This study‘s research questions RQ1 (concerning the impact of the ER programme on vocabulary acquisition) & RQ2 (concerning the impact of other factors on vocabulary acquisition) (see Section-2.8 p.36) called for different methods of investigation, and so the research design had to accommodate for these. Nunan (1992:4-6) described research
51
design to involve different combinations of 3 parameters: design (experimental or exploratory), nature of data (quantitative or qualitative) and analysis (statistical or interpretive). He (Nunan, 1992:5-7) also described research design in terms of the two parameters of interventionism (the extent to which a researcher intervenes in the environment) and selectiveness (the extent to which a researcher pre-specifies the phenomena to be investigated). With this in mind, different parts of the study had different research designs.
Research question RQ1 (concerning the impact of the ER programme on vocabulary acquisition) (see Section-2.8 p.36) was addressed by implementing an ER programme with one cohort of students, and comparing their vocabulary gains with that of another cohort that had no ER programme (see Table-4 p.47 & Table-5 p.48 above). Hence this aspect of the study, because of the pretests, posttests and treatment (T1–treatment–T2 as described by Al-Homoud & Schmitt, 2009:391) can be considered purely ‗analytical- nomological‘ (Nunan, 1992:6) with its experimental design, quantitative data and statistical analysis, and because if its high level of interventionism and selectiveness (Nunan, 1992:7).
However, for research question RQ2 (concerning the impact of other factors on vocabulary acquisition) (see Section-2.8 p.36) a different approach was adopted. The use of the Reading Diaries and Surveys of Exposure to English Learning (see Table-4 p.47 & Table-5 p.48 above) best fitted a mixed research design (Nunan, 1992:4), because they were exploratory in nature, i.e. non-experimental in design, but the data yielded was quantitative and its analysis was statistical (see Section-4.4 p.151 & Section-4.5 p.156), while the Supplementary Questioning and In-Depth Interviews (see Table-4 p.47 above) can be considered a purely ‗exploratory-interpretive‘ (ibid., p.6) because of their non-experimental design, qualitative data and interpretive analysis, and because of their lack of interventionism and selectiveness (ibid., p.7) (see Section-4.6 p.162 & Section-4.7 p.164).
Statistical correlation analyses using multiple regression and structural equation modelling were also considered to address research question RQ2 (concerning the
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impact of other factors on vocabulary acquisition) (see Section-2.8 p.36). However the researcher wanted in-depth information about the participants of this particular context, and was not explicitly seeking to gain a simplified generalisation that could be offered by such correlation analyses. Hence the Reading Diaries, Surveys of Exposure to English Learning, Supplementary Questioning and In-Depth Interviews (see Table-4 p.47 above) were favoured, in order to achieve the desired detailed rich description of the students in this context, which in many cases used the students‘ own voices, and in this way the very human and social nature of this particular part of the study was preserved as much as possible.
This study also shared characteristics of more than one broad research tradition. For example, it shared some key aspects of the action research tradition described by Burns (1999:24-30), because it was conducted in a naturally occurring setting, it addressed questions of real practical and theoretical interest to many educational practitioners, it placed practicing teachers in the research process, and it aimed to bring about change and improvement to day-to-day teaching practices through the data collected, and not only through the views of non-practitioner theorists. At the same time it was not a full action research project, because the study had broad implications that went far beyond the limited professional and educational contexts of its teachers, students and college. Also, in order to address RQ2 (concerning the impact of other factors on vocabulary acquisition) (see Section-2.8 p.36), a full scale immersed ethnography was not essential, but nonetheless there were still some characteristics of ethnography, such as Chappelle & Duff‘s (2003:174) prerequisite that a researcher has spent a long time residing and interacting with the study setting (which in the case of the researcher was many years), and Hyland‘s (2002:196) criteria of being contextual (being set in the natural learning environment) and longitudinal (taking place over months). Some of Hyland‘s (ibid.) other criteria for ethnography were also fulfilled to a significant extent, such as that the study should be emic (privileging the perspectives and choices of participants) and unobtrusive (avoiding manipulating the phenomena as much as possible). This study even has some limited aspects of grounded theory when investigating RQ2 (concerning the impact of other factors on vocabulary acquisition) (see Section-2.8 p.36), because the data collected from the reading diaries, surveys and interviews was used inductively
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to allow ideas and theories to emerge organically (Richards, 2003:16-17) concerning other factors that could be associated with enhanced vocabulary acquisition.
Hence in summary, some of the data collected was more quantitative in nature, while other data was more qualitative, taking the view that both are complementary and equally important (Burns, 1999:24), and that the distinction between the two is not always clearly defined (Nunan, 1992:3; Richards, 2003:11): the quantitative data was predominantly used to give insights into the characteristics of the participants (i.e. the
what, how much and how many), while the qualitative data was chiefly used to ascertain
54 3.2 METHODOLOGY FOR THE ERPROGRAMME
This section describes in detail the implementation of the ER programme during the Main Study, and how it was based on recommendations given in the literature, and then further developed during the Initial Pilot and Main Pilot Studies (see Section-3.1.1 p.42). The main principles followed were the ten given by Day & Bamford (2002:136- 139), namely that the ER programme should consist of:
1. Material that the students find easy to read
2. A variety of different reading materials to cater for different interests 3. A free choice of reading materials
4. Opportunities to read lots of reading material 5. A focus on reading for pleasure and information
6. An aim to make reading its own reward and an experience in itself 7. A focus on increasing reading speed
8. Opportunities for silent reading
9. Teacher guidance for good reading practice 10. Teacher models for good reading practice
Day (2015:295) termed any programme that implemented all these principles as ‗pure‘ ER, with Asraf & Ahmad (2003:87) and Macalister (2008:250) aiming to implement all of them in their ER programmes, and with other researchers recommending at least some of them. For example, Nation (2001:3-4) echoed the need to encourage large quantities of reading, and Waring & Nation (2004:105) further noted that large quantities of easy student-chosen reading material would maximize the effectiveness of the ER programme in enhancing vocabulary acquisition. In addition, Littlejohn (1985:260) highlighted the importance of teachers‘ attitudes, in order to facilitate successful independent learning (of which ER is one form), and Paran (2008:478-480) highlighted the importance of the methods used for teaching and presentation, in order to maintain learners‘ interests in the literature put forward to them. Others were more explicit in their insistence that the teachers implementing the ER programme should themselves feel positively about ER (Asraf & Ahmad, 2003:99), and should themselves
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be enthusiastic and committed to reading (Bamford, 1984:260). As an additional point, Macalister (2008:254) noted that although the above 10 recommended characteristics are considered solid principles, there still needs to be flexibility in approach when implementing the programme.
It should be pointed out that there has been a great deal of variance in the way ER has been implemented, as recently noted by Macalister (2015:122) and as found by both Day (2015:295) and Waring (2015:160) in current reviews of hundreds of research articles on ER. For example, Day (2015:296) noted that several ‗ER‘ studies did not allow a free choice of reading, and Waring (2015:160) observed that some ‗ER‘ programmes involved little reading – sometimes less than 200 pages – with other examples being given earlier in the Literature Review (Section-2.7.3 p.30). Such a variety of application may be a source of confusion that leads to differing viewpoints about ER (Macalister, 2015:122) and so there has been a call to define ER more precisely into a common framework that can be referred to by all (Waring, 2015:165).
The previously quoted 10 principles of Day & Bamford (2002:136-139) have served to be a basis to define ER, but recent efforts have been made to further refine the definition of ER into core features without which the term ‗ER‘ should not be applied. In this vein, Macalister (2015:126-127) reduced the 10 principles to 7, where the reading is: for pleasure, information & general meaning; fast; individual & silent; of easy material; guided by the teacher; exemplified by the teacher‘s own reading; and done as much as possible in a regular time-limited period, noting that Day & Bamford‘s 10 principles did not include the length of time for which students should be reading. Waring (2015:161- 165) went further to reduce ER into four core elements that the reading should entail: fluent comprehension (for which beginners are allowed time to develop); a high speed; large amounts; and a focus on meaning, while Yamashita (2015:169) went even further to hold that large amounts of reading were ‗the essence of ER‘ that can only be achieved when the reading is enjoyed (ibid., p.173).
As a result, reading programmes can be described more precisely with terms like ‗classical ER‘ (Waring, 2015:161) for programmes that use all the previously listed 10
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principles of Day & Bamford, and ‗modified ER‘ or ‗light ER‘ (Day, 2015:296-297) if many of them or a few of them respectively are used. However, other terms can be used when core elements of ER are not present, such as class reading that involves a single teacher-chosen text read by the whole class (Waring, 2015:161), or reading for pleasure that involves reading material that is enjoyable but not necessarily easy to understand (Beglar et al., 2012:697-698) in the sense that 98% of the vocabulary may not be known (Strong & Boutorwick, 2012:71).
Hence in this study, the ER programme aimed to use ‗classical ER‘, attempting to follow Day & Bamford‘s principles, and it also aimed to use Macalister‘s (2015:126- 127) addition criteria that the reading should be done as much as possible, thus automatically including the core features quoted above from Waring (2015:161-165) and Yamashita (2015:169). An outline of this ER programme is now given below in Table-7, followed by a full detailed description in Section-3.2.1 to Section-3.2.5.
Table-7: Timeline for the ER Programme of the Main Study Experimental Cohort during its Teaching Semester
Week PROCEDURE for the ER PROGRAMME DETAILED IN:
2 Introduction of ER and its aim of reading for pleasure Statement that no tests would be made on the reading Teacher guidance given on what is easy and
interesting reading material
Solicitation of students‘ existing reading interests Presentation of a large selection of books available at local book stores
Instruction to buy 2 books for the next lesson and bring more when finished
Section-3.2.2 p.57
2-13 Sustained Silent Reading sessions planned for 20 minutes every day
Encouragement (but no compulsion) to continue reading outside the class
Section-3.2.3 p.61 & Section- 3.2.4 p.65
9 Mid-Semester Break Section-3.2.2 p.57 & Section-
3.2.5 p.66 10 Formal introduction to the institute‘s library of GRs Section-3.2.2 p.57
14 Last week of the ER programme Section-3.2.5 p.66
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