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Second, this current study used two classes which were occupied by relatively homogenous students. This study did not take into account the influence
of gender, social background, educational background, and learning motives of the language learning. They were some factors which might influence the result of
the research. Third, the instruments of morphological awareness, i.e morpheme
identification awareness test and morphological structure awareness test, did not cope all morphemes in English. They only included some morphemes in the tests
which might represent the general knowledge of morphemes.
F. Significance of the Study
Theoretically, the study is expected to contribute to the better understanding of vocabulary size and its relation to morphological awareness
morpheme identification awareness and morphological structure awareness. The results of the study are also expected to be the input for further research by other
researchers who are interested in conducting research within the area of vocabulary acquisition.
Practically, the study is expected to contribute to the better application on the teaching techniques which improve the morphological awareness of the
students as the way for vocabulary learning. In addition, the results of the study are also expected to be the input for the students to improve their morphological
awareness as the way to enrich vocabulary.
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G. Definition of Key Terms
This current study has operational definition of the key terms. The key terms in this current study are morphological awareness, morpheme identification
awareness, morphological structure awareness, and vocabulary size. 1. Morphological Awareness
Morphological awareness is the ability to reflect upon and manipulate morphemes and morphological structure of words Carlisle, 2003; Kuo
Anderson, 2006. They define morphological awareness as the ability to recognize the structure of the words as well as to construct new words based on the
knowledge they have known. In addition McBridge 2005 defines morphological awareness as “an awareness of and access to the meaning and structure of
morphemes in relation to words”. It means that morphological awareness is the ability to know the meaning of the words elements or morphemes and relate its
knowledge to form new words. However, in this study, the morphological awareness refers to the students’ ability to breakdown and recognize the
morphemes of complex words and manipulate the morphemes to construct new words especially in their way to improve vocabulary acquisition. Since
morphological awareness covers two aspects, analytic and syntactic aspect, it comprises the morpheme identification awareness and morphological structure
awareness. 2. Morpheme Identification Awareness
Chang, C. M., Wagner, R. K., Muse, A., W. Y. B., Chow, H. S. 2005 define morpheme identification awareness as the ability to distinguish different
