published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Applied English Studies / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The first purpose of this study was to ascertain the gains in vocabulary of three selected groups of graduate students presented material by different methods: audio, visual, and audio-visual. The second purpose of this study was to determine whether these gains were maintained after a lapse of time of four weeks.

published_or_final_version / Curriculum Studies / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Phase Two study consists of 548 non-English major sophomore students in a large-scale survey on the relationships among metacognitive knowledge, vocabulary size and EFL reading comprehension ability. The instruments include Questionnaire on the Metacognitive Knowledge of EFL reading comprehension, Vocabulary Levels Test (Nation, 1990) and EFL Reading Comprehension Test. The findings reveal that Chinese tertiary EFL readers have a good command of 2,000-word level and approach 3,000-word level. Vocabulary size does not only exert direct influences on EFL reading comprehension ability, but also plays a significant moderating role in regulating the effect of metacognitive knowledge on EFL reading comprehension ability. When the vocabulary size reaches above the threshold of 3,000 words, metacognitive knowledge plays an increasing role in EFL reading comprehension ability. / The present study sets out to investigate how Chinese tertiary EFL readers utilize metacognitive knowledge in their academic reading process, to discover the possible differences between less successful readers and successful readers in utilizing metacognitive knowledge in their reading and to map out the relationships among metacognitive knowledge, vocabulary size and EFL reading comprehension ability. / The study consists of two phases. Five less successful and five successful Chinese tertiary EFL readers participated in the think-aloud reading task and the interviews in Phase One study. Twenty-nine types of metacognitive knowledge were identified and categorized into nine subcategories under two major categories of person knowledge and strategy knowledge following Flavell's metacognitive framework (1979). Less successful readers used more frequently most types of metacognitive knowledge than their successful counterparts. Vocabulary was found to be the major obstacle hindering the students' reading progress for both groups of students. However, successful readers deployed strategy knowledge more flexibly to address the vocabulary gap than less successful readers. Differences were also discovered on the motivational and affective characteristics such as reader role, goal of reading, interest and self-efficacy between the two groups. Successful readers were more actively engaged in reading and provided interpretations of the text on their own authority. They also demonstrated an accurate self-knowledge and higher levels of task-mastery goal and interest toward reading. / The theoretical, empirical and educational contributions of these findings for L2 reading are discussed, as are suggestions for future research. / Li, Jie. / Advisers: Yujing Ni; Kawai Chan. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: 1923. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 172-193). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

Text in English / This study examined the vocabulary and academic literacy levels of undergraduate students at the University of Namibia, as well as the effects of an explicit and an implicit vocabulary programme on vocabulary development and academic literacy. The study also sought to determine the effects of the programmes on students’ attitudes about vocabulary and explicit vocabulary strategies. The relationship between students’ vocabulary size, academic literacy levels, and their self-assessment of their vocabulary knowledge was examined. Many students had not reached the desired word mastery and did not have adequate academic literacy skills to cope with the demands of university. Students in the explicit group modestly improved receptive vocabulary knowledge at the end of the intervention but there was no significant improvement in academic literacy skills. Overall, students showed an increase in positive responses regarding their attitudes to vocabulary. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (Applied Linguistics)

Text in English / This study examined the vocabulary and academic literacy levels of undergraduate students at the University of Namibia, as well as the effects of an explicit and an implicit vocabulary programme on vocabulary development and academic literacy. The study also sought to determine the effects of the programmes on students’ attitudes about vocabulary and explicit vocabulary strategies. The relationship between students’ vocabulary size, academic literacy levels, and their self-assessment of their vocabulary knowledge was examined. Many students had not reached the desired word mastery and did not have adequate academic literacy skills to cope with the demands of university. Students in the explicit group modestly improved receptive vocabulary knowledge at the end of the intervention but there was no significant improvement in academic literacy skills. Overall, students showed an increase in positive responses regarding their attitudes to vocabulary. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (Applied Linguistics)

This study examines an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) teacher's speech throughout one curricular unit of an intermediate grammar and writing course in order to better understand which high-value vocabulary students might acquire through attending to the teacher and noticing words that are used. Vocabulary acquisition is important for English for Academic Purposes students, given the vocabulary demands of academic language. The Academic Word List (Coxhead, 2000) has been shown to include important vocabulary in written academic texts, and has become a standard part of English for Academic Purposes curricula and pedagogical materials. Although explicit vocabulary instruction is important, research has shown that large amounts of vocabulary may be acquired incidentally by attending to meaning. Classroom instruction provides a great deal of input, and could potentially offer a chance for students to encounter and begin to learn academic vocabulary through incidental acquisition. However, existing research on incidental vocabulary acquisition in classrooms has focused on adult instruction and English as a Foreign Language settings, resulting in a lack of evidence about English for Academic Purposes classrooms. To respond to these needs, this study analyzes the occurrence and repetition of Academic Word List items in the teacher's speech throughout two weeks of a course in an intensive academic English program in the United States. Two weeks of naturalistic class recordings from the Multimedia Adult Learner Corpus were transcribed and analyzed using the RANGE program to find the number of academic vocabulary types in the teacher's speech and how often they were repeated. Additionally, I derived categories of classroom topics and coded the transcribed speech in order to investigate the connection between topics and academic word use. Academic Word List items are present in the teacher's speech, although they do not constitute a large proportion overall, only 2.8% of the running words. Most of the AWL types relate to specific classroom topics or routines. There are 13 AWL types repeated to a high degree, and 26 AWL types repeated to a moderate degree. These items are the most likely candidates for incidental vocabulary acquisition, though there is evidence from the videos that most of the students already understand their general meanings. It is unlikely that students could learn a great deal about AWL items that they were not already familiar with. However, it is possible that the teacher's speech provides incremental gains in AWL word knowledge. These findings show that there may be a substantial number of AWL items that students learn about even before explicitly studying academic vocabulary. Teachers should try to draw out students' familiarity with these forms when explicitly teaching AWL vocabulary in order to connect familiar words with their academic meanings and uses.