Detailed below are the procedures and data collection methods for the analysis of written test errors and immediate word-recall experiment responses.

CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY

This chapter introduces the methods used for the collection of our two main sources of error data from senior high school EFL learners in Taiwan.

Detailed below are the procedures and data collection methods for the analysis of written test errors and immediate word-recall experiment responses.

3.1 Collection and Analysis of Written Test Errors 3.1.1 Subjects

The subjects (N=337) taking part in the written test error collection and analysis were freshman and sophomore senior high school students at Municipal Nankang Senior High School (NKSH). The freshman group (n=165) ranged in age from 15 years to 16 years and had received at least three years of formal EFL instruction before entering NKSH. The

sophomore group (n=172) ranged in age from 16 years to 17 years and had received at least four years of formal EFL instruction before and after entering NKSH. The subjects had similar backgrounds in learning English.

First, they have had four to five hours of EFL classes every week on

average. Second, they all come from junior high schools within the same

educational system and using similar curricula: they studied English as a

foreign language with EFL using the same edition of the same textbooks in

junior and senior high school.

3.1.2 Procedures

Naturally occurring test errors were collected from English subject final term exam at NKSH in January 2003. The subjects were not told in advance about the collection of their errors.

This final term exam contained the following sections: (1) vocabulary, (2) blank-filling, (3) multiple choice, (4) cloze test, (5) reading

comprehension, and (6) translation (See Appendices 1 & 2). Lexical errors in the vocabulary section were collected and transcribed from the subjects’

test answer sheets by the author.

3.2 Immediate Word Recall Experiment 3.2.1 Subjects

The subjects taking part in this study (N=161) were all freshman

and sophomore senior high school students at Municipal Nankang Senior

High School (NKSH). The freshman group (n= 79) ranged in age from 15

years to 16 years and had received at least three years of formal EFL

instruction before entering NKSH. The sophomore group (n= 82) ranged

in age from 16 years to 17 years and had received at least four years of

formal EFL instruction before and after entering NKSH. The subjects had

similar backgrounds in learning English. First, they had four to five hours of EFL class every week on the average. Second, they all came from junior high schools within the same educational system and similar curricula:

they studied English as a foreign language with EFL textbooks of the same edition in junior and senior high school.

3.2.2 Instruments

Instruments used for this experiment include a questionnaire, overhead projector, tape cassette player, and a word recall word list.

(1) Questionnaire

A questionnaire (See Appendix 3) was designed to obtain

demographic information about the subjects taking part in this study. The questionnaire included questions about the subjects’ age, first language, daily language use with family or friends, and EFL learning background.

Before taking part in this experiment, the subjects were required to fill out the questionnaire to gather relevant information about their language background and learning experiences.

(2) Overhead projector and tape cassette player

An overhead projector and a tape cassette player were used to

respectively display word lists and play recordings of the listed English

words pronounced by a male native American English speaker together

with explanation of the meaning of the word given in Mandarin Chinese

by a female Mandarin Chinese speaker. The overhead projector and tape

so the experiment was conducted in homeroom settings familiar to the subjects.

(3) Test word lists:

Two practice sessions and six formal sessions were included in this immediate word recall experiment. Each of the session contained four English words—one noun, one adjective, and two verbs. The wordlist for these eight sessions is given in Appendix 4.

The number of lexical items for each session was set at four because according to Miller (1956), a person has a limited short-term memory capacity of around 7±2 chunks of information. It is believed that with the number of words set at four per session, the recall task would be within the ability of the average person.

Two principles were followed in the selection of words for each session.

The first was that all the words used in this experiment were novel to the subjects so that any hindrance from past learning experience would be excluded. Current senior high school EFL textbooks on the Taiwan market are limited to a core vocabulary of 4000 words. None of the words used in this experiment are among these 4000 words.

The second principle of word selection was that, during each session, the four words were phonologically dissimilar. In addition, words

containing English syllable structures absent in Chinese, e.g. [slink] were

specifically sought out.

3.2.3 Procedures

At the beginning of the experiment, a brief introduction and

explanation of the procedures was given in Mandarin Chinese. The author first briefly explained to the subjects that a study was to be conducted to investigate aspects of their English vocabulary learning. The subjects were told that their performance in the experiment would have no bearing on their grades at school. (The author did not ever work with or offer courses to the subjects.) The subjects were informed of the importance of their participation in this study and reminded not to take notes during the English and Chinese presentation of vocabulary.

There were two practice sessions and six formal sessions in the immediate word recall experiment.

During the experiment, the author presented to the subjects using the overhead projector four novel words in each session. In each session, the subjects first saw a list of four words projected horizontally one after another on the blackboard. The experimenter provided oral presentation of the vocabulary items recorded by a male native speaker of American English. Explicit and succinct oral presentation of the Chinese meaning of each word, recorded by a female native speaker of Mandarin Chinese, was then provided. Each vocabulary item was repeated in English and Chinese three times. The subjects could try using as many ways as possible to retain in their memory the four words presented. (See Appendix 5.)

After a lapse of thirty seconds, the subjects were asked to recall the

vocabulary items by writing down on their answer sheets the words that

seconds were allotted for their recall task. The subjects were encouraged to recall and write down as much as possible. They were also reminded that the order of their recall did not matter. After a pause of 10 seconds, the next session began, and another word list was projected on the blackboard.

After the experiment, the subjects' immediate word-recall responses were

collected and transcribed by the experimenter.