GREEN VALLEY COLLEGE FOUNDATION, INC. Vocabulary Depth: Its Effect on Reading Comprehension and Academic Performance of Grade 10 students at Koronadal National Comprehensive High School A Concept Proposal Presented to the Faculty of the School of Education and Green Valley College Foundation Inc., Bo.2, Gensan Drive, Koronadal City, South Cotabato, Philippines In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree ENG 107: LANGUAGE EDUCATION RESEARCH By ASUNCION, PRECIOUS FAITH BANDALA, CYNDY A. CALDERON, RAYMA MAE DEDIOS, PRINCESS GRACE Q. GALLEGO, JAMELA PAMPAG, MIKO JAY RANDY A. DIZON Adviser May 2023 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Background of the study During the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic, the learners had this observed reading gap because of 2 years of Modular Distance Learning and Online Classes that led to a substantially new situation for education systems. To contain the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19, schools in many countries around the world have partially or completely closed, learning groups have been rearranged, and students or teachers had to be absent from school for various amounts. Teachers had to carry out learning activities without the usual face-to-face lessons, learners had to self-regulate at home, and parents had to support their children’s learning more than before. How these learning conditions affected students’ achievement is of considerable interest for educational policy, administration, and practice. This is especially true for reading literacy, a key competence that influences students’ achievement in other subjects and enables them to participate in society throughout their entire life course. This tells us that the acquisition of reading literacy is key for further learning in other school subjects and students’ subsequent educational and life paths (Savolainen et al., 2008) where reading achievement involves multiple levels of text comprehension: surface structure, text base, situation model, rhetorical structure, and pragmatic communication (Kintsch, 1988; Graesser and McNamara, 2011). Since reading has been a big public to both public and private schools, it is a must that we need to improve our reading skills as well as our reading comprehension. It is said that the fundamental knowledge for reading comprehension is vocabulary knowledge (Hoover and Gough, 1990; Cromley and Azevedo, 2007). Vocabulary knowledge, regarded as the minimum semantic unit in reading comprehension and regarded as a component of linguistic comprehension, refers to a semantic schema on passage mental image cognition and single word or character semantic meaning identification (Nation, 2015; Braze et al., 2016). Large vocabulary size usually represented well-structured semantic schema and better performance in word/character meaning identification. Past studies have shown that Chinese vocabulary characters, as a representation of logographic scripts, differs from alphabetical scripts in spatial structure, grammatical knowledge, and word function (Wang et al., 2003; Elleman et al., 2009; Tong et al., 2016; Choi et al., 2017). It is also generically defined as the knowledge of words and word meanings. In order to make meaning from text, learners draw on a wealth of accumulated knowledge about words and the concepts that words signify. Comprehension requires not only that children have broad vocabularies (i.e., a large number of words in their lexicon) but also that those words activate rich, interconnected networks of conceptual knowledge (Anderson & Freebody, 1985; Kintsch, 1998). This challenge on reading comprehension is experienced both in public and private schools in South Cotabato and because of this reason, the Division of South Cotabato initiated to conduct several programs that will improve the reading comprehension of the learners and one of these programs is the Community-Based Reading Program. Thus, because of this, the researchers wanted to know further of what really is the impact or effect of Vocabulary Depth in the level of Reading Comprehension of the Grade 10 learners in Koronadal National Comprehensive High School through assessing the dimensions of Vocabulary – paradigmatic relation (synonyms, hyponyms, antonyms), syntagmatic relations (collocation), analytic relation (collocation) and morphological knowledge (affixes). Statement of the problem The study will be conducted to identify the vocabulary depth of the respondents as well as its impact in their Reading Comprehension. Specifically this study will seek the following questions: 1. What is the Vocabulary Depth of the respondents in terms of 1.1 Paradigmatic relation (synonyms, hyponyms, antonyms) 1.2 Syntagmatic relations (collocation) 1.3 Analytic relation (collocation) 1.4 Morphological knowledge (affixes) 2. What is the impact of vocabulary depth to the respondents reading comprehension? 3. What is the relationship of vocabulary depth in the reading comprehension? Significance of the study The information and results of this study would benefit the following: Grade 10 Student. The study will help the students to determine the vocabulary depth of the students in reading comprehension and academic performance. Teachers. The study will help the teachers to know about the effects of vocabulary depth to the reading comprehension and academic performance of Grade 10 students. This study will provide them information on how to improve the vocabulary of the students. Researchers. This will help them determine the vocabulary depth of the students in reading comprehension and the academic performance of Grade 10 students. This study will help the researchers to provide significant recommendation to enhance the vocabulary skills of the students. Future Researchers. The outcome of the study is beneficial to the future researchers. This study will serve as basis for further studies. Scope and limitations This study will focus on the vocabulary depth of the respondents that includes its dimensions such as paradigmatic relation (synonyms, hyponyms, and antonyms), syntagmatic relations (collocation), analytic relation (collocation) and morphological knowledge (affixes) and how these dimensions affect the reading comprehension of the respondents. Conceptual Framework In order to formulate a conceptual framework meant for the present research as well as to discern the relationship concerning vocabulary depth and reading comprehension. The Framework that will be used for this study is shown below: VOCABULARY DEPTH Paradigmati c Relation Syntagmati c Relations Analytic Relation Morphological Knowledge READING COMPREHENSION Figure 1. Conceptual Framework on the Vocabulary Depth The proposed conceptual framework represents different parts of knowledge of vocabulary depth, namely paradigmatic relations, syntagmatic relations, analytic relations and morphological relations, and how these multifarious aspects correlate with reading comprehension. The vocabulary depth have been treated as independent variables whereas the reading comprehension has been considered as dependent variable. Definition of terms Academic Performance. The study seeks to determine the effects of vocabulary depth to the academic performance of the students that will help to enhance the vocabulary knowledge of the students. Reading Comprehension. In this study, vocabulary depth will effect to the reading comprehension which it will help the researchers to determine its effect to the students. Vocabulary Depth. This study will determine the vocabulary depth of the students and to know its effect to the reading comprehension and academic performance of the Grade 10 students. CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE In this chapter, associated readings and studies are included that represents ideas which may help the researchers in the formulation and construction of the study. The related readings presented in this chapter is of great help in understanding the concepts and analyzing the dimensions in vocabulary depth and how it will affect the reading comprehension of the respondents. Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension Developing student’s vocabulary skills Rosyidah & Giyoto (2018) stated that vocabulary is one of the essential aspects of learning English. It is the foundation to learn English and vocabulary is one of the components of language, there is no language without vocabulary. To be able to communicate in English, vocabulary is needed and it is important to improve and have a variety of vocabulary. As Viera (2018) said that, “Vocabulary knowledge is viewed as an essential tool for mastering any language skills; it also contributes to the understanding of written and spoken texts.” Mastering vocabulary is quite difficult to learn especially to those students who have learning difficulties. According to Mthethwa (2018), the use of a combination of text, sound, graphics, video, or animation to teach vocabulary is becoming a common aspect of instructional practice in language learning. Through this, it will make it easier for students to learn vocabulary in a fun way. Nuriyya (2018) said that “By using authentic material students deal with outside and real-world, they become interested when dealing with real language.” She also stated that authentic materials increase learners’ motivation in learning vocabulary. It is a useful tool which makes students familiar with the target language particularly in learning vocabulary. Folse (2014) expresses that “learning a language entails learning numerous aspects about that language, including its pronunciation, writing system, syntax but the most important aspect is vocabulary. Therefore, vocabulary is considered a useful part and fundamental tool for communicative purpose and acquiring knowledge. Putra (2018) stated that English movies provide a great chance for students to learn English vocabulary by listening. Moreover, through listening, the students will get the information as to their first input for their knowledge. The Role of Knowledge, Interest, and Engagement in Reading Comprehension” by Panayiota et. Al (2019) This article reviews the current research on the role of knowledge, interest, and engagement in reading comprehension, and suggests ways to improve comprehension through these factors. Vocabulary Depth Aspects of Knowledge It has been already discussed that the knowledge of vocabulary depth refers to how well a student knows a word (Read, 1993, 2000). Nassaji (2004) expresses that the knowledge of a word involves complexity and multi-dimensionality. Also, with the reference to research scholars, it has been discussed previously that a word associates different types of knowledge, which ranges from the knowledge of its spelling, pronunciation, register, morphological and stylistic attributes to syntactic knowledge and knowledge regarding semantic associations of a word with other words, i.e. the said knowledge includes the knowledge of meanings of collocates, and knowledge regarding antonyms, synonymy, and hyponymy. The aspects of knowledge of vocabulary, which are included in the present research purpose are elaborated in the following. DIMENSIONS OF VERB DEPTH 1. Paradigmatic Relation According to Schmitt (2000), both syntagmatic associations and paradigmatic associations consider the word class (i.e., part of speech) of the associations (i.e., word associations). He adds that answers of similar word class as the stimulus are called paradigmatic. The examples of paradigmatic association can be verb-verb pairs, such as abandon-desert, abandon-leave, and abandon-eject. Schwartz and Katzir (2012) assert that paradigmatic relations are known as hierarchically vertical, like subordination and superordination, and they represent hierarchical relationships between words. For instance, the superordinate category furniture encompasses the following subordinate-level groups, such as table, chair, bed, etc. (Schwartz and Katzir, 2012). In turn, the basic-level notion under paradigmatic sense relations is able to comprise subdivisions. For example, the category spoon can get subdivided into the subordinate level categories, like soup spoon, tea spoon, coffee spoon, etc. Moreover, paradigmatic sense relations articulate a bondage between the meanings of words. For instance, some words provide lexically opposite meanings (antonyms), such as clean-dirty, hot cold. 1.1 Synonyms Synonyms are words that contain almost similar meanings (Schmitt, 2000). Considering the following items, such as expire, die, bite the dust, pass away, kick the bucket, give up the ghost, one can realize that the six instances are synonyms which give the meaning “to die”. Moreover, the synonyms above are consisted of two single words, a phrasal verb, and three idioms. Finegan (2008) expresses that two words are considered as synonyms if they convey the same meaning. The words film, movie, flick, and motion picture possess similar referents in the practical world, and they are termed to have synonymous relations. For instance, every flick is a film, and every film is a flick, so the words flick and film are synonymous. Considering the above examples, it can be said that the “vice versa” is significant. 1.2 Hyponymy According to Finegan (2008), a hyponym is “a subordinate, specific term whose referent is included in the referent of a superordinate term” (Finegan, pp. 189). For example, it can be said that blue is one type of colour, and also red is another type of colour. Blue and red are specific colours whereas colour is known as a general term for all the colours. The following diagram will enable us to understand the relationship between specific colours and the general term colour. 1.3 Antonym Finegan (2008) expresses that the term antonyms stems from the Greek root word anti(means ‘opposite’), and the word implies opposition in terms of meaning. He also adds that antonyms has binary association which is able to classify a linkage between only two words concurrently. He contends that the archetypical antonyms are generally known as pairs of adjectives which impart opposite ideas, for example wide and narrow, large and small, married and single, hot and cold, alive and dead (Finegan, 2008: 185). Antonyms is not confined only to adjectives. Nouns, like man and woman are also antonyms. The example of an antonymous pair of adverbs is always and never. The verbs love and hate form antonymous relationship. From the examples above, it is obvious that antonyms possesses binary relationship. 2. Syntagmatic Relations Schmitt (2000) defines that responses that provide a sequential associations to the stimulus word are known as syntagmatic. He further adds that syntagmatic association generally is made up of different word class. The examples can be verb-noun pairs, such as abandon-ship and abandon-hope. According to Schwartz and Katzir (2012), syntagmatic sense relations reflect horizontal association between items by furnishing information regarding the appearance, location, or the use of the object. For example, “A watermelon is sweet and tasty” is an example of descriptive characteristic; “A hammer is something to pound with” provides functional description (Schwartz and Katzir, 2012). 2.1 Collocations Sadeghi (2009) describes that the word collocation is comparatively a recent phenomenon to the lexicon of English. He also adds that Firth (1957) is the first person who formally introduces the term ‘collocation’ to the discipline of Linguistics. Nation (2001) defines that the word ‘collocation’ refers to a group of words which fit in together. In other words, he describes that collocation as any commonly acknowledged grouping of words into phrases or clauses. Schmitt (2000) expresses that collocation denotes to the propensity of two or more words to coincide in discourse. Collocations come under syntagmatic relationship. He also mentions that there are two types of collocations; the first one is grammatical/syntactic, and the second one is semantic/lexical collocation (Benson, 1985). The present study aims to study the second type of collocation i.e., lexical collocation, and they generally are made up of two fundamentally “equal” words, for example, noun + verb (ball bounces, withdraw an offer, inflict a wound), adjective + noun (cheerful expression, a crushing defeat), noun +verb (blizzards rage), noun 1 + noun 2 (a pride of lions), adverbs and adjective (deeply absorbed), verb + adverb (appreciate sincerely) where both of the words contribute to the meaning (Bahns, 1993; Benson, 1985). 3. Analytic Relations Schwartz and Katzir (2012) profess that another type of lexical hierarchy known as partonomic among academicians. Partonomic is commonly recognized as a part-whole hierarchy (meronymy or holonymy). For example, the case of body parts (head-nose) is an example of meronymy. 4. Morphological Knowledge The study of Kieffer and Lesaux (2008) affirms that morphological awareness alludes to learners’ comprehension of the formation of words as composites of purposeful units, which are known as morphemes. It can be evinced at that time when the learner or reader breaks up morphologically compounded words into component morphemes or identifies morphological association between words. They further add that out of morphological activities, extraction of a base word derived from a word which does not participate in sharing its part of speech (for example, popular from popularity) might have exceptional pertinence for getting access to the meaning of new derived words that come across at the time of reading. The procedure of morphological interpretation necessitates the incorporation of lexical understanding of specific derivational suffixes and root morphemes accompanied with the metalinguistic capability to identify these units and analyze them. This process, in turn, can have the potentiality to provide learners with gateways or avenues to the meaning of the new words that they come across while reading a text; thus, it may pave the way for enhanced reading comprehension performance. CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY This study will identify the Vocabulary Depth of the respondents through analyzing its dimensions and how these dimensions affect the reading Comprehension of the respondents. Research Design This study will use descriptive quantitative research design. Descriptive research design aims to systematically obtain information to describe a phenomenon, situation, or population. It is used in describing the behavior of a subject. It fits to our study because it characterizes as simply the attempt to describe and determine the impact of student’s vocabulary skills towards the reading comprehension of the students. It will help us to organize, tabulates and depicts information in describing the data collection that will enables us to develop an in-depth understanding about our study. This design will be used since the main purpose of the study is to determine the impact of student’s vocabulary depth towards the reading comprehension of Grade 10 students at Koronadal National Comprehensive High School. Research Site This study will be conducted at Koronadal National Comprehensive High School. It is one of the largest high school in Koronadal City in the province of South Cotabato within Region XII in the island of Mindanao. The researchers chose this academe simply because they believe that this school has the qualification of the population that suits what the researchers need for the study. Also, for the safety and accessibility purposes of the researchers. Respondents The respondents of this study will be the Grade 10 (section) students of Koronadal National Comprehensive High School. There will be __________ respondents to complete the study. The researchers will determine the impact of student’s vocabulary depth in reading comprehension to help the respondents to enhance their vocabulary skills. Sampling Techniques This study will be having the Grade 10 _________ students from of Koronadal National Comprehensive High School which are purposively chosen. Thus, the sampling technique that the researchers will be using is Total Population Purposive Sampling where the entire population of Grade 10 (section) is selected to undergo the English Vocabulary Test . Instrumentation or Source of Data To determine the impact of student’s vocabulary depth in reading comprehension of Grade 10 students, this study will use an adapted English Vocabulary Test by Mathew Barton from Englishcurrent.
