Importance of acquiring cultural vocabulary in improving reading skill

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This research aims at investigating how students at Hanoi National University of Education (HNUE) raise their reading scores after the lecturer of English assists them to study and memorize new cultural vocabulary from textbooks for 15 weeks. The following methods are implemented during carrying the research, that is, in-depth interviews for students, class observation and statistics of students’ reading scores after the research is done in class. Reliable findings are discussed profoundly and implications for teaching and learning English are recommended.

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HNUE JOURNAL OF SCIENCE Social Sciences, 2020, Volume 64, Issue 4D, pp. 68-77 This paper is available online at http://stdb.hnue.edu.vn IMPORTANCE OF ACQUIRING CULTURAL VOCABULARY IN IMPROVING READING SKILL Pham Thi Thanh Thuy and Bui Thi Anh Van Faculty of English, Hanoi National University of Education Abstract. Reading is one of the four skills to master when learning a foreign language. It seems to be a burden to overcome if learners do not regularly practice. Among problems they encounter are a lack of effective strategies to read and insufficient new cultural words of all fields. Obviously, equipping themselves with a wide range of these words is one key to success in obtaining best results for language learners’ reading tasks. This research aims at investigating how students at Hanoi National University of Education (HNUE) raise their reading scores after the lecturer of English assists them to study and memorize new cultural vocabulary from textbooks for 15 weeks. The following methods are implemented during carrying the research, that is, in-depth interviews for students, class observation and statistics of students’ reading scores after the research is done in class. Reliable findings are discussed profoundly and implications for teaching and learning English are recommended. Keywords: cultural vocabulary, reading skill, Hanoi National University of Education, textbooks. 1. Introduction It seems to be that a wide range of vocabulary is one key factor to conquer reading tasks for any language learner. Al-Khasawneh, F. (2019) [1] confirmed that, “vocabulary knowledge contributes to mastering language skills (reading, listening, writing, and speaking).” Students at Hanoi National University are among these learners. It was seen obviously that a large number of students encountered hardships in getting high reading scores because of inadequate cultural vocabulary. A limited percentage of them found it quite easy to comprehend reading texts and questions accompanied with a variety of cultural vocabulary of all fields. These words can be taken from ELT textbooks that they were using while learning English in class. As mentioned in Al-Khasawneh, F. (2019) [1], vocabulary knowledge is an important predictor for comprehending written texts. Another well-known author called Nation, P. (2000) [2] asserted that, good vocabulary knowledge supported good comprehension. The research paper aims at investigating in what ways students at Hanoi National University of Education raise their reading scores after the lecturer of English assisted them to study and memorize new cultural vocabulary from textbooks for 15 weeks. Hence, hereinafter are research questions for this piece of writing: i) What difficulties do students at HNUE encounter to get high scores for reading tasks? ii) What methods are students at HNUE applying to acquire new cultural words? These two research questions are responded thoroughly in details in this succinct piece of writing. Received April 11, 2020. Revised April 24, 2020. Accepted May 15, 2020. Contact Pham Thi Thanh Thuy, e-mail address: phamthanhthuy09@gmail.com 68
Importance of Acquiring Cultural Vocabulary in Improving Reading Skill 2. Content 2. 1. Literature Review 2.1.1. Cultural Vocabulary There are a large number of authors who have done research on cultural vocabulary in Vietnam and in other nations. Among them, a renowned researcher said that, there was a very close link between the life of a society and the lexicon of the language spoken by it; The existence of language-specific names for special kinds of "things" (visible and tangible, such as food) was something that even ordinary, monolingual people were usually aware of; The existence of different customs and social institutions which had specific names in one language but not in others was also widely known (Wierzbicka, 1997:1-2) [3]. Vocabulary is strongly linked to culture since words are different in each language not only in their form but in their meaning since they are affected significantly by the feelings, ideas and experiences that are shared by the community in which they occur (William, 1976 [4]; Wierzbicka, 1997 [3]; Bennett, Grossberg and Morris, 2005 [5]). Additionally, the lexicon is a linguistic form where the influence of culture could be more noticeable and words can encode “culturally context conceptual system” (Liddicoat and Scarino, 2013:28) [6]. There is another idea related to cultural vocabulary. In general, all material and moral elements that are into the culture of a nation are reflected in their languages. In this respect, there are some words that show each elements of the culture and provide information about this culture. This also means that culture has influence upon the language and language is the main elements which reflect cultural elements (Adem Balaban & Bünyamin Çaølayan, 2014:262-263) [7]. Another researcher asserted that, “through all its verbal and non-verbal aspects, language embodies cultural reality.” “Language is a system of signs that is seen as having itself a cultural value. Speakers identify themselves and others through their use of language; the view their language as a symbol of their social identity. The prohibition of its use is often perceived by its speakers as a rejection of their social group and their culture. Thus we can say that language symbolizes cultural reality” (Kramsch, 2003:3) [8]. In Vietnam, one linguist who studied cultural words, Nguyen Van Chien (2004) [9] revealed that, cultural vocabulary is initially a fundamental unit of all the sources of cultural words of a language. Additionally, he analyzed that through meaning and semantic structure of vocabulary, cultural words are closely associated with definitions related to certain characteristics of people’s culture; they are forms of languages reflecting definitions of recording basic tribal cultural features; content of symbols from culture always reflects uniquely culture of a language when contrasting them with equivalent symbols of words in another language...; on the other side, cultural vocabulary, as fundamental symbols of languages, always shows distinctive things of the world outside the language. Ly Tung Hieu & Nguyen Van Hue (2008) [10], did a research on Vietnamese culture through languages. They divided the field into five aspects including contact linguistics, ethnolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, cultural linguistics, applied linguistics. They emphasized that these are fundamental premise to form subjects and training fields, such as anthropological linguistics, linguistic anthropology, cultural linguistics, Vietnamese culture through languages, etc… in Social and Humanities universities. Another researcher studied means to transfer meaning of Vietnamese cultural words into French. Due to current limited condition, she selected three aspects showing Vietnamese culture most obviously, that is, customs and tradition, traditional costumes and cuisine. The research summarized some steps for foreigners to approach Vietnamese culture so that they thoroughly comprehended Vietnamese culture through precise words about Vietnamese culture. This is a 69
Pham Thi Thanh Thuy and Bui Thi Anh Van chance to introduce diverse Vietnamese culture to the world. However, these means are of limited contents. To choose an appropriate means to express precisely cultural words is not an easy job. It is a challenge facing translators, culturists when introducing Vietnamese language and culture to French community. This is also a pivotal and interesting content for learning and studying cultural linguistics (Nguyen Thi Diem My, 2012:1,6) [11]. Many researchers have made various divisions on the reflection of the cultural elements to the linguistic indicators. Hereinafter is one way of classification (Adem Balaban & Bünyamin Çaølayan, 2014:265) [7]. 1. Plant names 2. Animal Names 3. Food culture 4. Goods, material or object words 5. Maritime-related words 6. Argo words 7. Business and Money, weight, number and size 8. Everyday cultural (abstract) words 9. Urban Planning, building, building materials and related words with hand tools 10. Nomenculaton words 11. Games - fun words 12. Military (war and peace) concepts and words 13. Business, Occupational and Vocational names; Vocational Equipment and Supplies 14. Geographical terms 15. Clothing and Finery, Fabrics, Leather, Rope, Embroidery and Accessories 16. Terms of Medicine and Health, Human and Animal limbs 17. Paint, Color, Fragrance and Cosmetic Mentioning classification of Vietnamese cultural words, Nguyen Van Chien (2004) [9] divided them into three types: I. Words that denote things, definitions, etc…about natural world in the surrounding. II. Words denoting things, phenomena, definitions, etc…about the society/ organizations and social structure created by men. III. Words denoting things, phenomena, definitions, etc…relating to personal knowledge of themselves and of men. 2.1.2. Vocabulary Knowledge and Success in Mastering Reading Skill Vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension are highly related since lexical knowledge can assist foreign language learners in grasping the meaning of written texts. In addition, reading may help in developing learners’ lexicons (Nation, 2001) [12]. Cooper (1984) [13] depicted vocabulary knowledge as the key component for successfully reading English paragraphs and texts, while Laufer (1997, 20) [14] pointed out that “no text comprehension is possible, either in one’s native language or in a foreign language, without understanding the text’s vocabulary”. He also indicated that, the low possibility of comprehending a text relates heavily to the high percentage of obscure vocabulary. Vocabulary knowledge plays an important role in predicting reading performance. Laufer & Ravenhorst-Kalovski (2010) [15] compared lexical coverage, vocabulary size, and reading scores on the English Psychometric Tests, and concluded that an adequate level of reading comprehension is possible at an optimal lexical coverage of 98% (or 8000 word families). Karakoc & Kose (2017) [16] investigated the relationship between vocabulary development and reading performance among 175 students studying in an intensive language program in Anadolu University, Turkey. The researchers used a 2000-word-level receptive vocabulary knowledge test adopted from (Schmitt, Schmitt, & Clapham, 2001) [17], and a 2000-word-level productive vocabulary knowledge test adopted from (Laufer & Nation, 1999) [18] for collecting the data used in their study. The results of this study showed that the students’ receptive vocabulary knowledge was higher than their productive vocabulary knowledge. The results also revealed a significant relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. Gu (2017) [19] explored the impact of vocabulary knowledge dimensions (i.e. breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge on reading comprehension tasks namely standard multiple- 70
Importance of Acquiring Cultural Vocabulary in Improving Reading Skill choice questions and summary writing in the Chinese EFL context). The sample of this study included 124 English major students from Sichuan University. The author employed various measurements to investigate the students’ vocabulary depth and breadth. The results of this study revealed that the breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge contributes significantly to reading comprehension. The breadth of vocabulary knowledge had a greater impact on multiple- choice questions while vocabulary depth had a greater impact on summary writing task. This study recommends that teachers should draw more attention to vocabulary knowledge and encourage their students to improve their reading skills through expanding their vocabulary knowledge. Gungor & Yayli (2016) [20] investigated the relationship between vocabulary coverage and reading comprehension among a group of Turkish EFL learners. The sample of this study included 178 university students who completed a vocabulary checklist based on the vocabulary items of two different expository texts. The reading comprehension level was measured through two reading comprehension tests. The findings of this study revealed that their text-based vocabulary knowledge moderately correlated with reading comprehension with a relatively linear relationship between them. The findings also showed that the 98% vocabulary coverage is necessary for learners to understand academic texts, and this coverage, in fact, refers to approximately the most frequent 8000 word families based on the related studies. Nouri & Zerhouni (2016) [21] conducted a study to investigate the relationship between the dimensions of vocabulary knowledge (size and depth) and students’ performance in reading. The sample of this study included 32 students who are studying at the National Institute of Posts and Telecommunication in Rabat-Morocco. The researchers employed three instruments, which included a) a vocabulary size test, b) a vocabulary depth test c) and a reading comprehension test. The results disclosed a significant relationship between the size and depth of vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. Anjomshoa & Zamanian (2014) [22] studied the role of vocabulary knowledge on EFL learners’ reading comprehension. The study recruited 81 students who were studying English at Azad University of Kerman, Iran. The researchers used a questionnaire to collect the data for their study. The results of this study revealed a significant correlation between vocabulary knowledge and the students’ performance in reading comprehension. The results also suggest focusing students’ attention on vocabulary knowledge due to its significant contribution in comprehending reading texts. It could be seen that, there have been numerous studies on the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. Nevertheless, specific research on the importance of cultural words in conquering reading comprehension is still limited. This paper aims at investigating this issue for explanation, analysis and implications in teaching and learning foreign languages. 2.2. Research methods 2.2.1. Participants The researchers invited non-English majors who are of their first year at the tertiary institution, namely HNUE. They consist of 50 18-year-old A1 level students from different faculties, both male (17) and female (33). As the writers could see, they tended to be diligent; some of them possessed good levels of English while a few found it a burden to conquer skills of English as their real levels are A0. To make the matter worse, those A0 level students struggled with reading tasks as their speed of reading was comparatively slow. One major reason is their lack of cultural key words so as to comprehend content of reading passages deeply. 71
Pham Thi Thanh Thuy and Bui Thi Anh Van 2.2.2. Instrument(s) Instruments of the research were reading passages in textbook New English File (pre- intermediate) together with cultural key words included in them and tasks accompanied, which were assigned to students during semester one. For semester one, students are expected to learn all sections from Unit 1 to Unit 3 including reading tasks. Selected cultural key words were taken from reading passages for lecturer to apply appropriate techniques to pre-teach students before they started reading. Moreover, some more words on similar topics were also introduced to these learners to widen their vocabulary range. 2.2.3. Methodology The following methods are implemented during carrying out the research, that is, in-depth interviews for students, class observation and statistics of students’ reading scores after the research was done in class. The class of 50 students was observed for 15 weeks in English lessons while the lecturer was teaching in class. She noted down essential information related to the English lesson procedure, what is good, what is not quite good that needs improvement, especially in what ways that the fact of acquiring new cultural key words is beneficial to mastering reading comprehension skill. After fifteen weeks, five students were selected among all the 50 ones for in-depth interviews. Naturally, the topic of the interviews focused on teaching and learning cultural key words and reading comprehension skill, which were crucial for them to obtain better reading scores. Finally, at week 15, lecturer gave students a reading comprehension test for 30 minutes, after that she collected the test papers for analysis to find out how useful the tasks of cultural key words were to students to achieve higher scores. After that, statistics are taken out for discussion. The test (20 questions) was designed with three tasks including: matching notices with sentences (5 questions), reading the text and choose the best answer (7 questions), reading the text and choose the best word for each space (8 questions). 2.3. Findings and Discussion Class observation As can be seen obviously from English lessons during fifteen weeks, picking up new cultural key words plays an undeniable role for students’ success in reading comprehension skill. Before the lecturer applied techniques to teach cultural key words taken from reading texts, students did not know how to manage to get all or most correct answers for different reading tasks. More specifically, they did not comprehend the questions or ideas in the passages; therefore, they tried to make a guess the answers to all the questions without knowing for sure which ones were correct. Some of them looked up new vocabulary in apps of dictionaries in their mobiles; however, they spent too much time on this job, they looked up all new cultural key words that they encountered from the texts. When lecturer gave students tasks of new cultural key words as a way to assist them to take it easy for reading exercises, effectiveness could be witnessed clearly in the English lessons of reading. They took less time to figure out what the more likely correct responses were. They did show their cheer when finishing reading tasks more quickly and correctly. At that moment, most of them were able to understand the questions, options and main idea of the passage. For fifteen weeks, different techniques were utilized to encourage students to acquire cultural key words, both from the texts and reference materials. They include Kahoot! games, Microsoft Powerpoint slides and effects, printed hand-outs, blackboard and chalk. Among them, Kahoot! games tended to be the technique that created largest motivation and eagerness for students. In-depth interviews 72
Importance of Acquiring Cultural Vocabulary in Improving Reading Skill Authors would like to analyze selected questions for lecturers’ in-depth interview. For question 3 (What difficulties do you have to get high scores for reading tasks?), the most noticeable answer is, “I lack a wide range of vocabulary to comprehend the questions and text well enough. Thus, I do not figure out the content of the text and translate the questions into Vietnamese.” To answer question 5 (According to you, do you need to know meaning of all the words in the text in order to finish reading comprehension tasks? Why?), there were different answers. Students shared two different types of answers: Some said it is not necessary to know all the words; instead, they only need to understand cultural key words from the text and questions. Others stated that knowing meaning of all the cultural words from the text contributes to fully comprehending the text and questions for high scores. Question 6 (What methods are you applying to learn new cultural words? Are they effective ones to assist you to get good scores for reading tasks? Why?) focused on methods. Students clarified that they possessed a variety of methods to memorize new cultural vocabulary, including: noting new words down in a notebook, then practicing writing them for many times; or seeing movies, reading stories, watching music videos in English. Each method has its own benefits and drawbacks. Question 7 (Of all the techniques that lecturer of English utilized in English class to aid students to learn new cultural vocabulary (Kahoot! games, Microsoft Powerpoint slides, printed Hand-outs), which one do you think is effective for students at HNUE now? Why?) tended to be an interesting question for students. Students expressed different ideas relating to the questions. Some chose Kahoot! games as it created fun and exciting atmosphere in English class. Several others said they approved of Microsoft Powerpoint slides since the screen was colorful and vivid. Some others asserted that it was Printed Hand-outs that assisted them to memorize vocabulary for a long time when they looked back at the hand-outs after having forgotten all the words. Some said all the three techniques did them good in different situations. Statistics of reading comprehension scores In short, 36 students got mark 11 – 17 over 20; the rest including 14 students got mark 3 – 10 over 20. Here are scores in more details for analysis: Of 36 students who got mark 11-17, one scored 17; one got mark 16; six of them got mark 15; nine other students scored 16 points; eight of them got mark 13; the other six scored 12 points over 20 and the rest (4 students) got 11 points. The highest score for task 1 was 5/5, that for task 2 was 5/7 and that for task 3 was 7/8. For task 2 (reading the text and choose the best answer), the student with highest mark got incorrect answer for question 2 and question 7. Question 2 (300 years ago, many people: A. came to live in London B. wanted to leave London C. had big houses in London) and question 7 (Today, police officers who work with houses are paid: A. more than their colleagues B. the same as their colleagues C. half as much as their colleagues) are among those questions that required students to infer a little bit basing on the content of the reading text. To be specific, in the reading text, after reading the sentence extracted from it (About 300 years ago, London was starting to get bigger), students are able to find out the correct response to question 2 (A), as it was stated clearly that “London was starting to get bigger” which means, many people came to live in London. One phrase to notice in the sentence is “to get bigger”. For question 7, students need to find the right evidence from the reading text, specifically, “…and for the few police officers who still ride horses, the pay is even better than for the others” so as to get correct answer (A). The clause “the pay is even better than for the others” should be understood precisely; in details: students need to know what it means with “better than for the others”. 73
Pham Thi Thanh Thuy and Bui Thi Anh Van For task 3, the students with 17 points answered question 7 incorrectly. Question 7 for task 3 was designed with three choices: A. from B. by C. to, to fill in the space: and they are also used _____the police. For A1 level students who are attending English 1 course, the grammar for this question tended to be rather complicated, which easily leads them to wrong answer to this question, as it related to passive voice – a part of grammar that is not going to be taught at semester 1 at university. Although the student is shown to be the most excellent of all 50 students in the English class, he/ she could not memorize the knowledge of passive voice correctly. The student chose the answer C (to) as a guess. Of 14 students who scored 3-10 points, three students scored 10 points; two others got mark 9; the other three scored 8 points; two students got mark 7; two students scored 5 points; the rest (2 students) got mark 3. Those students showed that they did not understand much the questions requirements; their barrier was new cultural vocabulary which prevented them from knowing for sure what the correct answers were. One student with mark 10 got 4 correct responses for task 1, 2 correct ones for task 2 and 4 correct ones for task 3. The situation was much worse for another student with mark 3: 1 correct answer for task 1, 1 correct answer for task 2 and 1 correct answer for task 3. Those who got extremely bad results for the reading tasks were observed to learn from beginner level, which means that they barely knew a little about English skills or knowledge. This fact prevented them from building positive motivation and diligence for acquiring new cultural words in English and learning the foreign language. They need much more time to learn English from beginning before being capable of following other better students in class. 2.4. Implications in teaching and learning foreign languages Hereinafter are a collection of techniques to assist students learn new cultural key words from textbook of New English File (pre-intermediate) for better performance in reading comprehension: a. Designing vocabulary tasks on Kahoot! games and tell students to join in the games online in English class. The tasks are possibly multiple choice questions, open questions, discussion questions. Below is an example of Kahoot! game for students. 74
Importance of Acquiring Cultural Vocabulary in Improving Reading Skill b. Making use of Microsoft Powerpoint as an effective tool for typing vocabulary tasks with pictures, music and effects to make them vivid and eye-catching for students’ understandable accomplishments. Below is one slide of exercises on Microsoft Powerpoint, as an example. c. Typing tasks of new cultural key words taken from the textbook and reference books on Microsoft Word and print them in hand-outs for students to pass all over the class and write down their answers with pens. Below are some tasks typed on Microsoft Word and printed into hand-outs for students. 75
Pham Thi Thanh Thuy and Bui Thi Anh Van 3. Conclusions Based on findings from the research above, it can be said that, acquiring vocabulary including cultural words contributes significantly to English learners’ success in reading skill. In details, those students who were hard-working in picking up cultural vocabulary in every English lesson were more likely to get higher scores in reading tasks or tests. Despite hardships students encountered when learning cultural words from textbooks and other reference materials in English, the results were rewarding and worthy. For limited time and scope of study, the paper needs to be further researched for more reliable and profound results which can be applied for students at HNUE and other educational institutions, as well. REFERENCES [1] Al-Khasawneh, F., 2019. The Impact of Vocabulary Knowledge on the Reading Comprehension of Saudi EFL Learners. National Research University Higher School of Economics, Journal of Language & Education, Volume 5, Issue 3, 2019. [2] Nation, P., 2000. Unknown vocabulary density and reading comprehension. Reading in a Foreign Language, 13(1), 2000. [3] Wierzbicka, A., 1997. Understanding Cultures through Their Keywords. OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS. [4] William, R., 1976. Keywords: a Vocabulary of Culture and Society. New York: Oxford University Press. [5] Bennett, T., Grossberg, L., and M. Morris, 2005. New Keywords: a Revised Vocabulary of Culture. Malden: Blackwell Pub. [6] Liddicoat, A., and A. Scarino, 2013. Intercultural Language Teaching and Learning. Malaysia: Willey - Blackwell. pp.28. [7] Adem Balaban & Bünyamin Çaølayan, 2014. Common Cultural Turkish words in Albanian and Greek languages. Journal of Educational and Social Research, MCSER Publishing, Rome-Italy Vol. 4 No.2, April 2014, pp.262-270. [8] Kramsch, Claire, 2003. Language and Culture. Oxford: Oxford Universty Press, 4th ed. 76
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