LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Merit or Demerit of ESL and EFL Context in
Incidental Vocabulary Learning

Mojgan Yarahmadi, Ph.D.

1. Introduction

English has become the world language. It is the most dominant foreign language in Iran. Presently, it is an undeniable necessity rather than a mere school subject, and has found its way to the heart of the Iranian society. But its usefulness is connected with vocabulary learning.

Hence, numerous studies have been conducted regarding three aspects of the quartet model of person, task, strategy, and context. That is to say, the effect of person (teacher/learner), strategy and task have been surveyed in so many researches. But still, an ideal solution for the problem of vocabulary learning is not found. And Iranian EFL learners, like before, are not learning the target vocabulary under ideal conditions. Therefore, a drastic change is necessary. Of course, this proposition does not signify the total rejection of the traditional or commonly used techniques for vocabulary learning. But it stresses the fact that vocabulary learning is a problematic area for Iranian EFL learners.

This research gives a new insight. Its motto is that, "although teacher's role in intentional, as well as the learner's role and motivation in incidental, and the role of methods such as text-generation as a help to discovery learning are important factors, the role of context should be taken into consideration."

2. Intentional and Incidental Vocabulary Learning

Vocabulary is a key component of second/foreign language proficiency. Put it in another word, vocabulary learning is a must. It can take place in two general ways: intentional and incidental.

Intentional vocabulary learning is the rehearsal and memorizing techniques invoked by learners when they have the explicit intentions of learning and retaining lexical information. Participants in an intentional learning situation are told in advance that their learned vocabulary will be tested afterwards.

Incidental vocabulary learning occurs without the specific intent to focus on vocabulary learning. It means learning words while reading to get the meaning, to answer some questions, to do a task but not to learn a word. Learners are required to perform a task involving a processing of some information without being told in advance that they will be tested afterwards on their recall of that information.

The strategy a learner uses and the effectiveness of it for vocabulary learning depends on the learner the learning task. Text-generation is a problem-solving task, which refers to organizing and rearranging the scrambled sentences into well-written paragraphs.

3. Text Manipulation

Interest in sentence-scrambling exercises derives from the general interest in text manipulation. It is used as a way of examining text structure and as a teaching/learning aid in a holistic approach to language learning.

According to Johns and Lixune (1999) there are four types of text manipulation: substitution, deletion, insertion, and reordering.

Einstein et al. (1984) found that the recall of a fairy tale was significantly better if subjects were required to fill in deleted letters as they read the fairy tale than when they just read the passage for comprehension. In a similar fashion, McDaniel (1984) found that deleting letters from the words expressing certain events in a story enhances the recall for those events. It has been proposed that letter deletion enhances memory because it induces extension or controlled processing of lexical items.

In an experiment by Mc Daniel et al (1986), generation effect occurred for randomly ordered sentences. Subjects were given a descriptive text. There were 14 sentences in the text. Subjects in the control condition were given a normal version of the description text where sentences were presented in their proper order. Subjects in the text-scrambling condition were presented with 14 pieces of paper, with a different sentence from the passage typed on each piece. They were told to rearrange the sentences into the sequence that made the maximum sense to them. In a subsequent incidental memory test, they were asked to write down as much of the text as possible. A mnemonic advantage has been reported for scrambled texts.

In his experiment, Joe (1998) discusses the effects of text-based tasks promoting generation that have on incidental vocabulary acquisition. He believes that a large proportion of vocabulary is acquired incidentally from written contexts. However, in text-based studies promoting generative processing, it is not clear if, or to what extent, generation influences incidental vocabulary learning.

Here, Joe (ibid) tries to explain that reading a text helps in acquiring incidental vocabulary. He also explains that the relationship between text and generative processes is not clear enough, but it helps in vocabulary learning.

Another study which was done by Paribakht and Wesche (1997) examined whether reading comprehension plus vocabulary enhancement exercises led to more effective acquisition of vocabulary items or not. The results of their study indicate that learners in the 'reading only' treatment acquired some words but their knowledge of many of these words tended to stay at the recognition level. In the 'reading plus' treatment, however, learners learned more words and their knowledge of many of these words reached higher levels over a specific period of time.

In other words, "focused vocabulary instruction based on theme-related reading texts and using a variety of techniques have shown greater effectiveness than reading comprehension alone for learning selected vocabulary. Therefore, words practiced in a series of vocabulary-focused exercises following a reading task led to a better retention than words that received additional exposure in texts."

Another influencing factor in vocabulary learning is context of learning. Context is a pervasive and potent force in any learning event i.e., learning is related to the environment in which it takes place. It is the learning environment which includes opportunities for learners to engage in meaningful social interaction with users of the second language.

Gu (2003) believes that learning context refers to the learning environment. It is the socio-cultural-political environment where learning takes place. The learning context can include the teachers, the peers, the classroom climate or ethos, the family support, the social cultural tradition of learning, the curriculum, and the availability of input and output opportunities. Learning context is different from language context which refers to the textual or discourse place in which a particular word or structure can be found. Learning contexts constrain the ways learners approach learning tasks. A learning strategy that is valued in one learning context may well be deemed inappropriate in another context.

The EFL/ESL distinction has been an important one in language pedagogy for many years. Each learning context requires different materials, syllabuses, and pedagogy. Hence, while learning a foreign language one has to keep in mind the distinction between these two different contexts.

In an ESL context, the language is learnt for immediate application. It is used as a means of communication. It is a reference to a situation where English becomes the language of instruction in the schools, as in Philippine or a lingua franca between speakers of widely diverse languages, as in India. In contrast, the language neither is learnt for immediate application nor used as a means of communication in an EFL context. It is learnt for educational purpose. Job opportunities and increasing the possibility of higher education are high and communication in spoken or written form are low priorities in an EFL situation.

Zhan-xiang (2004), talks about the importance of vocabulary in communication. He presents his study on Inner Mongolia (one of the largest in the 55 minority nationality groups in China) and observes that most of them have forgotten what they have learned because they didn't have English environment.

Obviously, those learners in English as foreign language (EFL) context whose native language is not genetically related to English, compared to ESL learners, are not developing their lexicons to the levels which would permit them to function adequately in many English language contexts. They often lack an adequate amount of oral or written input. As mentioned in the previous section, these subjects are taught the knowledge of the language not for day to day communication or immediate application. They just learn the language for a better job opportunity or for higher education. Therefore, their vocabulary lacks efficacy.

4. Research Question

Based on the discussed purposes, the research problem can be formulated in the following manner:

Does text-generation make a significant difference on incidental vocabulary average performance in EFL and ESL contexts?

5. Research Hypothesis

Accordingly, a null hypothesis was posed as:

There is no significant difference between incidental vocabulary learning through text- generation in EFL and ESL contexts.

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