B. word Recycling in
English in Focus
This research discusses how many times a word occurs in a textbook. Moreover, it also explains about the context which is repeated. They are called
frequency or frequency count. Frequency is used to measure vocabulary learning. It is to make sure that the learners are familiar with those words if the words are
frequently used in textbook. However, Nation and Wang 1999 explain that there is no exact number of frequencies that give big impact in achieving vocabulary
learning. The relevant research is conducted by Matsuoka and Hirsh 2010 on
analysis of an ELT textbook. The result shows that the textbook provides minimal opportunities for students to develop vocabulary knowledge beyond frequency
and academic words. Thus, supplement with an extensive reading program and other programs with rich input to promote vocabulary development are needed. In
Matsuoka and Hirsh‟s research, the vocabulary learning opportunities provided in the text were investigated in two ways: 1 examining how often words were
repeated in the text, and 2 conducting a case study of six randomly selected second 1,000 words that occurred at least 5 times in the text. The lower frequency
unlisted words list that occurred at least 5, 7, and 10 times in the text were counted to see if there were any opportunities in the text for deepening the
knowledge for learning academic words for learning other words appearing in the text. There are 603 word families found in second 1,000 word families which
appeared in the text. They obtained 187 or 31 occurred at least 5 times, 128 21.2 at least 7 times, and 73 12.1 at least 10 times. In contrast, 201
33.3 words from the second 1,000 word list occurred only once. One-third 33.3 of the second 1,000 words in the text occur only once and thus offer poor
opportunities for deepening word knowledge. However, significant numbers of words occur at least 5 times e.g.,
excuse
,
informal
,
argue
. They appear to good opportunities in this text for a deepening of knowledge of words from the second
1,000 word list based on frequency of occurrence. There are 271 academic word families from the AWL occur in the text. 42.8 of these occurred only once e.g.,
flexible
,
reluctance
,
accumulate
while 16.2 occurred 5 times or more e.g.,
partner
,
similar
,
comment
. It reflects the incremental nature of vocabulary acquisition, the amount of exposure to many of the academic words in the text
may be too small for incidental learning to occur due to the abstract nature of many academic words. In order these words to be acquired, direct pre-teaching is
suggested. 1. Vocabulary Recycling in the Textbook
The data shown below are the result after analyzing using RANGE over the all parts of the textbook corpus. It includes chapter I until chapter VIII and
Glossary. Based on the data analysis, the frequency 1
st
until 20
th
rank of the textbook is as follows.
Table 4.13 The 20 Most Frequent Word Types in
English in Focus
Word Type Rank
Frequency Percentage
All Parts
THE 1
1,212 5.23
YOU 2
733 3.16
TO 3
677 2.92
A 4
672 2.90
IS 5
666 2.87
IN 6
484 2.09
I 7
429 1.85
AND 8
344 1.48
DO 9
326 1.41
ARE 10
312 1.35
YOUR 11
310 1.34
OF 12
307 1.32
PRACTICE 13
264 1.14
IT 14
248 1.07
WHAT 15
247 1.07
NOT 16
204 0.88
THIS 17
163 0.70
AM 18
162 0.70
SHE 19
148 0.64
FOR 20
144 0.62
The finding of this research shows that most of them are functional words. As stated by Thomas, Pfister, and Peterson 2004, high frequency words
include functionalstructural words. Functional words determine the meaning of a phrase or a chunk. Although functional words do not carry information, they
contribute to meaning in some ways. Moreover, they are important for understanding because they define the relationship between two words. It might
lead to the misconception if someone does not really know the different meaning and use. Mastering functional words, students can understand the word use in a
sentence. From the data analysis result above, the most frequent type occurred in
the textbook is
the
. It covers 5.23 of the total types. According to Nation and Waring 1997: 8-9, the word
the
has important value in English since it is useful and commonly used. At daily used, the word
the
occurs so frequent about 7
percent of the words on a page in written English and the same proportion of the words in a conversation are repetitions of the word
the
. It can be concluded that the word
the
in this textbook is important and useful because
the
occurs frequently in the text. Although the result of this data analysis is not exactly the same with
7, the word
the
covers the highest proportion of the types in „English in Focus‟. Coady and Nation 1988 say that ten times repeated in minimum would
be enough to have an eff ect on students‟ vocabulary acquisition. Seeing the word
the
has the highest frequency in this textbook, do the students understand the usage of „the’ in a sentence? Do the students will not find difficulty using „the’?
1,212 times of occurrences should bring positive effect for students although there is no exact number of frequencies which contributes vocabulary acquisition.
The result is in line with what Thomas, Pfister and Peterson 2004 say that high frequency words include functionalstructural words. High frequency
words commonly do not contain conceptual validity for an individual word or for the text where the word occurs. This phenomenon also finds in this research, most
of the 20 frequent word types are functional words. The 16 word types are functional words and the rests are content words
what, do, practice, not
. The functional words do not have any validity concept. They are only indicative of
English language structures. There are four content words in the 20 most frequent word types; they are
what
,
do
,
practice
and
not
. In this textbook,
what
is used for two purposes. First, it is used as a question word and the second is used in noun clause. The question
patterns using
what
are recycled 247 times from throughout the textbook. The
result should contribute more in students‟ vocabulary acquisition. The example of
question patterns using
what
are: a.
What + auxiliary + …? For example:
What is your name?
chapter I,
What do you say to apologize?
chapter II,
What will you do with all those documents?
chapter III b.
What about this attitude to his parents and teacher? chapter III c.
What kind of restaurant you think it is? chapter III d.
What items do you usually buy? chapter IV e.
What color are you looking for? chapter IV f.
What time is it? chapter IV The second purpose of
what
is used in noun clause. The pattern is: main clause + what + S + … For example:
I asked you what time it is
. chapter IV,
I do not know what to wear this day.
chapter V,
I know what you mean.
chapter V The
dos
found in the textbook are 326. 57 of them are content words and all of them are verbs. Fifteen of them are lexical chunks. The lexical chunks are
common and frequently found when someone talks about physical condition. Most of the lexical chunks are found in chapter I, it is not surprising because the
topic is greeting and expressing one‟s condition. For example is
how do you do?
It gives benefit for students if there are some lexical chunks in the textbook. It gives
opportunity for students to enrich vocabulary not as word by word, but as chunk. 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...?
This textbook provides big opportunity for students to learn lexical chunk. According to Schmitt 2000: 400 if once someone knows chunk, it can be
analyzed and segmented into its constituent words. It can occur when variability is noticed in a lexical chunk. It impacts student
s‟ vocabulary and grammar acquisition. Since lexical chunk can be analyzed into separate words, it is usually
remember in a unity because of its utility. The segmentation which involves syntax can contribute students‟ grammar acquisition. This textbook provides
numbers of lexical chunks which help students to understand and speak in appropriate chunks in order to have daily communication and to be understood in
speech. The word
practice
in this textbook is recycled 264 times. The word
practice
occurs in this textbook as a noun and verb. The word
practice
is used to give the title in each exercise. For example:
Practice Compose your own
procedural text.
The last one is the word
not
. It includes content word because words that negate include content word. It is recycled 204 times in this textbook. It is used to
prohibit and answer a question. For example:
Do not bring pets
chapter 8,
No, I would not
. chapter 4 The total word types in the textbook, which reach 2,345 numbers, 922 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 39.31. 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, 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 are repeated in a very limited frequency, mostly once. Some of the word types are
classroom, yellowish, vowel,
and
term.
However, the „hapax legomena‟ of word types outside GSL_1, GSL_2, and AWL indicates that it contributes to vocabulary
richness of the textbook. In contrast, being seen from the point of view of word family, the
textbook uses 1,153 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 Waring, 1997 and helping learners recognize 84 of the words tokens in various authentic texts Hwang 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 does
not provide learning opportunities of minimum 2,000 word families. Although this textbook only has limited word family, it is normal for junior high students
since 2,000 word families is for reading general text. And English textbook is only one of reading texts for them. Moreover, as they are in the first grade of
Junior High School beginning level leaning English, they will face learning burden in English.
Related to word family, the following table presents the distribution of word family whole textbook. It is used to investigate students‟ opportunity in
deepening knowledge of words which occur less than five times and in learning new words which occur five or more than five times and for learning new word
occurring ten or more than ten times Coady Nation, 1988. The categories are only once, 2-4 times, 5-9 times, and 10 times or more.
Table 4.14 Recycling of Word Families in
English in Focus
Occurences Word Family
Percentage
Only Once 468
40.59 2-4 times
320 27.76
5-9 times 115
9.97 10 times or more
250 21.68
Total 1,153
100.00
The table above shows the repetition of word family of the whole textbook
English in Focus
. It shows that 68.35 of the total number of word family in the textbook occurs four times or less. The examples of words occur
four times or less are
trip, spade, solid, silk
. Since the occurrences of words are only four times or less than four times, it provides small opportunities to students
for deepening those word knowledge. According to Bauer and Nation 1993 the word family takes an important aspect in learning vocabulary because once the
stem is known, it will make less effort to recognize other words as long as in the same word family. Unfortunately, the number of word families which occur more
than five times is only 31.65 e.g.
tell, teach, talk
. Although the number is not big, it is expected that it offers good opportunities to students for deepening word
knowledge of words occurring more than five times.
2. Vocabulary Recycling in Chapter I Over the textbook corpus in chapter I, the detailed recycled of word
families are presented in table 4.15 as follows. Table 4.15 Recycling of Word Families in Chapter I
Occurences Word Family
Percentage
Only Once 161
55.14 2-4 times
52 17.81
5-9 times 55
18.84 10 times or more
24 8.21
Total 292
100.00
The result in chapter I is in line with the result of the whole textbook. The occurrence number of less than four times is bigger than the occurrence number of
more than five times. In chapter I, the result shows that 72.95 e.g.
accompany, consult, site
of word family in chapter I occurs once or less than four times. However, the occurrence number of word family more than five times is only
27.05 e.g.
answer, complete, follow
. The most frequent word family is
I.
It covers the types
I, my, me,
and
myself s
ince this chapter deals with self introduction. They are used in various sentences, such as
I am good, My name is,
and
Let me introduce myself.
The various types under the word family
I
gives students more opportunities to learn the different forms of
I, my, me
and
myself.
It is very unfortunate that the word families in this chapter are recycled in a very few
occurrences. Thus, it provides limited opportunities for deepening knowledge of those word families.
3. Vocabulary Recycling in Chapter II Over the chapter II of textbook corpus, the recycled of word family is
shown in table 4.16. Surprisingly, the result gets consistency with the previous results.
Table 4.16 Recycling of Word Families in Chapter II
Occurences Word Family
Percentage
Only Once 215
56.58 2-4 times
87 22.89
5-9 times 50
13.16 10 times or more
28 7.37
Total 380
100.00
The result in chapter II shows that the occurrence number of only once or less than four times is bigger than the occurrence number of more than five times. It
means that the learning opportunity for knowing the words is bigger than for deepening the words in the textbook. 79.47 e.g.
challenge, function, accompany
of all word families in chapter II repetition only once or less than four. Whereas, more than five repetitions has 20.53 of all word families in
chapter II e.g.
read, pay, mention, listen
. 4. Vocabulary Recycling in Chapter III
The following table is the detailed result of word families‟ recycled in chapter III.
Table 4.17 Recycling of Word Families in Chapter III
Occurences Word Family
Percentage
Only Once 185
43.13 2-4 times
115 26.81
5-9 times 83
19.34 10 times or more
46 10.72
Total 429
100.00
The result shows that only one recycled is the highest number of all. It is rather disappointing because the highest number of word families is only recycled once.
It means that the level o f students‟ opportunity in deepening word knowledge is
limit. 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
affirmative
and
advantage
. Word families which are recycled at least ten times throughout the
chapter only cover 10.72 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.
The word types under
be
which are found in chapter III are
be, am, are, was,
and
is.
It is mostly used in learning Present Continuous. For example
I am reading newspaper. Are you watching video?
5. Vocabulary Recycling in Chapter IV The recycling of word family in chapter IV is shown in table 4.18 as
follows. Table 4.18 Recycling of Word Families in Chapter IV
Occurences Word Family
Percentage
Only Once 150
26.79 2-4 times
201 35.89
5-9 times 114
20.36 10 times or more
95 16.96
Total 560
100.00
The result shows that 201 35.14 word families occur two until four times and it is the highest number of all. It means that this textbook not only asks students to
know words but also to have the higher level than knowing words. The highest frequency covers 16.96 of all word families in chapter IV. It indicates that
students only have limit deepening their word knowledge. It is not ideal for Junior High School students who have learned a lot of words.
6. Vocabulary Recycling in Chapter V Table 4.19 explains the result in recycling of word families in chapter V.
The result is still in line with the previous results. Table 4.19 Recycling of Word Families in Chapter V
Occurences Word Family
Percentage
Only Once 95
25.89 2-4 times
124 33.79
5-9 times 92
25.07 10 times or more
56 15.25
Total 367
100.00
The result shows that 40.32 of all word families in chapter V occur more than five times. It is not far from half of word families in chapter V. Although the
number is not significant, it is expected to give positive impact for students in deepening their word knowledge. Nevertheless, the highest occurrence number is
still only once and less than four times. The result covers 59.68 of all word families in chapter V.
7. Vocabulary Recycling in Chapter VI The detailed result in recycled of word families in chapter VI is shown in
table 4.20 as follows.
Table 4.20 Recycling of Word Families in Chapter VI
Occurences Word Family
Percentage
Only Once 190
41.31 2-4 times
95 20.66
5-9 times 120
26.08 10 times or more
55 11.95
Total 460
100.00
The result still has consistency with others. The highest frequency covers 41.31 of all word families in chapter VI. Then, the occurrence number more than five
times covers 38.03. Chapter VI gives limited learning opportunity in deepening word knowledge. However, it gives more opportunities to know words. Although
the occurrence number of more than five times is not high, if the students use this textbook effectively, they can deepen their word families.
8. Vocabulary Recycling in Chapter VII The table 4.21 covers the result of word families‟ recycled in chapter VII.
Table 4.21 Recycling of Word Families in Chapter VII
Occurences Word Family
Percentage
Only Once 114
23.13 2-4 times
185 37.53
5-9 times 64
12.98 10 times or more
130 26.36
Total 493
100.00
The result shows that 60.66 of word families in chapter VII occur only once and less than four times. It means that it gives big learning opportunity for students to
know words. On the other hand, it gives limit opportunity to deepen students‟
word knowledge. It is only 39.34 of word families in chapter VII which give learning opportunity to deepen students‟ word knowledge. Although it is not a big
result, students should be aware of those words so students will get value for their vocabulary acquisition.
9. Vocabulary Recycling in Chapter VIII The following table shows the result of word families‟ recycled in
chapter VIII. The detailed information will be discussed as follows. Table 4.22 Recycling of Word Families in Chapter VIII
Occurences Word Family
Percentage
Only Once 135
21.67 2-4 times
114 18.30
5-9 times 180
28.90 10 times or more
194 31.13
Total 623
100.00
The result shows that 39.97 of word families in chapter VIII occurs only once or less than four. While 60.03 of word families in chapter VIII occurs more than
five times. This is a big percentage to be a limited opportunity for students to deepen
knowledge of those word families. Some of them include
announcer, appetizer, both,
and
envy.
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. 10. Vocabulary Recycling in Glosarium
The following table is the result on repetition of word family in Glossary. It can be seen that the result is different from the others. It is only found only once
occurrence in the glossary and the other are zero. It covers 100 only once occurrences.
Table 4.23 Recycling of Word Families in Glosarium
Occurences Word Family
Percentage
Only Once 26
100.00 2-4 times
5-9 times 10 times or more
Total 26
100.00
However, it is not a negative result. It is because in the glossary, it only provides some words which help students to know the meaning. Thus, it is proper to
provide only once occurrence. Nevertheless, those words already occur in chapter I until chapter VIII.
In the textbook, glosarium provides explanation or clarification of some concepts which are used in the textbook to help students understand them.
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 once. 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.
The result of second problem formulation shows that only chapter VIII has the highest occurrence numbers in more than five times. The author may have a
consideration that students should learn words as much as possible from chapter I- VII. Then, in chapter VIII students should deepen their word knowledge.
However, from overall result of the whole textbook, this textbook provides less learning opportunity to deepen word knowledge. The result shows that this
textbook provides many words to be known and recognized. However, according to Lightbown Spada, 1999; Spada Lightbown, 1993, acquisition and high
frequency do not relate each other. Their study has shown that regardless of the input, higher level question forms are acquired when learners are developmentally
ready, when they reach the correct level and have “processing space” for the
forms. However, the existence of developmental sequences does not necessarily rule out a role for frequency. It means that although the textbook offers a lot of
frequency in each word, it do es not mean that the students‟ acquisition will be
high. It depends on students‟ level of development. Most of the parts contain word family with less 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 selective in choosing which
word families need t o be recycled by considering learners‟ need and background
knowledge.
Although this research has some referring research and some theories in guiding to discuss, this research has some limitations. One of them are it only can
be applied in one English textbook. Moreover, not all of junior high schools in Indonesia use this textbook since government publishes three kinds of junior high
school English textbook. As a conclusion, the vocabulary coverage of
English in Focus
is appropriate for Junior High School students because it has accessible vocabulary
choice. Moreover, the word family is repeated at least ten times and the tokens are spreaded throughout the textbook. The number of type 2,345 is also appropriate
for intermediate students who are in Junior High School. A lot of chunks are also provided to learn words in context.
94
CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
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