WORD RECYCLING IN WHEN ENGLISH RINGS THE BELL

B. WORD RECYCLING IN WHEN ENGLISH RINGS THE BELL

In this research, recycling refers to how many times a word occurs in a textbook and in what context it is repeated. It is also called frequency count. According to Nation and Waring 1997, frequency provides a rational basis for vocabulary learning. It is used to make sure that the vocabulary that learners learn will be frequently met, so that their vocabulary learning effort is not useless. Nevertheless, there is no exact number of frequency which will give significant effect to acquisition. However, the more frequency, the better it is in subsequent level Nation and Wang, 1999. 1. Vocabulary Recycling in the Textbook The table below presents the result of data analysis using FREQUENCY over the all parts of the textbook corpus. This includes chapter I-VIII, Classroom Language for Students, and Glosarium. Table 4.12 The 20 Most Frequent Word Types in When English Rings the Bell Word Type Rank Frequency Percentage All Parts the 1 272 4.38 a 2 203 3.27 is 3 192 3.09 you 4 180 2.90 my 5 159 2.56 i 6 133 2.14 please 7 125 2.01 in 8 101 1.63 to 9 94 1.51 do 10 92 1.48 are 11 89 1.43 your 11 89 1.43 of 12 87 1.40 what 13 83 1.34 Word Type Rank Frequency Percentage All Parts and 14 72 1.16 this 15 62 1.00 it 16 61 0.98 he 17 58 0.93 good 18 55 0.89 or 19 50 0.80 In terms of the word type, the is the most frequent type occurred in the textbook. It covers 4.38 of the total types. Nation and Waring 1997 also proposes their thought about this phenomenon. From the point of view of frequency, the word the is very useful word in English. It occurs so frequently that about 7 percent of the words on a page of written English and the same proportion of the words in a conversation are repetitions of the word the. p. 8-9 From Nation and Waring’s quote, it can be concluded that the word the occurs so frequently in a text because of its usefulness. Although the percentage is not exactly the same, the word the covers the highest proportion of the types in When English Rings the Bell. Although there is no exact number of frequency which contributes to vocabulary acquisition, 272 times of occurrence should bring enough effect on students. Moreover, Coady and Nation 1988 say that ten times in minimum would be enough to have an effect on them. Then, ideally, after students have finished learning the textbook, they are supposed to be able to use the word the appropriately. However, Pienemann and Johnston’s model, as stated in Gass and Mackey 2002, proposes that the acquisition of communicative value will hardly depend on particular developmental order, regardless the frequency of input one receives. Thus, it can be concluded that high frequency of words in the textbook will help students acquire the words if they are on the right developmental stage. Otherwise, the words would be stored and be processed and used at a later time when students are ready Gass, 1997. The finding of this research also proves what Thomas, Pfister, and Peterson 2004 say that high frequency words include functionalstructural words. High-frequency words tend not to contain conceptual validity for an individual word or for the text where the words occur. Although functional words dont carry information, they contribute to meaning in some way and are important for understanding as they define the relationship between two words. For example, assessment of learning and assessment as learning are different. If one does not know exactly what the meaning and use of of and as is, there might be misconception. Functional words can also be a dependant attached to a head to make meaning more precise. For example, one will understand the girl bought a book more than girl bought book. The most important is that mastering functional words support one aspect of vocabulary knowledge, which is word use. In this research, all of the 20 most frequent word types are functional words, except what, good, and do as a content word. Those functional words do not have any validity concept. They are only indicative of English language structures. In contrast, only three content words are listed in the 20 most frequent word types. They are what, good, and do are content words. In the textbook, what is used for two purposes. First, it is used in some questions as a question word. The question patterns are: a. What + auxiliary + ...? Example: What are his hobbies? What should you say? What does you mother do? b. What about you? c. What + kinds of + N + auxiliary + ...? Example: What kind of task do you have? What kinds of healthy food do you know? d. What + daymonth + auxiliary + ...? Example: What day is it? What month is it? Second, it is used in some noun clauses. The pattern is: Main clause + what + S + .... For example Please tell the class what you learn each day The other students should guess what it means, Do you understand what we have to do? The question patterns using what, which are recycled 83 times throughout the textbook, ideally would contribute much to students’ vocabulary acquisition in terms of the quality of their vocabulary size of the word type. Another content word is good. Good is used 55 times throughout the textbook. Fifty four of them are found in lexical chunks. Of the 54 goods in the lexical chunks, 51 of them are used in greetings functional language use. They are good morning, good night, good evening, and good afternoon. In this case, good cannot be treated as a single word which is translated as baik. Instead, they are translated as one unity of a lexical chunk. Otherwise, there will be misconception and might be translated as pagi yang baik, malam yang baik, petang yang baik, and sore yang baik. The lexical chunks should be learned as a unity which is translated as selamat pagi, selamat malam, selamat petang, and selamat sore. The other three goods which are found in the lexical chunks are used to express one’s condition. They are I am feeling good, I am good and I hope you are in a good condition. These lexical chunks are common and frequently found when someone is talking about physical condition. Different from the previous lexical chunks, these lexical chunks can be translated as separate words. Of the 54 goods, which function to greet and to express one’s condition, 51 of them are found in chapter I. It is not a surprising fact considering that the theme of chapter I is How are You?, covering greeting, self introduction, and take leaving. The other good is not a lexical chunk and can be translated as a separate word. It is found in the sentence Hotdog is not good for health. Of the 92 dos which are found in the textbook, 22 of them are content words. They are all verbs. Ten of them are in lexical chunks. Some function to ask about job or occupation, like What does shehe do? and What do they do? and the rest function to ask or give opinion, like For that, you should do... and What should we do...? With enough number of lexical chunks which are recycled in this textbook, this textbook provides a big opportunity for students to acquire vocabulary not as word by word, but as chunk and chunk. Those lexical chunks help students’ in some ways. “Once a chunk is known, it can be analyzed and segmented into its constituent words. This can occur when some variability is noticed in a lexical chunk” Schmitt 2000a: 400. It deals with students’ vocabulary and grammar acquisition. Although the lexical chunk can be analyzed into separate words, it is usually stored as on unity because of its utility. It can also contribute to students’ grammar acquisition because of the segmentation which involves syntax. According Lewis 2008, learning lexical chunk is also important for effective communication and efficient acquisition because it is the key to comprehensibility. Having enough knowledge of lexical chunks helps students to read with understanding and to speak with appropriate chunks in order to be understood in their speech. And this textbook is helpful in providing enough number of lexical chunks to learn. On the other side, of the total word types in the textbook, which reaches 1049 numbers, 507 of them are in ‘hapax legomena’ size of types only occurring once. The number is almost a half of the total word types, or approximately 48.33. Regardless of how it affects students language acquisition, the high percentage of ‘hapax legomena’ makes the textbook rich in vocabulary and it offers opportunitties for word learning Thomas, Pfister, and Peterson, 2004. From the list of word types which are listed neither in GSL_1, GSL_2, and AWL see appendix B, it can be seen that most of the word types are content words, which have greater informational value than functional words do. Most of them, 129 of 189 word types, are repeated in a very limited frequency, mostly once. Some of the word types are classroom, calendar, rhyme, honey, accent, carpet, fluency, howework, movie, and syllable. However, the ‘hapax legomena’ of word types outside GSL_1, GSL_2, and AWL indicates that it contributes to vocabulary richness of the textbook. A hundred and twenty nine of 507 word types in ‘hapax legomena’ are included in this word list category. In contrast, being seen from the point of view of word family, the textbook only uses 637 word families, a small range which is still far from 2,000, the level for a very good basis for language use and for productive use in speaking and writing Nation and Waring, 1997 and helping learners recognize 84 of the words tokens in various authentic texts Hwang and Nation, 1995. Moreover, it needs a minimum vocabulary size of 3,000 word families to recognize 95 of words tokens in the textbook Laufer 1992. Unfortunately, the textbook provides limited learning opportunities of minimum 2,000 word families. The table below presents the distribution of word family throughout the textbook. It is divided into four occurrence categories, only once, 2-4 times, 5-9 times, and 10 times or more, to investigate opportunities for deepening knowledge of words occurring less than ten times and for helping to acquire new words occurring ten or more than ten times Coady and Nation, 1988. Table 4.13 Repetition of Word Families in When English Rings the Bell Occurrences Word Family Percentage Only Once 235 36.89 2-4 times 184 28.89 5-9 times 105 16.48 10 times or more 113 17.74 Total 637 100.00 The table shows that 82.26 of the total number of word family in the textbook occur nine times or less e.g., define, repeat, effect, carry, product, interest and thus provide limited opportunities for deepening word knowledge. However, only 17.74 word family in the textbook occur at least ten times e.g., practise, work, farm, active, please. Although the number is not significant, it offers good opportunities for deepening word knowledge of words occurring at least ten times based on frequency of occurrence. The word families are very important to learn because once the stem is known it will require less effort to recognize other words under the same word family Bauer and Nation, 1993. 2. Vocabulary Recycling in Chapter I The frequency data is obtained by running RANGE over chapter I of the textbook corpus. The summary of the data analysis is presented below. Table 4.14 Repetition of Word Families in Chapter I Occurrences Word Family Percentage Only Once 51 33.77 2-4 times 56 37.09 5-9 times 26 17.22 10 times or more 18 11.92 Total 151 100.00 The table shows that 11.92 word family in chapter I occurs ten times or more. Although the occurrences offer good opportunities for deepening knowledge of those word families, unfortunately, it only covers a small percentage one third of the total word family. The most frequent word family is I. It occurs 68 times, covering the types I, my, me, and myself. What makes those types under the word family occur very frequently is that this chapter deals with self introduction. Thus it is not strange that there are a lot of sentences referring to self. I is used 35 times, my is used 29 times, me and mine are used 2 times each. They are used in various sentences, for example I am feeling great, My favorite food is fried rice, and Let me introduce myself. With the various types under the word family I, it gives students more opportunities to learn the different forms and uses of I, my, me, and myself. In contrast, 88.08 word family in chapter I occurs less than ten times. It is a big percentage of word family in the chapter, but it is very unfortunate that the word families are recycled in a very few occurrences. Thus, it provides limited opportunities for deepening knowledge of those word families. Some of the word families are dream, express, introduce, identify, and describe. 3. Vocabulary Recycling in Chapter II RANGE was run over chapter II of the textbook corpus to obtain data analysis result. Then it is summarized in this table below. Table 4.15 Repetition of Word Families in Chapter II Occurrences Word Family Percentage Only Once 50 28.74 2-4 times 75 43.10 5-9 times 31 17.82 10 times or more 18 10.34 Total 174 100.00 It is very surprising that only 10.34 word family in chapter II is recycled at least ten times. Good opportunities for deepening vocabulary knowledge only occur in 18 of 174 word families. The most frequent word family which appears in the chapter is the. It occurs 79 times or as much as 8.49 of the total token. Most of the the in this chapter is used to refer to time and date, for example in the morning, in the afternoon, the third, the thirteenth. It is a common thing as the theme of the chapter is It is My Birthday, covering names of the days, time, names of the months, dates, and years. Reading and understanding the using of the in time expression and date, students are given a big opportunity to learn and acquire vocabulary knowledge of the in terms of quality using the in sentences appropriately. In contrast, 89.66 of the total word family occurs less than ten times. It is a big percentage, but does not provide enough opportunities for word recycling. Thus, it provides a limited possibility for deepening knowledge of those word families. Some of the word families are difference, express, educate, and project. 4. Vocabulary Recycling in Chapter III The data in the table below is summarized from the result of data analysis obtained by running RANGE over chapter III of the textbook corpus. Table 4.16 Repetition of Word Families in Chapter III Occurrences Word Family Percentage Only Once 80 48.48 2-4 times 51 30.91 5-9 times 17 10.30 10 times or more 17 10.30 Total 165 100.00 The table shows that the percentage of word family recycled less than ten times in chapter III is 89.70. It is rather disappointing that those word families are only recycled less than ten times. Due to the few occurrences, the chapter offers limited opportunities for deepening knowledge of the word families. As a result, in order for students to acquire those word families, additional activities or materials should be given to recycle them. Some of the word families are exhibit, relation, base, and delay. On the other hand, word families which are recycled at least ten times throughout the chapter only cover 10.30 of the total word families. Thus, it offers good opportunities for deepening knowledge of those word families, which later contributes to the vocabulary acquisition in terms of the quality. The most frequent word family occurring in chapter III is be. It occurs 84 times, as much as 9.93 of the total token. The word types under be which are found in chapter III are be, am, are, was, and is. Is is used the most frequently among others. It occurs 40 times. It is mostly used in introduction, both introducing self and others. For example What is your name? My name is Beni, This is my brother, and She is my teacher. Thus it supports students to achieve the goal of this chapter, which is to introduce self and everybody in students’ family. 5. Vocabulary Recycling in Chapter IV The following table shows the result of data analysis obtained by running RANGE over chapter IV of the textbook corpus. The summary of the data analysis is presented below. Table 4.17 Repetition of Word Families in Chapter IV Occurrences Word Family Percentage Only Once 87 54.38 2-4 times 39 24.38 5-9 times 21 13.13 10 times or more 13 8.13 Total 160 100.00 From the table, it can be seen that only 8.13 of the total word family is recycled ten times or more. Unfortunately, it is a small percentage to be a good possibility for deepening knowledge of the word families. The number of recycling provides students a bigger opportunity to learn and acquire the word families. The five most frequent word families are a, I, the, in, and be. None of them are content words. The finding is in line with what Thomas, Pfister, and Peterson 2004 purpose that high frequency words include functionalstructural words which have no conceptual validity. Chapter IV of the textbook discusses about things in classroom, things in bag, parts of house, and animals in school and home. All of them deal with countable noun. Thus, in the beginning of a noun, a countifier is given. In this case, most of the nouns are given a countifier a. For example a clock, a globe, a ruler, an eraser, a table, a frying pan, a pillow, and a cricket. That is why a word family is very frequently found in the chapter. And this should help students understand the concept of using a or an in the beginning of single countable noun. In contrast, 91.87 of the total word family is only recycled less than ten times throughout the textbook. This includes most nouns which are learned to be things in classroom, things in bag, parts of house, and animals in school and home, whereas those nouns are the key content. To achieve the goal of this chapter more easily, the teacher should prepare additional materials and activities containing those nouns. This will make the nouns recycled in enough time so that students have more opportunity for deepening knowledge of those nouns. 6. Vocabulary Recycling in Chapter V RANGE was run over chapter V of the textbook corpus to obtain data frequency. The summary of the data analysis result is presented in the table below. Table 4.18 Repetition of Word Families in Chapter V Occurrences Word Family Percentage Only Once 75 52.45 2-4 times 45 31.47 5-9 times 15 10.49 10 times or more 8 5.59 Total 143 100.00 From the table, it can be seen that 5.59 word family in chapter V is recycled at least ten times. It is a small percentage comparing to those recycled less than ten times, reaching 94.41 of the total word family. Thus, only 5.59 word family provides a bigger opportunity for students for deepening knowledge of those word families. The five most frequent word family appearing in chapter V is I, the, be, a, and you. Of the five word families, the most frequent one is I, as much as 6.36 of the total token or 29 times. The types under I word family include I, my, and me. In chapter V, this word family is frequently used because the topic is I Love My Town, talking about what people do and where they do it, especially the occupations of family members, from students’ point of view. For example My mother is a policewoman, My grandfather is a doctor, My grandmother is a cook, and My father is a gardener. In this case, my is the most frequent type which is used. As stated before, the word families in chapter V which are recycled only less than ten times reach the percentage of 94.41. This is a big percentage to be a limited opportunity for students to deepen knowledge of those word families. Some of them include mention, public, sign, attention, possible, protect, examining, and occupy. To enable students to have a bigger opportunity to learn and acquire those word families, additional materials and activity might be needed to cover the word families. 7. Vocabulary Recycling in Chapter VI The following table is the data analysis result obtained by running RANGE over chapter VI of the textbook corpus. The data is summarized as follows. Table 4.19 Repetition of Word Families in Chapter VI Occurrences Word Family Percentage Only Once 80 47.34 2-4 times 61 36.09 5-9 times 17 10.06 10 times or more 11 6.51 Total 169 100.00 Of 169 word families identified in chapter VI, eleven of them are recycled at least ten times. It is as much as 6.51 of the total word family. Although it is a small percentage, it offers a good opportunity for students to deepen knowledge of the word families. The most frequent word family in the chapter is you. It consists of 30 yous and 7 yours. Of the 30 yous, 20 of them are found in lexical chunks. For example Thank you, What do you think about your classmates? What about you? Why do you think a horse is strong? and Are you alright? Those lexical chunks are aimed for functional language use like expressing thank and asking for opinion. Learning you in context where it occurs, like in lexical chunks, will definitely help students in understanding message of an utterance and delivering message without translating it word by word. Thus, it will increase their fluency and communication skill. In contrast, 93.49 word family, as many as 158 of 169 word families, is recycled only less than ten times. There appear to limited opportunities in the chapter for deepening knowledge of those word families. Some of them are appear, character, describe, carry, and occasion. The number of word family in this range is too significant to ignore without giving additional materials and activities to recycle them. Thus, teacher needs to work harder to prepare more materials and activities to help students learn and acquire the word families. 8. Vocabulary Recycling in Chapter VII After running RANGE over chapter VII of the textbook corpus, data analysis result is obtained. The summary of the data analysis result is presented in the table below. Table 4.20 Repetition of Word Families in Chapter VII Occurrences Word Family Percentage Only Once 66 51.16 2-4 times 37 28.68 5-9 times 10 7.75 10 times or more 16 12.40 Total 129 100.00 The table shows that 12.40 word family is recycled ten or more than ten times. It is as many as 16 word families. The number of recycling is enough to offer good opportunities for students to deepen knowledge of those word families. The five most frequent word families are be, I, he, do, and you. Of the five, be is the most frequent. It covers 8.67 of the total tokens in the chapter, as many as 50 tokens. Of the fifty, 40 of them are is. In chapter VII, is is used in describing people, animals, and things, which are the goals of the chapter. For example Who is shehe? This is my grandfather, He is a hard worker, She is a pretty girl, It is green, and It is a wild animal. Most of the description in chapter VII uses single subject, thus is is frequently used. These frequent occurrences of is provide big opportunities for students to learn and acquire the concept of is and thus, students can use is appropriately and fluently in both spoken and written language. On the other hand, the percentage of word families recycled less than ten times is much higher than those recycled ten times or more. The percentage reaches 87.60 of the total word family, or as many as 84 word families. It is very unfortunate that the percentage is very big as it offers limited opportunities for deepening word knowledge. Thus, those word families need to be recycled in more materials and activities to help students deepen their knowledge of the word families. 9. Vocabulary Recycling in Chapter VIII Table 4.21 presents the summary of the data analysis result of chapter VIII obtained by running RANGE over chapter VIII of the textbook corpus. Table 4.21 Repetition of Word Families in Chapter VIII Occurrences Word Family Percentage Only Once 60 42.25 2-4 times 57 40.14 5-9 times 14 9.86 10 times or more 11 7.75 Total 142 100.00 From the table, it can be calculated that the percentage of word family which is recycled ten times or more is 7.75 or 11 of 142 word families. With the number of occurrence, students are provided a bigger opportunity to deepen knowledge of those word families. Some of the word families are the, you, do, caution, and sign. Of the 11 word families, the most frequent one is the. It occurs 28 times throughout the chapter. Most of the in this chapter is used in instructions, short notices, and warningscautions, which are the subtopics of the chapter. For example Hang the picture Please describe the signs below Do not feed the cow and Put them in the right places. Every instruction, short notice, and warningcaution has already had its own reference, thus the is used instead of an, a, some, or else. Another word family in this category is do. It is recycled 20 times. Of the 20 dos, 15 of them are functional words. And 14 dos as functional words are used in instructions, short notices, and warningscautions, like Do not litter, Do not touch, and Do not enter. Please is also frequently recycled due to its function to make the instructions, short notices, and warningscautions more polite. In contrast, 92.25 word family is only recycled less than ten times. It is very unfortunate that the high percentage of word family is only recycled less than ten times, which provides limited opportunities for students to deepen knowledge of the word families. Thus, to help students acquire those word families, additional materials and activities need to be prepared. 10. Vocabulary Recycling in Classroom Language for Students Table 4.22 shows the summary of the data analysis result after running RANGE over Classroom Language for Students part of the textbook corpus. Table 4.22 Repetition of Word Families in Classroom Language for Students Occurrences Word Family Percentage Only Once 51 51.52 2-4 times 36 36.36 5-9 times 5 5.05 10 times or more 7 7.07 Total 99 100.00 The percentage of word family which is recycled ten times or more is very low. It only reaches 7.07 word family or 7 of 99 word families in the part. Although the percentage is low, the number of occurrences helps students and provides them good opportunities to deepen their knowledge of the word families. Some of them are I, you, do, be, and can. Can is recycled 11 times. Of the 11 cans, 7 of them are found in lexical chunks. For example I am afraid I cannot see the board..., Can you repeat that please? and Can you tell me which part I missed? Those expressions are used to express uncertainty and ask for help. The lexical chunks are very helpful in increasing students’ fluency since it is ‘ready to go’ to use in both written and spoken language and requires little or no extra processing time Schmitt 2000a: 400 On the other hand, table 4.22 shows a big percentage of word family recycled less than ten times. It is 92.93 word family or 92 of 99 word families. The number of occurrences provides limited opportunities for students to deepen knowledge of the word families. However, this part is a collection of useful expressions found in the textbook. Thus, there is no new materials which need to be recycled anymore. 11. Vocabulary Recycling in Glosarium After running RANGE over Glosarium part of the textbook corpus, data analysis is obtained. Table 4.23 presents the summary of the data analysis result. Table 4.23 Repetition of Word Families in Glosarium Occurrences Word Family Percentage Only Once 106 67.52 2-4 times 38 24.20 5-9 times 8 5.10 10 times or more 5 3.18 Total 157 100.00 The table shows that 3.18 word family in glosarium is recycled at least ten times. Although the percentage is very low, the number of recycling offers students opportunities to deepen the knowledge of word families within the range. Of 157 word families in total, 5 of them are recycled at least ten times. They are some, or, the, a, and of. In the textbook, glosarium provides explanation or clarification of some concepts which are used in the textbook to help students understand them. It is not surprising that the most frequent word family is or. It is recycled 36 times or as much as 9.02 of the total tokens. In the glosarium, or provides alternative explanation or description of a concept, thus it helps students understand a concept more easily, for example Present Verb: Give something to someone formally or ceremonially. Noun and verb are the other frequently used word families in glosarium. Both word families are frequently used in glosarium to explain that the concept being explained or clarified belongs to noun or verb word class. In other words, most of the concepts clarified in glosarium are nouns and verbs. In contrast, a lot of word families with high percentage in glosarium are only repeated less than ten times. It covers 96.82 word family. The number of recycling provides limited opportunities for students to deepen knowledge of those word families. However, this glosarium part does not contain new material presentation. It presents clarification, description, or explanation of some concepts used in previous chapters and sometimes the concepts do not relate each other. Thus, there is no need to recycle the word families. So it is acceptable that most word families in this part are not recycled accordingly. To make the picture of each part of the textbook clear, a figure is presented on the next page. Figure 4.2 The Percentage of Word Family from Each Category of Occurrence The figure presents the comparison among parts of the textbook in terms of the word family recycling throughout each of them. It can be seen that the part containing the most word family with at least ten-time occurrences is chapter VII, followed by chapter I, chapter II, and then chapter III. Those chapters contain at least 10 word family with at least ten-time occurrences. The number of occurrence is considered enough to make some effects on students Coady and Nation, 1988 and to help them learn and acquire the word families with their various types. The least word family with less than ten-time occurrences is found in glosarium, classroom language for students, chapter V, chapter IV, chapter VI, and chapter VIII. It means that most of the parts contain word family with less 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Only Once 2-4 times 5-9 times 10 times than ten-time occurrences. The part containing the most word family with less than ten-time occurrences is glosarium. To help students acquire the word family more easily, additional materials and activities should be prepared to provide chances for the word families to be recycled. However, teachers should be picky in choosing which word families need to be recycled by considering learners’ need and background knowledge. In short, the vocabulary coverage of When English Rings the Bell is appropriate for beginners as it has accessible vocabulary choice. On average, the word family is repeated ten times as tokens spreaded throughout the textbook. It also contains 1,049 types, appropriate number of tokens for beginners. The textbook also contains a lot of chunks, which provide opportunities to learn words in contexts with their functional usage. On the other side, it does not provide opportunities for incidental learning. Above all, the result of this research can only be applied in When English Rings the Bell. In addition, not all junior high schools in Indonesia use the textbook since Curriculum 2013 has not been implemented in all schools and due to each school’s consideration in selecting a textbook as one learning source for its students. 89

CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS