Teaching english morphological rules to non english majors at the university of science to enlarge their vocabulary

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY
UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES
FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE

TEACHING ENGLISH MORPHOLOGICAL RULES TO NONENGLISH MAJORS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE TO
ENLARGE THEIR VOCABULARY

A thesis submitted to the
Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature
in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL

By
NGUYỄN NGỌC HẠNH NGUYÊN

Supervised by
Assoc. Prof. Dr. TÔ MINH THANH

HO CHI MINH CITY, APRIL 2020


STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
I certify that this thesis entitled ―TEACHING ENGLISH MORPHOLOGICAL
RULES TO NON-ENGLISH MAJORS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE TO
ENLARGE THEIR VOCABULARY‖ is my own work.
This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other
institution.
Ho Chi Minh City, April 19th, 2020

Nguyễn Ngọc Hạnh Nguyên

i

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS
I hereby state that I, Nguyễn Ngọc Hạnh Nguyên, being the candidate for the degree of
Master in TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and
use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original copy of my thesis deposited in the
Library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research in accordance with
the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan and reproduction of
theses.
Ho Chi Minh City, April 19th, 2020

Nguyễn Ngọc Hạnh Nguyên

ii


ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The accomplishment of this thesis was not an individual effort of only the researcher
whose name appears in its cover. In fact, this thesis could not be successfully complete
without the help of the following people to whom I will always be grateful.
I would firstly express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc. Prof. Tô Minh
Thanh. It was a great honor for me to work with a dedicated supervisor whose constant
encouragement and precious advice gave me enormous strength whenever my steps
wavered. Her dedicated guidance and valuable feedback enlightened me about the issues
related to the thesis as well as the construction of the thesis itself. I am also thankful for
her careful proofreading and comments on my writing during the process of completing
the thesis. I hope that one day I would become as good a mentor to my students as Ms
Thanh has been to me.
Secondly, my sincere thanks go to Dr. Lê Hoàng Dũng, Dr. Nguyễn Thu Hương, Dr. Phó

Phương Dung, Dr. Nguyễn Thanh Tùng and Dr. Nguyễn Đình Thu for numerous
discussions and lectures related to the topics that helped me broaden my knowledge and
sharpen my arguments for the thesis.
Thirdly, I am also deeply indebted to Ms Nguyễn Thị Thanh Lợi, the Accountant of the
Center for Foreign Languages at the University of Science, and Ms Nguyễn Thị Duy Ni,
the academic staff of the aforementioned center, for providing me favorable conditions to
conduct my research at this site. I would like to acknowledge my colleagues for their
enthusiastic assistance and encouragement during the process of conducting and writing
this thesis. My special thanks also go to my students, who played a crucial role in the
completion of this thesis, for their active participation in the study and their inspiration to
the thesis topic.
Finally, I would like to dedicate this thesis to my beloved parents for always giving me
the greatest support as they could and being there with me all these years. I also owe my
thanks to my dear sister for cheering me up and guiding me in using SPSS throughout the
process of the thesis. I am blessed to be a part of their life, as always.

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ABSTRACT
The teaching of English morphological rules to EFL learners seems not to attract
sufficient attention from EFL teachers, and there is a dearth in the number of research
directly measuring affix knowledge in the field of English teaching. Although recently
the effectiveness of English derivational affixes on EFL learners’ vocabulary learning
and morphological knowledge has been measured, the role of these affixes in enlarging
their vocabulary size via increasing their size of word family is still not carefully
examined. Besides, the learners’ attitudes towards the employment of derivational affixes
have yet to be thoroughly explored. To fill in these gaps in the literature, a quasiexperiment with the pre-test – post-test non-equivalent group design and an attitudinal
survey were conducted for the current research with the participation of 60 intermediate
and pre-intermediate non-English majors. The results of the study reveal that the

teaching of English morphological rules generally improved the students’ over-time
reception of (1) the three aspects of derivational affixes, including relational aspect,
syntactical aspect, and distributional aspect as well as their meanings, (2) the word class
of newly encountered derivatives, e.g. derived nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs. The
teaching also fostered the production, though not particularly outstanding, of the taught
affixes. Due to short experiment time, the students’ newly acquired knowledge has not
been profound enough to last long, which leads to a moderate result in the delayed posttest: no significant improvement could be found in long-term production of the students
from both levels. Regarding vocabulary size, the new type of instruction made a large
contribution to the increasing number of derivatives the students at both levels produced
in the short term and long term. The teaching of derivational affixes also received
positive feedback from the students. Based on these findings, the study discussed
implications of the employment of English morphological rules as an effective tool in
enlarging their word family size and learning derivatives efficiently for EFL learners,
and as an assisting tool in teaching derivatives and boosting learners’ motivation and
autonomy for EFL syllabus and textbook designers.
Keywords: English morphological rules, derivational affixes, reception, production, affix
knowledge, vocabulary size

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Statement of authorship ....................................................................................................... i
Retention and use of the thesis ........................................................................................... ii
Acknowledgement ............................................................................................................. iii
Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iv
Table of contents ................................................................................................................ v
List of abbreviations ........................................................................................................... x
List of tables ...................................................................................................................... xi
List of figures................................................................................................................... xiii

Chapter 1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 1
1.1.

Background of the study ....................................................................................... 1

1.2.

Context of the study .............................................................................................. 4

1.3.

Aims of the study .................................................................................................. 4

1.4.

Research questions ................................................................................................ 5

1.5.

Scope of the study ................................................................................................. 6

1.6.

Significance of the study ....................................................................................... 6

1.7.

Outline of the thesis .............................................................................................. 7

Chapter 2 Literature review ............................................................................................ 8

2.1.

Overviews of affixes and teaching morphological rules in EFL contexts ............ 8

2.1.1

Definitions and features of derivational affixes and morphological rules ..... 9

2.1.2

Importance of teaching derivational affixes to EFL learners ....................... 14

2.1.2.1.

Morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge .......................... 14

2.1.2.2.

Vocabulary learning .............................................................................. 16

2.1.2.3.

Vocabulary size ..................................................................................... 16

2.1.3

Aspects of knowledge of derivational affixes .............................................. 17

2.1.3.1.

Receptive and productive vocabulary ................................................... 18

2.1.3.2.

Recognition and recall ........................................................................... 20

2.1.3.3.

Comprehension and use......................................................................... 22

2.1.4

Explicit and implicit affix instruction .......................................................... 24

2.2. The nature of morphological rules: word-based morphology and morphemebased morphology as two opposite approaches in word formation .............................. 27
2.3.

The explicit teaching of derivational affixes and morphological rules .............. 31
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2.3.1 Theoretical support for the explicit teaching of derivational affixes and
morphological rules ................................................................................................... 31
2.3.2

Previous research on explicit instruction on morphological knowledge ..... 33

2.3.3

Issues yet to be resolved ............................................................................... 39

2.4.

Theoretical framework of the study .................................................................... 40

2.5.

Summary ............................................................................................................. 40

Chapter 3 Methodology.................................................................................................. 41
3.1.

Research design................................................................................................... 41

3.2.

Research site ....................................................................................................... 43

3.3.

Pilot study ........................................................................................................... 44

3.4.

Participants .......................................................................................................... 45

3.5.

Teaching materials .............................................................................................. 48

3.5.1

3.5.1.1.

Rationale for the selected derivational affixes ...................................... 48

3.5.1.2.

Selection of the target morphological rules ........................................... 50

3.5.1.3.

Selection of the derivatives in the 6 lessons and in the 3 tests .............. 51

3.5.2
3.6.

Selection of the target morphological rules and derivatives ........................ 48

Design of the teaching materials .................................................................. 53

Research instruments .......................................................................................... 54

3.6.1

The Quick Placement Test ........................................................................... 54

3.6.2

The Affix Knowledge Test........................................................................... 55

3.6.2.1.

Overview of the Affix Knowledge Test ................................................ 56

3.6.2.2.

Test-item designing ............................................................................... 56

3.6.3

Overview of the Word Family Size Test...................................................... 58

3.6.4

Piloting and test reliability ........................................................................... 59

3.6.5

Test administration and scoring ................................................................... 61

3.6.6

Attitudinal questionnaire .............................................................................. 63

3.6.6.1.

Design and construct ............................................................................. 63

3.6.6.2.

Piloting and reliability ........................................................................... 66

3.7.

Data collection procedure ................................................................................... 67

3.8.

Data analysis procedure ...................................................................................... 69

3.9.

Summary ............................................................................................................. 71

Chapter 4 Results and discussion .................................................................................. 72
4.1.

Results ................................................................................................................. 72
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4.1.1

Preconditions of ANOVAs and Independent Samples T-Tests ................... 72

4.1.2

Results of the Receptive Affix Knowledge Test over time ......................... 73

4.1.2.1.

Within-group comparison...................................................................... 74

4.1.2.2.

Between group comparison ................................................................... 75

4.1.3

Results of the Productive Affix Knowledge Test over time ........................ 82

4.1.3.1.

Within-group comparison...................................................................... 82

4.1.3.2.

Between group comparison ................................................................... 84

4.1.4

Results of the Word Family Size Test over time ......................................... 90

4.1.4.1.

Within-group comparison...................................................................... 90

4.1.4.2.

Between-group comparison ................................................................... 92

4.1.5

Results from the attitudinal questionnaire.................................................... 96

4.1.5.1. General opinions about teaching and learning vocabulary and
derivational affixes ................................................................................................. 97
4.1.5.2. Reflection on the application of the focus-on-morphological-rule
instruction ............................................................................................................... 99
4.1.5.3.
4.2.

Suggestion for further improvement ................................................... 104

Discussion ......................................................................................................... 105

4.2.1

Affix reception over time ........................................................................... 105

4.2.1.1.

Within-group comparison.................................................................... 105

4.2.1.2.

Between-group comparison ................................................................. 105

4.2.2

Affix production over time ......................................................................... 108

4.2.2.1.

Within-group comparison.................................................................... 108

4.2.2.2.

Between group comparison ................................................................. 108

4.2.3

Word family size of the students over time ............................................... 111

4.2.3.1.

Within-group comparison.................................................................... 111

4.2.3.2.

Between-group comparison ................................................................. 111

4.2.4

Attitudes towards the focus-on-morphological-rule instruction ................ 114

4.2.5

Possible ways to improve the focus-on-morphological-rule instruction ... 119

4.3.

Summary ........................................................................................................... 119

Chapter 5 Conclusion ................................................................................................... 121
5.1.

Summary and contributions .............................................................................. 121

5.2.

Pedagogical implications .................................................................................. 122

5.3.

Limitations of the study .................................................................................... 125
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5.4.

Recommendation for further study ................................................................... 126

References...................................................................................................................... 128
Appendices .................................................................................................................... 144
Appendix A Fifteen english derivational affixes selected for the exeriment ................. 145
Appendix B Fifteen morphological rules selected for the experiment .......................... 148
Appendix C1 Affix Knowledge Test ............................................................................. 149
Appendix C2 Detailed description of the Affix Knowledge Test and how to design it 155

Appendix D Words selected for the Affix Knowledge Test .......................................... 159
Appendix E1 Word Family Size Test ............................................................................. 162
Appendix E2 Selected words for the Word Family Size Test ........................................ 167
Appendix F Quick Placement Test ................................................................................. 169
Appendix G1 Reflective questionnaire (English version) .............................................. 176
Appendix G2 Reflective questionaire (Vietnamese version) ........................................ 181
Appendix H1 Handout for the control group ................................................................. 186
Appendix H2 Handout for the experimental group ........................................................ 188
Appendix I1 Lesson plan for the control group.............................................................. 190
Appendix I2 Lesson plan for the experimental group .................................................... 194
Appendix J1 SPSS output of the tests of normality for AKT ........................................ 198
Appendix J2 SPSS output of the test of normality for WFST........................................ 200
Appendix K1 Result analysis of the AKT results for the CG ........................................ 203
Appendix K2 Result analysis of the AKT results for the subgroups of the CG ........... 207
Appendix K3 Result analysis of the AKT results for the EG ........................................ 216
Appendix K4 Result analysis of the WFST results for the CG ...................................... 221
Appendix K5 Result analysis of the WFST results for the subgroups of the CG .......... 224
Appendix K6 Result analysis of the WFST results for the EG ..................................... 228
Appendix L1 Result analysis for the AKT comparisons between 2 groups .................. 231
Appendix L2 Result analysis of the WFST results between 2 groups .......................... 241
Appendix M1 SPSS output of the AKT results for the subgroups of the CG ................ 245
Appendix M2 SPSS output of the AKT results for the subgroups of the EG ............... 252
Appendix M3 SPSS output for the WFST results for the subgroups of the CG ........... 258
Appendix M4 SPSS output for the WFST results for the subgroups of the EG ........... 273

viii


Appendix N1 SPSS output of the Receptive Affix Knowledge Test results between the
subgroups of 2 groups..................................................................................................... 288

Appendix N2 SPSS output of the Productive Affix Knowledge Test results between the
subgroups of 2 groups..................................................................................................... 293
Appendix N3 SPSS output of the WFST test results between the subgroups of 2 groups
........................................................................................................................................ 295

ix


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
AKT

Affix Knowledge Test

CFL

Center for Foreign Languages

CG

control group

EFL

English as a Foreign Language

EG

experimental group

FMs

focus-on-morphological-rule

L2

second language

MRs

morphological rules

QPT

Quick Placement Test

SPSS

Statistical Package for the Social Sciences

US

University of Science

WFST

Word Family Size Test

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1.1 Framework of receptive and productive word knowledge adopted from
Nation (2001) .................................................................................................................... 19
Table 3.4.1 Demographic characteristics of the participants .......................................... 47
Table 3.4.2 Summary of the Independent Samples T-Tests for the QPT results .............. 47
Table 3.6.1 Cronbach's alpha for each section of the AKT.............................................. 60
Table 3.6.2 Cronbach's alpha for each type of word family in the WFST ....................... 61
Table 3.6.3 Distribution of the questions in the questionnaire ........................................ 65
Table 3.6.4 Reliability of the statement in each theme of the questionnaire .................... 67
Table 4.1.1 Descriptive statistic after the ANCOVA in the Receptive Affix Knowledge
Post-test 1 for the intermediate students of two groups ................................................... 76
Table 4.1.2 Group statistics of the Receptive Affix Knowledge Post-test 1 for the preintermediate students of the two groups ........................................................................... 79
Table 4.1.3 Results of the Independent Samples T-Test in the Receptive Affix Knowledge
Post-test 1 for the pre-intermediate students of the two groups....................................... 79
Table 4.1.4 Rankings regarding the Productive Affix Knowledge Post-test 1 for the
intermediate students of the two groups ........................................................................... 85
Table 4.1.5 Results of the Mann-Whitney U-Test in the Productive Affix Knowledge Posttest 1 for the intermediate students of the two groups ...................................................... 85
Table 4.1.6 Group statistics of the Productive Affix Knowledge Post-test 1 for the preintermediate students of the two groups ........................................................................... 88
Table 4.1.7 Results of the Independent Samples T-Test in the Productive Affix Knowledge
Post-test 1 for the pre-intermediate students of the two groups....................................... 88
Table 4.1.8 Results of the Independent Samples T-Test of the intermediate students of the
two groups in the Word Family Size Post-test 1 - strict marking..................................... 92
Table 4.1.9 Descriptive statistics of the ANCOVA of the intermediate students in words
with 3 derivatives and 1 derivative for the two groups in the Word Family Size Post-test
1 ........................................................................................................................................ 93
Table 4.1.10 Results of the Mann-Whitney U-Test in the Word Family Size Post-test 1 for
the pre-intermediate students of the two groups .............................................................. 94
Table 4.1.11 The students' choice between the incidental and intentional learning of
derivational affixes ........................................................................................................... 98
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Table 4.1.12 The students' opinions on the benefits of the focus-on-morphological-rule
instruction ......................................................................................................................... 99
Table 4.1.13 The students' opinions on the drawbacks of the focus-on-morphologicalrule instruction ............................................................................................................... 101
Table 4.1.14 The students' feelings towards the application of morphological rules to
teaching derivational affixes .......................................................................................... 102
Table 4.1.15 The students' reactions to the focus-on-morphological-rule instruction .. 104

xii


LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 4.1.1 Comparison of the mean scores of the intermediate students of the two
groups in three administrations of the Receptive Affix Knowledge Test ........................ 76
Figure 4.1.2 Proportion of students getting high and very high scores in the Receptive
Affix Knowledge Post-test 1 for the intermediate students of the two groups ................ 77
Figure 4.1.3 Comparison of the mean scores of the pre-intermediate students of the two
groups in three administrations of the Receptive Affix Knowledge Test ........................ 79
Figure 4.1.4 Proportion of students getting high and very high scores in the Receptive
Affix Knowledge Post-test 1 for the pre-intermediate students of the two groups .......... 80
Figure 4.1.5 Comparison of the mean scores of the intermediate students of the two
groups in three administrations of the Productive Affix Knowledge Test ....................... 84
Figure 4.1.6 Proportion of students getting high and very high scores in the Productive
Affix Knowledge Post-test 1 for the intermediate students of the two groups ................ 86
Figure 4.1.7 Comparison of the mean scores of the pre-intermediate students of the two
groups in three administrations of the Productive Affix Knowledge Test ....................... 87
Figure 4.1.8 Proportion of students getting high and very high scores in the Productive
Affix Knowledge Post-test 1 for the pre-intermediate students of the two groups .......... 89
Figure 4.1.9 Proportion of students getting high and very high scores in Word Family

Size Post-test 1 for the intermediate students of the two groups...................................... 93
Figure 4.1.10 Proportion of students getting high and very high scores in Word Family
Size Post-test 1 for the pre-intermediate students of the two groups ............................... 95
Figure 4.1.11 The students' opinions about the importance of learning vocabulary and
derivational affixes ........................................................................................................... 97
Figure 4.1.12 The students' opinions about the importance of teaching vocabulary and
derivational affixes in class .............................................................................................. 98
Figure 4.1.13 The EG students' overall feeling about the focus-on-morphological-rule
instruction ......................................................................................................................... 99
Figure 4.1.14 The students' self-assessment of their understanding of the derivaed words
containing the taught affixes after the course ................................................................. 103
Figure 4.1.15 The students' self assessment of their ability to use the taught affixes after
the course ........................................................................................................................ 103

xiii


CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background of the study
As Wilkin (1972) asserted, ―While without grammar very little can be conveyed, without
vocabulary nothing can be conveyed‖ (as cited in Thornbury, 2002, p.13), vocabulary is
considered as an indispensable part in learning a foreign language (Thornbury, 2002;
Schmitt, 2008; Schmitt, 2010). In addition, a large vocabulary size of the target language
can advantage learners in their process of learning, hence its substantial role in the
mastery of the target language cannot be denied (Krashen, 1989) although achieving a
considerable amount of vocabulary in a foreign language is a daunting job. Numerous
strategies have been utilized to increase the vocabulary size of L2 learners, one of which
was gaining knowledge of more members in word families via raising morphological
awareness of L2 learners.

Word families have been regarded as a unit of counting in measuring vocabulary size and
in examining the lexical coverage learners need to acquire to comprehend different types
of discourses in English. According to Nation (2006), 8000 – 9000 word families need to
be acquired receptively to comprehend authentic written texts and a vocabulary size of
6000 – 7000 word families is essential for understanding of spoken texts. Not only
academic discourses but everyday discourses also requires a large number of families to
deal with, such as 12000 word families for adequate understanding of television
programs (Webb & Rodgers, 2009b) and 14000 word families for 95.79% coverage of
movies without learners’ knowledge of proper nouns and marginal words (Webb &
Rodgers, 2009a). It is estimated that well educated native speakers of English know
around 20000 word families (Goulden, Nation and Read, 1990; Zechmeister, Chronis,
Cull, D’Anna and Healey, 1995, as cited in Nation, 2001), and an average amount of
about 1000 word families is added to native speakers’ vocabulary size each year during
their early years of life (Nation, 2001). Due to the substantial number of words required
to gain adequate understanding of various genres of discourse, a shortage in vocabulary
size can be a great hindrance to the learners’ comprehension in not only academic
contexts but also in communication with native speakers.
1


However, widening vocabulary size via gaining more derivatives in word families is not
an easy task. One of the prerequisite for learning derivatives is the acquisition of affixes.
According to Milton (2009), the difficulties of affixes in terms of their meanings and
functions expressing via their various degrees in multifunctional features and polysemy
make them ―harder to master‖. In addition, knowledge of affixes in general and of
derivational affixes in particular often experiences neglect of EFL learners due to their
usual habit of learning vocabulary which only includes learning word forms and
meanings. Besides, the lack of consistency in the morphological rules may also cause
great confusion regardless of the transparency of the affixes (Schmitt, 2000). Even native
speakers experience difficulties in mastering derived forms (Schmitt & Zimmerman,

2002), and their acquisition of derived forms was proved to be an incremental process
throughout their school years (Tyler & Nagy, 1989; Nagy et al., 1993; Carlisle, 2000).
Despite the importance of increasing vocabulary size in English and the learners’
difficulties in learning derivational affixes, this facet of word knowledge is often ignored
in EFL classrooms and textbooks. Gabig & Zaretsky (2013) claimed that morphological
aspects are still unfamiliar to many teachers and practitioners, while the studies of Nunes
& Bryant (2006) and Wolter & Green (2013) showed that morphological concepts
including affixes are not a routine part in the classroom. Regarding contemporary
textbooks of English in Vietnamese high schools, there is almost no part regarding
morphological rules or internal word structures. A lot of teachers in Vietnam believed
that their students only know Vietnamese definitions, spelling and sounds of words while
their students’ report of word knowledge included more aspects of words (Lưu, 2011).
This divergence in the belief of the teachers and the students about the students’ word
knowledge leads to the neglect of teaching more details in word knowledge to students
(Lưu, 2011).
In addition to the lack of affix knowledge in teaching, the major reason that urges the
researcher to conduct the current study lies in the students’ shortage in vocabulary,
especially in morphologically complex words. Despite learning English for several years,
most EFL learners shows their difficulties in learning morphologically complex words
such as forgetting the learnt words rapidly, looking up in bilingual dictionaries and
asking for L1 translation when encountering derivatives of a known base. This may stem
from the students’ neutral attitude towards vocabulary learning (Lưu, 2011). Although
2


they are highly aware of the importance of vocabulary in their English study, their level
of interest in broadening their vocabulary was proved to be moderate, and they appeared
to be reluctant to look into more aspects of word knowledge because it was really a
challenging field to master (Lưu, 2011). For affix knowledge, the complexity of the
affixes may be the main factor hindering students from vocabulary learning and

expansion via derivational affixes.
Due to the idiosyncrasies and complexity in the affixes functions and meanings, it is
believed that L2 learners rely more on their lexical memory system to store
morphologically complex words and morphological decomposition may have no room in
L2 processing (Ullman, 2005). However, there being research proving that regardless of
their L1 backgrounds, L2 learners also have conscious awareness of the internal structure
of derived words (Koda, 2000) and their processing of morphologically complex words
is similar to that of native speakers (Brown, Chen, Hua, Kostic, & Beth Feldman, 2007).
Thus, raising L2 learners morphological awareness has become ―an emerging area of
focus and understanding‖ (Mitchell & Brady, 2014, p.211). Morphological awareness is
defined as the knowledge of morphemic structures of words and the ability to employ
word formation rules in one’s language. Several studies on the effects of morphological
awareness on vocabulary acquisition were conducted (Bellomo, 2009; Kim, 2013; Wei,
2014; Harraqi, 2017). These studies have revealed that morphological awareness have a
significant effect on EFL learners’ comprehension and growth of English vocabulary,
offering a solid background for more insightful learning.
Nevertheless, most previous studies investigated the students’ progress after they learned
affixes as an assisting tool in learning vocabulary, not as a separate component itself.
Besides, the role of morphological instruction was ignored in these studies. It is also
noteworthy that most studies have placed their emphasis on the students’ performances
after their morphological awareness is raised but had little discussion on their attitudes
towards the adoption of morphological instruction, which is a very important factor in
determining the practicality of the method. As an inheritor, this study has carefully
examined these issues in an attempt to fill the gap in the literature on implementing
morphological instruction to teach derivational affixes and derivatives.

3


1.2. Context of the study

This study was conducted at the Center for Foreign Languages (CFL) at the University of
Science (US) in Ho Chi Minh City. As one of the six members of Vietnam National
University - Ho Chi Minh City, with 9 faculties, the US provides a large workforce in the
field of natural sciences for Ho Chi Minh City and other provinces with more than 2500
graduates and postgraduates each year. At present, the CFL has 2600 non-Englishmajored regular students distributed in 82 classes. The CFL at the US has been one of the
first centers successfully implemented the innovation in teaching and learning English
based on the Decree issued by Vietnam National University in 2015 to enhance the
graduates’ English proficiency, satisfying the requirements of the labor market.
Hopefully, the researchers’ decision to conduct the research at this site could bring
benefits to not only the non-English-majored students but also to the development of the
CFL in the path of enhancing the quality of teaching and learning English. Furthermore,
the CFL is where the researcher is working. Her familiarity with the center
administration, its curriculum and learning atmosphere provided favorable conditions for
conducting the study.
The participants of this study were 60 non-English-majored students in the first semester
of the 2018-2019 academic year at the US. These students were taking the final English
course during the experiment. As they were non-English majors, both their motivation in
learning English and their attitudes towards English were not as positive as those of the
English-majored students. Besides, their vocabulary was limited, which caused great
difficulties for them in expressing their ideas in both spoken and written forms.
1.3. Aims of the study
In this study, the application of morphological rules is proposed as a promising method
to teach derivational affixes to students, shortly referred to as the focus-onmorphological-rule instruction. The effectiveness of this method was investigated over
time in terms of the students’ reception and production of morphological complex words
and affixes based on the morphological rules they were taught. Specifically, the aims of
this study are (1) to examine the effect of the focus-on-morphological-rule instruction on
the receptive knowledge of affixes and newly encountered derivatives among nonEnglish-majored students at the US over time, (2) to examine the effect of the focus-onmorphological-rule instruction on the productive knowledge of affixes among non4


English-majored students at the US over time, (3) to examine the effect of the focus-onmorphological-rule instruction on the number of derivatives in word families achieved

by non-English-majored students at the US over time, and (4) to explore the students’
attitudes towards the employment of morphological rules in teaching derivational affixes.
The effect of the instruction was measured over time, specifically at two time points, i.e.
immediately after the instruction and five weeks after the instruction.
1.4. Research questions
The aim of this study can be addressed via the following questions and sub-questions:
(1) To what extent does the application of morphological rules facilitate reception of
the affixes and newly encountered derivatives of the US non-majored students at
different levels over time?
Sub-question:
(1a) To what extent does the application of morphological rules facilitate the
reception of the affixes and newly encountered derivatives of the US nonEnglish-majored students at different levels immediately and five weeks after the
teaching stage?
(2) To what extent does the application of morphological rules facilitate the
production of the affixes of the US non-English-majored students at different
levels over time?
Sub-question:
(2a) To what extent does the application of morphological rules facilitate the US
production of the affixes of the non-English-majored students at different levels
immediately and five weeks after the teaching stage?
(3) To what extent does the application of morphological rules facilitate the number
of derivatives within a word family produced by the US students at different
levels over time?
Sub-question:
(3a) To what extent does the application of morphological rules facilitate the
number of derivatives within a word family produced by the US students at
different levels immediately and five weeks after the teaching stage?

5

(4) What are the students’ attitudes towards the application of morphological rules in
teaching derivational affixes?
1.5. Scope of the study
In accordance with the aim of assisting EFL students in expanding their word family
size, only the morphological rules related to the process of English derivation, i.e. the
process of creating new words, were selected in the current study. Specifically, 15
morphological rules corresponding to 15 derivational affixes based on the affix list of
Nation (2001) were chosen as the target rules to be taught and tested during the treatment
thanks to their suitability to the research aims and the learners’ level in terms of their
complexity, popularity and productivity.
Due to its limitation in scope, in this paper, receptive knowledge was investigated via the
students’ recognition and comprehension of the derivatives and derivational affixes in
reading context, and productive knowledge was investigated via the students’ recall and
use of the derivational affixes in written context.
1.6. Significance of the study
This study is an attempt to complement previous work in the content of morphological
knowledge applied in raising students’ morphological awareness. The current study
hopes to add more empirical evidence to the positive effects of morphological rules in
affix instruction in particular and in vocabulary instruction in general, filling the gap in
the application of morphology in EFL contexts, especially in Vietnam.
An informal interview with the lecturers and students at the US conducted by the
researcher revealed that nearly all of the teachers believed that learning vocabulary
should be done autonomously by the students, and that the teachers should help their
students gain new vocabulary by instructing them how to use strategies such as guessing
from contexts, looking up in the dictionaries, etc. They also believed that their students
frequently did not know morphological aspects of words, and teaching morphological
knowledge may not be suitable for the level of their students. The students often showed
the lack of morphological knowledge of words, or lacked knowledge of how to employ
the little morphological knowledge they possessed in learning vocabulary. This result

was in accordance with the study of Lưu (2011), which indicated that teachers often had
negative belief about their students’ word knowledge, and the divergence between the
6


belief of teachers and students about the students’ word knowledge may cause a
shortcoming in vocabulary teaching. Therefore, the findings of the thesis are expected to
raise Vietnamese EFL teachers’ awareness of the effectiveness of the focus-onmorphological-rule instruction on students’ vocabulary, especially derivational affixes
and derivatives, acquisition.
1.7. Outline of the thesis
This paper is divided into five chapters. The first chapter is the introduction as presented
here, discussing the research rationale, context, aims, research questions, scope and
significance of the study. The second chapter presents a critical review of the related
literature on four areas. The next chapter is the discussion on methodology adopted in
this study, including the description of the research method, pilot studies, participants,
teaching materials, research instrument, and data collection and analysis procedures. In
the fourth chapter, data will be presented, analyzed and explained. The fifth chapter is
the conclusion of the study, pedagogical implications, limitations, and recommendations
for further research.

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CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Overviews of affixes and teaching morphological rules in EFL contexts
Before the emergence of communicative language teaching in the 1970s, vocabulary
teaching was not given as great priority and attention as grammar structures due to the
nature of such approaches as Direct Method and Audiolingualism (Thornbury, 2002;
Boers & Lindstromberg, 2008). For a long time, coursebook writers just included a fairly

low amount of vocabulary in the textbooks and the teaching of vocabulary in classroom
could not satisfy the need of learners in terms of gaining an adequate amount of useful
vocabulary, maintaining long-term memory of learned vocabulary and developing an
extensive vocabulary (Thornbury, 2002). However, over the last four decades, thanks to
the advent of communicative language teaching, the role of vocabulary in second
language acquisition has been gradually acknowledged and gained increasing attention
from researchers, coursebook writers and teachers, which led to its’ greater position as a
core component of language proficiency that provides the basis for the learner’s
receptive and productive performance in the target language (Read, 2000; Thornbury,
2002; Boers & Lindstromberg, 2008; Schmitt, 2010).
Related to vocabulary, one of the ―most common word formation processes to be found
in the production of new English words‖ (Yule, 2010) is derivation - a process
accomplished by adding affixes to other words or morphemes. Affixes are morphemes
that usually occur ―before or behind a base‖ (Stageberg & Oaks, 2000, p.93) and they are
not ―given separate listings in dictionaries‖ (Yule, 2010, p.58). There are two kinds of
common affixes in English which are inflectional and derivational affixes, but only
derivational affixes have lexical functions to create new words. There are a large number
of affixes, including prefixes and suffixes divided into different categories based on
different criteria such as their functions and their meanings. In terms of their functions,
the affixes consist of nominal suffixes (e.g. –age, -al, -ance), verbal suffixes (e.g. –ate, en, -ify), adjectival suffixes (e.g. –able, -ible, -ary) and adverbial suffixes (e.g. –ly, wise). In terms of semantic meanings, the affixes can be classified into various categories
such as negative prefixes (e.g. de-, dis-, un-), locational prefixes (e.g. over-, under-, out), personal-noun-forming suffixes (e.g. –er, -ee, -ist), abstract-noun-forming suffixes
(e.g. –ation, -ment-, -sure), etc. (Plag, 2003; Lieber, 2005; Lieber, 2009). According to
8


previous research, more than half of English words are morphologically complex (W. E.
Nagy & Anderson, 1984) and affixed forms outnumber the stem four to one
(Cunningham, 1998). Besides, Nagy & Anderson (1984) indicated that a base word has
an average of 1.57 transparent derivatives, meaning that learners can recognize the
meanings of 7800 words with the knowledge of 5000 base words and affixes.

Between two kinds of English affixes, derivational affixes play an important role in the
learners’ language development in terms of expanding vocabulary size and enriching
vocabulary knowledge (Mochizuki & Aizawa, 2000; Bellomo, 2009; Nation, 2013). This
section gives a brief overview of derivational affixes and morphological rules teaching,
including the nature of derivational affixes and morphological rules, the importance of
learning morphological rules, the need for the focus-on-morphological-rule instruction,
the measurement of affix competence and different approaches to present morphological
rules and derivational affixes to EFL learners.
2.1.1

Definitions and features of derivational affixes and morphological

rules
As Howard (1982) defined, derivational affixes are those ―which may be prefixes or
suffixes in English, have a lexical function; they create new words out of existing words
or morphemes by their addition‖ (p.110). Another definition that focuses more on the
function of derivational affixes considered these affixes as those that supply the base
with ―components of lexical and lexico-grammatical meanings, thus form different
words‖ (Arnold, 1986, p.87). Derivational affixes can be classified into two kinds: classchanging derivational affixes that change the word class of the words they attach to, and
class-maintaining derivational affixes that do not change the word class of the words to
which they attach.
Thanks to the lexical function of derivational affixes, several derivational paradigms –
sets of ―related words composed of the same base morpheme and all the derivational
affixes that can go with this base‖ (Stageberg, 1965, as cited in Tô, 2017) can be created.
New words in these derivational paradigms enter the dictionaries by the application of
morphological rules – a certain form of word formation rules. According to Plag (2003),
a word formation rule must contain information about the affix’s phonology, type,
semantics and possible base morphemes to be applied correctly. In the current study,
9

since the rules did not focus on the phonological aspects of the affixes but rather
mentioned their semantic and categorical information, the researcher considered them as
―morphological rules‖.
Since derivational affixes carry components of lexical and grammatical meanings, it is
apparent that these affixes also possess lexical and grammatical features, two of which
are the phenomenon of polysemy and generalization. In addition to the lexical and
grammatical features, two important elements of derivational affixes – productivity and
categorical restrictions of attachment – are also inherited from English affixes because
derivational affixes are also morphemes. These features are discussed in details in the
following parts.
Affixal polysemy
The polysemy of an affix is related to its tendency to have several closely related
meanings (Lieber, 2009). Take the affix ―-er‖ as an example. Its addition to some bases
such as write, drive, etc. can create agent nouns, i.e. writer, driver. Moreover, its
attachment in some other bases such as open, print, etc. creates instrumental nouns, i.e.
opener, printer, etc. Although these words may be different in their types of nouns, in
this case, they all share a similarity in meanings denoted by the addition of the affix ―-er‖
as ―a person or a thing that carrying out an action‖.
Another case of polysemy appears when an affix can attach to different types of bases,
and the affix itself also carries various meanings. For instance, the prefix ―dis-‖ carries
three meanings: ―absence of‖, ―opposite to‖ and ―do the ―opposite of‖. Via its
attachment, these meanings can be added to some verb bases to create new words such as
discount, disappear, etc. However, with the meaning of ―lack of‖ and ―not‖, it can also
attach to adjective bases and noun bases to create new words such as disagreeable,
discomfort, etc. In summary, the derivational affixes’ multifunction and polysemy are
two main causes of affixal polysemy of these affixes.
Generalization
According to Fromkin et al. (2011), morphology – the study of the internal structure of
words and the rules by which they are formed – is a part of a person’s grammatical

knowledge of a language. Fromkin et al. (2011) also claimed that internal structures of
words are rule-governed. This can be inferred that morphological rules are part of the
10


grammatical knowledge manipulated by rules of English. A rule, according to the
definition of Longman Dictionary of English Teaching and Applied Linguistics (2010),
can be considered as ―generalization or principle that explains observed linguistic data‖
(p.241). In other words, rules in English can be generalized to apply for a wide range of
cases under their operation. As a result, morphological rules possess generalization
resulting from being a part of the govern-rule system of the English language.
Productivity
Productivity is a unique feature of derivational affixes. Several definitions of
productivity of derivational affixes have been prominently discussed during the
development of morphology, the concept of productivity is still not totally agreed. The
concept of productivity first coined by Schultink (1961, as cited in Bauer, 2005)
encountered problems since its notion just mentioned unintentionally coined words,
leading to the problem of recognizing between intentional coinage and unintentional
coined new words. Another definition of productivity from Aronoff (1976) using the
ratio of possible words and actual words also caused controversies as it is difficult to
determine accurately the point when a possible word turns into an actual word as well as
there being no accurate way to decide that. Later, the formula of ―hapax-conditioned
degree of productivity‖ developed by H. Baayen & Lieber (1991) defined the
productivity of a morphological process, which was later adjusted as ―the number of
words of appropriate morphological category appearing just once in the corpus divided
by the total number of hapaxes appearing in the corpus‖(Stekauer & Lieber, 2005,
p.326). Plag et al. (1999) showed their agreement to the idea of Baayen & Lieber (1991),
but they developed the formula of productivity into the formula to calculate ―productivity
in the narrow sense‖, which is defined as ―the quotient of the number of hapax legomena
with a given affix and the total number of tokens of all words with that affix‖ (p.216).

This formula interprets the value of productivity in a straightforward fashion, stating that
the larger the number of hapax legomena is, the more productive is the morphological
process. The calculation of productivity in this case is in consistent with the idea of H. R.
Baayen & Renouf (1996), which emphasizes the essential role of hapax legomena in
deciding productivity of a morphological process.
Although the formula suggested by Plag et al. (1999) still encounters some limitations
regarded the sampling of relevant tokens ad types, it can be seen that this formula
11