• Developing morphological awareness in the students of third semester of the English Language Major from the Universidad de Quintana Roo.

Student’s name: María Gabriela Reyna MedinaJuan de Dios Colli Velázquez

Introduction

The acquisition of new vocabulary is one of the most important aspects when one is learning a new language. The importance of vocabulary lies on the fact that even if one knows the grammatical rules, appropriate pronunciation, syntax, etc. of a language, all that knowledge becomes useless if one does not have the lexicon to apply those rules.

Hypothesis

Teaching morphology in early levels of English learning is strongly related to the amount of vocabulary a student can learn in an early stage.

Research Questions

Teaching the word formation processes and affixation rules to students in the early stages of ESL improve their acquisition of new vocabulary.

What is the difference in the number of words acquired by students who are helped to develop their morphological awareness from those who are not?

Research Questions

For the subjects who receive the treatment:Does learning morphology have helped

you to increase your grades in your exams?

Do you feel that learning morphology makes easier for you to remember more words?

Objective(s)

To demonstrate that teaching affixation rules and word formation processes lead to a faster acquisition of vocabulary.

to demonstrate that teaching affixation rules and word formation processes to ESL students can help them to distinguish the function of a word just by their form.

to collect opinions from the students in order to find what they think about learning affixation and word formation processes in early levels of English learning.

Relevance of the study

This research is important because by proving that developing this awareness in the students of English improve their vocabulary acquisition some changes can be made in order to modify the syllabus to include affixation and word formation processes in the first levels of English.

Conceptual Framework

Morphological awareness is the recognition, understanding, and use of word parts that carry significance. For example, root words, prefixes, suffixes, and grammatical inflections (e.g., -s or –es for plurals) are all morphemes which can be added or taken away from a word to alter its meaning (University Center for the Development of Language & Literacy, 2012).

Method

In order to know the actual situation of the level of morphological awareness in the students at the Universidad de Quintana Roo, we need to conduct our study based on real information. This means that as part of the research two groups are going to be needed in order to know if an early development really leads to a better understanding and proficiency of the language.

As the research is quasi-experimental, the method and the procedures needed are going to be what an experimental research requires.

Variables of the study

• Being on the 4th semester of the English Language Major at the Universidad de Quintana Roo

• Basic level of proficiency in the target language (English)

• Less than 30 years old.• Motivation

Instruments

Vocabulary tests.

A. Vocabulary Level Test Part 1: Nation's Levels Tests (2001)This is a vocabulary test. You must choose the right word to go with each meaning. Write thenumber of that word next to its meaning. Here is an example. 1. business2. clock _______ part of a house .3. horse _______ animal with four legs4. pencil _______ something used for writing5. shoe6. wall Adapted from:Chang, C. M., Wagner, R.K., Muse, A., Chow, B.W-Y, Shu, H. (2005).

References

Berninger, V.W., Abbott, R.D., Nagy, W., & Carlisle, J. (2010).Growth in phonological, orthographic, and morphological awareness in grades 1 to 6. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 39, 141–163.

  Carlisle, J. F. (2003). Morphology matters in learning to read: A

commentary. Reading Psychology, 24(3), 291-322.

Carlisle, J.F., & Katz, L. (2006). Effects of word and morpheme familiarity on reading of derived words. Reading and Writing, 19(7), 669-693.

Chang, C. M., Wagner, R. K., Muse, A., W.-Y., B., & Chow, H. S. (2005). The role of morphological awareness in children’s vocabulary acquisition in English. Applied Psycholinguistics, 26, 415–435.

References

Ebbers, Susan. Morphology. Retrieved from: Ebbers, Susan. Morphology. http://vocablog-plc.blogspot.mx/p/morphology.html

Highbeam Business. (2009). The influence of morphological awareness on the literacy development of first-grade children. Retrieved from: http://business.highbeam.com/408650/article-1G1-203178003/influence-morphological-awareness-literacy-development

Marshall, A (2004). Morphological Awareness. Retrieved from: http://

www.netplaces.com/parenting-kids-with-dyslexia/learning-to-read/morphological-awareness.htm

Nation, P (). Teaching vocabulary. Retrieved from: www.sites.google.com/site/morrowteacher/elementary-me/NationTeachingVocab.pdf

References

Nurhemida. (2007). The Relationship between Morphological Awareness and English Vocabulary Knowledge of Indonesian Senior High School Students. Master’s Degree not published. University of Queensland, Queensland, United States of America.

Tabatabaei, O. and Yakhabi M. (2011). The Relationship between Morphological Awareness and Vocabulary Size of EFL Learners. English Language Teaching. 4 (4), 1-12. doi:10.5539/elt.v4n4p262

Morphological Awareness | DyslexiaHelp at the University of Michigan. (n.d.). DyslexiaHelp at the University of Michigan. Retrieved from http://dyslexiahelp.umich.edu/professionals/dyslexia-school/morphological-awareness

Vocabulary. (n.d.). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved December 13, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocabulary#Native-_and_foreign-language_vocabulary