2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.5 Related Studies on Vocabulary in the Textbooks
Like the viewpoints of Sinclair and Renouf (1989), vocabulary might play solely a supporting part in syllabus design, yet none of the syllabuses could exclude
vocabulary. Due to the importance of vocabulary in language learning and the
significant role of textbooks in teaching, some researchers have surveyed the opinions of Taiwanese SH/VH students and teachers on the vocabulary in the textbooks they are using. The findings are summarized as follows.
2.5.1. The Complaints about the Learning Load of Vocabulary
In Chen’s (2000) study on senior high school English teachers’ perceptions of the new English teaching materials and their usage in southern Taiwan, he recruited 113 English teachers from 22 senior high schools. Even though most of his subjects reported satisfied with the contents of the new English textbooks (compared to the old centralized version by the NCIT), there, on average, were still 32.53% complaining that there were too many new words for their students to handle. Specifically, 69.2%
of those using Sanmin textbooks thought that version contained too many new words.
Moreover, the 560 student subjects in Wang’s (2005) research on vocabulary learning difficulties for Senior I students (namely the first-year students) in Taiwan
revealed that the majority of the participants (66.8%) agree that increase of
vocabulary size in Senior I cause vocabulary learning difficulties (p.41). Besides, all of the three interviewee teachers claimed that the substantial increase of vocabulary size is the key reason to account for students’ vocabulary learning difficulties.
Particularly, they pinpointed out one reason worthy of noticing was that in the first volume of SH textbooks, new words were not only listed I vocabulary sections. Other parts also contained new vocabulary items. That was why students had a heavy learning burden when encountering so many new words (pp.62-63).
On the other hand, the dissatisfaction with the learning load of vocabulary could also be found among VH teachers and students. Based on Leu’s (2004) survey on the use and evaluation of teaching materials for vocational high schools in Taiwan, 34%
of the teacher subjects (Total: 354 English teachers from 49 VH schools) considered the load of the VH textbooks beyond their students’ capacity. According to the student subjects’ (Total: 1147 students from 18 VH schools) evaluation of the load, from the heaviest 5 to the lightest 1, the mean of the evaluation of the learning load is 3.30 on average.
2.5.2. The Complaints about Inadequate Transition between JH and SH/VH Textbooks
According to the open-ended question designed in Chen’s (1999) questionnaire, many of his subjects pinpointed out a common problem: the gap between JH and SH textbooks. Most of them suggested that not only the teachers should “pay attention to the continuity between JH and SH textbooks, especially at the freshman stage (p.71)”
but also the publisher should “consider inviting some qualified junior high English teachers as the textbooks consultant (p.81).”
Similarly, Chen (2002) conducted a survey of the textbook selection for senior high school students in Greater Taipei Area. The major complaint brought by the 283
SH teachers and 139 SH students was the inadequate transition between JH and SH textbooks. More than half (57.03%) of the subjects were dissatisfied with the improper transition.
From the 314 student subjects in Ding’s (2005) research, the existence of the gap might result from the incompetence to handle the first 1000 vocabulary with the highest frequency of familiarity. Only 8.9% passed the vocabulary test of the first 1000-word level, which was seen as threshold for JH graduates although most of the participants were able to recognize 80% of the test vocabulary, they could use 40% of the target words to compose sentences. Besides, merely 0.64% of the subjects passed the 2000-word level. Based on his own findings, Ding drew the conclusion that “a gap between students’ vocabulary competence and the vocabulary distribution in six commercial English textbooks indeed existed (p.63).”
Wang (2005), based on the opinions of his three interviewee teachers, revealed the same problem that many SH freshmen did not actually possess the required 1000words when finishing junior high school. Their inadequate vocabulary caused their vocabulary learning difficulties when they entered SH schools (p.63).
2.5.3. The Complaints about the Difficulty of Vocabulary
The majority (66.8%) of the 560 SH freshman subjects in Wang’s (2005) research agreed that they faced difficulties learning vocabulary, compared with their own junior high vocabulary learning experience (p.41). In addition, all of the three teachers interviewed by Wang expressed that the first-year SH students encountered difficulties when learning vocabulary. They pointed out that substantial increase of vocabulary was the key reason to account for their vocabulary learning difficulties, followed by relatively demanding vocabulary practices (p.63).
The discontent with the learning difficulty of vocabulary was found among VH teachers and students as well. Leu’s (2004) survey on the use and evaluation of
teaching materials for vocational high schools in Taiwan indicated that , 33% of the teacher subjects (Total: 354 English teachers from 49 VH schools) considered VH textbooks beyond their students’ proficiency level. By the same token, the student subjects’ (Total: 1147 students from 18 VH schools) evaluation of the difficulty, from the most difficult 5 to the easiest 1, the mean of the evaluation of the learning load is 3.38 on average. Therefore, Leu concluded that all the VHS textbooks were beyond students’ proficiency level according to both teachers and students (p.76).
2.5.4. The Complaints about the Insufficient Word Encounters
The importance of vocabulary repetitions to language learning has been
discussed earlier as repetition aids the consolidation of vocabulary. However, Wang’s (2005) interview brought up the problem that most new words to learn occurred only once in the first volume of SH textbooks. In other words, they did not occur again in other units in the Senior I textbook. Such lack of repetition also resulted in the SH freshmen’s vocabulary learning difficulties.
The related studies on Taiwanese SH/VH textbooks discussed above indicate the common discontent with textbooks in-use among the SH/VH teachers and students.
Some of the main reasons lies in the common complaints about the vocabulary in the textbooks, inclusive of too much learning load of vocabulary, inadequate transition between JH and SH/VH teaching materials, the sheer difficulty of new words, and insufficient vocabulary encounters to facilitate learning.
In the light of the literature review above and with the attempt to explain the common dissatisfactions found in Taiwanese SH/VH schools, this study will focus on the quantitative analysis of the vocabulary in the first volume of Taiwanese senior high school textbooks from four aspects: word size, consistency between junior high schools and senior high schools, new-word density, and word encounters and
repetitions. While evaluating textbooks, this study tries to consider the following questions in perspectives:
(1) Is the quantity of the new words in each textbook appropriate for the SH or VH freshmen? How many new words are absent from the word list in each lesson?
(2) Does the gap only influence those who could not completely handle the JH materials? Or does the gap indeed exist between the JH materials and SH/VH textbooks? If there is a gap between teaching materials, how big is the gap in vocabulary load between the first volume of the SH/VH textbooks and the junior high school English textbooks or word lists?
(3) Does the density of new words in each textbook really cause possible learning difficulty?
(4) Does each textbook provide students with sufficient encounters of new words to facilitate language learning?
CHAPTER THREE
METHOD
This chapter contains the explicit description of the overall research design and consists of three sections: data for analysis, instruments, procedure and data analysis.
3.1 Data for Analysis
Before the full-scale liberation of textbooks in 2001, the junior high school textbooks were all edited and published by the National Institute for Compilation and Translation (NICT), and there were both required and elective English courses (Ministry of Education, 1994). After the opening of the markets, the Ministry of Education (MOE) still shoulders the responsibility to supervise all the commercial textbooks by regulating the words with two wordlists: 1,000 productive vocabulary and 1,000 receptive vocabulary. By contrast, the senior high school textbooks have not been published by the MOE since 1999. There are three main publishers, Far East, Lungteng, and Sanmin, editing and publishing their own versions of English textbooks commonly used in both senior high schools and vocational high schools.
Therefore, at the commencement of this study, the materials available are as follows:
3.1.1 JH-Data: Wordlists in Junior High Schools(JH) Textbooks (by the MOE) A-1. Word-JHA: The vocabulary list of the old centralized Junior High School
Required English Course (Book one to Five).
A-2. Word-JHB: The vocabulary list of old centralized Junior High School Elective English Course (Book one to Six).
B-1. Word-JH1000: The 1000 productive vocabulary B-2. Word-JH2000: The 1000 receptive vocabulary
3.1.2 SH/VH-Data: The first volume of six textbooks for senior high school (SH) and vocational high school (VH) students
Table 3.1 The Three Major English Textbooks in Taiwanese Senior High Schools (SH-Textbooks)
Publishers Far East (FE) Lungteng (LT) Sanmin (SM) Editors Shih, Y. H.
Table 3.2 The Three Major English Textbooks in Taiwanese Vocational High Schools (VH-Textbooks)
Publishers Far East (FE) Lungteng (LT) Sanmin (SM) Editors Shih, Y. H.
Publishing
Although vocabulary in these textbooks are divided into two categories, words for production and words for recognition, (Ministry of Education, 1994, 1996), both categories are included in this study. Phrases and idioms are also covered.
1. Wordlists in Senior High Schools (SH)
a. Word-SHP: The headwords in the vocabulary lists of Words for Production for the reading texts in the three versions.
b. Word-SHO: The headwords in the other vocabulary lists, including Words for Recognition, Idioms & Phrases, listed Derivatives, and Words for Conversation in the three versions.
2. Wordlists in Vocational High Schools (VH)
a. Word-VHP: The headwords in the vocabulary lists of Words for Production for the reading texts in the three versions.
b. Word-VHO: The headwords in the other vocabulary lists, including Words for Recognition, Idioms & Phrases, listed Derivatives, and Words for Conversation in the three versions.
3.1.3 The Corpora for Analysis
In all of the six textbooks, each lesson contains abundant information divided into different sections, such as pre-reading activities, reading texts, post-reading activities, vocabulary (words for production and words for recognition), idioms and phrases, grammar, and pronunciation…etc. This study only examines the common parts that exist in most of them and are usually included in the tests and examinations for high school students. Therefore, the analysis solely covers four sections: reading texts, conversations, and example sentences and English explanations of both vocabulary and idioms and phrases.
In the SH-Textbooks, there are only eleven conversations in the FE version because there is no such section in the fifth lesson. In the SM version of SH-Textbooks, there are merely nine conversations presented in the sections
independent from the twelve main lessons (See Table 3.1). In addition, the names of the characters in the conversations were excluded. As for the VH-Textbooks, only the FE version could have the Corpus VHD since it is the only textbook providing English explanations for vocabulary (See Table 3.2). Consequently, there are totally 22 corpora (See Table 3.3).
Table 3.3 The 22 Corpora for Analysis in the Six Textbooks
Versions Sections
SH Textbooks VH Textbooks Total No.
Reading texts FE, LT, SMC FEV, LTV, SMV 6
Conversations FE, LT, SMC FEV, LTV, SMV 6
Example Sentences of the vocabulary
FE, LT, SMC FEV, LTV, SMV 6
English Explanations of the vocabulary
FE, LT, SMC FEV 6
No. of Total Corpora 12 10 22
Moreover, not all the sections are adopted in high school English teaching or tests, based on the discrepancy in the English proficiency levels of the students or the differences among teaching objectives. Accordingly, the corpora to be analyzed are classified into four categories as Table 3.4 shows. It should be noted that for the VH-Textbooks, only the FE version has the Corpus VHD since it is the only textbook providing English explanations for vocabulary (See Table 3.2). Consequently, there are totally 22 classified corpora (corpus-SHA*3, corpus-SHB*3, corpus-SHC*3, and corpus-SHD*3; corpus-VHA*3, corpus-VHB*3, corpus-VHC*3, and
corpus-VHD*1).
Table 3.4 The 22 Classified Corpora for Analysis in the Six Textbooks Texts
3.2 Instruments
All the materials were typed or scanned to be transferred into computer text files with proofreading and double checks. In order to analyze all of the data collected, three types of instruments were used.
1. RANGE32: To match the word lists and the corpora, the materials were analyzed by running the computer program, RANGE32, designed by I.S.P. Nation (2005) and offered freely at http://www.vuw.ac.nz/lals/staff/paul-nation/nation.aspx with kindly permission.
A. Functions: This program provides a range or distribution figure (how many texts the word occurs in), a head word frequency figure (the total number of times the actual headword type appears in all the texts), a family frequency figure (the total number of times the word and its family members occur in all the texts), and a frequency figure for each of the texts the word occurs in.
It also uses three word lists as its word bases. Word List One contains the most frequent 1000 words and Word List Two contains the second most frequent 1000 words based on General Service List of English Words by Michael West. Word List Three is the Academic Word List categorized by Coxhead (2000). What is the most important, the program allows users to replace the word bases with their own word lists and apply up to ten word bases at one time. That is the root reason why this program, among many other similar programs, was chosen in this study.
B. Purposes: According to Nation, the main designer of the program, RANGE32 is useful for seeing what low frequency words are in an exam question paper, a technical information note or a text aimed at foreign readers. It may also be used to check the vocabulary of simplified reading texts or language course books to see how many of the words in the tests are among the high
frequency words of English. It may also be used to see how much learning the vocabulary of one text helps with dealing the words in a different text.
These are all the purposes that this study attempts to achieve.
2. FREQUENCY33: To deal with the large quantity of graphic word types and data, the calculation of statistics was handled by the software, FREQUENCY33, designed by I.S.P. Nation (2005) and offered freely at
http://www.vuw.ac.nz/lals/staff/paul-nation.nation.aspx with kindly permission.
The program gives the rank order of the words, their raw frequency and the cumulative percentage frequency.
3. EXCEL: To deal with the large quantity of graphic word types and data, the software, EXCEL, was adopted for the calculation of statistics and the management of tables and figures.
3.3 Procedures and Data Analysis
With the attempt to answer the research questions, the data were examined from the following aspects: word size, consistency between JH-textbooks and SH or VH textbooks, new word density, and the frequency of word encounters.
First, the question related to vocabulary load was explored from two aspects: the size of the new words in the vocabulary lists and the exact number of the “unlisted”
words, referring to the words which are neither included in SH/VH vocabulary lists nor taught in the JH teaching materials. The program, FREQUENCY33 was adopted to count the numbers of the graphic word types in six vocabulary lists of the six textbooks (SH-textbooks*3 and VH-textbooks *3) and the 22 classified corpora. The word lists (Word-JHA, Word-JHB, Word-JH1000, and Word-JH2000) used in
JH-textbooks were also calculated by the same program. With the help of RANGE32, the size of unlisted new words could be examined. By editing the JH word lists as the
word bases in the program, RANGE32 enabled the researcher to match the word lists (Word-JHA, Word-JHB, Word-JH1000, and Word-JH2000) used in JH-textbooks with the 22 classified corpora of the SH and VH textbooks. For the editing of the word bases, the inflections, including plural, third person singular present tense (-s/es), past tense (-ed, or irregular), past participle (-ed, or irregular), present participle (-ing), comparative (-er), and superlative (-est), are covered and the derivations, inclusive of affixes, such as –ly after an adjective, are also included in the word lists because such rules have been taught in junior high school.
Second, the question about the consistency between JH-textbooks and
SH/VH-textbooks was examined through the operation of the RANGE32 program.
Particularly, JH word lists are designed for different purposes, i.e. Word-JHA or Word-JH1000 for required courses while Word-JHB or Word-JH2000 for elective courses. Therefore, with the help of EXCEL, this study not only examined the differences between the old and the new word lists but also investigated the different gaps students might encounter since not every JH student learned the word lists for both required and elective courses before using SH/VH textbooks.
Third, the question of new word density was inspected from the two aspects through the calculation of EXCEL: (1) the ratio of the new graphic words in the vocabulary lists to the 22 classified corpora and (2) the ratio of total new graphic words, including listed and unlisted ones, to the 22 classified corpora.
Fourth, the question regarding the frequency of word exposures, both the listed and unlisted ones, will be investigated in the 22 classified corpora by running the programs, RANGE32 and EXCEL.
CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In this chapter, the statistical findings of this study are presented and discussed in terms of the four research questions listed in Chapter One. The results are presented in the following four sections covering the aspects of word size, consistency between JH (Junior High School) word lists and SH (Senior High School) /VH (Vocational High School) textbooks, new-word density, and word exposures. In the tables and figures presented in this chapter, FE stands for Far East Reader, LT for Lung-teng Reader, SMC for Sanmin Reader edited by Chen Ling-Hsia while FEV, LTV, and SMV refer to the vocational versions by the same three publishers.
4.1 Word Size in the SH-Textbooks and VH-Textbooks In this section, the statistical results are presented to answer the first research question and to probe into the word size a senior or vocational high school freshman should encounter. The first research question this study tries to answer is to find out to what extent the size of new words, including those presented in vocabulary lists and those unlisted but never learned in either JH vocabulary lists or in other parts of the SH/VH textbooks, exists in the six high school English textbooks (three versions for SH and three versions for VH, respectively). According to the related literature in Chapter Two, it should be understandable that parts of students’ heavy learning burden may lie in a huge amount of vocabulary and its related knowledge, which overloads learners’ short term memory, let alone for transforming short term memory into long term memory (Huang, T. L. 2001). Therefore, the first focus of this study is on whether the size of new words, not only those presented in the vocabulary lists but also the unlisted new words is too big for high school freshmen to handle.
4.1.1 New-word Size
In order to find out whether there is a sudden increase of vocabulary learning
In order to find out whether there is a sudden increase of vocabulary learning