Vocabulary-centered Strategy: Its Effect on Reading Comprehension and Teachers' Opinions Concerning Its Utility

Abstract

Abstract-This study was divided into two parts: quantitative and qualitative. The quantitative part aimed at investigating the effect of Vocabulary Centered Strategy (VCS), which was developed by the researcher himself, on the reading comprehension of the Saudi intermediate students. The qualitative part attempted to discover how teachers felt and thought this strategy affected their students' vocabulary acquisition. The sample of the study consisted of four ten male students' sections. The first two sections were assigned for the experimental group and were taught the vocabulary following VCS. The second two sections were assigned for the control group and were taught the same vocabulary following the Saudi teacher's book instructions. The experiment under investigation continued for 12 weeks. Ten male volunteer teachers were asked to adopt VCS in their classes and then were interviewed. Data for this study was obtained from two sources: pretest-posttest and interviews. The results of the t-test showed a significant difference between the mean scores of the two groups on students' reading comprehension in favor of the experimental group. The results of the interview showed that teachers liked VCS. These results were summarized into a set of three main categories: (1) motivation, (2) memorization and (3) self-confidence and autonomy. A comparison between the results of the two parts of the study was made in order to strengthen the results of this study.

Types of Context Clues and Vocabulary Meaning Inference: Abilities and Perceptions of English Major Undergraduate Students

“…To acquire the four skills of English (listening, speaking, reading, and writing), competency in both grammar and vocabulary is a crucial factor (Alara, 2015;Richards & Renandya, 2002). In tertiary education, inadequate vocabulary can be one of the major problems for L2 learners (Liu, 1998).…”