Different approaches to Develop Learner Autonomy in Vocabulary Learning in Classroom

 Dr. Farnaz Sahebkheir

Department of English Language Teaching, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran

Abstract

Vocabulary learning is one of the most challenging skills that EFL learners deal with it. Traditionally learners rely on their teachers but new approaches towards teaching encourage learner autonomy. In an academic level, learners should become more autonomous in learning foreign language vocabulary and try to find different ways of how to become more successful learners. They are forced to become autonomous and make conscious efforts to learn vocabulary outside of the classroom simply because exposure to target language is limited in classrooms. Therefore, the autonomy of the learner plays an important role in developing and enhancing their vocabulary. The aim of this study is exploring the application of learner autonomy in the context of vocabulary learning for English language students. In addition, it mentions the importance of learner’s autonomy in vocabulary learning and learning strategies. Besides, it clarifies why teachers should enhance learner autonomy in vocabulary learning by exploring the role of both the teachers and learners. It also tries to find out how teachers can enhance learner autonomy in vocabulary learning and what is the expected effects of learner autonomy in vocabulary learning. The results of this study revealed that extensive reading could be one of the best approaches to develop vocabulary and lexicon in EFL learners. Teachers should try to include extensive reading in their curriculum for improving vocabulary skill.

Keywords: Autonomy, EFL, Learning Strategies, Vocabulary Learning

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1. Introduction

Vocabulary learning is an important skill for English language acquisition. It is impossible for a learner to communicate without the required vocabulary. Successful second language acquisition needs active involvement of the learner. Teachers should try to enhance the strategic teaching of new language. Vocabulary, or word meaning, is one of the keys to understand a comprehension or paragraph or statements, so without understanding of words meaning, comprehension will not occur. One way students can develop vocabulary is indirectly through reading, listening, and speaking. A student’s background knowledge and prior experiences can play a large role in vocabulary development. As students build connections between known words and unknown words, they develop a deeper understanding of their reading. Holec (1981) and Benson (2003) mentioned the necessity of autonomy in education. They stated that students who think and work strategically are more motivated to learn and have a higher sense of self-efficacy or confidence in their own learning ability. Then students who rely on themselves in learning vocabulary are more able to succeed academically. In addition, they are more motivated than those who do not have effective strategies in learning by themselves. Vocabulary is the basis of English language teaching because without enough vocabulary students cannot understand others or express their own ideas. Wilkins (1972) believes that without grammar very little can be conveyed. However, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed. In this paper, I want to focus on why teachers should focus on learner autonomy in vocabulary learning.

1.1. Definition of autonomy

Holec (1981, p.3) defines learner autonomy as the “ability to take charge of one’s own learning”, “it is not inborn but must be acquired either by ‘natural’ means or (as most often happens) by formal learning, i.e. in a systematic, deliberate way”, and “To take charge of one’s learning is to have the responsibility for all the decisions concerning all aspects of this learning. Autonomous learning is a kind of active learning which is often addressed in learning in various subject domains. Many educators assert that all learning is inherently active and that students are therefore actively involved while listening to class presentations. However, holistic learning occurs only when students are engaged not only in reading, writing, discussing, and reflecting on what they learn, but also in actively participating in higher-order thinking tasks such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation (Weimer, 2013). Autonomous learning derives from individuals’ interests, and motivates self-exploration into knowledge and skills (Clegg, 2004). Improvements in the experiential knowledge base are also the result of the self-monitored learning approach. Autonomy is the ability to take charge of one’s own learning by utilizing a self-learning and reflection process. This deepens individuals thoughts and ideas, and leads to a reflective process in knowledge construction and skill development (Clegg, 2004) Within this context, it is suggested  that strategies promoting active learning should be defined as activities in which students are doing things and thinking about what they are doing (Bonwell & Eison, 1991).

Reflective learning provides a learning experience for students to record and reflect deeply on their thoughts and feelings on issues and events that are basic part of their learning (Le & Le, 2007). The reflective process in vocabulary learning involves:

 (1) Individuals are actively engaged in a given task, (2) Reflection is triggered by interesting, strange or perplexing situations or experiences, (3) Individuals re-examine their assumptions, presuppositions, and world views, and (4) Individuals develop a new understanding as the result of reflection (Roger, 2001). As argued by Boud et al. (1985), reflection during learning refers intellectual and affective activities in which learners explore their experiences in order to develop new understandings and appreciations.

1.2. Vocabulary learning

The following are some weakness’ reasons students deal with learning vocabulary.

1. Lacks the awareness to the objectives of learning vocabulary.
2. Has a very limited experience of practicing conversation with native speaker.
3. Has a serious problem in spelling.
4. Lacks the motivation to learn the English Language.
5. Lives in an environment where higher level vocabulary are not used.
6. Has a Phobia of English language as a foreign language.
7. Has a lower education level.
8. Does not read much or has a reading problem.
9. Has an auditory perception problem which makes it difficult to hear the subtle differences in words.
10. Does not have a good understanding of the structure of language including parts of speech and word parts, prefixes, suffixes and word roots (Haddad, 2016).

Students cannot develop their autonomy alone; they should coordinate with their teachers in order to achieve the desired results. Little (1991) defines autonomy as follows:

1. Students should take responsibility for their own learning. ·
2. Taking responsibility involves learners in taking ownership (partial or total) of many processes which have traditionally belonged to the teacher, such as deciding on learning objectives, selecting learning methods and evaluating progress.

He further mentions that Learner autonomy is the product of an interactive process in which the

teacher gradually enlarges the scope of her learners’ autonomy by gradually allowing them to take more control of the process and content of their learning. Little wood (1996) stated that the goal of teaching is to produce learners that can act and think more independently and more autonomously. In addition, a strategy for developing autonomy is the main target of language teaching. Holec (1981) focuses on self-directed process of learning as follows:

1. fixing the objectives
2. defining the content and progressions
3. selecting the methods and techniques to be used
4. monitoring the acquisition procedure

1.3. Improving autonomy in vocabulary learning

Learning any foreign language requires learning words of that language. The words are stored and retrieved in the human brain. The learners should repeat the words if they aim to remember them and use them for communication. Language learning strategies are crucial in teaching and learning, especially in encouraging learner autonomy. Learning all language vocabulary is difficult, so, learners should find other ways to learn vocabulary. Learner autonomy has many advantages as follows:

1. Learner autonomy enhances the learner’s motivation and leads to more effective vocabulary learning.
2. Learner autonomy provides learners with more free opportunities for English communication in a non-native environment.
3. Learner autonomy focuses on the individual needs of learners at all levels.
4. Learner autonomy supports self-confidence.
5. Learner autonomy enhances the learner’s willingness towards active learning.

Boud (1995) believes that an autonomous learner is the one who is prepared to take some significant responsibility for his own learning. An autonomous learner should make decisions about his/her own learning, he/she should be able to set realistic goals, plan program of work, develop strategies for coping with new and unforeseen situations, evaluate and assess his/her own work and generally to learn how to learn from his/her own successes and failures in ways which will help his/her to be more efficient learners in the future. Autonomous learners participate in learning, and are reflective about their own learning.

1.4. Strategies to improve vocabulary learning

Ruutmets (2005) believes that vocabulary learning strategies contains knowledge about what learners do to find out the meaning of new words, retain them in long-term memory, recall them when needed in comprehension and use them in language production. Discovery strategies are used for gaining initial information about a new word (Schmitt, 2000). The most common strategies in this area take the form of memorizing, repetition and note -taking. It is believed that the strategies seem to be self-independent; learners work out the meaning of the new words by themselves socially based on interaction with other people. The latter may also mean that learners get the word meaning by asking other people or through their interaction with others as well as through dictionaries. Whilst, consolidation strategies is used to reinforce and remember a word once it has been introduced (Schmitt, 2000). These strategies include a more in-depth look at the meaning which employs tactics such as inference, imagery, active manipulation and key-word technique. It is also classified into four main strategy groups; memory, cognitive, metacognitive and social. Memory strategy includes memorization techniques such as grouping a word with its association, using key words, semantic mapping and reviewing in a structured way. While cognitive strategies are repetition and using mechanical means to study vocabulary, for example keeping of vocabulary notebooks. Furthermore, metacognitive strategies are used by learners to control and evaluate their learning. Among the many activities that can be used by learners, such strategies may include planning, monitoring and evaluating. Learners as well can consolidate the word learnt by studying and practicing in groups, with peers or a method of teaching that require social strategies (Haddad, 2016).

1.5. Factors affecting vocabulary learning

Vocabulary learning is affected by many factors which can be broadly categorized into two groups: words and learners. (Ellis, 2002) mentioned that high frequencies words are more easily recognized than words at low frequencies. This means that the more often the words are come upon; the higher the chance learners are able to being an autonomous learner means using different learning strategies. Nation (1997) states that learners need to be able to use vocabulary strategies to cope with unknown vocabulary met in listening or reading texts, to make up for gaps in productive vocabulary in speaking and writing, to gain fluency in using known vocabulary and to learn new words in isolation. Most of the strategies can begin to be developed in the earliest English classes. Rubin (1987) mentions the strategies for improving vocabulary learning:

1. Develop word awareness and love of words through increasing motivation. Develop explicit, rich instruction to build vocabulary.
2. Build strategies for independence.

Haddad (2016) found some strategies to build student vocabularies by focusing on these practices. Here are strategies that teachers use in their classrooms for teaching vocabulary.

     Table 1: What is involved in knowing a word?

Aspect	Component	Receptive knowledge	Productive knowledge
Form	spoken written word parts	What does the word sound like? What does the word look like? What parts are recognizable in this word?	How is the word pronounced? How is the word written and spelled? What word parts are needed to express the meaning?
Meaning	form and meaning concepts and referents	What meaning does this word form signal? What is included in this concept?	What word form can be used to express this meaning? What items can the concept refer to?
Use	grammatical functions collocations	In what patterns does the word occur? What words or types of words occur with this one?	In what patterns must people use this word? What words or types of words must people use with this one?

There are lots of different ways for improving autonomous vocabulary learning. However, it seems that the key issue for student’s support in developing autonomy in classroom is engagement, which completely relies on both instructor and student. Student’s Engagement will be highly reflected in their behavioural intensity, emotional quality, and personal interaction that will be reflected in their behaviour during a learning activity. Student’s behaviour is represented in different action and reaction that shows students interest and motivation to develop their autonomy. The extent of student’s behaviour is presented as follows:

• Attention: Concentration and on-task focus.
• Effort: abilities and capacities in what they are doing. (Their own interpretation in finding the meaning of a word)
• Persistence: intensive efforts over time, even facing difficulties.

Engagement gives teachers the moment-to-moment feedback they need to identify how well their efforts to motivate students to develop their autonomy are working (Haddad, 2016).

1.6. Teacher’s role in learner’s autonomous ability

In learner autonomous vocabulary learning the teacher’s role is reduced and they become facilitators. But this does not mean that teachers become passive in learning process; teachers still have various roles: they can teach vocabulary relevant to tasks in hand, judge and give instruction in strategies which help retention. Teachers should improve autonomous learning because it is important for their students.  Also they should teach strategies to learn vocabulary autonomously. Deep vocabulary learning strategies take more time but ensure greater retention and ease from memory (Haddad, 2016). Reading a variety of texts on the same theme will ensure multiple exposure to relevant items. Making extensive use of dictionaries, building up deep knowledge  through word associations and revising to ensure retention are different ways for learning vocabulary. Teachers have an ongoing role both in using deep strategies in class work and in training learners in their use. This is especially true for weaker learners, who tend to use even shallow strategies infectively: they guess inaccurately from context and do not later modify wrong guesses, and they do not read widely enough. But it is the teacher responsibility to foster the student’s ability of autonomous learning by designing class activities and create positive atmosphere, a language context and make students want to learn and know how to learn. Teachers should develop autonomy because vocabulary learning is unique to each student. In addition, the class time for vocabulary is extremely limited compared with the immense number of vocabulary items that learners need to acquire. All these points demonstrate that studying vocabulary on their own is a must for all learners, the best preparation the teacher can provide is to ” help them become more autonomous” (Scharle , 2000, Haddad,2016).

When trying to find an answer to this question the following ideas can be considered:

1. It is not straightforward process.
2. Teachers need stimulus and encouragement to create pedagogy for autonomy.
3. Teachers must realize by themselves that they can do what at first seemed impossible.
4. Teachers should be able to work on a collaborative basis.
5. Teachers must be autonomous themselves to be able to develop their learner’s autonomy. If teachers themselves are autonomous and motivated they can promote greater autonomy in their students(Scharle , 2000).

Omaggio (1997) states some strategies for improving autonomy in students:

1. Encourage students to be interdependent and work collectively. Explain student’s roles from the outset. Asking students to give their opinions on the issue of roles could be beneficial.
2. Give the students projects to do outside the classroom to increase motivation.
3. Give the students non-lesson classroom duties to perform (taking roll, writing instructions, etc.)
4. Have the students design lessons or materials to be used in class.
5. Instruct student on how to use the university’s resource centers.
6. Emphasize the importance of peer editing, corrections and follow-up questioning in the classroom.
7. Encourage the students to use only English in class, Stress fluency rather than accuracy.

Learner has crucial  role in developing their autonomy in vocabulary learning, they should:

1. Decide which words are worth learning.
2. Learn to use the context, phrases, and hints provided in sentences ( Haddad, 2016).

1.7. The Techniques in Teaching Vocabulary mentioned by Alqahtani(2015) :

a. Using Objects

Using this technique includes the use of realia, visual aids, and demonstration. They can function to help learners in remembering vocabulary better, because our memory for objects and pictures is very reliable and visual techniques can act as cues for remembering words

b. Drawing Objects can either be drawn on the blackboard or drawn on flash cards.

The latter can be used again and again in different contexts if they are made with cards and covered in plastic. They can help young learners easily understand and realize the main points that they have learned in the classroom.

c. Using Illustrations and Pictures

 Pictures connect students’ prior knowledge to a new story, and in the process, help them learn new words. There are plenty of vocabularies that can be introduced by using illustrations or pictures. They are excellent means of making the meaning of unknown words clear. The list of pictures includes: posters, flashcards, wall charts, magazine pictures, board drawings, stick figures and photographs.

d. Contrast

Some words are easily explained to learners by contrasting it with its opposite, for instance, the word” good” contrasted with the word “bad”. But some words are not. It is almost impossible to contrast the words whose opposite is the gradable one. When the word “white” is contrasted with the word “black”, there is an “in between” word” grey”.

e. Enumeration

An enumeration is a collection of items that is a complete, ordered listing of all of the items in that collection. It can be used to present meaning. In other words, this technique helps when any word is difficult to explain visually. We can say “clothes” and explain this by enumerating or listing various items. Teacher may list a number of clothes e.g., a dress, a skirt, trousers  etc., then the meaning of the word “clothes” will became clear. The same is true of ‘vegetable’ or “furniture”.(Harmer 1991).

f. Mime, Expressions and Gestures

Klippel (1994) implies that “mime or gesture is useful if it emphasizes the importance of gestures and facial expression on communication. Many words can be introduced through mime, expressions, and gestures. For example, adjectives: “sad” ,” happy”; mime and taking a hat off your head to teach hat and so on.

g. Guessing from Context

Guessing from context as a way of dealing with unfamiliar vocabulary in unedited selections has been suggested widely by L1 and L2 reading specialists (Dubin, 1993). Nation and Coady (1988) claim that there are two types of contexts. The first type is the context within the text, which includes morphological, semantic and syntactic information in a specific text, while the second one is the general context, or non-textual context, which is the background knowledge the reader has about the subjects.

h. Eliciting

This technique is more motivating and memorable by simply giving pupils a list of words to learn.

i. Translation

 Even though translation does not create a need or motivation of the learners to think about word meaning (Cameron, 2001), in some situations translation could be effective for teachers, such as when dealing with incidental vocabulary (Thornbury, 2002), checking students’ comprehension, and pointing out similarities or differences between first and second language, when these are likely to cause errors (Takač, 2008). There are always some words that need to be translated and this technique can save a lot of time.

j. Drilling

Drilling is employed to make learners get accustomed to the word form especially to how it sounds. To make learners more familiar with the word, drilling should be clear and natural (Thornbury, 2002). Drilling is very necessary since learners need to say the word to themselves as they learn it to recall the words from memory (Ellis & Beaton, 1993, in Read, 2000).

k. Spelling the Word

The primary means of spelling is actually memorizing words (Reed, 2012). Word spelling needs to be considered since spelling forms of English words is not always inferred by the pronunciation.

l. Learners’ Active Involvement

Employing this technique, the teacher encourages the students to find out word’s meaning by elicitation (Takač, 2008). Elicitation maximizes learners’ speaking opportunities, and acts as a way of checking learners’ understanding (Thornbury, 2002). This technique also includes personalization, which is using the word by learners in a context or sentence that is related to their life. Related to the above techniques, Pinter (2006) argues that teachers are suggested to conduct planned presentations of vocabulary as various as possible, so it is better that teachers present word meaning and form by combining more than one technique.

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2. Literature review

Knowing or having the knowledge of a word in ELT depends on methods used for vocabulary teaching. Over the centuries, there have been several methods for teaching vocabulary. The aim of the first method (The Grammar Translation) was for example to prepare students to read, to understand and to write classical materials. Grammar-Translation Method did not include direct vocabulary instruction unless a word illustrated a grammatical rule or without providing any definition, the explanations depended mostly on etymology. Although it had been the dominant method that was used from eighteenth to twentieth century, in 1880‟s, under the name of “The Reform Movement”, another method was propounded by Henry Sweet. The emphasis was on the spoken language and phonetic training. His system consisted of five stages. (Mechanical stage, grammatical stage, Idiomatic Stage, Literary Stage, and Archaic stage.) Each stage serves for different controlled purposes of spoken language. The most remarkable point of this method was to avoid isolated sentences or separated words throughout the study. The next major method, in terms of vocabulary improvement, is Michael West’s The Reading Method/Situational Language Teaching, in which he stressed the need to facilitate reading skill by improving vocabulary skills. In the mid 90ʼs with the appearance of new teaching methods such as audio-lingual teaching and, following the former, communicative approach and Krashen and Terrell’s Natural Approach in which vocabulary was mainstay of meaning and key to clear comprehension of the message. Current research into corpus analysis represent prominent theoretical and pedagogical shift from the past and all four of them challenge traditional views of word boundaries by emphasizing the collocation and lexis patterns (Alqahtani, 2015).

Choosing to read based on your taste, which is called free voluntary reading, is a way to achieve second language proficiency. Moreover, the book the reader is interested in facilitates readers’ concentration on the book and enables them to take advantage of background information that facilitates comprehension (Cho & Krashen, 1994). Krashen (2003) believes in the power of reading for the development of first, second or foreign language competence. He displays some case studies to support his claim of the power of recreational reading for progress. Extensive reading leads learners to acquire the language if they are sufficiently exposed to the language and if they have the materials that are interesting for them. Krashen (2004) brings in the term “narrow reading” for the extensive reading the learners do on the areas of their own interest. Reading can broaden learners’ language competence by providing automaticity of recognizing and decoding words and written symbols of a printed message (Grabe, 1991). Moreover, it can increase the learners’ exposure to the language. However, the quality of exposure to language is very important to their motivation to acquire new forms from the input. This exposure to language is more likely to reduce the gap between L1 and L2.

Extensive reading can cause an increase in the range of vocabulary the learner possesses. Unlike direct vocabulary instruction, children between three and twelve grades can learn up to 3000 words a year (Nagy & Herman, 1987) if they do extensive reading.

A number of L1 studies that appear to show the positive effect of reading on subjects’ writing skills (Stotsky, 1983; Krashen, 1984). Reading materials should fulfill students’ needs and it should be interesting in order to motivate them to read. Extensive reading is important in consolidation of previously learned knowledge as they support new language forms by repeating adequately (Wodinsky & Nation, 1988). In addition, since background knowledge is activated during reading process it facilitates the development of prediction skills.

Writers and researches have not agreed on a common definition what extensive reading is and different meanings have been attributed to extensive reading in language teaching (Hedge, 2000). For instance, Bamford & Day (1998, p.5) defines it as “real-world reading but for pedagogical purpose.” Intensive reading is an explicit way of learning and it involves the preselected texts which the students study word by word whereas the extensive reading aims the contrary. It also involves the texts that are chosen deliberately and short usually about 300-500 words long. In this type, reading the focus is on language features such as grammar, discourse and vocabulary. Unlike extensive reading, analyzing sentence structures in terms of grammatical elements and looking up every unknown word is the primary aim of intensive reading. By using term, “intensive reading” Palmer (1921/1964, p.111) meant “take a text, study it line by line, referring at every moment to our dictionary and our grammar, comparing, analyzing, translating, and retaining every expression that it contains.” For Palmer (1964) extensive reading is reading book after book rapidly, and the goal is not language, but the meaning. The purpose is to read for ordinary reasons such as pleasure or information; however, he saw the pedagogic value of both types of reading. Extensive reading requires large amount of reading in the second language.

The reading texts in integrated course books are highly controlled and there is that risk of encountering uninteresting or insufficient texts in terms of variety. These books are useful to teach structure of the target language; however, the reading parts are deprived of interesting texts or new vocabulary. On the other hand, the words enter the readers‟ sight vocabulary since the readers‟ encounter multiple words while reading graded readers (Williams, 1996). Graded readers are books for English language learners who have limited lexis and syntax and the primary purpose of graded readers is to provide text for extensive reading. According to the issues mentioned here, the following questions were asked:

What is the effect of extensive reading on improving vocabulary skill of learners?

3. Method

3.1. Participants

The sample of this study included 40 learners studying EFL at the intermediate level in a language institute in Tabriz. They were selected based on a modified PET test. The participants whose scores were at least one standard deviation below or above the mean score were selected. Then, the participants were divided into two groups, one the experimental (N= 20) and the other the control (N=20). All of the participants were females and their ages varied from14 to 25. Their first language was Turkish. Tabriz is a city with bilingual people. The mother tongue of people is Turkish and second language is Farsi. The foreign language taught in classrooms is English.

3.2.The Instruments

To select homogeneous participants for the current study a modified PET test from was administered. This test contained 50 items. This test consisted of reading comprehension (20 items in forms of Multiple-choice items), grammar (27 items in the form of multiple choice), and writing (3tems including three topics for writing) for homogenizing their language proficiency. The allocated time for answering the questions was 1 hour. After correcting the papers, 40 students were selected as the intermediate learners out of 58 students. The score for the proficiency test was out of 100. He books taught in the classrooms were TOP NOTCH books 2A. These books were taught in both classes and the teacher was the instructor of both classes. Students in the experimental group were supposed to use simplified reading stories from website https://www.fluentu.com. However, the other students in the control group just studied the usual books of the English institute. Students in both classes were supposed to summarize the reading parts in their books. Their first summary was considered as the pre-test and the last summary was considered as the post-test.

3.3. Procedure

To do this research, the researcher selected two classes at intermediate level to do the research. A proficiency test was administered to be sure of the homogeneity of the participants. In the treatment, the usual book of the English institute was taught during eight sessions in one month. In each of the 8 sessions, students were supposed to write the summaries of the reading part of their book. Students in the experimental group received simplified short stories. These learners were encouraged to notice linguistic items while reading the short stories. In the control group, students just studied the books provided by the institute and they did not have access to simplified short stories. The first summary of reading part of the books were used as the pre-test and the last summary as post-test. The researcher used Hughes (2005) writing to score their writing. This scale consisted of content, organization, grammar, vocabulary and mechanics of the writings which was scored from 0-6. The whole of the score for this scale was out of 30.

4. Results and Discussion

The data in this study was obtained through calculating the descriptive statistics as well as the inferential statistical method of independent samples T-test for determining the effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable and the degree of progress of the participants from the pretest to the posttest. The results of t-test on PET test for homogenizing two groups are shown in Table 1.

         Table 1

         Independent sample t-test for PET scores

group	N	mean	Std. Deviation	Std. Error Mean	Sig(2-tailed)	F	t	df
control	20	65.75	.01350	.04235	.810	1.583	-.244	38 37.217
experimental	20	64.61	.07624	.04377	.810		-.244

 

As Table 1 shows, scores in the PET test for the control group are (M =65.75, SD =.013) and experimental group (M=64.61 SD =.076), t (38) =-.244, P>.05. The results show that there isn’t a significant difference between two groups in the beginning of the study.

         Table 2

          Independent Sample t-test in the Pre and Post Tests

group	N	mean	Std. Deviation	Std. Error Mean	Sig(2-tailed)	F	t	df
Pre control	20	22.65	.09150	.02135	.760	1.373	-.194	38 37.236
experimental	20	24.61	.07624	.04177	.760		-.194
Post control	20	32.84	.24583	.01218	.000	25.925	-1.259	38 36.669
experimental	20	50.19	.26576	.03325	.000		-1.259

 

As Table 2 shows, scores in the pre-test for the control group are (M =22.65, SD =.091) and experimental group (M=24.61 SD =.076), t (38) =-.194, P>.05. The mean score shows that two groups grammar knowledge in the pre-test were the same. In the post-test, scores for the control group (M =32.84, SD =.24) and the experimental group (M=50.19, SD = .26), t (38) = -1.259, P=.000. The results show that there is a significant difference between two groups in the post-test. In the post-test, the experimental group outperforms the control group in the summary writing. It seems that extensive reading can be helpful for language achievement and should be considered in teacher’s curriculum.

              Figure1. The Improvement of Writing performance in the Experimental Group

According to the results in Fig.1, students in the experimental group had improvements in the post-test. vocabulary and Content improved better than the other parts in the post-test. It seems that extensive reading helps learners to notice to vocabulary and learn using new vocabulary in their writing.

5. Conclusion and implication(s)

Research has shown that second language readers rely heavily on vocabulary knowledge and the lack of that knowledge is the main and the largest obstacle for L2 readers to overcome (Huckin, 1995). In production, when we have a meaning or concept that we wish to express, we need to have a store of words from which we can select to express this meaning or concept. ‘‘When students travel, they don’t carry grammar books, they carry dictionaries’’ (Krashen, as cited in Lewis, 1993, p.25). Many researchers argue that vocabulary is one of the most important-if not the most important- components in learning a foreign language and foreign language curricula must reflect this. Wilkins (1972) states that: ‘‘There is not much value in being able to produce grammatical sentences if one has not got the vocabulary that is needed to convey what one wishes to say … While without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed’’ p.97).Other scholars such as Richards (1980) and Krashen (1989), as cited in Maximo (2000) state many reasons for devoting attention to vocabulary. “First, a large vocabulary is of course essential for mastery of a language. Second language acquirers know this; they carry dictionaries with them, not grammar books, and regularly report that the lack of vocabulary is a major problem’’. On the other hand, vocabulary has been acknowledged as L2 learners’ greatest single source of problems (Meara, 1980). This remark may possibly reflect that the open endedness of a vocabulary system is perceived to be a cause of difficulty by learners. Another possible reason is that, unlike syntax and phonology, vocabulary does not have rules the learners may follow to acquire and develop their knowledge. In other words, it is not clear in L2 vocabulary learning what rules apply or which vocabulary items should be learned first. Oxford (1990) also claims that vocabulary is “by far the most sizeable and unmanageable component in the learning of any language, whether a foreign or one’s mother tongue, because of tens of thousands of different meanings” Despite these difficulties that language learners face in L2 vocabulary, they still have to deal with it in their examinations as ‘‘vocabulary has traditionally been one of the language components measured in language tests’’ (Schmitt, 1999, 189). Furthermore, many learners see second language acquisition (SLA) as essentially a matter of learning vocabulary and therefore they spend a great deal of time on memorizing lists of L2 words and rely on their bilingual dictionary as a basic communicative resource. As a result, language teachers and applied linguists now generally recognize the importance of vocabulary learning and are exploring ways of promoting it more effectively. Some of this research takes the form of investigation of strategies learners use specifically for vocabulary (VLS), which is our focus of attention. Recent research indicates that teaching vocabulary may be problematic because many teachers are not confident about the best practice in vocabulary teaching and at times do not know where to begin to form an instructional emphasis on word learning (Berne & Blachowicz, 2008). Teaching words is a crucial aspect in learning a language as languages are based on words (Thornbury, 2002). It is almost impossible to learn a language without words; even communication between human beings is based on words.

Both teachers and students agree that acquisition of the vocabulary is a central factor in teaching a language (Walters, 2004). Teaching vocabulary is one of the most discussed parts of teaching English as a foreign language. When the teaching and learning process take place, problems would appear to the teachers. They have problems of how to teach students in order to gain satisfying results. The teacher should prepare and find out the appropriate techniques, which will be implemented to the students. A good teacher should prepare himself or herself with various and up-to-date techniques. Teachers need to be able to master the material in order to be understood by students, and make them interested and happy in the teaching and learning process in the classroom. The teachers should be concerned that teaching vocabulary is something new and different from student’s native language. They also have to take into account that teaching English for young learners is different from adults. The teachers have to know the characteristics of his\her learners. They more need to prepare good techniques and suitable material in order to gain the target of language teaching. Vocabulary can be defined as ”words we must know to communicate effectively; words in speaking (expressive vocabulary) and words in listening (receptive vocabulary)” (Neuman & Dwyer, 2009, p. 385). Hornby (1995) defines vocabulary as words in a language; vocabulary is a list of words with their meanings”. While Ur (1998) states “Vocabulary can be defined, roughly, as the words we teach in the foreign language. However, a new item of vocabulary may be more than just a single word: for example, post office, and mother-in-law, which are made up of two or three words but express a single idea. A useful convention is to cover all such cases by talking about vocabulary “items” rather than “words.” In addition, Burns (1972) defines vocabulary as” the stock of words which is used by a person, class or profession. According to Zimmerman cited in Coady and Huckin (1998) ‘vocabulary is central to language and of critical importance to the typical language learning. Furthermore, Diamond and Gutlohn (2006) in www.readingrockets.org/article state that vocabulary is the knowledge of words and word meanings.” From the definitions above, it can be concluded that vocabulary is the total number of words that are needed to communicate ideas and express the speakers’ meaning. That is the reason why it is important to learn vocabulary. This small-scale research investigated whether extensive reading plays an important role on vocabulary development of elementary level EFL learners. The interaction between vocabulary development and reading, as it was mentioned in the literature review above, is notably important.

This research revealed that extensive reading affects positively EFL learners’ vocabulary development and it ensures more word learning even though the subjects were reluctant to learn English at school. The results of the data analysis demonstrate that extensive reading improved the range of the words of the reluctant learners in the experimental group who were asked to read graded readers.

Further research is needed to insert extensive reading to the EFL curricula. Extensive reading might be effective on students’ writing skills. Therefore, the authors of this study would like to attract the attention of the scholars for a research on the relationship of extensive reading and the development of writing skills in terms of the format. The paper discusses the importance of learner autonomy in learning vocabulary. The use of language learning strategies can improve  learner autonomy because they are steps taken by the learners themselves and the students should not rely on a teacher to learn new words. Learner autonomy is crucial especially in academic situation. Learner autonomy can be improved by the teachers through the use of different approaches which need to be considered based on the students’ needs, interests and motivation. extensive reading plays a critical role in developing knowledge, and teachers accelerate this process by teaching strategies for learning words independently, including the use of dictionaries and other reference works, and exploring the link between spelling and learning words. To conclude, it is not teacher’s responsibility to teach all vocabulary to the learners. Learners should rely on themselves by adopting strategies that suit their abilities in learning vocabulary. Vocabulary learning is not an easy task. But with practice and time, learners should find out that they are developing. Learners should study items that appear in many contexts. Learning in rich contexts is valuable for vocabulary learning (Haddad, 2016). When vocabulary items are derived from content learning materials, the learner will be better equipped to deal with specific reading matter in content areas. Learners will feel that vocabulary learning is effective when it consists of active engagement in learning tasks. Autonomous learners in learning vocabulary should have a continuous desire of learning vocabulary and they should develop their strategic ways of learning.

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