peningkatan akuisisi kosakata melalui bacaan ekstensif the ...

PENINGKATAN AKUISISI KOSAKATA MELALUI BACAAN EKSTENSIF THE IMPROVEMENT OF VOCABULARY ACQUISITION THROUGH EXTENSIVE READING

Nur Rizky Alfiany, Hamzah A. Machmoed, Etty Bazergan Fakultas Ilmu Budaya, Universitas Hasanuddin Makassar,

Alamat Korespondensi: Nur Rizky Alfiany Jl. Toddopuli XXI Blok 34 No. 179 HP: +6285228376712 E-mail: [email protected]

Abstrak Telah ditetapkan sebelumnya bahwa kosakata bahasa asing dapat diperoleh pada saat pembelajar melakukan kegiatan bacaan ekstensif. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui apakah peningkatan jumlah dan pemahaman kosakata (kosakata reseptif) serta operasionalisasi (kosakata produktif) dari pembelajar EFL dapat diperoleh melalui bacaan ekstensif. Metode kuantitatif dan desain pra-eksperimental digunakan oleh peneliti dan data tersebut dianilisis dengan menggunakan program SPSS 16.1. Daftar kosakata yang akan diteliti adalah kolokasi leksikal. 30 pembelajar Bahasa Inggris dari Just Say English Course membaca teks autentik dan diberikan tes kosakata kolokasi sebelum perlakuan (pra-tes) dan segera setelah perlakuan (pasca-tes). Hasil menunjukkan adanya peningkatan jumlah kosakata antara pra-tes dan pasca-tes, dimana kedua kosakata reseptif dan produktif menunjukkan dua sig (2-tailed) yang sama, yaitu 0.000 lebih kecil dari 0.05. Dari keenam tipe kolokasi leksikal, kata benda kongkrit lebih gampang diakuisisi daripada kata benda abstrak. Akan tetapi, karakteristik dari kolokasi, yaitu kombinasi bebas dan terikat, serta kurangnya pemahaman atas konsep metafora memberikan efek pada kurangnya jumlah kosakata yang diperoleh. Keberhasilan peningkatan kosakata reseptif diikuti oleh kosakata produktif tetapi kosakata reseptif berada jauh di atas produktif. Ini berarti bahwa masih banyak pembelajar EFL yang mempunyai jumlah kosakata yang banyak dan pemahaman yang lebih tapi belum mampu memproduksinya ke dalam kalimat yang benar. Kata kunci: bacaan ekstensif, akuisisi kosakata, kolokasi, kosakata reseptif, kosakata produktif Abstract It is well-established that foreign language vocabulary can be learned while the learner is engaged in extensive reading. This research is aimed to know if the improvement of EFL learners’ size and depth (receptive vocabulary) and operationalization (productive vocabulary) can be gained through the extensive reading. The quantitative method is used and the pre-experimental design is taken by the researcher and the data are analyzed using the SPSS 16.1. 30 Indonesian learners from the Just Say English Course read authentic texts and are tested on their knowledge of vocabulary before reading (Pre-test) and immediately after reading (Post-test). The vocabulary lists are taken from the lexical collocations. The results showed a significant word gain between the Pre-test and Post-test, where both of the receptive and productive vocabulary show the same sig (2-tailed) of 0.000 lower than 0.05 . Of the six different types of lexical collocations, concrete nouns were a little easier to retain than abstract nouns. However, the characteristics of the collocations, free and restricted combinations, also the lack of understanding about the concept of metaphor gave effect to the poor gain of vocabulary. The success of gain in receptive vocabulary was eventually followed by the productive vocabulary but the result is preceded by the former. It means that there are still many EFL learners have sizable vocabulary but are not able to produce it into the appropriate sentences. Keywords: extensive reading, vocabulary acquisition, collocation, receptive vocabulary, productive vocabulary.

INTRODUCTION It is generally accepted that people from the early age learn their native language through speaking activity, in this case, English language. Meanwhile, people, living in the country where English is considered as second or foreign language, learn the language through the written texts. The fact is that the implementation of written text is not optimally gained to improve the acquisition of language and most learners suffer from the lack of vocabulary. Reading becomes a tedious activity and leads to the frustration and unwillingness to acquire more vocabulary. In correlation with the learning of second language, the scholars then coined the term Second Language Acquisition or SLA, that is the process by which people learn a second language as an additional language to their native language. The characteristic of SLA is emphasized in the learners’ self-participation, rather than the active contribution from their teachers. The learners’ object of study cover in four skills, that are listening, speaking, writing and reading. Of course we already know that in order to learn other language, mastering vocabulary is the sole aspect. Furthermore, many scholars try to look for the formula in developing the vocabulary. One assumed that there are three major aspects for the learners to improve the vocabulary: size (how many words the learners know in the target language), depth of vocabulary knowledge (how well the learners know the meaning of a target word) and operationalization (the implementation of the word meanings productively) (Henriksen, 1999). Thus, word knowledge can be gained by knowing a word in terms of forms (spelling, pronunciation), meanings (translation, synonyms) and use (collocation, etc.) To observe the phenomenon deeply, there have been numerous researches dealing with the aspect of vocabulary acquisition in SLA, and based on the result, it is believed that most of second language vocabulary knowledge is learned incidentally while learners are doing the extensive reading activity (ER) (Huckin, et.al., 1999). By the same opinion, vocabulary learning can also be called as incidental learning because it is a by-product activity (Day et. al., 1991). We widely understand that using the explicit instruction (in which learning vocabulary intentionally) can lead to vocabulary improvement, because the learners will be aware to pay attention to the form and meaning. On the other hand, learning vocabulary

incidentally (or incidental vocabulary acquisition) has some advantages over the intentional vocabulary learning, as its nature to allow the learners to learn the unknown words without the conscious attempt to put the vocabulary to memory.

One of the

advantages is reading and word learning can occur at the same time. Furthermore, the learners acquire not only word meanings (noun, adjective and verb) but also increase their chances to understand the other forms of word class that are not easily learned by learners of English as a foreign language (Bahns and Eldaw, in Kweon et.al., 2008). Therefore, the learning can be enabled by repeated exposure, to enforce words that we are incompletely known before. The characteristic of extensive reading apparently correspond to the incidental vocabulary acquisition, because both of the aims are the same. It can increase the learners’ exposure to the language, increases knowledge of vocabulary, enhances the learners’ general language competence, consolidates previously learned language, and helps to build confidence with extended texts (Bell, 1998). Study of vocabulary acquisition through extensive reading will therefore be conducted to see how much vocabulary can be gained (size) and how effective the extensive

reading

can

enhance

the

productivity

of

vocabulary

(depth

and

operationalization). INSTRUMENT AND METHOD OF RESEARCH Research Location and Design The researcher employs the pre-experimental and descriptive research design (Sugiyono, 2011). This pre-experimental design employs a one-group pretest and posttest design to examine the vocabulary acquisition via extensive reading.

Meanwhile, the

descriptive design is to describe the improvement of vocabulary acquisition through extensive reading. This research was conducted at Just Say English Course, Branch of Makassar. Population and Sample The population of this research is the EFL learners at Just Say English Course and the total sample are 30 learners. The 30 learners are selected previously by using the placement test administered by the management.

Data Collection Data for this study have been taken from modified Vocabulary Knowledge Scale (VKS) test (Wesche, et.al., 1996) which is modified by Brown at.al., 2008). The VKS test is used to see the size, depth (receptive vocabulary) and operationalization (productive vocabulary). It is given in the pretest and the posttest. Prior to the posttest, all the learners are instructed to read an article extensively. The tutors will explain that the purpose of reading the article is to discuss it in the program called Speaking Exercise Session. The article is taken from the foreign magazine (“Are You Ready to Really Understand Abortion?” issued by Glamour Magazine, September 2003, 08437, USA). The VKS test will be given unannounced. Data Analysis To analyze the improvement of vocabulary acquisition through extensive reading, the VKS test will use the paired t-test supported by Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) 16.0 software, for both the receptive vocabulary and productive vocabulary. The productive vocabulary is rated according to semantic and syntactic appropriacy (Rosszel, 2006). We detect the grammatical error by seeing if in the sentences there are omission, addition

(overgeneralization/unnecessary

insertion,

suffix/plural

marker),

wrong

combination, inappropriate construction (fragmented/incomplete sentences, run-on sentence) and misordering/ inversion (subject-verb inversion) (Taiwo, 2004).

RESEARCH FINDINGS Size and Depth (Receptive Vocabulary) Based on the test, the researchers found that there was improvement mean 38.8096 of vocabulary acquisition after the extensive reading treatment began, proved by Sig (0.000) < α (0.05). It is implied that the extensive reading passage helped the subjects gain the number of vocabulary. Three phrases, religious belief, constant threat, and growing number topped the ranking by showing their constant number of subjects who are apparently familiar with the phrases prior to the treatment. It contrasts with the phrases raw issue, poignant message, probing discussion, personal epiphany, knockoff sweatshirt and arresting feature, whose none of the subjects has knowledge about those words prior to the treatment. The phrases

swirling issue, frank questionnaire, great relief and brief exchange have the modest gain of 23%, 40%, 33% and 29,99% respectively. Surprisingly, the phrases brief association, emotional state, bubbly teenager, knockoff sweatshirt, and poignant message have gained more than 50%, with the phrase knockoff showed the gain of 100%. Unfortunately, the phrases such as raw issue, probing discussion, personal epiphany and arresting feature only gained less than 20%. All subjects have already known the meaning of the phrases of spill the feeling and carry the baby before the treatment began but hold the voice, hold the great meaning, patient grapple, wear the feeling, circle the emotion and articulate the feeling. None of the subjects has prior knowledge about the phrases, but eventually they have the modest gain, ranging from 40-90%. The phrases focus emerge and view diverge also attain modest gain of 42%. All subjects seem familiar with the phrases a handful of clinic, therefore it gets the full gain. Although litany of questions was unrecognized in the pre-test, it eventually gained 90% after the post-test, noting that after the treatment, 23 of 30 subjects finally know the meaning of the phrases. This improvement failed to give effect to embrace of spirituality. Of the 30 subjects, only three of them were able to get the context of the phrases in the post-test. None of the subjects has prior knowledge of these two phrases, they eventually reach modest gain of 56,66% and 63,33% respectively. The phrases strongly agree and firmly believe undoubtedly have been known before the treatment, despite 2 subjects were wrongly guessed the meaning of firmly in firmly believe. It seems like there is no problem with the phrase deeply religious as all subjects clearly know the meaning in the pretest. However, the phrase staunchly pro-choice is seemingly unknown in the pre-test and only 19 subjects (gain of 63,33%) could know the meaning in the post-test. Operationalization (Productive Vocabulary) The researcher found that there was significant improvement of productive vocabulary prior to and after the treatment began with the Sig (0.000) is lower than α (0.05). None of the subjects were able to compose well-grammatical and well-semantic sentences for brief exchange, raw issue, poignant message, probing discussion, personal epiphany and arresting feature in the pre-test. Yet somehow in the post-test, the phrase poignant message gained significant improvement, noting that 18 subjects are eventually able to write down the correct sentence. The highest rate belongs to knockoff sweatshirt

for 27 subjects are able to make sentences in the post-test. Another improvement made by great angst, with the gain of 21 subjects after post-test or almost half of percentage of 45,94%. Surprisingly, even though in receptive vocabulary test the subjects could gain the full score for religious belief, constant threat and growing number, there are still some of them failed to compose correct sentences. It is also followed by poor improvement in the phrases such as brief exchange, raw issue, probing discussion, personal epiphany and arresting feature, which only gained 13,51%, 8,1%, and 5,4% respectively. The subjects seemed confused to make sentences using the phrase circle the emotion. Therefore, in the posttest, about 13 subjects (see table 3.2) knew the meaning of the phrase in the post-test, only four subjects were able to compose correct sentences at last, and the rest of them both fail to compose the correct sentences or did not compose it at all. The phrases focus emerges, views diverges, hold the voice, hold the great meaning, patients grapple, wear the feeling down, and articulate the feeling could gain the average percentage from 21% to 50% in the post-test, which means that over one fifth to one half subjects could be able to compose the correct sentences of those phrases in the end. The phrases spill the feeling and carry the baby have the same modest improvement of productive vocabulary as well as the collocation adj+n, which gained full score in the receptive test. Of the 30 subjects who knew the meaning of the phrase a handful of clinic in both pre-test and post-test, only 20 subjects were able to make correct sentences in the pretest, and three more subjects added in the posttest, thus the gain was only 8,1%. This less improvement is in contrast with the phrase litany of the questions. Although the gain is a little less than 50% but it showed significant improvement.

Unfortunately, the

improvement did not touch the phrase embrace of spirituality, none of the subjects were able to make correct sentences even in the post-test at all. Of the 17 subjects were able to recognize the phrase resonate with people’s heart in post-test receptive test, three of them failed to make the correct sentences, just as same as in the phrase come to terms with decision, from 19 subjects were able to make the sentences. The gain percentage is somehow almost imitating the receptive test (over 50% gain), with the former phrase showed less than 50% gain. The improvement in this part also correspond with the previous table which clearly indicated that the success of full score gained in the receptive test (see table 3.5) is not

followed by the productive test, thus giving only modest improvement. It means that there are still several subjects fail to integrate the phrases into sentences, even though they have already known the meaning. The phrase deeply religious could not gain the stable improvement in the receptive test, but still manages to gain modest result. Four subjects still wrote it wrong in the posttest. The phrase staunchly pro-choice, being recognized by 19 subjects in the post-test receptive vocabulary, could only made nine subjects to be able to make the sentences correctly. We could conclude that the average improvement score of receptive vocabulary knowledge from the pre-test to the post-test is 38,8%, while the productive vocabulary knowledge is 30,22% gain. It means that the receptive vocabulary knowledge of the subjects precedes their productive vocabulary knowledge with different 8,58%.

DISCUSSION This research showed that lack of understanding of collocation in EFL students resulted in poor vocabulary knowledge and thus hindered written/spoken skill. The combination of words in collocation obviously sounds natural to the native speakers, but as a foreign speaker, we find it difficult to guess by relying on translating the words literally, so certain effort should be made.

Another problem stumbled upon

understanding collocation is as the nature of itself. With many combinations of word in free type, it leads us to be able to guess the meaning of the phrases easily. For example, the word ‘have’ in the phrases ‘have a rest’, ‘have a meeting’, and ‘have dinner’. However, for the people who still lack of vocabulary especially the synonym, they will translate it literally, thus leading to confusion. The other problem of this free combination type is the extensive synonym of some words could make a poor guess, such as the word ‘state’ in the phrase ‘emotional state’. We seem familiar enough to note that the meaning of ‘state’ in bahasa Indonesia is ‘wilayah/daerah’. Almost all subject guessed it incorrectly and got confused to find the correct meaning because ‘wilayah emosional’ sounds weird, meanwhile the correct is ‘keadaan/kondisi emosional’. The noun ‘state’ eventually has two different meaning. This also happens to the phrase ‘raw issue’ which unfortunately the subjects cannot connect the word ‘masalah/isu’ with ‘mentah’. It resulted in poor word acquisition thus easily be decoyed in memory.

Let us notice that the phrase ‘bubbly teenager’, ‘knockoff sweatshirt’, and ’50something director’ have gained a significant number at the post-test, besides because the phrases consist of the concrete noun, it also enables the students to be able to acquire and to retain it longer in memory. Another aspect to note also that ‘knockoff’ in bahasa Indonesia means ‘tiruan’, so it is directly associated with ‘a thing’, ‘bubbly’ means ‘ceria’ associated with ‘a person’, and ’50-something’ can be both associated with ‘a thing’ and ‘a person’. Therefore, we categorize those three phrases as restricted combination. Even though no subjects had prior knowledge about these phrases in the pre-test but eventually they gained significant improvement after the treatment. Yet restricted combination also has weakness. Despite the argument of Kweon, et.al. (2008) noting that noun is easily to be acquired than adjective and verb, it is also to note that based on the research, the abstract noun makes it more difficult for the students to acquire. Some nouns such as we found in the reading material, ‘litany’ and ‘epiphany’, are simply rarely found in the common reading text. Even though after the reading treatment the students try to find the meaning, its unfamiliarity and rare appearance within the reading texts, make it difficult to acquire, more so incidentally. Another collocation problem faced by the students is the metaphor. Metaphor is the words that are slightly different from its basic meaning (McCarthy et.al., 2006). The example that we found in the reading text are ‘spill the feeling’, ‘articulate the feeling’, ‘circle the emotion’, etc. To us as non-native speakers, the phrases just sound very wrong, because what we assumed in the first place is that the word ‘spill’ collocates with ‘drink/sauce’, ‘articulate’ with ‘sound/voice’, and ‘circle’ has something to do with ‘line or movement’. Greenbaum (1996) also stated about the typical of opaque phrasal verbs, which is a phrasal verb that has a sheer meaning, thus lead us difficult to guess the phrases. Examples from the reading text are the phrasal verbs ‘resonate with the people’s heart’ and ‘come to terms with the decision’. Besides the problems occurred above, all subjects seem to understand about intensifying adverbs in collocation (McCarthy at.al., 2006). The adverb found in the reading text ‘strongly agree’, ‘deeply religious’ and ‘firmly believe’ clearly reflect the other to say very or very much in English.

The success of incidental vocabulary acquisition in receptive vocabulary eventually precedes the productive vocabulary.

Even though there was a significant gain of

productive vocabulary from pre-test to post-test, it is still under the significant of receptive vocabulary, with the different gain mean is 8,58%. One can assume that even though we understand the meaning of the word, it is still quite difficult to produce it into a sentence. The problem occurred is because several of the students still do not understand the grammatical concept about word classes, more so the distinction between singular and plural noun, also the subject-verb agreement. Meanwhile, some students are not able to recognize the semantic concept of metaphor. Some students even consider letting the paper be blank because they do not have ideas about the phrases they are going to put into new sentence. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION In spite of the improvement resulted between the receptive and productive vocabulary, the research shows that in the end receptive vocabulary does precede the productive vocabulary size.

There is tendency that students are easily to retain the

vocabulary into memory but in fact are difficult to produce it within the sentences. This problem occurred because there are still many EFL learners lack in the grammatical skill, especially in written skill.

We can presume that there is still a gap between the

improvement of receptive and productive vocabulary skill. Therefore, the writer suggests to the researchers who are interested in investigating the role of extensive reading in improving the vocabulary acquisition, that perhaps in the further researches, we could be able to develop a new method to carry out the unfinished problem occurred in this thesis.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Bell, T. (1998). Extensive Reading: Why? And How?. The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. IV, No. 12, December 1998. http://iteslj.org/Articles/Bell-Reading.html access date: June, 1st 2012. Brown et.al. (2008). Incidental vocabulary acquisition from reading, reading while listening, and listening to stories. Reading in a Foreign Language, 20 (2), 136-163. Day et.al. (1991). Incidental EFL Vocabulary Learning and Reading. Reading in a Foreign Language 7(2), 541-551. Greenbaum, S. (1996). The Oxford English Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Henriksen, B. (1999). Three Dimensions of Vocabulary Development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 21, 303-317.

Huckin et.al. (1999). Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition in a Second Language. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 21, 181-193. McCarthy et.al. (2006). English Collocations in Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kweon et.al. (2008). Beyond Raw Frequency: Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition in Extensive Reading, Reading in a Foreign Language 20(2), 191-215. Rosszel, R. (2006). The Role of Extensive Reading in Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition. In K. Bradford. Watts, C. Ikeguchi and M. Swanson (Eds.) JALT 2005 Conference Proceedings. Tokyo: JALT. Taiwo, R. (2004). Helping ESL Learners to Minimize Collocational Errors. The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. X, No. 4, April 2004. http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Taiwo-Collocation.html access date: June 1st 2012.

Table. 1 Paired Sample Statistics of Receptive Vocabulary Paired Samples Statistics Mean N Std. Deviation Pair 1

Pre-test Receptive Post-test Receptive

34.0487 72.8563

30 30

Std. Error Mean

9.40672 19.50311

1.71742 3.56076

Table. 2 Paired Sample Statistics of Productive Vocabulary Paired Samples Statistics Mean N Std. Deviation Pair 1

Pre-test Productive Post-test Productive

21.5263 51.7447

30 30

14.32664 25.55301

Std. Error Mean 2.61567 4.66532

Fig. 1 The average score of receptive and productive test during the pre-test and post-test 72.8563

80

51.7447

60 40

34.0487 21.5263

Receptive Productive

20 0 Pre-Test

Post-Test