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

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
  





NGUYỄN THỊ KIỀU NGA





EFFICIENCY OF GAP-FILL EXERCISES TO 10

TH
FORM STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY ACQUISITION
(Hiệu quả của bài tập điền khuyết đối với sự tiếp thụ
từ vựng của học sinh lớp 10)


MINOR M.A THESIS




Field: English Methodology
Code: 601410

HANOI - 2011






VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
  

NGUYỄN THỊ KIỀU NGA





EFFICIENCY OF GAP-FILL EXERCISES TO 10
TH
FORM STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY ACQUISITION
(Hiệu quả của bài tập điền khuyết đối với sự tiếp thụ
từ vựng của học sinh lớp 10)


MINOR M.A THESIS


Field: English Methodology
Code: 601410


SUPERVISOR: LE VAN CANH, Ph.D

HANOI - 2011





-iv-
TABLE OF CONTENTS


Pages
Declaration
i
Acknowledgements
ii
Abstract
iii
Tables of contents
iv
Lists of Tables, Figures
vii
Lists of Abbreviations
viii


PART I: INTRODUCTION


1. Rationale
1

2. Aims and Objectives of the study
2
3. Research Hypotheses and Questions
2
4. Method of the Study
3
5. Scope of the study
3
6. Significance of the Study
4
7. Organization of the thesis
4


PART II: DEVELOPMENT


CHAPTER ONE : LIRETATURE REVIEW
5

1.1. What is vocabulary?
5
1.2. The role of vocabulary in second language learning
5
1.3. The vocabulary acquisition
6
1.3.1. Vocabulary teaching techniques
7
1.3.2. Revising vocabulary
9

1.4. Vocabulary activities and exercises
9
1.5. Criteria of a good vocabulary exercise
10

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1.6. Gap-fill exercises and the acquisition of vocabulary
11
1.7. Summary
17


CHAPTER TWO: THE STUDY
18

2.1. Context of the study
18
2.2. Rationale for using a Quasi-experimental method
18
2.3. Variables
19
2.4. Participants
20
2.5. Designing and applying gap-fill exercises
20
2.6. Procedures
21
2.7. Instruments for data collection
23
2.7.1. Pretest and Posttest

23
2.7.2. Questionnaire
24
2.8. Summary
25


CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
26

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
3.2. Students’ attitudes towards GFEs
29
3.3. Discussion
32
3.3.1 Vocabulary gains as resulted from the application of GFEs
32
3.3.2. Students’ attitudes towards GFEs
33
3.4. Summary
34


PART III: CONCLUSION

1. Summary of main findings
35
2. Limitations of the study
36

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3. Recommendations for the application of GFEs
37
4. Suggestions for further study
38


REFERENCES
39

APPENDICES


Appendix A: Test Scores
I
Appendix B: Vocabulary pretest & key
II
Appendix C: Vocabulary posttest &key
VI
Appendix D: The Questionnaire
X
Appendix E: Word lists
XI

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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
Table 3.3
Students’ attitudes towards GFEs
30
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

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

df
Degree of Freedom
DTH
Dinh Tien Hoang
EFL
English as Foreign Language
ESL
English as Second Language
GFEs
Gap – Fill Exercises
H
0
Null Hypothesis
H
1
Alternative Hypothesis
L
1

First Language
L
2

Second Language
MOET
Ministry of Education and Training
M
Means
N
Number of Cases or Subjects of the study
p
Probability of chance (indicator of significance)
SD
Standard Deviation
SPSS
Statistic Package for Social Science
t
Obtained Value
t
crit
Critic Value
TOEIC
Test of English for International Communication
X
Independent factor
Y
Dependent factor

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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.

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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?

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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
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acquisition. Chapter two describes the context of the study, rationale of using a Quasi-
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.
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.
















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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”.
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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
-7-

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

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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).

-9-



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.
(i) Meaning
Word and meaning matching
Labeling
sentence completion
Crossword puzzles

Semantic analysis
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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.
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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.
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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 fixed-
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).
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
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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.

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(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.
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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,
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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.

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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.
















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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