USING GUIDED EXTENSIVE READING TO IMPROVE INCIDENTAL VOCABULARY LEARNING FOR FIRST YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HUNG YEN TEACHERS’ TRAINING COLLEGE

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES


NGUYỄN THỊ BÍCH HẠNH

USING GUIDED EXTENSIVE READING TO
IMPROVE INCIDENTAL VOCABULARY LEARNING
FOR FIRST YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS
AT HUNG YEN TEACHERS’ TRAINING COLLEGE
(Sử dụng đọc rộng có hướng dẫn nhằm cải thiện việc học từ vựng ngẫu nhiên
cho sinh viên chuyên Anh năm thứ nhất tại trường Cao đẳng
Sư phạm Hưng Yên)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111

i


Hanoi – 2015

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES


NGUYỄN THỊ BÍCH HẠNH

USING GUIDED EXTENSIVE READING TO IMPROVE
INCIDENTAL VOCABULARY LEARNING FOR FIRST YEAR
ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HUNG YEN TEACHERS’
TRAINING COLLEGE
SỦ DỤNG ĐỌC RỘNG CÓ HƯỚNG DẪN
NHẰM CẢI THIỆN VIỆC HỌC TỪ VỰNG NGẪU NHIÊN
CHO SINH VIÊN CHUYÊN ANH NĂM THỨ NHẤT
TẠI TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẲNG SƯ PHẠM HƯNG YÊN

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS
Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111
Supervisor: Dr. Hoàng Thị Xuân Hoa

ii


Hanoi - 2015

DECLARATION

I hereby certify that this thesis is entirely my own work. I have provided fully
documented references to the others’ work. The material in this thesis has not
been submitted for assessment in any other formal course. I also accept all the
requirements of ULIS relating to the retention and use of M.A Graduation
Thesis deposited in the library.
Han
oi, October 2015

Nguyen Thi Bich Hanh

iii


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I owe my deepest gratitude to my supportive supervisor, Dr. Hoang Thi
Xuan Hoa, for her whole-hearted assistance, encouragement as well as the
profound guidance she gave me while I was doing my research.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to all my
teachers and lecturers in Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, University of
Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for
their valuable instruction and assistance throughout the realization of this thesis.
I am heartily thankful to the administrators, my colleagues, and first-year
students at Hung Yen Teachers’ Training College for their willingness to
participate in the research. Without their help, this program could not be
fulfilled.
Last but not least, I am indebted to my beloved family and friends who
have always inspired me to complete this study.

iv


ABSTRACT

The study aimed to examine whether EFL extensive reading could lead to
increase incidental vocabulary of elementary-level EFL learners and evaluate
the learners’ opinions about the ER program. The participants were 25 freshmen
majored in English at Hung Yen Teachers’ Training College. They were asked

to read 6 graded readers within a ten-week EFL extensive reading program. The
vocabulary pretest and posttests were administered to measure learners’
incidental vocabulary learning gains in the 162 randomly selected target words
achieved through the program. Results revealed that the significant vocabulary
gains were achieved by the participants after the EFL extensive reading
program, suggesting that the EFL extensive reading treatment had produced a
beneficial effect on the incidental word learning gains of the participants with
elementary EFL competence.

v


TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION........................................................................................................iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.......................................................................................iv
ABSTRACT.................................................................................................................. v
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS..................................................................................viii
LIST OF FIGURES....................................................................................................ix
LIST OF TABLES......................................................................................................ix
PART A: INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................1
1.Rationale.....................................................................................................................1
2. Aims of the study.....................................................................................................3
3.Scope of the study......................................................................................................3
4.Method of the study....................................................................................................3
5.Design of the study.....................................................................................................3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT.......................................................................................5
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW...................................................................5
1.1.Reading....................................................................................................................5
1.2.Vocabulary..............................................................................................................9

1.3.Previous research...................................................................................................14
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY............................................................................21
2.1.Participants ...........................................................................................................21
2.2.Action research......................................................................................................21
2.3. Instruments...........................................................................................................27
2.4. Data presentation and data analysis.....................................................................29
2.5.Chapter summary..................................................................................................30
CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS......................................................31
3.1.The results of the tests (Research question 1) ...................................................31
Table 3........................................................................................................................ 32
3.2.The results of questionnaire (Research question 2)..............................................34
3.1.Discussion.............................................................................................................38
PART C: CONCLUSIONS.......................................................................................40
1.Summary of the findings..........................................................................................40
2.Limitations of the study and recommendations for further study...........................42
REFERENCES.............................................................................................................I
APPENDICES.............................................................................................................V
APPENDIX 1: VOCABULARY TEST .....................................................................V
APPENDIX 2: THE VOCABULARY PRETEST RESULTS..................................IX
APPENDIX 3: THE VOCABULARY IMMEDIATE POSTTEST RESULTS.........X
vi


APPENDIX 4: THE VOCABULARY DELAYED POSTTEST RESULTS...........XI
APPENDIX 5: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE .......................................................XII
APPENDIX 6: CÂU HỎI ĐIỀU TRA ...................................................................XIV
APPENDIX 7: WORKSHEET FOR BOOK REPORTS........................................XVI
APPENDIX 8: A SAMPLE OF LESSON PLAN.................................................XVII

vii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

AR

Action research

EFL

English as a Foreign Language

ER

Extensive reading

GR

Graded Reader

GRP

Graded Readers Program

HYTTC Hung Yen Teachers’ Training College
L1

First language

L2

Second language

M

Mean

P

Probability value

SD

Standard of Deviation

SPSS

Statistical Package for the Social Sciences

ULIS

University of Language and International Studies

VNU

Vietnam National University, Hanoi

viii

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Action research model of Bride and Schostak (1991) ………………………………… ……...............22

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: The Graded Readers Program ………………………………………………………….………………………………………….24
Table 2: The pretest and immediate posttest paired samples statistics ………………………………… 31
Table 3: The sample T-test of pretest and immediate posttest ………………………………….……………… 32
Table 4: The immediate posttest and delayed posttest paired samples statistics …….….….. 33
Table 5: The sample T-test of immediate posttest and delayed posttest …………………………..........33
Table 6: Students' opinions about the graded readers program …………………………………….………….35
Table 7: Students' suggestion for future program …………………………………….………………………………………..37

ix


PART A: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale
Vocabulary plays the most significant role in foreign language learning because it is an
element linking the four language skills in English as a Foreign Language (EFL). In
order to communicate well in a foreign language, students should acquire a great
number of words and should know how to use and where to use them.
Most EFL learners learn vocabulary passively which can be resulted from several
factors although students realize the vital importance of vocabulary when learning
language. First, they consider the teacher's techniques such as explanation for meaning
or definition. In this case, language learners have nothing to do in a vocabulary
learning section but to listen to their teacher. Secondly, students only focus on knowing
the primary meaning of new words. Thirdly, students usually only acquire new
vocabulary through contextualized new words in their textbooks or when given by
teachers during classroom lessons.

It is clear that comprehension is one of the most fundamental reasons for reading, and
vocabulary, in turn, plays significant part in comprehension. Vocabulary clearly makes
a critical contribution to understanding what has been read. One important way to
develop vocabulary knowledge is through extensive reading. Students by reading
extensively will be exposed to variety scope of vocabulary which is necessary in
reading comprehension. Extensive reading (ER) is an important aspect of any English
as a foreign/second language reading program. Bell (2001) stated that ER is a type of
reading instruction program that has been used in EFL settings, as an effective strategy
of developing reading fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary development.
The benefits of ER have been widely documented in studies which range in scope from
large-scale implementation across whole school districts to a case study of single
1


participant. The effectiveness of ER has been generally summarized to provide
comprehensible input, to develop reading speed and comprehension which lead to
learners' motivation and confidence and specifically to reinforce, confirm and deepen
knowledge of vocabulary (Bell, 2001; Pigada & Schmitt, 2006; Rashidi & Piran, 2011;
Richards & Schmitt, 2002; Soltani, 2011). Since ER offers a large number of graded
interesting materials of various topics in an anxiety-free learning environment for
general language improvement, it increases learners' motivation and more positive
attitude towards the target language. It is believed that since the learner is reading for
pleasure, he will be eager to see what happens next and will therefore try to read more
rapidly. Moreover, ER can help students to automatically recognize the words that
frequently appear in the reading texts in a very pleasurable manner. While reading
extensively, learners are engaged in reading materials as naturally and comfortably as
possible without compulsory or strict follow-up assessments or precise confirmation of
meaning by teachers, so that learners experience fun and reward rather than stress
during the ER process (Allan, 2009; Hill, 2001) which can help develop students’
learning independence, confidence and autonomy (Bell, 2001; Pigada & Schmitt, 2006;

Cha, 2009).
It is the fact that until recently, Vietnamese learners have not paid enough attention to
vocabulary learning (Tran, 2006). This is true with the context of my students at Hung
Yen Teachers’ Training College (HYTTC). Despite the fact that these students had
preciously studied English at lower secondary schools for four years, their vocabulary,
grammar and practical skills were limited. When being informally interviewed, these
students showed that they had never read outside the class. However, these students
expressed their willingness to join in the study since they were really in need of
improving their vocabulary and reducing vocabulary learning stress. All these have
motivated me to carry the study “using guided ER to improve incidental vocabulary
learning for first year English major students”.

2


2.

Aims of the study

This action research mainly aims to improve first year English-majored students’
incidental vocabulary learning in the aspect of word meaning at Hung Yen Teachers’
Training College using guided extensive reading.
To reach the aims, the researcher supposes two research questions as follows:
1. To what extent can the use of guided extensive reading improve the students’
incidental vocabulary learning?
2. What are the students’ opinions about the extensive reading program?
3. Scope of the study
The study was conducted on a class of first year English major students at HYTTC
only. The study focused on incidental vocabulary learning through a guided graded
readers program (GRP) in the aspect of meaning. Therefore, the findings of the

research could just reflect the effects of the extensive reading program on the subjects
in the context.
4. Method of the study
To find out the answers to the above research questions, an action research (AR) design
was adopted. The research followed the model of an AR program as McBride and
Schostak (1991). They steps were carried out as follows: (1) Identifying the problem,
(2) collecting and analyzing the data, (3) planning and implementing the action, (4)
collecting data to monitor change and (5) analyzing and evaluating
5. Design of the study
The study is composed of three following parts:
The study consists of 3 parts:
Part A - Introduction

3


This part includes rationale, aims, scope and design of the study to introduce and
appeal the readers.
Part B
Chapter 1: Literature Review - mentions some theoretical background about
extensive reading, factors affecting the effectiveness of ER and vocabulary leaning.
This chapter aims to provide the readers background knowledge to have more
understanding about the paper.
Chapter 2: Methodology - discusses the methods or approaches employed by
the authors to collect the data for the study.
Chapter 3: Results and Discussion - analyses the data collected in the research
process and introduces recommendations to make a good ER program.
Part C - Conclusion
In this part, the author offers a summary of the findings, conclusion, recommendations,
limitations, and future directions for further study.

4


PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1.Reading

1.1.1. The roles of reading
It is a fact that reading helps in mental development and is known to stimulate the
muscles of the eyes. Reading is an activity that involves greater levels of concentration
and adds to the conversational skills of readers. It is observed that children and
teenager who have habits of reading have comparatively higher intelligence quotients.
Therefore, reading skills are essential for not only students’ academic success but also
their social and business advancement. Gradman and Hanania (1991) investigated
between English as a Second Language learners’ language achievement and forty-four
background variables which include formal learning experiences, exposure to the
language in class and outside, and opinions about English. The results indicated that the
strongest effect to be that of extracurricular reading.
Walter (2004) stated that reading in a second language call for fast, automatic word
decoding and access to the mental lexicon. This means working on building speed and
fluency and on learning to recognize at least 10,000 words in the new language. By
reading, students got familiar with many topics, acquired a lot of new words and were
easy to deal with a number of reading text without difficulty. Students would gradually
be more confident about the topics in the text and could read and write well.
Krashen (2005) mentioned to the power of reading in his work. He referred to studies
that consistently report a positive relationship between the amounts of free reading
done and various aspects of second and foreign language competence as follows. Lee,
Krashen, and Gribbons (1996) regarding the acquisition of relative clauses; Stokes,
Krashen, and Kartcher (1998) regarding the acquisition of the present subjunctives in

5


Spanish; S. Y. Lee (2001) regarding factors which make writing difficult. To sum up,
many researchers have agreed upon the vital role of reading in language learning.

1.1.2. Extensive Reading
Many studies have been made on working out a definition of ER. Among them is the
one done by Lewis and Hill (1992) in which extensive reading means that students
have general understanding of the text without necessary understanding every word.
This definition fails to help learner imagine the whole picture of ER but an aspect of
purpose of ER. However, Bamford and Day (1997) defined ER as an approach to
foreign language teaching in general, and to the teaching of foreign language reading in
particular. To follow Bamford and Day’s (1997) ideas, Bruton (2002) suggested that
ER can apply to a number of “amounts”. The amount of new reading text which is
read, the amounts of text consumed and the amount of time spent reading. Furthermore,
the definition that seems to be more satisfying than those mentioned before is
concluded by Robb and Susser (1989). They defined ER as a language teaching and
learning procedure because it was reading (1) of large quantities of material or long
text, (2) for global or general understanding, (3) with the intention of obtaining
pleasure from the text, (4) with students choosing what they want to read, (5) the books
are not discussed in class.
After considering various definitions and the context of the study, our working
definition is that extensive reading is reading authentic texts in the foreign language
without help at students' own level of proficiency for general or global understanding
with primary intention of obtaining pleasure from the materials and done out of class
without the added pressure of a comprehension test to follow.

1.1.3. Effective Extensive Reading

To ensure students get the maximum benefit, extensive reading has to be consistent and
sustained (Schmitt, 2000). Lee and Hsu (2009) however warned that many so called ER
curriculums designed by Taiwanese educators last a relatively short time, fail to
6


provide a large volume of books, and usually require some sort of oral/written reports
or performance tests, which could reduce students’ pleasure of reading. Therefore, in
planning an authentic ER program, they suggested teachers take into consideration the
duration of time, amount of reading materials accessible for students and finance.
Another key to successful ER is to supply materials that are comprehensible, relevant,
interesting and varied (Nuttall, 1996; Waring & Nation, 2004; Shen, 2008; cited in Lee
& Hsu, 2009). According to Shen (2008; cited in Lee& Hsu, 2009), to accomplish those
characters, teachers should have students involved in the book selection process.
•

Readability: The reading materials should be short and not far beyond students’

current linguistic levels (Coady, 1997; Huang & Liou, 2007). Nuttall (1996) stated that
improvement comes from reading a lot of easy material.
•

Appropriateness and Authenticity: Because one’s prior background knowledge

has an essential impact on reading comprehension, (Blachowicz & Fisher, 2006;
Paynter et al., 2006) the selected materials should be culturally familiar and authentic
(Coady, 1997).
•

Attraction: The materials need to be appealing to the students (Elley, 1989).

When supplied with materials of high interest, students not only read more (Glazer &
Giorgis, 2005), they also apply more reading strategies (Coady, 1979).
•

Variety: The reading materials should deal with a wide range of subject matter.

While narrow reading focuses on in-depth studying of one topic, extensive reading
instead stresses exposing students to different subjects and genres in order to
construct/expand their word schemata.

1.1.4. Benefits of extensive reading
The specific benefits of extensive reading are diversified and wide-ranging. A large
numbers of researched s have provided evidence through experiences for these effects
of extensive reading in language learning. Many teachers who have been deeply
7


involved in this instructional approach for a very long time wrote about these benefits.
From Day & Bamford (1998), Hill (2001), Nation (2005), Robb (1998), and Waring
(1997) the benefits of extensive reading were reported as follows (Porcaro, 2009).
• Extensive reading builds automaticity of word recognition.
• Automatic recognition of a word allows lexical access – the automatic calling up from
memory of a word’s meanings and its phonological representation.
• Extensive reading builds vocabulary knowledge.
• Comprehension and fluent reading depend on automatic word recognition and
vocabulary knowledge, and thus are advanced through extensive reading.
• Fluent reading allows the reader to move from word-by-word decoding to the
processing of ideas, which is essential to higher level reading and thinking skills.
• Extensive reading builds awareness of grammatical structures and the ability to

quickly and accurately process sentence structures.
• Extensive reading enhances learners’ background knowledge.
• Extensive reading promotes learners’ positive attitude toward reading. It fosters their
confidence and motivation to read.
•Extensive reading increases exposure to English. The important role of
comprehensible input in foreign language learning has been strongly demonstrated by
Krashen (1993).
• Extensive reading reinforces a grasp of language that is taught in class. It provides
students with an excellent opportunity to consolidate what they have learned, which is
an essential aspect of foreign language learning.
• Research studies also show that extensive reading improves learners’ writing skills,
listening and speaking skills, and examination results.

8


1.1.5. Graded readers
Richard and Schmidt (2000) defined graded readers as a text written for children
learning their mother tongue, or for second foreign language learner, in which the
language content is based on a language grading scheme. A graded reader (GR) may
use a restricted vocabulary or a set of grammatical structures. Currently, there are a
wide variety of GRs’ series available worldwide, like the Oxford Bookworm by Oxford
University Press, Penguin Graded Readers by Longman, or Cambridge English
Readers by Cambridge. According to Nation’s (2005) observation, although the levels
in these series are not identical with each other in number of levels, the amount of
vocabulary at each level, or the vocabulary lists on which they are based, they share a
lot of the vocabulary covered. Therefore, it is not important to stick to only one series
of GRs. To many language teachers and learners, GRs are attractive option for several
reasons. GRs not only offer controlled, systematic, and comprehensive development of
vocabulary and grammar, they also fulfill the different interests and levels of learners.

After investigating the available materials at the bookstores and the level of my
students, the researcher decided to choose GRs of the Oxford Bookworm Libraries.
Stories in the series seem to be interesting and suitable for the students in this study.
Moreover, there are pictures which illustrate the content of the stories. Some of the
stories are very famous and made into films or plays. The researcher also took books a
level 1 for my student, who have never had habit of extensive reading before.
1.2.

Vocabulary

1.2.1. Vocabulary in second language learning
In the very first part of his book “Vocabulary”, Michael Mc Carthy (1990, p.2, cited in
Quach, 2007) stated: “It is the experience of most language teachers that the single,
biggest component of any language course is vocabulary. No matter how well the
student learns grammar, no matter how successfully the sounds of L2 are mastered,
without words to express a wide range of meanings, communication in an L2 just
9


cannot happen in any meaningful way”. It is impossible to deny the role of vocabulary
in communication in an L2. A leaner’s vocabulary size plays a very significant part in
his or her ability to communicate due to the fact that “words are the tools we use to
think, to express ideas and feelings and to learn about the world.” (Johnson and
Johnson, 2004, p.1, cited in Quach, 2007)
In the book named “Understanding Vocabulary” (2000, p.16, cited in Quach, 2007),
Alexander wrote: “Comprehension improves when you know what the words mean”
and “words are currency of communication. A robust vocabulary improves all areas of
communication – listening, speaking, reading and writing”.
All the above quotations highly appreciate the important role of vocabulary in language
learning, especially in second language learning. Thus, teaching vocabulary should be a

part of the syllabus and vocabulary should be paid more attention through wellplanned lesson of language teachers’ and serious learning behavior of learners.

1.2.2. Incidental vocabulary learning
Most of the researches in the special matter of incidental vocabulary learning (Wesche
& Paribakht, 1999) have considered incidental learning as something that is learned
without specific focus of attention in a classroom context. In Wesche and Paribakht’s
definition (1999), incidental vocabulary learning refers to the process in which learners
focus on comprehending meaning of reading and listening contexts rather than on the
intentional vocabulary learning and acquire vocabulary as a “by-product” without the
learner’s conscious decision, or intention to learn the words. While, Nation (2001) has
indicated that in incidental vocabulary learning the learners’ attention is focused on
some other feature, usually the message that is conveyed by a speaker or a writer.
Considerable vocabulary learning can occur even though the learners’ attention is not
directed toward vocabulary learning when the amount of unknown vocabulary is low in
such messages.

10


Another explanation of the incidental learning was set by Haynes (1998, cited by
Wesche & Paribakht, 1999). The author considered attention rather than intention as
the key to clarifying the construct, as well as a separation of teaching considerations
from those of learning. She proposed two continua, one of them from “indirect
teaching” to “direct teaching” and the other from “incidental learning” (or automated
learning, involving the learner’s peripheral attention while focal attention is elsewhere)
to “attended learning” (involving focal attention).
Although many researchers have defined incidental vocabulary acquisition from
different aspects, there is not an all-sided and authoritative definition of incidental
vocabulary acquisition. In this paper, the researcher adopted the definition made by
Nation and Wang (1999) that incidental learning takes place when the focus is on the

content of the story, not on vocabulary learning. Learners’ attention is on the meaning
of the text and on developing reading fluency.

1.2.3. Reading and incidental vocabulary learning
A case study implemented by Grabe and Stoller (1997) also found significant
gains in vocabulary through incidental vocabulary learning through extensive reading.
They examined the vocabulary development of an American man learning Portuguese
through extensive reading. The subject received three weeks of instruction and spent
additional hours reading outside of class. After being exposed to a large amount of
vocabulary, he showed a 20% increase on the final vocabulary test five months later.
They claimed that the study “strongly suggests that reading and vocabulary will
develop as a result of extensive reading practice”
In the process of incidental vocabulary learning, word knowledge is thought to be
cumulated and developed gradually through multiple exposures in various reading
contexts. Extensive reading, as a form of comprehensible input, has the effect of
providing learners with rich contexts ideal for vocabulary learning. During the
reciprocal process of extensive reading, the acquisition of words is the result of
11


successes in inferring word meanings from a meaningful context and through more
reading experiences the developed and matured vocabulary inference ability could in
turn contributes to reading level.
According to Krashen (1993), extensive reading is considered beneficial for overall
language competence and fundamental to vocabulary development as well in the L2
learning. Researchers such as Krashen believe that similar to L1 word learning, reading
is the major means for acquiring vocabulary and have thus strongly encouraged the
implementation of extensive reading programs in an L2 learning environment
(Krashen, 1989). The proposition that most vocabulary is learned incidentally has
appealed to the default argument that learning from context is the only way to account

for most vocabulary acquisition (Wesche & Paribakht, 1999).
Many studies results support the assumption of the important relationship between
incidental vocabulary learning and extensive reading. Milton and Meara (1995, cited by
Nagy, 1997) estimated that advanced students could learn words at an annual rate close
to 2,500 in a second language setting. A substantial proportion of this growth is
possibly from incidental learning. Elley’s (1991) survey of “book flood” studies (the
essential element of such studies is increasing the availability of books to the students)
showed that L2 learners tended to benefit more from an increase in volume of reading
than do L1 learners because they encountered unfamiliar words at a greater rate than
L1 learners. The study suggested that language learning was for the most part
incidental, and it relied on essence motivation, primarily through the use of interesting,
well-illustrated books.
Horst, Cobb and Meara (1998) proposed a carefully controlled book-length reading
treatment (34 low-intermediate learners in Oman read 21,232 words of the simplified
Mayor of Casterbridge text in a ten-day period) when replicating the well-known study
by Saragi, Nation and Meiter in 1978. The result showed that there was an average.
Furthermore, Xu Hong selected about one in every five new words and subjects with
12


larger L2 vocabulary sizes had greater incidental word learning gains. The study also
found that L2 learners recognized the meaning of new words and built associations
between them as a result of comprehension-focused extensive reading. However, the
results of Day et al. (1991) demonstrated that exposure to previously unknown or
difficult words through sustained silent reading for entertainment by Japanese EFL
students had a positive effect on their ability to recognize these words in a vocabulary
test.

1.2.4. Difficulties in incidental vocabulary learning
In spite of the fact that extensive reading has an influence on incidental vocabulary

learning, other researchers have found that reading for L2 vocabulary development
may lead to some problems. First, there were wrong inferences that vocabulary was
learned cursorily which prevents learners from using words actively. Some lexical
items such as words with a deceptive morphological structure, idioms, words (Laufer,
1997) often misguide the learners and make them misunderstand the words. It shortcircuits readers’ contextual guessing process.
Second, to have an effective guessing, the context is well understood and almost all of
the surrounding words in the text are known, which requires good textual clues and
substantial prior vocabulary knowledge on the part of the learner. Different from native
speakers, L2 learners have some difficulties in guessing word meanings correctly, for
they always have more opportunities to encounter new words within various contexts
with their lack of sufficient word knowledge. Moreover, correct guessing of word
meanings depends on accurate recognition of surrounding words and good use of
reading strategies (Huckin & Coady, 1999). However, learners always feel frustrated in
comprehension when facing overwhelming texts in extensive reading, for their word
knowledge is insufficient and lack active use of different reading strategies. So the
readers may decide to ignore the words, or cannot infer a word from context.

13


Last, Huckin & Coady (1999) stated that the non-recurrence of new words cannot
guarantee the acquisition of the vocabulary. This can be accounted for by the fact that
unlike native speakers, L2 learners have very few opportunities to be exposed to the
unknown words repeatedly, apart from the high-frequency words. Accordingly, they
cannot pick up the features of the words incrementally to form the solid lexical
knowledge in their mental lexicon.
1.3.Previous research
Regarding the benefits of ER on improving learners’ vocabulary learning, a numbers of
studies that range in scope from case studies of single readers to large-scale
applications through a school were widely documented. Within the scope of the thesis,

the researcher would like to review the previous studies focusing on the way that those
emphasized the benefits of graded readers to incidental vocabulary acquisition and the
attitudes of learners towards reading and ER.

1.3.1. Researches on incidental vocabulary acquisition
A famous research known as the Clockwork Orange Study by Saragi, Nation
& Meister, 1978 reported the effectiveness of incidental vocabulary acquisition
through reading. 20 native speakers of English working in Indonesia participated
in the study. Students were asked to read a novel, A Clockwork Orange (written by
Anthony Burgess) within three days. The novel contained a total of 241 different
Russian-based slang words called nadsat. After reading the novel, they were given
a multiple-choice test which contained 90 nadsat words and showed a 76% gain on
average simply through incidental learning without referring to a dictionary. The study
strongly supported the notion that extensive reading leads to “a substantial amount of
vocabulary learning” (p. 78).
Waring and Takaki (2003) examined the rate at which vocabulary was learned from
reading the 400 headword graded reader A Little Princess. To ascertain whether words
of different frequency of occurrence rates were more likely to be learned and retained
14


or forgotten, 25 words within five bands of differing frequency of occurrence (15 to 18
times to those appearing only once) were selected. The spelling of each word was
changed to ensure that each test item was unknown to the 15 intermediate level (or
above) female Japanese subjects (e.g.,beautiful into smorty, world into rimple) . The
full text of A Little Princess, with the substitute words, was printed for each subject and
was put into book form along with a test booklet. The subjects were asked to "read this
story as usual and enjoy it." Three tests (word-form recognition, prompted meaning
recognition and unprompted meaning recognition) were administered immediately after
reading, after one week and after a three month delay. The results show that words can

be learned incidentally but that most of the words were not learned. More frequent
words were more likely to be learned and were more resistant to decay. The data
suggest that, on average, the meaning of only one of the 25 items will be remembered
after three months, and the meaning of none of the items that were met fewer than eight
times will be remembered three months later. The data thus suggest that very little new
vocabulary is retained from reading one graded reader, and that a massive amount of
graded reading is needed to build new vocabulary. It is suggested that the benefits of
reading a graded reader should not only be assessed by researching vocabulary gains
and retention, but by looking at how graded readers help develop and enrich already
known vocabulary.
In 2006, Pigada and Schmitt used 70 nouns and 63 verbs in their study in investigating
incidental vocabulary acquisition with a participant, a learner of French, by using four
graded readers in French. Since the texts were short, the authors included only “the
most common parts of speech found in natural text”, in the hope that further research
would include other word classes. They organized the two word classes into six
different frequency groups according to the number of encounters and tested three
types of word knowledge (meaning, spelling, and grammatical behavior). The
measurement procedure was a one-on-one interview that allowed a very good
indication of whether learning occurred. They found that substantial word learning
15


occurred during the ER, although the improvement was not uniform across the three
types of word knowledge. Spelling was enhanced in all noun frequency groups and in
all but two verb groups. For meaning, low-frequency nouns and verbs showed limited
learning, and verbs were more limited than nouns. Grammatical behavior knowledge
was improved in all frequency groups of nouns, while the percentage of grammatical
mastery of verbs was much lower than that of nouns. Overall, the study indicates that
more vocabulary acquisition is possible from extensive reading than previous studies
have suggested.

Kweon and Kim (2008) conducted an experimental research to investigate how and
which unknown words can be incidentally learned and retained while Korean learners
of English read substantial amounts of authentic text over a long period of time. 12
Korean learners of English read authentic literary texts and were tested on their
knowledge of vocabulary before reading (pretest), immediately after reading (Posttest
1), and 1 month after Posttest 1 (Posttest 2). The results showed a significant word gain
between the pretest and Posttest 1 and that most gained words were retained at Posttest
2. Of the 3 different word classes that were used, nouns were a little easier to retain
than verbs and adjectives, the authors came to an important conclusion that words can
be learned incidentally but that most of the words were not learned. More frequent
words were more likely to be learned and were more resistant to decay. The data
suggest that, on average, the meaning of only one of the 25 items will be remembered
after three months, and the meaning of none of the items that were met fewer than eight
times will be remembered three months later. The data thus suggest that very little new
vocabulary is retained from reading one graded reader, and that a massive amount of
graded reading is needed to build new vocabulary. Finally, the authors suggested that
the benefits of reading a graded reader should not only be assessed by researching
vocabulary gains and retention, but by looking at how graded readers help develop and
enrich already known vocabulary.

16