4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.4 Word Encounters and Repetitions in the SH/VH-Textbooks
question and to figure out the frequency of the word encounters or repetitions in the SH/VH textbooks. The fourth research question this study tries to answer is whether the frequency of word exposures reaches the sufficiency of successful learning among the six senior high school English textbooks
In accordance with the literature review Chapter Two, several researchers, such as Nagy, Herman, and Anderson (1985) and Cheung (1986), indicated the uselessness of one-timers (those words which only appear once in a certain texts) in language learning. Furthermore, some other related studies (Saragi, Nation, & Meiste, 1978;
Rott,1999) suggested a threshold of six encounters. Therefore, this study merely emphasized on the analysis of one-timers and the threshold of six encounters in the 22 corpora.
From Figure 4.17, it could be shocking to find out the fact that more than 80% of words appear fewer than six times in the 12 SH corpora. What is worse, almost half of the words merely appear once. About 40% words are even one-timers throughout the most comprehensive corpora, namely SHD, in all the three SH versions. The three corpora-SHA deserve more attention since reading texts are the main focus of teaching and exams. It could also be astounding to find out the common phenomena that fewer than 14% of words could pass the threshold of six exposures and about 53% of them are one-timers (See Figure 4.18).
Figure 4.17 Word Exposure (＜6 times) in SH
Word Exposure (＜6 times) in SH
80.00%
＜6 times 86.22 86.20 86.17 85.34 84.76 84.63 81.82 81.69 82.34 80.64 83.12 80.94
Figure 4.18 Word Exposure (One-Timer) in SH
Word Exposure (One-Timer) in SH
0.00%
One-Timer 53.63% 52.42% 52.57% 51.89% 50.75% 48.80% 41.86% 39.63% 36.27% 42.74% 42.65% 38.04%
The situation could be even worse in 10 VH corpora. Similarly, more than 80%
words are below the threshold of six encounters. In some corpora, almost 90% of words do not repeat more than six times (e.g. FE-VHA: 88.96%; LT-VHA: 89.22%).
As mentioned earlier, corpora-VHA are worth more concerns since reading texts are the parts students learn with considerable attention. In Corpus-LT-VHA, for instance, only 10.78% of words might appear more than six times to facilitate learning. The worst part is that about half of the words that VH students encounter only appear once in 10 VH Corpora. Even for the most comprehensive corpora in each version, more than 40% of words are one-timers, which can hardly facilitate learning (FE-VHD:
48.02%; LT-VHC: 45.66%; SM-VHC: 42.61%).
Figure 4.19 Word Exposure (＜6 times) in VH
Word Exposure (＜6 times) in VH
80.00%
＜6 times 88.96 89.22 87.93 85.18 87.56 85.76 85.24 85.53 84.77 85.85
Figure 4.20 Word Exposure (One-Timer) in VH
Word Exposure (One-Timer) in VH
0.00%
One-Timer 57.57 57.84 53.58 51.53 54.30 51.08 45.70 45.66 42.61 48.02
Based on the findings of a number of relevant studies discussed in Chapter Two have clearly illustrated the significant effects of multiple repetitions and exposures on the increase and retention of word knowledge. Unfortunately, most of the words (more than 80%) do not pass the six-time-exposure threshold as suggested and about half of the words are one-timers in all the six SH and VH textbooks. Specifically, the word exposures provided in the reading texts (more than 80%＜six times; more than 50% one-timers) are not sufficient for adequate learning (See detailed statistics in Appendix C).
CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS
This chapter is to review the main results of this study and present some pedagogical implications. Moreover, some suggestions for future research are addressed as well.
5.1 Conclusion
This study has probed into the quantitative aspects of in vocabulary in the first volume of the major three senior high school English textbooks and the major three vocational high school English textbooks. Not only the vocabulary lists, but also the unlisted new words in the related sections which are categorized into 22 corpora have been explored and compared in terms of the size of new words, the consistency between JH vocabulary lists and SH/VH textbooks, the new-word density, and the frequency of word exposures. Findings and summaries of this study are presented as follows.
5.1.1 Word Size
1. Focusing on the new words in SH/VH vocabulary lists only, for those who learn Word-JH1000 only, the increase of vocabulary size seems reasonable (AVE: SH:
Word-JH1000 = 1.43:1; VH: Word-JH1000 = 1.29:1) since students are expected to learn more when entering the next educational stage (See Table 4.6). For those who learn both Word-JH1000 and Word-JH2000, the word size does not increase but decrease (AVE: SH: Word-JH2000 = 0.69:1; VH: Word-JH2000 = 0.62:1) (See Table 4.6).
2. Those who learn the new JH word lists (Word-JH1000 & Word-JH2000) face smaller increase of word size than that encountered by those who learned the old
centralized JH textbooks (Word-JHA & Word-JHB) (See Table 4.6).
3. Vocabulary lists are not the only sources of new words. On average, for those SH students who learn Word-JH1000 only, they face 16.21%~22.29% of unlisted new words in Corpus-SHA and encounter 30.16%~36.71% of unlisted new words in Corpus-SHD (See Figure 4.1 & Figure 4.2). For those VH students who learn Word-JH1000 only, they face 9%~18.24% of unlisted new words in Corpus-VHA and encounter 26.91%~35.88% of unlisted new words in Corpus-VHD (See Figure 4.5 & Figure 4.6).
4. For those SH students who learn both Word-JH1000 and Word-JH2000, they face 9.05%~13.36% of unlisted new words in Corpus-SHA and encounter
17.92%~22.55% of unlisted new words in Corpus-SHD (See Figure 4.3 & Figure 4.4). For those VH students who learn both Word-JH1000 and Word-JH2000, they face 5.77%~12.62% of unlisted new words in Corpus-VHA and encounter
16.05%~21.90% of unlisted new words in Corpus-VHD (See Figure 4.7 & Figure 4.8).
5. Based on the principle of “I+1”, the increase of the new word size in SH
textbooks should be more reasonable while the portion of unlisted new words in VH textbooks could be more acceptable.
5.1.2 Consistency between JH and SH/VH
6. The new required JH vocabulary list (Word-JH1000) provides a larger proportion of overlapping with the 22 SH/VH corpora (e.g. 38.53% unlisted words in
Corpus-SHA and 35.06% unlisted words in Corpus-VHA, on average) than the old required JH vocabulary (Word-JHA) (e.g. 44.58% unlisted words in
Corpus-SHA and 40.98% unlisted words in Corpus-VHA, on average) (See Figure 4.9; Figure 4.10; Figure 4.13; Figure 4.14).
7. The new JH vocabulary lists (Word-JH1000 & Word-JH2000) provides a larger
proportion of overlapping with the 22 SH/VH corpora (e.g. 22.33% unlisted words in Corpus-SHA and 21.03 % unlisted words in Corpus-VHA, on average) than the old JH vocabulary (Word-JHA & Word-JHB) (e.g. 31.55% unlisted words in Corpus-SHA and 31.58% unlisted words in Corpus-VHA, on average) (See Figure 4.11; Figure 4.12; Figure 4.15; Figure 4.16).
8. Even so, the new JH vocabulary lists do not provide a bridging solution to the possible gap between JH vocabulary lists and SH/VH textbooks. Even with the full knowledge of both Word-JH1000 and Word-JH2000, solely
Corpus-FEV-VHA (17.82% unlisted new words) could pass the “all-or-nothing”
threshold (80% of known words in a certain text) suggested by Nation (2001).
5.1.3 New-Word Density
9. If Word-SHP or Word-VHP are considered as the only source of new words, most of the 22 corpora (Ave.SH-Known-Word Density: 85.72%; Ave.VH-Known-Word Density: 84.77%) pass “all-or-nothing” threshold (See Table 4.15 & Table 4.17).
10. While all the new words in Word-SHP/Word-VHP and Word-SHO/Word-VHO are taken into consideration, only four corpora, FE-SHD (24.88%), LT-SHD (22.11%), SMC-SHD(25.66%), and FEV-VHD(25.93%) could be close to the threshold (Ave.
SH-Known-Word Density: 66.73%; Ave.VH-Known-Word Density: 49.27%)(See Table 4.16 & Table 4.17).
11. It should also be reminded that there are plenty of “unlisted” new words as
discussed earlier. Furthermore, according to Nation (1990), the density index of an efficient textbook for the first year should be around 1:20, namely the
“probabilistic threshold” indicating that there should be 95% known words in texts.
5.1.4 Word Exposure
12. For both SH and VH textbooks, more than 80% words do not pass the threshold of
six-time encounters (Ave. in Corpus-SHA: 86.20%; Ave. in Corpus-SHD: 81.57%;
Ave. in Corpus-VHA: 88.70%; Ave. in Corpus-VHD: 85.38%) (See Figure 4.17 &
Figure 4.19) .
13. Among the 22 corpora, more than 40% of words are one-timers (the words which only appear once), except Corpus-LT-SHC (39.63%), Corpus-SMC-SHC
(36.27%), and Corpus-SMC-SHD (38.04%) (Ave. in Corpus-SHA: 52.87%; Ave.
in Corpus-SHD: 41.14%; Ave. in Corpus-VHA: 56.33%; Ave. in Corpus-VHD:
45.43%) (See Figure 4.18 & Figure 4.20).
In sum, according to the results of this study on the quantitative analysis of the vocabulary in the first volume of both SH and VH English textbooks, the statistics echo with the common complaints about found in the related researches discussed in Chapter Two. In addition, the noticeable change of learning attitude toward English mentioned in Chapter One might be more understandable for the following possible reasons: (1) The word size, particularly the unlisted new words, is big; (2) The consistency of vocabulary between JH and SH/VH is not adequate enough to reach the “all-or-nothing threshold” (80% known words in a certain text); (3) Both SH and VH textbooks are too dense with new words to reach the “probabilistic threshold”
(95% known words in a certain text), the density index of an efficient textbook for the first year; (4) The frequency of word exposures is too low to be well-learned (beneath the six-time threshold).
5.2 Pedagogical Implications
The findings derived from this study and literature review offer several pedagogical implications.
5.2.1 For the MOE
The authorities have established a policy that a new set of temporary guidelines
are going to be implemented in both general senior high schools and vocational senior high schools in September, 2006. In addition, responding to the public requests, the government is also considering re-publishing a new set of centralized textbooks for junior high schools. The Ministry of Education should take into consideration the results of related studies like this one during the process of guideline-drawing and textbook-editing.
5.2.2 For the private publishers and textbook editors
It may be necessary for them to amend the in-use textbooks or even compile new textbooks responding to the latest temporary guidelines and the competition with the centralized textbooks. Thus, this analysis could serve as a beneficial reference. In addition, it is also suggested that they should pay more attention to the consistency between the textbooks of the adjacent stages. Even though the JH and SH/VH textbooks are published by different publishers, it is their responsibility to obtain sufficient mutual understanding before publishing textbooks.
5.2.3 For both the JH and SH/VH teachers
Professional teachers should gather as much information which is related and beneficial to their teaching. Researches like this study may assist not only with their teaching, but also in the process of textbook selection since there is no centralized textbook.
5.2.4 For both the JH and SH/VH students
Students might be, at least, psychologically better-prepared by the information provided from this study. Before the gap between the textbooks at different stages is bridged up, they, with the brief conception of the gap, should not simply give up learning but come up with their own learning strategies once they encounter some difficulties resulting from the inconsistency.
5.3 Limitations of the Study
As a master thesis, it is impossible to cover every single aspect related to this theme. Therefore, the limitations of this study are as follows.
5.3.1 Material choosing
At the beginning of the textbook liberation, there were at least seven publishers providing textbooks for junior high schools. However, only three of them,
Kang-Hsuan, Nan-Yi, and Han-Lin, have been accepted by the majority. Some
publishers even stop publishing within two years. What is more, by the end of the data collection for this study, the “Formal Versions” are only published up to the
second-year textbooks. For the third-year students, they are still using the so-called
“Temporary Versions.” Due to the variance of publishers and unfinished “Formal Versions,” the two word lists proclaimed by the MOE are the most appropriate choice.
As for senior high school English textbooks, only three major publishers, namely Far-East, San-Min, and Lung-Teng, are included for they have acquired popularity among most general senior high schools and vocational high schools since 1999.
5.3.2 Program running
For lexical analysis like this study, what can be counted as a word can be really problematic. Although this study tries to cover as many affective factors as possible, there are still some inevitable limitations due to the design of the programs,
RANGE32 and FREQUENCY33 by I.S.P. Nation (2005).
1. Multi-word items: Even though both programs could recognize the words with hyphens (Ex. first-aid), as separated item, it is only possible to examine graphic word types, excluding phrases (Ex. look up), compound words (Ex. first-aid), idioms (Ex. kick the bucket), even though it should be apparent that the meaning of a phrase does not equal to the combination of the words.
2. Homographs: Both RANGE32 and FREQUENCY33 could not recognize the parts
of speech and the meaning. For instance, “pack” is in the San-Min vocabulary list.
The meaning of it in the text should be an infrequent one, group, as a noun.
However, it can not be distinguished from the more frequently used verb to mean filling or loading.
3. Polysemies: Words, like subject, are counted as one graphic word type, regardless of the complete different meanings they carry.
4. Syntactical structures: The same graphic word type, such as or, could have different meanings in different sentences. For instance: You could do your homework or take a nap. You should do your homework or you will be punished.
5. Capitalization: Words of the same spelling with either a capital or a small letter initial are counted as the same word, such as May and may.
6. Abbreviations: Due to the limits of both programs, apostrophes are treated as word separators. The words with apostrophes (Ex. I’m) have to be viewed as two separated graphic word types, I and m. Therefore, all the abbreviations, such as I’m, you’re, he’s, we’ll, we’ve, can’t, or let’s, have been retyped to the original forms.
7. Possessives: As mentioned above, apostrophes are treated as word separators.
Thus, the words with apostrophes (Ex. Eddie’s) have to be viewed as two separated graphic word types, Eddie and s.
5.4 Suggestions for Further Researches
Corpus gathering and analysis is a painstaking task with tremendous amount of data to deal with. With the assistance of computers and related programs, it becomes possible. However, there are still some limitations of the current programs as listed in Chapter One. The most serious one is that the current programs could only deal with types while one graphic type does not equal to one word. Thus, a more precise
analysis of the same data could be conducted with manual checking.
In addition, since the market of textbooks has been opened, several different companies publish JH, SH, or VH textbooks respectively. There could be some consistency problems between different sets of textbooks. Researches similar to this one on the consistency between JH and SH/VH textbooks are suggested. In order to examine whether JH graduates could completely apply the Word-JH1000 or
Word-JH2000 in their English learning in SH/VH schools, the vocabulary level tests based on these two word lists are also recommended.
In conclusion, it is hoped that this study will stimulate more research to
understand about the vocabulary in textbooks and to have more positive influences on facilitating high school students’ vocabulary acquisition without a common change of learning attitude once they step into a SH/VH English classroom.
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