Do post reading Activities help with Vocabulary Retention

Do Post-Reading Activities Improve the Retention of Vocabulary? Dr. İlknur ISTIFCI Anadolu University School of Foreign Languages Eskişehir, TURKEY iistifci@gmail.com Purpose of the study The aim of this study is to find out if there are any significant differences between two groups of students who are exposed to same narrow reading passages but followed different post-reading activities. Hypotheses of the study There are no statistically significant differences between the scores of the students in experimental and control group in the vocabulary test which was applied after reading the passages. The scores of the students in experimental group were higher than the scores of the students in control group in the vocabulary test. Subjects 44 intermediate-level students who were placed by the Michigan Placement Test in the intensive language learning programme of the School of Foreign Languages 22 students (10 female, 12 male) in control group 22 students (9 female, 13 male) in experimental group age range 17 – 22 The researcher the teacher of the two groups reading course 6 hours a week Materials Three thematically related authentic reading passages Testing Material Vocabulary test in the form of cloze test 60 items to be filled in the test students were given one usual class hour to fill the test. Procedure The students in experimental group read three passages carried out three types of vocabulary exercises designed to attract their attention to word-meaning, form-meaningfunction relationships and derived word forms which were chosen among the tasks Paribahkt and Wesche (2000) used in their study. The students in control group read the passages and answered the comprehension questions only Data Analysis The answers to the vocabulary test were collected and checked by the researcher. The correct answers of the test were counted for each group, then their means and standard deviations were calculated. In order to compare the scores of the students in experimental and control groups, t-test design was applied. Table 1. Scores of the students in experimental and control groups in vocabulary test Table 2. Means, standard deviations and t-test results of the two groups • • Group Experimental Control df=21 p=.05 t=11.74 n 22 22 x 23.81 14.45 SD 5.36 3.67 As seen in Table 2, calculated t-value was found to be higher than t-critical value (11,74>2,080). Therefore, the null hypothesis of the study which claimed that there was no significant difference between the scores of the students in experimental and control groups was rejected and other hypothesis was accepted. It can be said that the scores of the students in the two groups were different and this difference was statistically significant at .05 significance level. Results the students in experimental group seemed to benefit from vocabulary exercises as post-reading activities the students in experimental group might have used their knowledge of semantic and syntactic relationship of target words since their scores were higher than the scores of control group. they had studied how to use morphological, grammatical and syntactic knowledge of the words a week before the test. students in control group, on the other hand, tried to complete the blanks with the word types which were not suitable, such as filling in the blanks with nouns where articles were required, using verbs instead of nouns. Conclusions learners need to meet words in a wide variety of contexts in order to gain an appreciation of the true range of a word’s usage; it would be impossible to gain mastery over all of these from the information available in a single context” (Schmitt & Carter, 2000:4). repeated and varied occurrences of given words in a text make them more salient for readers (Paribakht and Wesche, 1999). narrow reading has some advantages such as providing background knowledge for future passages, easing the lexical burden on readers and giving the chance to practise reading more quickly and fluently (Krashen, 1981). the students in experimental group gained varied word knowledge and used them productively. This led to the learners’ better retention of new knowledge. • • • • • • • • 35 30 • 25 S c 20 o r e 15 s • 10 5 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Students Experimental Group Control Group