Morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge in second-language adolescent learners : an intervention study

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of instructional approaches to phonics and morphological awareness on literacy development of second-language learners. Of the 106 Chinese-speaking adolescents in a 6-hour English training programme, about half were taught affix and root meanings, while others were taught basic phonic rules. The focus lay on teaching students how to break words apart into meaningful parts and clusters of sounds. Chinese adolescents receiving morphological instruction performed significantly better on affixed word production and vocabulary knowledge by inferring word meanings from word parts. They seemed better able to discriminate affixed words on the basis of prefix and suffix. This study provides empirical evidence for the importance of teaching morphemes in the English-as-second-language curriculum. / published_or_final_version / Educational Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:HKU/oai:hub.hku.hk:10722/209662
Date January 2014
CreatorsKan, Lai-chi, 簡麗姿
PublisherThe University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong)
Source SetsHong Kong University Theses
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypePG_Thesis
RightsThe author retains all proprietary rights, (such as patent rights) and the right to use in future works., Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License
RelationHKU Theses Online (HKUTO)

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