How to Cite This Paper

How to cite this paper:

Hananto. (2011, April). The beliefs of vocabulary myths. Paper presented at Konferensi Linguistik Tahunan 9 (KOLITA 9). UNIKA Atma Jaya, Jakarta.

The Beliefs of Vocabulary Myths

Hananto

Universitas Pelita Harapan

Abstract

This study investigates the beliefs of Indonesian EFL students and teachers about commonly held vocabulary myths. A survey was conducted to find out what they think. Two hundred eighty participants, consisting of 257 EFL students and 23 teachers, were asked to fill in a questionnaire about eight vocabulary myths mentioned in Vocabulary Mythsbook written by Keith S. Folse (2004).The participants were asked to agree or disagree with eight statements by ticking the provided Yes or No check box. The questionnaire was analyzed by giving 1 point if a statement is agreed and 0 if disagreed to get the percentages. The results suggest that two myths were indeed believed by the majority of the respondents, while the other six myths were believed only by a small number of them. The implication of the study is that Indonesian EFL students and teachers need to be well informed to separate facts from fictions to facilitate true vocabulary learning.

Introduction: the role of vocabulary

Vocabulary plays a very important role in second or foreign language learning, but it has often been neglected and misunderstood. The current practice of vocabulary teaching or learning may be based on false beliefs or misapplications of research findings. The purpose of this study is to investigate these beliefs of some Indonesian EFL learners and teachers and to challenge these false beliefs.

Folse(2004), in his book Vocabulary Myths,points out eightpopular myths that have restricted the role of vocabulary in foreign language curricula over the years. These eight myths are: (1) In learning another language, vocabulary is not as important as grammar or other areas; (2) Using word lists to learn second language vocabulary is unproductive; (3) Presenting new vocabulary in semantic sets facilitates learning; (4) The use of translations to learn new vocabulary should be discouraged; (5) Guessing words from context is an excellent strategy for learning second language vocabulary; (6) The best vocabulary learners make use of one or two really good specific vocabulary learning strategy; (7) The best dictionary for second language learners is a monolingual dictionary; and (8) Teachers, textbook, and curricula cover second language vocabulary adequately. In his book, Folse discusses why each myth is wrong and what research says about the myth. Some of the myths Folse discusses run counter to what many EFL teachers have taught for years.

THE STUDY

Research questions

This study aims to answer the following research questions:

1. To what extend do Indonesian EFL learners and teachers believe in vocabulary myths discussed in Folse’s Vocabulary Myths?
2. Which ones are the most prevailing myths?
3. How similar are the students’ and teachers’ beliefs?

Subjects

In total, 280 participants were involved in this study, consisting of 257 Indonesian EFL students and 23 teachers. The students join a four-year English program (S1) at various schools of languages or Sekolah Tinggi Bahasa Asing (STBA) in Tangerang.

Material

The material used in this study was a questionnaire consisting of the eights myths disguised as statements, as shown below.

Check YES if you AGREE and NO if you DISAGREE with the following statements.
YES / NO
1 / In learning another language, vocabulary is not as important as grammar or other areas.
2 / Using word lists to learn second language vocabulary is unproductive.
3 / Presenting new vocabulary in semantic sets (e.g. color names, fruits, body parts) facilitates learning.
4 / The use of translations to learn new vocabulary should be discouraged.
5 / Guessing words from context is an excellent strategy for learning second language vocabulary.
6 / The best vocabulary learners make use of one or two really good specific vocabulary learning strategy.
7 / The best dictionary for second language learners is a monolingual dictionary.
8 / Teachers, textbook, and curricula cover second language vocabulary adequately.

Procedure

The questionnaire was given to the participants while they were attending a TEFL workshop held by STBA Technocrat Tangerang in the March 2011. They were asked to agree or disagree with eight statements by ticking the provided Yes or No check box.Each statement was explained, in some cases examples were given, and Indonesian was occasionally used to make sure that they understood the statements or terms used (e.g.,semantic sets in statement 3).

Data Analysis

The data was analyzed using Microsoft Excel. The questionnaire was analyzed by giving 1 point if a statement was agreed and 0 if disagreed, as shown in Table 1. The students’ and the teachers’ answers were separated in two separate sheets. The total points in each statement/myth were calculated to get the percentages.

Table 1. Data analysis.

Participants / M1 / M2 / M3 / M4 / M5 / M6 / M7 / M8
1 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 1
2 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 1
3 / 1 / 1 / 1
… / 1 / 1 / 1 / 1
TOTAL
%

Results and Discussion

The results provides answers to the three research questions. The answer to the first research question is summarized in Table 2. It shows the total frequencies and percentages of each myth from each group. N indicates the number of participants in each group and M stands for Myth.

The answer to the second research question can also be found in Table 2. The most prevailing myths believed by the participants were myths 5 (89% and 87%, total 89%) and myth 3 (95% and 100%, total 96%).

Table 2: The Frequencies and percentages of the results.

N / M1 / M2 / M3 / M4 / M5 / M6 / M7 / M8
Students / 257 / 29 / 88 / 245 / 56 / 228 / 134 / 109 / 62
11% / 34% / 95% / 22% / 89% / 52% / 42% / 24%
Teachers / 23 / 0 / 9 / 23 / 11 / 20 / 6 / 7 / 1
0% / 39% / 100% / 48% / 87% / 26% / 30% / 4%
Total / 280 / 29 / 97 / 268 / 67 / 248 / 140 / 116 / 63
10% / 35% / 96% / 24% / 89% / 50% / 41% / 23%

The answer to the third research question can be more clearly seen from the visual representation (i.e. Figure 1) of the numerical data in Table 2. In general, there is a high degree of agreement, meaning that the students andthe teachers more or less have similar beliefs.Pearson Product Moment correlation yields the coefficient of correlation (r = .89).

Figure 1: Visual representation of percentages of each group

Figure 2 shows the visual representation of the combined (both from the students’ and the teachers’) results. The discussion of the each result is based on these combined results and is sorted from the lowest percentage to the highest: myth 1 (10%), myth 8 (23%), myth 4 (24%), myth 2 (35%), myth 7 (41%), myth 6 (50%), myth 5 (85%), and myth 3 (96%). Only the two prevailing vocabulary myths(i.e. myths 5 and 3) will be challenged by some research findings reviewed by Folse (2004).

Figure 2: Visual representation of percentages of the combined groups.

Myth 1:Only a small number of the subjects (10%), believed that vocabulary is not important. It means that the majoritybelieved that vocabulary is at least as important as other areas.

Myth 8:Only 23% of them felt that vocabulary was adequately covered by their teachers and textbooks. From these results it could be interpreted that most of them rated vocabulary high on lists of areas they would like to study in the L2 classroom.

Myth 4:Only 24% of them believed that the use of L1 should be discouraged. The majority believed the use of L1 should not be allowed.

Myth 2:Only 35% of the subjects believed that using word lists to learn second language vocabulary is unproductive.The majority believed that word lists helps them learn new words.

Myth 7:Only 41%of them thought that the best dictionary for second language learners is a monolingual dictionary.The others seemed to prefer using bilingual dictionary instead the monolingual one.

Myth 6:Half of them (50%) thought that the best vocabulary learners make use of one or two really good specific vocabulary learning strategy, while the other half believed that best learners make use of several or many different learning strategies instead of just one or two.

Myth 5: The majority (89%) of the respondents believed that guessing words from context was an excellent strategy for learning second language vocabulary. Research, however has shown that context clues in the real world are not as common or useful as thought. Even native speakers were not good at guessing unknown English word meanings from real contexts (SchatzBaldwin, 1986). Learners lack sufficient vocabulary knowledge to guess from context or as is often the case, learners often guess the meaning incorrectly. Laufer and Shmueli, (1997) point out that correct guessing was relatively low (only 26%).

Myth 3: Almost all of the participants (96%) believed that presenting new vocabulary in semantic sets facilitates learning.In many EFL/ESL textbooks, vocabulary is generally grouped in semantic sets. Organizing the words by kind (i.e. by semantic sets) seems to be the easiest and logical way to group the vocabulary.Research results, however, show that semantic sets actually hinder vocabulary retention. Some researchers warn us against the danger of presenting closely related new words. They suggest that learners should start by learning semantically unrelated words (Tinkham, 1993; Waring, 1997) and also avoid learning words with similar forms (Laufer, 1997). For example, studyingaffect and effectsimultaneously is likely to cause confusion because of their similar forms.

Conclusion

Many Indonesian EFL learners and teachers still believe in some vocabulary myths.EFL teachers who still believe in any of the eight myths surveyed in this study must read Folse’s Vocabulary Myths. Some of the myths Folse discusses run counter to what many in the ESL field have been taught for years. For example, not many teachers encourage the use of word lists or the use of translation (myths 2 and 4), but research findings showthat these are effective ways to learn new vocabulary. Folse also argues that encouraging students to guess meanings from context (myth 5) or to exclusively use monolingual dictionaries (myth 7) may not be easy for the students.

This study has some limitations especially regarding the subjects. They may not represent the whole population i.e. Indonesian EFL learners and teachers/lecturers. The number of teachers is relatively small and most of the subjects lived in Tangerang. Therefore, further studies involving more Indonesian EFL teachers and students from various locations are needed to know the how vocabulary teaching/learning activities are perceived.Another direction for future study is investigating the effectiveness of teaching unrelated words based on their frequencies (instead of using semantic sets).

Works Cited

Folse, K. (2004). Vocabulary Myths: Applying Second Language Research to Classroom Teaching. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.

Laufer, B. (1997). The lexical plight in second language readings: Words you don’t know, words you think you know, and words you can’t guess. In J. Coady & T. Huckin (Eds.), Second language vocabulary acquisition (pp. 20-34). Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Laufer, B., & Sheueli, K. (1997) Memorizing new words: Does teaching have anything to do with it? RELC Journal 28(1), 89-108

Schatz, E., & Baldwin (1986). Context clues are unreliable predictors of word meanings. Reading Research Quarterly, 21(4), 439-453

Tinkham, T. (1993). The effects of semantic clustering on the learning of second language vocabulary. System, 21(3), 371-380.

Waring, R. (1997). The negative effects of learning words in semantic sets. System, 25(2), 261-274