Story telling and Vocabulary Acquisition at the Elementary Level

195 Pages·2011·0.73 MB·English

Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria
Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research

MENTOURI UNIVERSITY, CONSTANTINE

FACULTY OF LETTERS AND LANGUAGES

DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGES

STORYTELLING
AND VOCABULARY ACQUISITION
AT THE ELEMENTARY LEVEL

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements
for the Magister degree in
Linguistic Science and English Language Teaching

By: FADEL Mohamed Rafik Supervisor: Prof. ABDERRAHIM Farida

Board of Examiners:

Chairwoman: Dr. Hocine Nacera MC Badji Mokhtar University. Annaba
Supervisor: Abderrahim Farida Prof. Mentouri University. Constantine
Member: Dr. Moumene Ahmed MC Mentouri University. Constantine

2005
DEDICATION

To my parents for their love and affection.
To my brother and sister for their encouragement and kindness.

2
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Professor Farida Abderrahim
who directed me in the wonderful world of research with generosity and patience . I
thank her for her understanding, encouragements, valuable references and precious
advice.
I am thankful to the headmasters of CEM Benbadis, CEM Boudraa Salah and
CEM Aboud Khider for their acceptance to carry the experiment in their respective
schools.
I also wish to address my sincere thanks to Mrs Adjailia Samia,
Mrs Benbahria Assia, Mr Mansouri Ali and their respective pupils for devoting time
and help in the accomplishment of the experiment .
I thank Mr Khalfaoui Salim for his constant assistance and encouragement .

3
ABSTRACT

A fairytale, a fable, or a mere narrative story has the advantage of creating a
magical, but also a meaningful context for learners, especially younger ones.
However, this type of literature has been considered an old-fashioned way of
widening children’s imagination and knowledge.
This research work aims at evaluating the importance of the introduction of
storytelling for children in the teaching of English as a foreign language at the
elementary level and how this can be a useful means as input for the acquisition of
new foreign vocabulary items.
To achieve such an aim, we relied on two means of research: the questionnaire
and the test. First two questionnaires were handed to both learners and teachers. The
learners’ questionnaire was to investigate their strategies of learning vocabulary and
their behaviour towards storytelling as a reading material. The teachers ’ questionnaire
was to collect data about the techniques they use when dealing with unknown words
in their lessons. These two questionnaires helped in designing the test that took place
before and after the learners were exposed to selected fairytales to be read at home in
order to see whether they had any effect on their acquisition of unknown vocabulary
items. The results of this investigation confirmed the hypothesis and showed that the
learners – subject to the study – proved to have learnt nearly all the unfamiliar
vocabulary items selected by their teachers after being presented four stories
including them. They have also manifested a great enthusiasm in this type of material.
Thanks to these conclusions, we propose some pedagogical implications for
the teaching of English as a foreign language through reading for pleasure, which
concern both textbook writers and teachers. We show that it is a more
comprehensible input for language acquisition: in that it facilitates comprehension
and creates a favourable environment for the acquisition of new components of a
foreign language.

4
LIST OF ABREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS

-AF: Année Fondamentale

-SL : Second Language

-CEM : Collège d’Enseignement Moyen

-CLT: Communicative Language Teaching
-EFL1: English as a First Foreign Language

-ESL: English as a Second Language
-FL: Foreign Language
-FL1: First Foreign Language

-FL2: Second Foreign Language

-N: Number
-O: Observation and Measurement of the Effects of the Treatment

-O1: Pre-test

-O2: Post-test

-SLA: Second Language Acquisition
-X: Treatment
-XO: One-shot Design
- %: Percentage

5
-Transliteration of the Arabic Writing System used in the representation
of Arabic script in the dissertation. (Saad, 1982)
____________________________________________________________
Consonants
Arabic Letter Transliteration
ء ?
ب b
ت t
ث th
ج j
ح h
خ x
د d
ذ dh
ر r
ز z
س s
ش sh
ص s
ض d
ط t
ظ z
ع c
غ gh
ف f
ق q
ك k
ل l
م m
ن n
ھ h
و w
ي y

Vowels
_َ a ا Ā

_ُ u ﻮ ū

_ i ي i
ِ

6
LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Krashen’s
Distinction between Acquisition and Learning………...…….8
Table 2: Number of hours of English for the EFL1 Pupils per Week …...………67
Table 3: The Sample Population………………………………………………….……68
Table 4: Teaching Experience of EFL Teachers.......................................................71
Table 5: Teaching Experience of EFL1 Teachers.....................................................72
Table 6: Teaching Experience of EFL1 Teachers by Level ...................................73
Table 7: Rate of Teachers who Use Stories in their Class......................................74
Table 8: Titles Proposed by Teachers who Use Stories in their Class .................75
Table 9: Rate of Teachers who Ask Learners to Read Stories in Class ................77
Table 10: Titles Proposed by Teachers who Ask their Learners to Read
Stories in Class................................................................................................7. 8
Table 11: Rate of Teachers who Present New Words in Every Lesson ...............79
Table 12: Techniques Used by Teachers when Teaching New Words .................80
Table 13: Rate of Teachers who Explain All the Unknown Words in
a Text.................................................................................................................81
Table 14: Rate of Teachers who Explain Unknown Words Before, While
and After Reading a Text..............................................................................82
Table 15: How Teachers Proceed when they Explain Unknown Words .............84
Table 16: What Learners Do when they Encounter Unknown Words ..................85
Table 17: What Teachers Do if Learners Ask the Meaning of Words
in Class.............................................................................................................86
Table 18: Rate of Teachers who Help Learners Use a Dictionary .........................87
Table 19: Rate of Kind of Dictionary Learners Use..................................................88
Table 20: Rate of Teachers whose Learners Use a Notebook when
Encountering Unfamiliar Words...............................................................89
Table 21: Rate of Teachers who Ask their Learners to Use a Notebook .............90
Table 22: Rate of Teachers who Have a Look at their Learners ’
Notebooks.........................................................................................................91
Table 23: Rate of Technique(s) Learners Employ in their Notebooks .................92
7
Table 24: Rate of Learners who Like Reading Stories .....................................…....95
Table 25: Rate of Type of Stories Learners Like......................................................96
Table 26: Rate of Learners who Read Stories in Class ............................................97
Table 27: Rate of Proposed Story Titles Read in Class...........................................98
Table 28: Rate of Learners who Read Stories at Home ...........................................99
Table 29: Rate of Stories Learners Read at Home..................................................101
Table 30: Rate of What Learners Do when Encountering Unknown Words
while Reading in Class................................................................................103
Table 31: Rate of Types of Dictionary Learners Use in Class .............................104
Table 32: Rate of Answers Preferred to Explain a Word ......................................105
Table 33: Rate of what Learners Do when not Understanding a Word
at Home.........................................................................................................1. 06
Table 34: Rate of Persons Learners Ask when not Understanding a Word
at Home.........................................................................................................1. 07
Table 35: Rate of Types of Dictionary Learners Use at Home............................109
Table 36: Rate of Learners who Use a Notebook....................................................110
Table 37: Rate of Times Learners Use a Notebook ...............................................111
Table 38: Rate of what Learners Do in a Notebook................................................112
Table 39: List of Unknown Words Selected by the Three Teachers per
Story................................................................................................................117
Table 40: List of Unknown Words Selected by the Three Teachers per
Category........................................................................................................1. 18

Table 41: Answers to the Word “Pumpkin”.............................................................121
Table 42: Answers to the Word “Dwarf”..................................................................122
Table 43: Answers to the Word “Dwelling”.............................................................123
Table 44: Answers to the Word “to prick”, “to knit” and “to pity”....................125
Table 45: Answers to the Word “Axe”.......................................................................126
Table 46: Answers to the Word “Mill”.......................................................................127
Table 47: Answers to the Word “Ebony”..................................................................128
Table 48: Answers to the Words “Coffin”, “Hug” and “Sprinkled”...................130
Table 49: Answers to the words “Broad”, “Gruff”, “Proud” and “Spruce”......132
8
Table 50: Translations to the Words “To Scold ”, “To Spin” and
“Thoughtfully”..............................................................................................135
Table 51: Translations of the Word “Betrayed”.......................................................137
Table 52: Translations of the Word “To gobble”.....................................................138
Table 53: Translations of the Word “Exceedingly”................................................139
Table 54: Number and Rate of Right Answers in (O1) and (O2)........................141

9
LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Gradable Antonyms “hot / cold”……………………………………36
Figure 2: Hyponyms of the Superordinate “fruit”………………………...…...37
Figure 3: Rate of Teachers who Use Stories in their Class................................75
Figure 4: Titles Proposed by Teachers who Use Stories in their Class..............76
Figure 5: Rate of Teachers who Ask Learners to Read Stories in Class............77
Figure 6: Titles proposed by Teachers who Ask their Learners to Read
Stories in Class...................................................................................78
Figure 7: Rate of Teachers who Present New Words in Every Lesson.............79
Figure 8: Rate of Teachers who Explain All the Unknown Words in
a Text..................................................................................................82
Figure 9: Rate of Teachers who Explain Unknown Words before, while
and after Reading a Text.....................................................................83
Figure 10: Rate of Teachers who Help Learners Use a Dictionary...................88
Figure 11: Rate of Teachers whose Learners Use a Notebook when
Encountering Unfamiliar Words.......................................................89
Figure 12: Rate of Teachers who Ask their Learners to Use a Notebook..........90
Figure 13: Rate of Teachers who Have a Look at their Learners ’ Notebooks...91
Figure 14: Rate of Learners who Like Reading Stories.....................................95
Figure 15: Rate of Learners who Read Stories in Class.....................................97
Figure 16: Rate of Learners who Read Stories at Home..................................100
Figure 17: Rate of Type of Dictionary Learners Use at Home........................109
Figure 18: Rate of Learners who Use a Notebook...........................................110
Figure 19: Rate of Times Learners Use a Notebook........................................111
Figure 20: Rate of Right Answers in O1 and O2.............................................142

10