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studies, they revealed that methods for learning vocabulary were important parts of language learning. Learners and teachers could adopt various strategies for
teaching and learning vocabulary. Specifically, the studies found that the learners’ vocabulary size was one of the keys of language proficiency. Hence, any efforts to
enhance the vocabulary size may be very beneficial to improve the learners’ language proficiency. Moreover, few studies Morin, 2003; Chang et al., 2005;
and Schiff Calif, 2007 had examined the role of morphological awareness in L2 vocabulary development. The findings suggested that different aspects of
morphological awareness were useful for vocabulary building. Gu and Johnson 1996 in Zhang and Koda 2011 found that Chinese
college EFL readers’ rating on their use of strategy in paying attention of word formation was positively and significantly correlated with their vocabulary size.
The word formation knowledge had significant relationship to the vocabulary size the learners had. It can be inferred that the higher vocabulary level a learner has,
the better morphological awareness a learner may develop. Few studies have examined the issues related to the morphological
awareness and reading comprehension among the English L2 learners. Kieffer and Lesaux in 2008 tracked the development of the three competencies and other
reading-related skills among a group of Spanish-speaking English as Second Language ESL readers from Grade 4 to 5 in the United States. The result
showed that there was a significant independent contribution of learners’ morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge to reading comprehension in
Grade 5. Similarly, Wang et al. 2006 ,2009 in Zhang and Koda 2011 found
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that Chinese and Korean immigrants’ ESL morphological awareness significantly
predicted their English reading comprehension. Similarly, Prince 2007 reported a study which indicated that a learner understood how a word was formed by
combining prefixes, suffixes, and roots to have larger vocabulary and better reading comprehension.
Unlike the previous studies, Qian’s study 1999 showed that there was no unique contribution of the morphological awareness to the reading comprehension
over and above vocabulary knowledge among the Chinese and Korean ESL readers in Canadian universities. This study was different from the previous study
as there were some factors which influenced the result of the study. It made the study did not confirm the previous studies.
To sum up, there is not yet a comprehensive picture of the contribution of the morphological awareness to vocabulary knowledge especially in EFL learning
in Indonesian context. The studies conducted have not given the clear understanding to the scope of this area. Hence, further study is needed to model
the complex relations between the variables within an integrated framework. This study will specifically investigate the correlation between vocabulary size and
morphological awareness in EFL context of Indonesia.
C. Statement of the Problem
Zhang and Koda 2011 in their study stated that many research in the area of vocabulary acquisition showed that morphological awareness was the
contributor of the vocabulary knowledge. However, most of the studies focused
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on the L1 acquisition done by children in their first language acquisition. There were only few studies which talked about the relationship between the
morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge in L2, more specifically to adult learners.
In addition, some researchers Morin, 2003; Chang, et al., 2005; and Schiff Calif, 2007 have focused considerable attention on the value of teaching roots,
prefixes, and suffixes for purpose of vocabulary development. Only few research discussed the advantages of the morphological awareness and the vocabulary size.
By doing this research, it is hoped that the current study can reveal the correlation between morphological awareness and vocabulary size.
Thus, there should be an effort to find out the relationship between morphological awareness and vocabulary size. It will be beneficial to uncover the
relationship of variables especially toward the adult learners in order to improve the language proficiency.
D. Research Questions
An attempt will be made in this study to seek appropriate answers to the following three questions:
1. Is there a significant correlation be tween students’ vocabulary size and
morpheme identification awareness? 2. Is there a significant correlation between students’ vocabulary size and
morphological structure awareness?
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3. Is there a significant correlation be tween students’ morpheme identification
awareness and morphological structure awareness? Research question 1 concerns the relationship between English department
students’ vocabulary size and morpheme identification awareness. It will try to reveal the correlation between the two variables and determine the strength of the
relationship between them. The result will give the information about the relationship between the number of words the learners know and the ability to
break down and recognize the elements of complex words. Research question 2 concerns the relationship between the English
department students’ vocabulary size and morphological structure awareness. This study wants to figure out the relationship between the two variables
. The
information about the relationship will be useful to comprehend the influence of the number of the vocabulary and the ability to construct new words.
Research question 3 concerns the relationship between English department students’ morpheme identification awareness and morphological structure
awareness. It will uncover the significance of the relationship between the
variables. The variables are included in morphological awareness aspect. The findings will give the picture of the level of the relationship. It will give the
judgment to the theoretical relationship between the variables and explain the relationship. It will figure out whether the ability to break down and recognize
elements of the complex words will have relationship to the ability to construct new words.
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This study will try to test the null hypothesis. The result of the statistical analysis will be used to reject or not to reject the null hypothesis. The hypotheses
of the current study are as follows. 1. There is no
correlation between students’ vocabulary size and morpheme identification awareness.
2. There is no correlation between students’ vocabulary size
and morphological structure awareness.
3. There is no correlation between students’ morpheme identification awareness and morphological structure awareness.
E. Scope and Limitation of the Study
As the language proficiency covers many aspects of macro and micro skills of the language acquisition, the current study limits the scope of the study
by focusing on the vocabulary size and morphological awareness morpheme identification awareness and morphological structure awareness. This study will
cover the area of the vocabulary acquisition where the morphological awareness and vocabulary size lay. By having focused to the area of the research, the current
study will have specific concern to investigate. This current study is limited in certain aspects. First, the vocabulary size
test used in this current study was only limited to test the number of the word families in receptive written use that was vocabulary useful to read English texts.
It was not to test the total number of words in English.
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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.
