Browsing by Subject "Vocabulary--Study and teaching."

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Open Access
The effect of proficiency level on the rate of receptive and productive vocabulary acquisition
(2010) Şener, Murat
This study investigated the effect of proficiency level on the rate of receptive and productive vocabulary acquisition, in conjunction with an examination of materials and instruction. The study was conducted with the participation of 68 beginner and elementary level students, and their teachers at the English Language Preparatory School of Tokat Gaziosmanpaşa University. The data was gathered through receptive and productive vocabulary tests, a one-to-one interview with teachers of the beginner and elementary groups, and materials analysis. After the administration of the pre-tests, the students continued their foreign language education for about three months until the administration of the post-tests. The quantitative analysis demonstrated that the students at both levels improved their vocabulary both receptively and productively; however, the students at the elementary level gained more words in a shorter period of time. The qualitative data analyses showed that instruction and the materials played a certain role in improving the students’ vocabulary acquisition. However, the elementary groups’ greater gains in vocabulary could not be satisfactorily explained by either the materials or instruction. It is possible that the results that could not be explained by either materials or instruction are because of differences in proficiency. The elementary students’ higher level of proficiency appeared to allow them to benefit more from the materials and instruction in terms of vocabulary acquisition. The study implied that teachers and curriculum designers should pay attention to the aim of the program. While selecting the materials and teaching methods, selected materials and teaching methods should be compatible with the aim of the program. The study also implied that providing a few more hours of instruction for the beginner students is not enough to help these students reach the same level of proficiency by the end of the year as higher level students. Even more hours of instruction per week and different instruction should be provided to lower level students in order to help them reach the required proficiency level by the end of the year.
Open Access
The effect of vocabulary notebooks on vocabulary acquisition
(2007) Bozkurt, Neval
This study investigated the effectiveness of vocabulary notebooks on vocabulary acquisition, and the attitudes of teachers and learners towards keeping vocabulary notebooks. The study was conducted with the participation of 60 pre-intermediate level students, divided into one treatment and two control groups, and their teachers at the English Language Preparatory School of Zonguldak Karaelmas University. A fourweek vocabulary notebook implementation was carried out according to a schedule and activities adapted and developed by the researcher. The data was gathered through receptive and productive vocabulary tests, free vocabulary use compositions, group interviews with the students and a one-to-one interview with the teacher of the experimental group. After the administration of receptive and productive vocabulary pre-tests to all of the groups, the learners in the experimental group started to follow the vocabulary notebook schedule incorporated into the regular curriculum, whereas the learners in the control group simply followed the normal curriculum. Every week all of the participant students wrote free vocabulary use compositions on the topics of the units of the week. At the end of the treatment, the same receptive and productive vocabulary tests were given to the groups again. All of the learners in the experimental group and the participant instructor were interviewed in order to see their attitudes towards using vocabulary notebooks. The quantitative and qualitative data analyses demonstrated that vocabulary notebooks are beneficial for vocabulary acquisition. Further, both students and their teacher expressed positive attitudes to vocabulary notebooks. This study implied that vocabulary notebooks could be incorporated into language classes in order for the students to recognize and use the words that are taught to them.
Open Access
The effectiveness of two techniques in teaching content words to EFL students at a Turkish university
(1999) Raif, Özge Tılsım
This relationship study aimed at investigating the effects of the mnemonic keyword technique on recall of vocabulary items in comparison to a dictionary-meaning supplied group. The study was conducted at Middle East Technical University, Department of Basic English. The participants were thirty-two Pre-Intermediate level students in two intact classes. The research questions focused on the significant difference, if any, in short-term and long-term recall of vocabulary items with respect to the implementatidn of teacher-supplied mnemonic keywords and teacher-supplied dictionary definitions in the instruction of vocabulary items. The study was conducted on two Pre-Intermediate level classes and each class was randomly assigned to be treated with one of the two techniques. Thus, two groups were formed: "Pre-Intermediate Keyword Group" and "PreIntermediate Dictionary Definition Group". To determine the words to be used in the experiment, a checklist of sixty words was given to a randomly selected class of sixteen Pre-Intermediate students who did not further participate in the experiment. These sixty vocabulary items were chosen by the researcher with the help of the class instructors of the experiment and control groups. The guidelines for the selection of these words were the coursebooks and materials dealt with at the PreIntermediate level at the Department of Basic English, Middle East Technical University. The words were nouns which were similar to those that the students would learn at that level. However, the list was based on the assumption that the students were not familiar with these items. The 40 items that were most recognised by the sixteen students were eliminated, leaving 20 items to be used in the experimental process. The researcher dealt with the instruction of the vocabulary items for both the keyword group and the dictionary-definition group. The keyword group received copies of a list of the twenty vocabulary items with their Turkish equivalents and key words for each one. The dictionary-definition group received a copy of the same vocabulary items supplied with dictionary definitions along with an example sentence for each item. Both classes were then subjected to an immediate recall test designed as a matching test dealing with the vocabulary items. After a period of three weeks the students were given the same matching test in a different format to test long-term retention. T-test scores were calculated to analyse which technique was more effective on students' short-term and long-term retention of the target vocabulary through the comparison of the means of each group. The immediate posttest results found high raw scores in both groups, which did not differ significantly from each other. The results also support the finding that neither technique can be considered superior to the other in promoting vocabulary retention at the pre-intermediate level. In fact, both techniques were unsuccessful in promoting the long-term retention of most of the vocabulary items tested.
Open Access
The effects of dictionary training on Turkish EFL students' reading comprehension and vocabulary learning
(1995) Altun, Arif
The present study investigated the effects of monolingual dictionary training on Turkish EFL students' reading comprehension and vocabulary learning. Thirty-seven intermediate-level Turkish EFL preparatory students in the Department of English Language Teaching at Mustafa Kemal University participated in this study. The study considered two research questions. The first question concerned the effect of monolingual dictionary training on students' reading comprehension. The second research question investigated the effects of monolingual dictionary training on students' vocabulary learning. To answer the research questions, the students were randomly assigned to one of three groups: one experimental and two control groups. The experimental group, the Dictionary Training group (DT), received special training on the use of a monolingual dictionary. One of the control groups, Dictionary group (D), had access to a monolingual dictionary, but received no training. The other control group, the Guessing group (G), had neither training with nor access to a dictionary. To gather the data, a pretest-posttest procedure was followed. The data were analysed using ANOVA procedures. In order to measure students' reading comprehension, a multiple-choice test based on two reading passages was used. There were a total of 12 questions on the test. Vocabulary learning was tested in two ways: vocabulary production (recall) and vocabulary selection (recognition). In both these tests, the same 16 vocabulary items chosen from the two reading passages were selected. A repeated-measure one-way ANOVA revealed that there were no group differences on the posttest attributable to treatment (p<.105). Dictionary use with or without training had no significant effect on reading comprehension. The results of two separate repeated-measures one-way ANOVAs showed group differences attributable to treatment on the vocabulary learning in terms of both vocabulary production and vocabulary selection. Follow-up post hoc tests were conducted. For vocabulary production, the DT group performed significantly better than the D group (p<.001) and the G group (p<.001). There was no significant difference between the D and the G groups. For vocabulary selection, the DT group performed better than the D group (p<.05) and the G group (p=.001). There was no significant difference between the D and G groups. The findings of this study indicate that access to a monolingual dictionary, with or without training, had no significant effect on students' reading comprehension. However, dictionary training had a positive effect on both production (recall) and selection (recognition) of vocabulary. Dictionary access without training was not superior to guessing.
Open Access
Effects of the teacher-provided and student-generated keyword methods on the immediate and delayed recall and recognition of vocabulary items under classroom conditions at a Turkish university
(1995) Yaylı, Derya
This experimental study aimed at investigating the effects of a teacher-provided keyword method and a studentgenerated keyword method on recall and recognition of vocabulary items in comparison to a rote rehearsal control group. The study was conducted at Middle East Technical University Department of Basic English. The participants were 47 intermediate-level students in three intact classes. Research questions focused on the differences, if any, among the three groups in terms of recall and recognition of vocabulary items, as well as the differences, if any, with respect to retention of the learned vocabulary after treatment. To answer the research questions, three intact classes were chosen from the Middle East Technical University. One class was instructed in the teacher-provided keyword method and a second in the student-generated keyword method. The third group, which served as the control group, was asked to learn the words by rote rehearsal. Each group was allowed 25 minutes to learn the same 20 target vocabulary items. Before the treatment, each group was given a pretest, and the same test was given as a posttest immediately after treatment to test immediate recall and recognition. To measure long-term retention, that is delayed recall and recognition, the same test was given to the three groups after two weeks. These tests included separate recall and recognition sections. Pretest and posttest scores of recall and recognition were compared to measure acquisition of vocabulary items. Later, the posttest and retention test scores were compared to measure long-term retention. For the analysis, means and standard deviations were calculated and one-way analyses of co-variance were applied for each comparison of both recall and recognition separately to see if any method was significantly different from the others. Results did not show any statistically significant difference among the groups for the three tests of immediate and delayed recall and recognition of vocabulary. Treatment worked equally very well for all groups and posttest scores for all groups were very high. However, those groups did not differ significantly from each other. Findings suggest that the keyword strategy, whether provided by the teacher or generated by the students, is not superior to rote rehearsal for either recall or recognition at immediate or delayed testing in university classroom conditions.