Ảnh hưởng của việc dạy từ vựng trong ngữ cảnh tới việc tiếp thu từ vựng của học sinh lớp 10. Nghiên cứu hành động tại trường THPT Tô Hiệu, Hải Phòng

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FALCUTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
……………… ***………………….






ĐẶNG THỊ HƯƠNG





THE EFFECT OF CONTEXTUALIZED VOCABULARY
PRESENTATION ON 10
TH
FORM STUDENTS’ ENGLISH
VOCABULARY ACQUISITION. AN ACTION RESEARCH
AT TO HIEU HIGH SCHOOL, HAI PHONG.

ẢNH HƯỞNG CỦA VIỆC DẠY TỪ VỰNG TRONG NGỮ CẢNH TỚI VIỆC TIẾP
THU TỪ VỰNG CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10. NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG TẠI
TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG TÔ HIỆU, HẢI PHÒNG.

M.A MINOR THESIS
Field: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
Code: 60-14-10







HA NOI- 2011





VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FALCUTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
……………… ***………………….







ĐẶNG THỊ HƯƠNG

THE EFFECT OF CONTEXTUALIZED VOCABULARY
PRESENTATION ON 10
TH
FORM STUDENTS’ ENGLISH
VOCABULARY ACQUISITION. AN ACTION RESEARCH
AT TO HIEU HIGH SCHOOL, HAI PHONG.

ẢNH HƯỞNG CỦA VIỆC DẠY TỪ VỰNG TRONG NGỮ CẢNH TỚI VIỆC TIẾP
THU TỪ VỰNG CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10. NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG TẠI
TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG TÔ HIỆU, HẢI PHÒNG.


M.A MINOR THESIS
Field: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
Code: 60-14-10
Supervisor: Dr. Lê Văn Canh




HA NOI- 2011
iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration
i
Acknowledgments
ii
Table of contents.
iii
List of abbreviations
vi
List of tables
vi
Abstract
vii
PART A: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale
1
2. Aims and objectives
2
3. Research question
2
4. Research methodology
2
5. Scope of the study
3
6. Significance of the study
3
7. Design of the study
3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

Chapter 1: Literature review

1.1. Definition of contextualized vocabulary presentation
5
1.2. A contextualized presentation to vocabulary acquisition
6
1.3. Previous studies on contextualized vocabulary presentation
8
1.4. Guessing or inferencing strategy
9
1.5. Types of contextual clues
12
1.5.1. Structural clues
12
1.5.2. Inference clues
14
1.6. Advantages and disadvantages of contextualized vocabulary presentation
16
to vocabulary acquisition
16
1.7. Activities and exercises for presenting and practicing words in context
16
1.8. The roles of vocabulary knowledge in guessing meaning of the unknown words
17
iv

1.9. Vocabulary in English textbook for 10
th
form non- English major students
18
1.10. Summary
18
Chapter 2: Methodology

2.1. Rationale for the use of an action research
20
2.2. Action Research Procedure
22
2.3. Background of the study
23
2.3.1. Participants
23
2.3.2. Data collection instruments
24
2.3.2.1. Tests
24
2.3.2.2. Focus group interview
25
2.4. Data collection procedures
25
Chapter 3: Data analysis and discussion

3.1. The results of the students‟ post-tests
28
3.2. The results of focus group interview
29

3.2.1. Students‟ opinions of the usefulness of contextualized vocabulary
presentation
29
3.2.2. Enhancing motivation for vocabulary learning
29
3.2.3. Memorizing words better
30
3.2.4. Preference of contextualized vocabulary activities and exercises
30
3.2.5. The help of contextualized vocabulary presentation to word retention and
using
31
3.3. Discussion
32
3.4. Summary of major findings
32
PART C: CONCLUSIONS

1. Summary of the findings
33
2. Reflection
34
3. Implications
35
4. Limitations and suggestions for further study
35
REFERENCES
36
APPENDICES

v



APPENDIX 1: English vocabulary test
I
APPENDIX 2: The vocabulary items presented through minimal contexts Lesson 1
V
APPENDIX 3: Description of teaching plan – Lesson 1
V
APPENDIX 4: Focus group interview transcripts
VIII
APPENDIX 5: The students‟ vocabulary performance in post-tests
X

vi



LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND LIST OF TABLES

EFL: English as a Foreign Language
L2: Second language
N: Number
M: Mean
Std. Deviation: Standard Deviation
I: Interviewer
S: Student

LIST OF TABLES Page

Table 1.2: Components of a theory of learning words from context
(From Sternberg and Powell, 1983)
8

Table 2.1: Differences between Action Research and Formal Research
21
Table 3.1: The results of the students‟ post-tests
29


















1


PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. RATIONALE
Considering the crucial role attributed to vocabulary learning in second or foreign language
learning, one can implicitly understand the importance of vocabulary teaching as well. In
the past, vocabulary teaching and learning were often given little priority in second

language programs, but recently there has been a renewed interest in the nature of
vocabulary and its role in learning and teaching (Richards & Renandya, 2002: 255).A
number of research studies have dealt with lexical problems, namely, problems which
language learners face in vocabulary learning. The research findings have revealed that
lexical problems frequently interfere with communication. As a matter of fact,
communication breaks down when people do not use the right words (Allen, 1983:5).
It is also generally accepted that second or foreign language learners who possess good
word power or knowledge of vocabulary are usually more successful language learners.
Simply put, people with large vocabularies are more proficient users of the target language
than those with limited vocabularies. In fact, there is usually a positive correlation between
one‟s knowledge of vocabulary and his/her level of language proficiency (Luppescu &
Day: 1993).
When teaching vocabulary to the 10
th
form students at To Hieu High school the author
found out that word retention is a big problem to the students. Students tend to forget
words quickly. Another problem is that they may remember words but they do not know
how to use them appropriately. It has often been suggested that learning vocabulary by
using it in contexts should be employed as the main approach to improve vocabulary
knowledge. A number of researchers such as Gairns and Redman (1986) and Oxford and
Crookall (1988) have suggested that to learn words in context is an effective vocabulary
learning strategy.
This has urged the researcher to carry out this action research, which is aimed at finding
out how contextualized vocabulary presentation affects students‟ vocabulary acquisition.



2

2. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The research is aimed to explore the effectiveness of contextualized vocabulary
presentation on students‟ vocabulary acquisition and retention. By acquisition, I mean the
students understand the meaning of the taught words and know how to use them
appropriately. Because one aspect of vocabulary acquisition is the students‟ ability to
retrieve the words they have learned, the study is also aimed at measuring the impact of the
contextualized vocabulary presentation on students‟ vocabulary retention.
Specifically, the aims of the study are:
1) To examine the feasibility of presenting vocabulary in contexts to 10
th
graders in a
particular high school.
2) To measure the effectiveness of this vocabulary teaching technique on students‟
vocabulary acquisition and vocabulary retention.
Therefore, the study is to achieve the following objectives:
1) To experiment presenting vocabulary in contexts in order to measure its effectiveness on
students‟ vocabulary acquisition.
2) To examine the impact of presenting vocabulary in contexts on students‟ vocabulary
retention.
3. RESEARCH QUESTION
To achieve the aims and objectives of the thesis, the following research question was
proposed: “To what extent does contextualized vocabulary presentation affect students‟
vocabulary acquisition?”
4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Since the study is aimed at improving students‟ vocabulary acquisition through the
application of a new vocabulary teaching technique, an action research designed is chosen
for the study. In this action research, a series of progress tests was used in order to measure


3

the impact or effectiveness of this vocabulary technique on students‟ vocabulary
acquisition and retention. Moreover, a focus group interview was conducted to obtain more
in-depth data about how students assessed their progress when applying guessing strategies
and whether contextualized vocabulary presentation affected students‟ vocabulary
retention and learning.
5. SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The study is limited to the examination of how presenting vocabulary in contexts affect
one group of grade 10 students‟ vocabulary acquisition and retention. No intention is made
to generalize the findings.
6. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The results of this action research will help the author to improve her approaches to
vocabulary teaching. Those results can also be helpful to other teachers in the school or in
other schools which are similar to the school where this research was conducted.
7. DESIGN OF THE STUDY
The research consists of three main parts: Part A, Part B and Part C.
Part A: Introduction presents the rationale, the research question, the method of study, the
research procedure, the scope of the study, the significance of the study and the design of
the study.
Part B: Development consists of 3 chapters. Chapter one reviews the literature relevant to
the study including the definition of context and a number of researches in which
contextualized vocabulary presentation has been used to helps students make improvement
in their language study. This chapter also presents some types of contextual clues used to
guess the meaning of unknown word and students‟ vocabulary learning strategies. Chapter
two discusses the method used in the study. It presents a thorough justification for the use
of action research and the research‟s components and program. Chapter three presents the
findings and discussion of the study. This part is apparently important because it justifies
the effectiveness of the research.

4


Part C: Conclusion provides summary of the findings, implication, refection as well as
presents limitations and suggestions for further study





















5

PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Definition of contextualized vocabulary presentation:
From the perspective of human verbal communication, Hymes (1974) sees context as a
limiter of the range of possible interpretations, and, on the other hand, a supporter of the
intended interpretation. Context can be seen as information and in turn, information is that
which reduces uncertainly.
Taking a discoursal perspective, Nation and Coady (1988) claim that “context is also
referred to as morphological, syntactic and discourse information in a given test, which can
be classified and described in terms of general features.” (p. 102)
In this study, context is defined as a particular linguistic environment where a particular
word is used and interpreted semantically and pragmatically. In other words, context is the
information that determines the grammatically, semantically and pragmatically appropriate
use of particular words.
Defined as such, contexts play a very important role in the identification of words in text.
A word used in different contexts may have different meaning so simply learning the
definition of a word with out examples of where and when it occurs will not help learners
to fully understand its meaning. If learners are not able to contextualize new words by
connecting them to words and concepts they already know, the words will likely be less
meaningful to them. And then if meaning is not contextualized, it will be difficult for
learners to memorize as well as to use new words appropriately.
If context determines the use and the interpretation of words, presenting words out of
context would be confusing to the students. In other words, contextualized vocabulary
presentation should be considered as one of effective vocabulary teaching technique. The
nature, the advantages and limitations of this technique will be reviewed in Section 1.2
below.



6

1.2. A contextualized presentation to vocabulary acquisition
Herman, Anderson, Nagy, and Pearson (1987) used four different types of context in a
study of incidental vocabulary learning. They used a 1,230-word passage from a text and
three edited versions with varying degrees of implicit and explicit clues about the target
words. Other contexts used in incidental learning of vocabulary experiments were a novel
(Saragi et al., 1978), a graded reader (Horst et al., 1998), specially constructed paragraphs
(Jenkins, Stein, & Wysocki, 1984), and narrative and expository texts of about 1,000 words
(Nagy, Herman, & Anderson, 1985). Studies on learning from context have used single
sentences (Dempster, 1987; Laufer & Shmueli, 1997), multiple sentences (Dempster,
1987), L2 sentences together with their L1 translations (Griffin, 1992), L1 sentences
containing the L2 target vocabulary (Pickering, 1982), three sentences one of which was a
definition (Gipe & Arnold, 1979), and L1 and L2 glossed passages (Laufer & Shmueli,
1997). The wide range of contexts may lead to misinterpretation of results. Without a clear
definition of context, it seems likely that results will continue to vary between studies.
Context may account for the contrasting results in the study by Rott (1999) and Hulstijn et
al. (1996). In the Rott (1999:330) study, the texts were created with enough contextual
clues for the learners to be able to infer the meaning of the target words. Whereas, in the
study by Hulstijn et al., the text was authentic, and the researchers had determined that it
was “extremely difficult to infer the exact meaning” of the target words from the context.
Moreover, context may be one reason the number of repetitions needed to learn individual
words varies. In some sentences the meaning of an unknown word might be transparent but
in others it may be opaque. Beck, McKeown, and McCaslin (1983) suggested that many
contexts may be deceptive, leading learners to infer an incorrect meaning. In studies that
involve reading books, there may be too many encounters for researchers to take each
context into account. Unless context is taken into consideration, it may be difficult to make
an accurate assessment of incidental vocabulary learning. This may be particularly true in
L2 learning where the number and frequency of encounters with unknown words are likely
to be less than in L1 learning.

7


In other studies, more generic strategies were taught to the students without specific
algorithms. For example, Buikema (Buikema & Graves, 1993), a high school teacher,
developed a 5-day sequence of whole-class lessons teaching children to use context clues.
She began with word riddles and used a riddle metaphor to help her students derive words
from context. They found significant effects for the treatment on two measures of deriving
words from context and on a measure of incidental learning using an Edgar Allen Poe short
story followed by an unexpected vocabulary test. Contextual variables can be labeled as
mediating variables, which can be one or more than one of the following:
The number of occurrences of the unknown word
The variability of contexts in which multiple occurrences of the unknown words appear
The density of unknown words
The importance of the unknown words to understanding the context in which it is
embedded
The perceived helpfulness of the surrounding context in understanding the meaning of the
unknown word
The concreteness of the unknown word and the surrounding context
The usefulness of knowledge in cue utilization
In addition, in learning vocabulary some internal contextual variables should be taken into
account. These can be called contextual clues. They are contextual because they are part of
the word, and they include:
Prefix cues
Stem cues
Suffix cues
Interactive cues (where two or three word parts convey information in combination)
Table 1.2: Components of a theory of learning words from context (from Sternberg and

Powell, 1983)


8


Read (2000:54) shows that the Sternberg and Powell framework does not cover one
category of clues that relate to the structure of the text as revealed in Ames (1966).
Structure clues may be syntactic or discoursal. On a syntactic level, readers need to
identify the target word‟s part of speech and to search for grammatical cues. At the
discoursal level, readers can look for expressions of language functions such as definition,
comparison, and contrast, cause and effect, question- answer and the main idea- details.
However, this contextual category is not related to this study, which focuses on
contextualized vocabulary presentation.
1.3. Previous studies on contextualized vocabulary presentation
Research findings about the success of students‟ guessing unknown words from context are
inconclusive. Bensoussan and Laufer (1984) provide a guessing task which learners had to
answer in writing. Their finding shows that learners frequently make wrong guesses.
Wrong guesses resulted from giving the incorrect meaning of a word that had several
meanings, mistranslating an idiom, translating the individual morphemes of a word, and
confusing the target word with one that looked or sounded similar. Particularly, learners
have been found to make guesses on some lessen basis, producing an inferred meaning that
has little relation to the wider context of the text. One point needs to be made here, that is
the participants of the study have not been specifically trained to do lexical guessing.
Another study, conducted by Haastrup (1987, 1991), in which Danish secondary students
of English, in pairs or groups, worked together to guess the meaning of unknown words,
thus producing introspective “think-aloud” accounts of their reasoning processes. Haastrup
analyzed the clues they used into three categories: interlingual, intralingual, and contextual.
Haastrup implied that many of the introspective accounts were incomplete or difficult to
interpret; about half of the subjects were also interviewed individually as soon as they had

completed the guessing task, in order to clarify what they had said.
Liu and Nation (1985) were a more optimistic after they studied learners‟ ability to guess
the meaning of nonsense words used to replace real world at regular intervals in written
texts. They conclude that success is determined by the relative density of unknown words.
Where there was only one nonsense word per twenty-five words, they were easier to guess


9


than when there was one every ten words. Liu and Nation estimated that at least 85
percent of unknown words could be guessed by a class of learners working together to pool
their relevant knowledge and skills.
In addition, Xiaolong‟s (1988) research revealed that those learners who were good at
word inference also retain the first-encounter contextual meaning of the contexts in which
they were learnt. The importance of context was also stressed by Honeyfield (1997), who
argued that even with a functional vocabulary of the three thousand most frequently
occurring items in English, learners will still not know around 20 percent of the items they
encounter in an unsimplified text. The problem confronting both teacher and learners is
that no course can provide learners with anything like the vocabulary they will need to
comprehend authentic texts. He suggested that it is therefore of importance to equip
students with strategies for inferring the meaning of unknown vocabulary from the context
in which it occurs rather than getting them to undertake the time-consuming task of
memorizing long lists of words, or looking up unknown words in a dictionary which would
make the reading process unbearably slow and tedious.
Given the evidence that many learners lack the skill of inferring the meaning of unknown
words correctly, there has been surprisingly little research on whether they can be
successfully trained to apply it in their reading.
1.4. Guessing or inferencing strategy
Guessing meaning of unknown words from context most commonly refers to inferring the

meaning of a word from surrounding words in a written text. In this thesis, the two terms
are used interchangeably. It is an active and deliberate process to acquire a meaning for a
word in a text.
“By reasoning from textual clues and prior knowledge, including language knowledge and
hypotheses developed from prior encounters with the word, but without external sources of
help such as dictionaries or human”. (Rapaport, W.J., 2005).
Following are some definitions and ideas of guessing strategy defined by some
researchers:


10


“Infering means making use of syntactic, logical and cultural clues to discover the meaning
of unknown elements” (Grellet, F., 1981:14).
“Inferring involves creating a schema for the unknown word(s), based on world knowledge
and previous experience, both of the world and texts. In other words, inferring means
drawing conclusions as to word meaning by following certain rational steps in the face of
the evidence available.” (McCarthy, M., 1990:125).
For instance, a sentence is taken from an article about progress in East-West disarmament
talks in a British newspaper like this: “There are a lot of nasty snags yet to overcome”.
When a learner is faced with it and does not know what “nasty snags” mean, the, apart
from the general context (the article in this case), it is possible for him to infer that “snags”
is a countable noun, that they are something which can be “overcome”, and therefore,
given the subject-matter, may mean something like “ obstacles”, “difficulties” or “
problems”. If they are “problems”, then “nasty” is likely to mean something negative like
“small” or “minor” and so on. Inferring in this way is an example of the “construction” of
meaning by the reader when he/she activates schemata.
Gairns and Redman (1986: 83) use the term “contextual guesswork” for the strategy of
making use of context in which the word appears to derive an idea of its meaning or in

some cases to guess from the word itself. They claim that speakers of European and non-
European languages alike can also make use of previous knowledge of English to guess the
meaning of unknown words. They give two examples:
(a) I overslept this morning.
(b) My work varies from week to week.
In the first example, the unknown word consists of parts which are already familiar and the
learner might have met the prefix “over” in other words e.g., overtime. This knowledge
enables the learners to work out the meaning. In the second example, with their knowledge
of the common noun “variety”, it is sufficient for the learner to reduce the meaning of
“varies” and understand the sentence.



11


In support of the idea of inferring word meaning from context, Kruse (1979, cited in
Nunan ( 1991:121) suggests introducing vocabulary items in such a way as to allow
learners to guess the meanings from the context or illustrations:
1. Word elements such as prefixes, suffixes and roots.
The ability to recognize component part of words, word families, and so on is probably the
single most important vocabulary skill a student of reading in EFL can have. It
substantially reduces the number of completely new words he will encounter and increases
his control of the English lexicon.
2. Pictures, diagrams and charts.
These clues, so obvious to the native speakers, must often be pointed out to the EFL
student. He may not connect the illustration with the item that is giving him difficulty. He
may also be unable to read charts and graphs in English.
3. Clues of definition.
The student must be taught to notice many types of highly useful definition clues. Among

these are:
a) Parentheses or footnotes, which are the most obvious definition clues. The student can
be taught to recognize the physical characteristics of the clue.
b) Synonyms and antonyms usually occur along with other clues: that is, is- clauses,
explanations in parentheses and so on.
4. Inference clues from discourse, which are usually not confined to one sentence.
a. Example clues, where the meaning for the word can be inferred from an example, often
use physical clues such as i.e., e.g., and for example.
b. Summary clues: from the sum of the information in a sentence or paragraph, the
student can understand the word.


12


c. Experience clues; the reader can get a meaning from a word by recalling a similar
situation he has experienced and making the appropriate inference.
5. General aids, which usually do not help the student with meaning, narrow the
possibilities. These include the function of the word in question, i.e., noun, adjective, ect.,
and the subject being discussed.
To conclude, acquiring vocabulary knowledge from context is a sophisticated strategy but
it plays a very important part in vocabulary development. Thus, it has been widely
promoted as it has been seen to fit in more comfortably with the communicative approach
than any other.
1.5. Types of contextual clues:
Clues help to infer meaning of new words from context. It is impossible to infer the
meaning of new words if the context does not offer enough clues. Both teachers and
students need to be aware of this. Below are some types of clues suggested by Nation
(1983).
1.5.1. Structural clues:

Structural clues help to find the kind of meaning of the new word. They are uses to
determine the type of grammatical category of the new word. Structural clues are:
morphology, antonyms, synonyms, hyponyms, definitions, restatement, reference words,
alternatives, punctuation.
Morphology
Learners can derive word meaning by looking at internal, morphological features like
suffixes, prefixes and root words.
Antonyms
When seeing the next pair of words in parallel construction, the meaning of new word can
be assumed. For example: “David was very outgoing as opposed to his older coy sister”. In
this case, coy must be not outgoing, so it means unsociable.


13


Synonyms
The meaning of new word can be found in the same sentence using “be” and a synonym.
For example: “The view at the top of the mountain was surprising, it was incredible”. In
this case, the meaning of the new word is a synonym for “surprising”.
Hyponyms
The relationship between an unfamiliar word and familiar one is that of general concept
accompanied by a specific example (a hyponym). ). For example: “The room contained
lots of furniture: chair, table, air-conditional.” In this case, all of the items are of the same
category and furniture is used as a hyponym; it covers all of the other items which are
listed.
Definitions
Often the writer uses definitions to suggest the meanings of words in the text. For
instance: “Many animals live only by killing others and eating them. They are called
predatory animals”. Basing on the suggestion, readers can infer that “predatory animals”

are those which kill and eat other animals.
Restatement
A writer may provide context clues by restating a term in easier language. Commas,
dashes, or other punctuation can point to a restatement clue, along with expressions such as
that is, in other words, and or. For instance: My father is a podiatrist, or foot doctor. The
restatement clue, “or foot doctor,” shows the meaning of podiatrist.
Reference words
Identifying the referents of pronouns may suggest a clue to the meaning of unknown word,
for example: “Malnutrition gave him the shallowest of chests thinnest of limbs. It stunted
his growth.” Readers can guess the meaning of malnutrition by reading the effect of it to
growth.
Alternatives


14


Readers can understand the meaning of the new word by looking at an alternative. For
instance: “Ichthyologists, or specialists in the study of fish, have contributed to
understanding of the past.” The word ichthyologist is a new word but readers can guess its
meaning because it is explained by a familiar term “specialists in the study of fish”.
Punctuation
Punctuation, quotation marks, dashes, parentheses or brackets, italics can help explain the
meaning of a word. For example: Resentment (a feeling of bitterness and anger) is often
felt by people who are passed over for promotions.
1.5.2. Inference clues
Inference clues need a higher level of analytical skill and practice than structural clues.
They force the readers to use rationale or reasoning skills in order to figure out the
meaning of a new word. Even though the word is not directly defined, the reader can
logically reason out the meaning using the information provided in context. Readers can

use inference clues such as comparison and contrast, summary, cause and result, cohesion
to understand the meaning of new word.
Comparison and contrast
Comparison clues are words and phrases that have the same or similar meaning as an
unfamiliar word. Words and phrases such as like, as, and in the same way often signal
comparisons.
Contrast clues are words and phrases that mean the opposite of an unfamiliar word. Words
and phrases such as although, but, yet, however, except and on the other hand signal
contrasts. In the sentence “The large dog seemed menacing, as if it were ready to bite me”,
the word “as” signals the comparison between the clues, “ready to bite me,” and the
meaning of menacing is “threatening.”
Summary


15


When summarizing, the information of the sentence or paragraph is sum up in a word or
phrase. Thanks to the familiar words of the whole sentence or paragraph, reader can
understand the meaning of unknown word. After summarizing the example below, reader
can conclude that “perspiration” means the “wetness comes from the body and causes a
bad smell.”
“Many products are sold to stop perspirations. This wetness comes from our body
whenever we are too warm, or are afraid, and it usually doesn‟t smell very good.”
Cohesion
When reading a linear text, cohesion is maintained through a rich mesh of contextual clues.
The meaning of an unknown word can be indicated by other words in the same sentence or
in adjacent sentences because they regularly co-occur with the unfamiliar word. It is called
“collocational cohesion” by Halliday and Hasan (1976:287).
In conclusion, to make effective guess, learners need to be trained to look for clues in

context. However, the contextual clues must be sufficient in order to make inferences to be
possible and productive.
1.6. Advantages and disadvantages of contextualized vocabulary presentation to
vocabulary acquisition
Contextualized vocabulary presentation consists of some advantages. In the first place, this
technique allows learners to make intelligent guesses from meaningful context. This way
of learning task is much more active, interesting, and challenging explanation of words.
Another advantage is that it gives input on the semantic properties and register of word
taught. It also gives the learners understanding of the usage and use of the word taught.
Nation (2001:232) maintains that “incidental learning via guessing from context is the
most important of all sources of vocabulary learning”. Over the past two decades, this
strategy has been greatly promoted since it seems to “fit in more comfortably with the
communicative approach than other, more discrete, Discovery Strategies” (Schmitt
1997:209). Context tends to be more interpreted as simply textual context.



16


However, this way of learning also has disadvantages. There is a real danger of
misinterpretation, and if incorrect inferences are remembered, it may have a cumulative
effect. Students (and teachers in training) encouraged not to focus on unknown words but
rather to focus on understanding. Therefore, some other important sources of information
should also be taken into account when guessing, such as knowledge of the subject being
read, or knowledge of the conceptual structure of the topic. Ironically, a learner must have
a large vocabulary to be able to guess the meaning of unknown words from surrounding
context clues successfully. This puts lower proficiency students with less vocabulary at a
distinct disadvantage.
In a seminal study, Hulstijn (1992) concludes that using natural context to guess word

meanings is a very complex and error-prone process for L2 learners. He found that while
learners are more likely to remember the form and meaning of a word when they have
inferred its meaning by themselves than when the meaning has been given to them, the
same learners are more likely to infer an incorrect meaning of an unknown L2 word in an
L2 text when no cue has been given to its meaning.
1.7. Activities and exercises for presenting and practicing words in context
Nation (2003) suggests introducing some activities and exercises for presenting and
practicing words in context which allow learners to infer the meaning of unknown words
such as: guessing from context and learning the meaning of unknown words from
examples. In these exercises, have students follow very explicit instruction for them to
- copy the sentence where the word is
- underline the word that they do not know the meaning of
- explain in at least five sentences what strategies in the text guide them to the
approximate meaning of the word
- give the meaning
- check the dictionary to see if their approximate meaning is close or not.
- do this exercise with groups, pairs, and individuals.


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Exercises of this type are aimed at raising students‟ awareness of how the words are used.
In this action research, some types of context clues such as punctuation, antonyms,
synonyms, hyponyms, definitions, restatement, and reference words were distributed and
used to help SS to infer the meaning of new words.
1.8. The roles of vocabulary knowledge in guessing meaning of the unknown words
Many researchers consider vocabulary knowledge to be an important variable that affects
reading comprehension in both first and second language learning (Alderson, 2000; Joshi,
2005; Qian, 2002; Ricketts et al., 2007). A limited vocabulary size, as well as a lack of

sufficient knowledge of word meanings, often hinders learners from understanding the
meaning of the text. Garcia (1991) finds that a lack of familiarity with vocabulary in the
test passages and questions is a powerful factor affecting fifth and sixth grade Latino
bilingual learners on a test of reading comprehension.
Qian (1999, 2002; Qian & Schedl, 2004) also studies the roles of breadth and depth of
vocabulary knowledge in reading comprehension in academic settings. Breadth of
vocabulary knowledge refers to the size of vocabulary that a person knows and depth of
vocabulary knowledge relates to how well the person knows a word. The two factors play
an important role for second language learners because learners are more likely to come
across words in which they are not familiar.
Qian (2002: 518) also emphasizes the important roles of vocabulary knowledge in
guessing meaning of the unknown words that : “having a larger vocabulary gives the
learner a larger database from which to guess the meaning of the unknown words or
behavior of newly learned words, having deeper vocabulary knowledge will very likely
improve the results of the guessing work” .
1.9. Vocabulary in English textbook for 10
th
form non- English major students
In the text book which is currently in use for grade 10 students, vocabulary is taught and
practiced via both materials for language skills development and in its own right in the
Language focus section. Thus, vocabulary is both taught in meaningful contexts and
further consolidated in form-focused exercises.


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In the Reading section, vocabulary is taught through activities such as matching definitions
with words, gap-fill, finding antonyms and synonyms, and translation. In the Language
focus section, vocabulary is practiced most frequently via gap-fill and word formation

exercises. Among the different aspects of vocabulary teaching, emphasis seems to be
placed on denotational meaning rather than connotational meaning, and word building
rather than collocations.
The book also seems to give due attention to teaching vocabulary strategies via activities
which focus on developing skills in dealing with unknown words and using dictionaries.
Unfortunately, however, many of these activities are not properly designed; thus they are
unlikely to achieve their purposes.
1.10. Summary
In this chapter, an overview of approaches to contextualized vocabulary presentation, a
summary of previous studies on guessing strategy, advantages and disadvantages of
contextualized vocabulary presentation to vocabulary acquisition, activities and exercises
for presenting and practicing words in context, the roles of vocabulary knowledge in
guessing meaning of the unknown words and vocabulary in English textbook for 10
th
form
non- English major students have been presented. To infer the meaning of an unknown
word, the reader has to collect a number of clues from the text. A theoretical framework
has been prepared for investigation in the next chapter.









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CHAPTER II: METHODOLODY
2.1. Rationale for the use of an action research
Mills (2003:4) defines action research as “any systematic inquiry conducted by teacher
researchers to gather information about the ways that their particular school operates how
they teach and how their students learn. The information is gathered with the goal of
gaining insight, developing reflective practice, effecting positive changes in the school
environment and on educational practices in generals, and improving student outcomes.”
According to Kemmis and MC Taggart (1988), there are three characteristics of an action
research, they are: “carried out by practitioners”, “collaborative”, and “aimed at changing
things”.
Action research is very beneficial to the teaching and learning process, it helps to promote
personal and professional growth, to improve practice to enhance student learning, and to
advance the teaching profession (Johnson, 1995). The teacher would solve his problem on
his own or in collaboration with other teachers if he was trained to conduct action research.
Anders (1988), Curtis (1988), and Tsui (1993) gave three reasons why a teacher needed
action research:
- To solve own problems in a scientific process and improve own practice.
- To adapt theory ( findings of conventional research) to practice ( own problems)
- To share the results of action research with other teachers.
Moreover, action research is also for teacher professional development. The teacher will
become a better teacher because he knows how to find out and solve his problems in
teaching scientifically on his own.
In fact, action research has a lot of advantages in comparison with other types of research,
which is summarized in Table 2 bellow: