Cloze sentences

For example: Fill in the blanks with one of 10 words given to complete the following

sentences: army, cattle, donkey, foe, ivory, lament, oath, portray, tortoise, venom

a Sometimes a snake’s ………… can kill a human being

b When a soldier comes across an unknown person, he or she has to determine if the unknown person is friend or ……

…….etc

(ii) Cloze passage

Example: Fill in the blanks with one of 10 words given to complete the following passage:

army, cattle, donkey, foe, ivory, lament, oath, portray, tortoise, venom

Snakes have a bad reputation, but they do not seek to attack When a snake comes across an unknown object, the snake determines whether the object is friend or (1)

…… If the object is a threat to the snake, the snake will bite the object with the intention of injecting its deadly (2) …… .etc

(iii) The C-Test

The C-Test is really a variety of cloze Instead of whole words, it is the second half of every second word which is deleted An example follows:

There are usually five men in the crew of a fire engine One o them dri the eng The lea sits bes the dri The ot firemen s inside t cab o the f engine T leader h usually be in t Fire Ser for ma years H will kn how t fight diff sorts o fires S , when t firemen arr at a fire, it is always the leader who decides how to fight a fire He tells each fireman what to do

(Klein-Braley and Raatz 1984)

In his book “Vocabulary Myths,” Keith Folse (2004) notes that

ESL students see acquisition of vocabulary as their greatest source of problems….However, vocabulary is not dealt with sufficiently….some teachers cover some vocabulary, but this is something that everyone assumes that learners will somehow pick up, much the same way everyone assumes that students will just pick up good pronunciation

He sees a lot of value in the use of different variations of gap-fill exercises for things like: drawing attention to patterns, checking understanding, discovery learning (if designed properly), etc It is therefore essential that vocabulary which is introduced in class be reviewed and reinforced repeatedly The following are some ideas for recycling vocabulary both inside and outside of the ESL classroom, using Gerry's Vocabulary Teacher

- The Standard Multi-Word Gap-Fill

Gap-fill exercises can take various forms; the most common is the standard multi-word exercise with a number of sentences and words to choose from For example:

estimated boost crashed abandon debt

a The plane _ soon after takeoff, but no one was killed

b Advertising on the Internet has helped to _ our sales

etc……

- The Gap-Fill with Clues in Root Form

A challenging variation of the above exercise is a gap-fill exercise in which the words which are gapped are presented in their root form In this way, students have to choose the correct word from the contexts given, and supply the appropriate form of the word, such as

a different derivation or different tense Example:

factor enroll harvest global immigrate

a _ in our classes has increased by 10% this year

b Many contributed to my bad marks at school

etc……

- Multiple Contexts for One Word

Another variation which can help students to understand the various derivations for a word

is a gap-fill exercise with several different contexts for one word, each showing a different form or derivation A short example exercise is shown below

theoretical theories theory theorize theorists

a Einstein’s famous that E = mc2 has been shown to be true

b Efforts to solve global problems often require broad _ understanding of cultural systems, as well as detailed understanding of specific local cultures

etc……

- Listening Practice with Gap-Fills

Gap-fill exercises can be presented as listening exercises In this exercise, students hear the sentence rather than reading it, and have to choose the appropriate answer The next day in class, students can be shown the sentences that they heard in the language lab At this time,

they can see if what was said is the same as what they thought they heard It also offers an additional opportunity to review and learn the target vocabulary For example:

- Listen to the following words and repeat

abuse committed distracted harmful injuries victims

Listen to the following sentences and fill in the blanks with the appropriate word from the list above

1. 2

ect………

- Crossword Puzzles with Gap-Fill Clues

Gap-fill exercises can be presented as crossword puzzles Rather than presenting dictionary definitions as clues, use gap-fill sentences in context Crossword puzzles are an excellent way to review vocabulary, as students will immediately know their answers are incorrect if they do not fit the puzzle In addition, if the students can't figure out the answer, they can simply count the squares in the puzzle, find words of equal length and then try to deduce the correct answer

- Interactive Web- Based Gap- Fill Exercises

Using Hot Potatoes formats JCloze and JMatch, Gerry’s Vocabulary Teacher will

automatically generate interactive Web-based gap-fill exercises for posting on a class or institutional website Web-based exercises are an excellent way of reviewing vocabulary,

as students can receive feedback on their responses, and can review the material at any time from any computer with Internet access

All in all, using the different types of gap-fill exercises described above, teachers can review and reinforce vocabulary in a variety of ways, help the students develop a greater understanding of vocabulary, and meet the students’ various verbal and non-verbal learning styles

1.7 Summary

This chapter reviews the literature on the role of vocabulary in second language learning and different types of vocabulary exercises and activities to be suggested in the literature with a focus on gap-fill exercises The chapter, thus, reviews the benefits of gap-fill vocabulary exercises as well as how these exercises can be used in the classroom Next chapter- Chapter II- will describe the study including the context and the design of the study

CHAPTER TWO: THE STUDY

2.1 Context of the study

The study was conducted at Dinh Tien Hoang high school, which is situated about 2 kilometers to the East of the center of Ninh Binh city, Ninh Binh province There are also three other schools in Ninh Binh city including a specialized one which attracts almost all advanced students from the city as well as different districts of Ninh Binh Compared to the others in the city, this is the new school founded 15 years ago with only 15 class rooms and a small yard at first However, it has changed a lot now

For the 2010-2011 academic year, the school had over one thousand and two hundred students being grouped in 30 classes, with an average of 42 students per class There were

10 teachers of English and 70 others in teaching staff The school has a quite big library with plentiful sources of reference books, magazines and newspapers convenient for all students to make reference Moreover, it has five well-equipped classroom with projectors, screens, computers, etc available In fact, it is considered to be one of the best schools in Ninh Binh in terms of teaching and learning facilities

As for the students of the school, most of them live in the city or near the city so they have favorable conditions for their learning both at school and at home However, as mentioned above, they are just students with average scores when entering the school They are divided into two streams: stream A (students with higher scores in natural sciences) and stream B, basic one (all the other students.) The students of stream A receive 3 English periods a week, whereas students of the other receive 4 periods per week However, the teaching materials for both streams are the textbooks and workbooks prescribed by MOEET and the supplementary exercises for the basic stream selected by the classroom teachers

2.2 Rationale for using a Quasi-experimental method

Experiments are carried out in order to explore the strengths of the relationship between variables This study was aimed at exploring the relationship between gap- filling exercises and grade 10 students’ acquisition of their English vocabulary Two types of variables were identified for the study: the dependent variable and the independent variable The

former in this study was the students’ scores in their vocabulary tests (their vocabulary acquisition) while the latter was gap-fill exercises The relationship between these two variables were defined through the analytical procedure using the paired- sample t-tests to compare the means scores of the experimental group and those of the control group before and after treatment The paired-sample t-test is the appropriate test for this purpose

Despite the advantage of the experimental method in the study which sets out to investigate the correlation between the intervention and its outcome, it is not always feasible to carry out a true experiment This is because of the impossibility of randomly assigning subjects to experimental and the control groups in many educational contexts Instead, a quasi-experiment is employed with the subjects for both the experimental group and the control group being the intact groups of students As this study was conducted on the students in 2 classes which were assigned by the high school where the researcher was working , a quasi-experimental method was naturally chosen

2.3 Variables

As mentioned above, the quasi-experimental design was used in the study as an appropriate approach to establish the cause- effect relationship between gap-fill exercises and grade 10 students’ English vocabulary acquisition Therefore, the study was designed

to examine the relationship between the independent (gap- fill exercises) and the dependent variable (the vocabulary test score)

In this quasi-experimental study, gap-fill exercises were seen as the comprehensive input acquired outside the classroom by students who were encouraged to do more exercises at their disposal The values of the independent variable were defined from the experimental students’ weekly reports which covered the information on the exercises they had done and the amount of time spent on exercises per week

In order to measure students’ vocabulary acquisition from gap-fill exercises, the pretest and posttest were employed as a valid and reliable means for the study The vocabulary test scores of both control and experimental groups were carefully computed and compared before and after the experiment by a t-test

2.4 Participants

In the study, 82 students all of whom were non-major English students from 2 classes: 10A1 and 10A3 Each class consisted of 41 students All of the students were majored in natural sciences They had been learning English since they were at grade 3 However, most of them were not really motivated in learning English and they didn’t intend to take English as one of the subject in their entrance exam, their English knowledge was just at the average level, some were even bad at English Based on their grades of their final exam

in the preceding semester, the researcher found out that they were generally homogeneous

in learning English The two classes studied the same textbook of Tiếng Anh 10 with three periods a week As can be seen, the textbook is theme-based, including 16 units and 6 tests yourself for students to check their own knowledge Each unit corresponds with a topic and consists of 5 parts (Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing, and Language Focus) There is

no separate part for Vocabulary Vocabulary is indirectly taught and learnt (i.e., learning vocabulary as a by-product of doing other things such as reading or listening, etc.) It is taught integratedly with skills such as reading, speaking, listening, and writing The textbook is, obviously, designed on the basic principles of CLT; however, there still remain some problems in themselves For example, the reading texts are often long and rather tough for students while their levels are not the same Moreover, the tasks are sometimes overloaded for students These may create demotivation among students in the class These two classes were assigned to an experimental group and a control group The researcher taught the two classes the same content but in two different ways for the vocabulary acquisition The experimental group received treatment through various types

of gap- fill exercises designed by the researcher in recycling previously met words to help them reinforce the vocabulary The control group received traditional treatment, that is recycling words just through exercises given in the textbook

2.5 Designing and applying gap-fill exercises on the experimental group

Gap-fill exercises designed by the researcher were mainly adopted from English

Vocabulary in Use by Michael McCarthy Felicity O’Dell, Test Your Vocabulary Books by Peter Watcyn-Jones and Check Your English Vocabulary for TOEIC by Rawdon Wyatt

All of these exercises were carefully chosen to ensure that they were appropriate to

students’ English proficiency and they contained the vocabulary taught during the experimental period In order to help students retain vocabulary and know how to put it into practice, the researcher modified exercises in which the same words to be filled in were repeated in different contexts By this way, the researcher believed that students might not feel burdensome when doing vocabulary exercises

Cloze exercises were constructed by selecting segments of text of approximately five to thirty-five words in length and deleting five words, usually every fifth The five deleted words, which were replaced by blanks, were placed in a list to the right of the passage The student’s task was to write the correct word, selecting from the words in the list on the right, in each of the blanks For advanced students, a sixth or seventh word was added to the list at the right of the passage

twenty-The researcher handed out a worksheet of gap-fill exercises to students every two weeks The number of lexical items was the same every time, i.e., 60 target lexical items for each However the types of exercises were different In the first two weeks, students were required to do only two types of gap-fills, but another type was added every next two weeks Gradually, students became accustomed to all kinds of gap-fill exercises after a period of four months of experiment

2.6 Procedures

The study was conducted over a period of 4 months, beginning from January 3rd 2011 and finishing by May 20, 2011 at DTH high school, Ninh Binh City The procedures of the study involved the chronological steps as follows:

(i) Study the literature review underlying the study before carrying out the research; (ii) Establish the methodological framework for the study;

(iii) Design and administer the pretest to both groups (experimental and control groups);

(iv) Identify any difference in the pretest scores between the two groups;

(v) Apply the gap- fill exercises on the experimental group;

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

(vii) Analyze both groups’ posttest scores to establish the difference in vocabulary acquisition between the two groups after four months;

(viii) Deliver the questionnaire to the experimental group to get their ideas about gap- fill exercises;

(ix) Collect and analyze all the data for the results of study;

(x) Discuss the findings and draw out the conclusions and suggestions for further study

The procedure of how this quasi-experimental study was conducted was presented in detail

as follows:

Every experimental student was given a worksheet of gap-fill exercises which they had to finish at home in a two-week period In that worksheet, the researcher designed various types of gap-fills carefully to make students feel interested when doing them Each

worksheet consisted of 60 lexical items, mainly collected from English Vocabulary in Use

by Michael McCarthy Felicity O’Dell, Test Your Vocabulary Books by Peter Jones, and Check Your English Vocabulary for TOEIC by Rawdon Wyatt to test students’

Watcyn-vocabulary knowledge Among 60 chosen words were 30 ones learnt in the last lessons and the others being learnt In class, either at the beginning or at the end of the lesson, the teacher asked the students to submit their worksheets for some feedback and comments which were made at home by the teacher On regular basis, students received the teacher’s comments and feedback which mainly focused on the techniques rather on the meaning

In class, the feedback from the teacher about gap-fill exercises done at home by students took about 5 to 8 minutes The length of time was important because most of the class time

in EFL classrooms at the researcher’s school must be devoted to activities related to authorized textbooks Therefore, in the context of this study, gap-fill exercises must take a secondary role to these activities because the objectives of the course are not only to improve English vocabulary acquisition, proficiency but also other skills which are prescribed in the textbook In this study, the experimental treatment was done together

with the new textbook Tiếng Anh 10 The treatment period lasted for 4 months, started on January 3rd and finished on June 5th, 2011

2.7 Instruments for Data collection

Two instruments which were employed to collect data in this study were the tests and the students’ questionnaire The tests (see Appendix B & C) were used to measure the impact

of gap-fill exercises on the subjects’ L2 vocabulary acquisition and retention The students’ questionnaire (see Appendix D) which was administered by the end of the treatment, was used to find out the students’ attitudes towards gap-fill exercises

2.7.1 Pretest and Posttest

The test consisted of 40 taught lexical items and divided into 4 parts In the first part, students were required to do the multiple – choice cloze Part 2 required them to do the C-test In each sentence there was an important word which was intentionally deleted except for the first letters of the word Students were obliged to write the missing words Part 3 involved Fixed-Rate cloze test Test subjects must draw from their knowledge of the language in order to write appropriate words in the blanks And in the last part of the test, test-takers were asked to do the open gap-fill exercise in which they were not given any words to choose from They must read the text after the gap as well as before it to be sure that the word they chose fitted completely into the context Each correct answer was rated one point, each score was the total number of correct answer and the maximum score that a student was able to get would be 40 The time allowance for each test was 32 minutes including the time of delivering the test paper Specifically, before the experiment, the pretest was given to both groups at the same time on the same day In order to measure the amount of vocabulary the students achieved in the experiment period, the pretest and posttest mainly tested the same lexical items, but changes in order and types of exercises The test was administered under the surveillance of the researcher and another teacher at DTH high school to make sure that no student could copy the answers from the others After the experimental period, the posttest, the version of the pretest in which some changes were made to avoid the similarity in the question order and format of both tests, was used again to measure the two groups’ L2 vocabulary gains for four months The steps

of administering the posttest were the same as the pretest As for the experimental group,

the posttest scores were also employed to evaluate the effect of the gap- fill exercises on their L2 vocabulary acquisition Finally, in order to have consistent assessment across raters and scoring occasions, the researcher tried to get good coordination with another teacher at DTH in rating the test scores of both groups Furthermore, all the students’ test scores were computed and analyzed with the assistance of the computer software (SPSS 15.0 version), so the score values of each subject was always expected to be reliable

2.7.2 Questionnaire

According to McDonough, J & McDonough, S (1997), questionnaires are commonly used in educational research in general and in ELT research in particular In fact, questionnaires have several advantages as follows:

- Questionnaire does not take time to prepare and administer,

- The collected data are standard and accurate since the same questionnaire is given

to all the subjects at the same time,

- Questionnaire can be easily qualified as multiple choice questions are used (Selinger & Shohany (1989)

However, “the construction of valid and reliable questionnaire is a specialized business” (Nunan1992:143) In this study, a written questionnaire (see Appendix D) was administered to all the students of the experimental group at the same time In order to achieve the objective results from 41 subjects who used gap- fill exercises for their vocabulary acquisition, 10 multiple –choice questions were carefully designed to draw their evaluative opinions of gap- fill exercises after the experiment All the written questions were related to students’ feedback to the effect of gap- fill exercises on students’ L2 vocabulary acquisition The step of administering the questionnaire was also established Before answering the questions, all the experimental students were made to feel safe and easy to give their true responses to all the statements since their own opinions were just for study, not for any other reasons In the questionnaire, the students were asked

to give their ideas to all the questions in three ways If they agreed with the statement, they

would mark in the Agree-column with a tick, if they disagreed, they would mark in the

Disagree-column with a tick In case, they did not know or have no idea about the issue

mentioned, they would put a tick in the No opinion-column The questionnaire was written

in Vietnamese to assure that respondents did not have any language problems in understanding every statement item

The data collected from the questionnaire were then analyzed in detail in the following sections The result of the questionnaire would help the researcher draw out supplemental statements on the issue discussed

2.8 Summary

This chapter presents the context and the design of the study The research procedures and research instruments are also presented Next chapter presents the findings and the discussion of the study

CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 The Effectiveness of GFEs on students’ vocabulary acquisition

3.1 1 Comparison of pretest and posttest performance

Table 3.1 summarizes some significant descriptive statistics of the results achieved by both groups in the pretest and posttest This section could help readers find out the satisfactory answer to the first research question of the study (For more comprehensive information on students’ test performance, see Appendix A)

results

With regard to the means, the modes and the medians for the posttest scores in both groups, they were observed to be really greater than those of the pretest scores It was proved that both groups generally made some remarkable improvements after the four-month experiment As compared to the control group’s posttest score, it could be assumed that the experimental group made greater improvements (22.22 compared to 20.46) Figure 3.1 presents the overview of the means scores gained by both groups in the pretest and posttest

Figure 3.1: The differences between the means scores on the paired pretests and the

paired posttests

3.1.2 Comparison of both groups’ vocabulary gains after the experiment

The following table presents the means, the standard deviation, the t value, the degree of

freedom and the critical values, which were calculated to establish the differences in the gains between the pretests and posttests performed by the experimental and control groups Here, the t-test was used again to compare the means gains made by both groups to see if the treatment might have been associated with any difference in vocabulary acquisition