44ACADEMIC RESEARCH IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 6 | 2021
ISSN: 2181-1385
Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF) 2021: 5.723 DOI: 10.24412/2181-1385-2021-6-1164-1174
IMPROVING INTROVERT LEARNERS' VOCABULARY THROUGH
EXTENSIVE READING
Valisher Tangriyev
EFL Lecturer, Denau Institute of Entrepreneurship and Pedagogy, Uzbekistan
Ibrohimbek Soatov
EFL Lecturer, ESP instructor, Denau Institute of Entrepreneurship and Pedagogy,
Uzbekistan
ABSTRACT
The current research is about amplifying and enhancing introvert ESL (English as a Second Language) learners' vocabulary with assistance of extensive reading. In order to conduct this research student of one of the local institutes was selected, and various types of tests were designed and employed as data collecting tools. Pre and post-tests were implemented so as to identify results of the research. The results of the study shows that, utilizing extensive reading strategies as well as texts are not solely effective to improve introvert language learners' vocabulary, but also beneficial to decrease high level of anxiety.
Keywords: introverts, introversion, extroverts, extensive reading, culture, anxiety second language acquisition, diverse learning strategies
INTRODUCTION
It is believed that there is a salient connection between personality and second language acquisition. Particularly, introversion and extraversion and their connection with successful second language learning have long been a subject of debate. Especially introverts are believed to be less successful in language learning because of their passive and reserved nature. Rosier (1975) stated that introverts are inferior to extroverts in terms of oral fluency. They are less favorite than extroverts in other language spheres as well due to several factors such as lack of communicative competence, working in a group, and slower reaction and initiation. However, there have been numerous studies that revealed several possible reasons which affect introversion. The first one is culture. Culture is considered to be one of the factors which shape an individual's personality. It tends to be shaped under the influence of first of all family and then the society and culture of that country. It plays an important role in directing our personality
ACADEMIC RESEARCH IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 6 | 2021
ISSN: 2181-1385
Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF) 2021: 5.723 DOI: 10.24412/2181-1385-2021-6-1164-1174
to a particular path. Another factor is proved to be anxiety. It is directly connected with introversion. Dewaele (2013) believed that anxiety is more often found in introverts. MacIntyre (1999) claimed that anxiety is a more debilitating feature rather than facilitating one. It influences the learning stage negatively leading to poor performance of anxious learners. Considering all these factors, this research is aimed at finding an effective way of learning a second language that can lower the level of anxiety and raise the effectiveness for introverts. We have chosen the vocabulary aspect as vocabulary learning has been challenging for many learners and various methods are applied to achieve success. Mardievna, Mukhamadjanovna, Nematovich, Azamovich (2020) argued that being unaware of other useful and effective learning strategies can also lead to the lower result of learning vocabulary. And for this research we decided to implement extensive reading as a way to improve vocabulary because of its numerous proven benefits as most linguists succeeded in proving the benefits of extensive reading on facilitating autonomy, encouraging motivation, building good reading habits, and increase in vocabulary.
LITERATURE REVIEW AND METHODS
Introversion is a personality trait that centers on internal feelings and processes. Such people prefer working alone and are energized in solitude. Different linguists promoted different personalities. Dewaele and Furnham (1999) claimed that introverts prefer individual tasks and can perform better at such tasks whereas extroverts do group activities with pleasure. However, they are less fluent than extroverts (Dewaele and Furnham,1999; Ellis, 2004). Ehrman and Oxford(1989) stated that introvert's reaction while answering or conversing is slow because they concentrate on meaning. And many teachers confirm the fact that one of the obstacles they face while interacting with learners is the shy behavior of introverted learners while interacting with extroverts does not cause any difficulty for teachers (Zafar, S., Z.A., Meenakshi, K,2012). However, Gan (2011) argues in favor of introverts that they are better learners due to their better developed cognitive ability.
Several factors shape the development of a learner's personality. One of these factors is culture. A learner's personality trait is highly influenced by the culture in which he has grown up (Aziz, E.,2016). Culture forms the way how we learn and behave and people of particular culture share common personal features. Particularly, introversion can be often observed in eastern countries.
ACADEMIC RESEARCH IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 6 | 2021
ISSN: 2181-1385
Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF) 2021: 5.723 DOI: 10.24412/2181-1385-2021-6-1164-1174
McCrae(2004) believes that Asian Cultures are predominantly introverted as they are brought up in a manner of obedience, the tact of listening to others, and conservatism.
Vocabulary learning through extensive reading. Vocabulary is considered to be one of the most important aspects of a language. And many learners have difficulty in learning a second language as they fail to learn new words by heart successfully. There are various vocabulary learning ways and strategies and one of them is extensive reading. Extensive reading is reading a large number of reading materials independently. In this type of reading learners read larger reading materials extensively for general meaning, information, and pleasure (Day,2004). Extensive reading has been considered to be important for the development of vocabulary due to its numerous benefits. Firstly, (Tangriyev, 2019) learners encounter more unfamiliar words while reading, because written texts are more diverse and richer in variety in comparison to the context of oral speech. And repeated exposures to the words in diverse contexts increase the awareness of the word use and helps to infer the meaning(Krashen,1989). Furthermore, extensive reading is pleasant and motivating for learners as it enables learners to be autonomous learners and develop positive reading habits (Thornbury, 2002). Yamamoto (2011) counted one more benefit of extensive reading that it helps not only learn new words but also strengthen the knowledge of the words which are already known to the learner. However, the results of some studies are contradictory that reading for meaning does not result in learning vocabulary (Huckin and Coady,1999).
Research question:
- Can extensive reading improve introverted learners' vocabulary?
For this case study, we have chosen one of our students - a twenty-year-old girl. Her nationality is Uzbek and lives in Surkhandarya regions, Denau district,a nd she is a first year student at Denau Institute of Entrepreneurship and Pedagogy. Foreign Language and Literature (English) is her specialty at institute, therefore, she can speak almost 3 languages fluently: Uzbek, Russian, and English The purpose of her learning English is to become an English teacher. She has been learning English for 2 years but with breaks after each level. A month ago she began studying in the intermediate-level group. She is very passionate about learning English and does plenty of tasks out of the lesson such as reading novels, learning useful phrases, idioms and likes learning about the culture of English-speaking countries as well. We would describe her as a very responsible,
ACADEMIC RESEARCH IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 6 | 2021
ISSN: 2181-1385
Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF) 2021: 5.723 DOI: 10.24412/2181-1385-2021-6-1164-1174
hardworking, and gifted girl as she always does all home tasks and gets excellent marks. However, her personality hinders her achievement a bit. She is quite reserved and shy. She feels much worried and anxious while performing any kind of task in front of others. Despite studying in the same group for a long time, she cannot relax especially performing an oral task. But she has some difficulties in learning vocabulary as well. When WE organize quick activities for memorizing new words and play games, she cannot learn almost any word. She feels rather worried when it comes to vocabulary learning in the classroom even if it is an off mark activity. This can be explained by the introverted nature of her personality. She easily gets embarrassed if she does not know anything. And it is important for her to concentrate on the task and for this she needs a quiet atmosphere. Furthermore, she prefers individual activities, and when it comes to written tasks, she excels all her group mates. She comes from a family which is quite traditional and her upbringing was shaped in this manner too. It can be noticeable from her behavior during the lesson as well. She never raises her voice at others, always treats others respectfully, and often sits quietly. Considering all these factors, we think she is relevant to our chosen topic as the topic is related to both anxiety and introversion. Furthermore, the research would help her to learn new words without feeling anxious and make better progress in language learning. Research design.
This case study consists of the following steps: Pre-tests:
-dictation to check to spell -multiple-choice test for translation of the word Reading material - a book Post-tests:
-Dictation to check to spell -multiple-choice test for translation of the word
-multiple choice questions for choosing an appropriate word for the sentence
-making up sentences with the given word -interview
Most learners can achieve a high rate of success in both productive and receptive skills including reading and writing (Tangriyev & Soatov, 2021). We decided to design various types of tests. Learning vocabulary is not just learning a word's meaning. Learning a new word means learning its meaning, correct form
ACADEMIC RESEARCH IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 6 | 2021
ISSN: 2181-1385
Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF) 2021: 5.723 DOI: 10.24412/2181-1385-2021-6-1164-1174
of its spelling form, being able to use it in different contexts, making up sentences with this word independently, and understanding its grammatical behavior. That is why the tasks are designed to check the learner's knowledge of vocabulary from different angles and identify how thoroughly she covered each sphere of the vocabulary learning after the reading task has been completed.
Firstly, student A had a pre-test. The pre-test itself consists of two tasks: Dictation and multiple choice questions. Dictation contained 20 target words and was aimed to identify how many of the target words student A can write correctly. Multiple choice questions for translation were designed to clarify how many words' translation student A knows and to what extend she knows it. Multiple choice questions include choices such as a) I do not know this word at all b) I do not know the exact meaning of this word but have some general ideas c) I know this word and can use it correctly.
Then, student A chose a book according to her own will - "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte. The level of the book is intermediate which consists of 85 pages and 1600 words. Target words were Student A needed to read and infer the meaning of the target words according to the context. She was given 2 weeks the complete the task.
After the given period ended, post-tests were held. The same 20 target words were used in all post-tests to see the result of the research. Firstly, student A had a dictation on 20 target words to find out how well extensive reading could help the learner to improve the spelling of the target words. Secondly, student A had a multiple-choice test for translation which was aimed to know how well student A could infer the meaning of the words from the context. Thirdly, student A had a multiple-choice test for choosing an appropriate word for the sentence. The purpose of taking this test was to analyze if student A could use the target word appropriately in different contexts. Then, student A was asked to make up a sentence for each of the 20 target words. Finally, we had an interview with the subject of the research. we asked some general questions to know about her impressions and reasons for the results of her tests.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
When the given period ended, and student A did the post-tests we immediately began analyzing all the gathered data. We were curious about the results as we wanted to get answers to the research questions. To analyze the collected data, firstly we compared pre-tests with post-tests. We began by
ACADEMIC RESEARCH IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 6 | 2021
ISSN: 2181-1385
Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF) 2021: 5.723 DOI: 10.24412/2181-1385-2021-6-1164-1174
comparing dictation results.
Pre-test
■ *
F
correct words
wrongly spelt
missing words
Post-test
correct words
wrongly spelt
missing words
Diagram 1. Diagram 2.
As it can be seen from diagram 1, in the pre-test student A wrote only 4 words correctly in the dictation. She wrote 14 words with spelling mistakes, and she failed to write 2 words at all, she just skipped them. However, in diagram 2, in the post-test, she wrote 18 words without any spelling mistakes, and only 2 words were written wrongly. And there are no missing words, she wrote all the words. The overall result for spelling is that correctly written words' numbers rose from 4 to 18 words.
PRE-TEST POST-TEST
designed to check to what extent she could get the right meaning of the target words.
ACADEMIC RESEARCH IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 6 | 2021
ISSN: 2181-1385
Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF) 2021: 5.723 DOI: 10.24412/2181-1385-2021-6-1164-1174
Diagram 3 Diagram 4
Diagram 3 shows that the number of words that student A knew in the pre-test was 3. And the same indication was for choice "I do not know the exact translation", she had some general ideas but not clear translation. Student A did not know the translation of 14 words out of 20 target words. But in the post-test, as it can be seen in diagram 4, the number of the words that student A knew reached 16 and she did not know the exact meaning of 4 words, and there were no words that are completely unknown to her after the reading the book. The overall result for multiple choice questions for translation is that the number of words which she knew the translation rose from 3 to 16 out of 20 words.
The graph 5
-Post-tost-
19
-1-
CORRECT ANSWER WRONG ANSWER
The following task was multiple choice questions for choosing appropriate words for the sentences. To check how well student A can use learned words in appropriate contexts we designed this type of task and it was taken only after the completion of reading because most of the words were unknown to her and it would have been useless to take pre-tests for the unfamiliar words for the subject of the research.
The graph demonstrates the result of the student in multiple-choice for choosing appropriate words for the context. And it can be noticed that student A did almost all tests correctly - 19 correct choices out of 20 tests and only one is incorrect. It shows that student A could understand the meaning of the words and their use in the sentences very well.
The fourth task was making up sentences with the given target words which she learned while reading the book.
ACADEMIC RESEARCH IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 6 | 2021
ISSN: 2181-1385
Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF) 2021: 5.723 DOI: 10.24412/2181-1385-2021-6-1164-1174
Post-test
17
5
CORRECT SENTENCES WRONG SENTENCES
The graph 6
This task was also done after the completion of the task to check how well student A can use the learned words independently in the sentences. And the graph illustrates that she could make up 17 sentences correctly with the target words, and she could not use 3 words correctly in the sentences because of incorrect use of the words such as grammatical form or inappropriate meaning.
The research results showed significant differences in each task. There was a significant increase in post-tests in all spheres of vocabulary: spelling, translation, and grammatical behavior. Before tests, we had a short interview about her impressions and her answers helped me a lot to find out the reasons for her achieving such results in post-tests. And the interview was mainly focused on how reading helped her to lower her anxiety.
She told me that the book was so interesting that she had finished reading it before the deadline and she enjoyed the reading process and did not think that she was doing any kind of task but she was doing it just for pleasure. One of the reasons for this is that it was self-selected. We offered her several books and she chose herself what to read and that is why her interest encouraged her to read more and faster. According to her words, the level of the book was not very difficult for her even if she began intermediate level a month ago. She said that there were not so many difficult words and encountering most words repeatedly in various sentences helped her to infer unknown words easily. Student A stated that it is much more effective to learn new words in a context rather than looking for their meaning in a vocabulary as getting only translation does not teach how to use them in a sentence whereas learning them in a context helps to use them appropriately. And when we asked her if she felt anxious while reading she answered that she did not feel any feeling of worry or anxiety and she counted several reasons for this. Firstly, the atmosphere did not cause any anxiety as it Academic Research, Uzbekistan 1171 www.ares.uz
ACADEMIC RESEARCH IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 6 | 2021
ISSN: 2181-1385
Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF) 2021: 5.723 DOI: 10.24412/2181-1385-2021-6-1164-1174
was for home reading. "No peers, group mates, or control of the teacher just a silence," she says. The next reason was that it was individual work, not group or pair work. Considering her introversion, it is natural that she always prefers solo tasks and feels calm when working individually. Thus, she could concentrate and fully focus on the reading. The following cause was that she was given a written task to read. She was not asked to perform any oral tasks. Since, she feels anxious especially while performing oral tasks. She felt quite comfortable as introverts prefer written tasks rather than oral ones (Bainbridge C.,2019). Last but not least, she says that she enjoyed the reading process itself, and learning vocabulary through the favorite activity was very effective and a pleasure for her. As introverts are more concerned with their inner world, reading is the relaxing process for them and it lowers the level of stress.
CONCLUSION
The results of the research have answered the research question. Post-tests showed significant progress in each sphere of vocabulary ranging from spelling to appropriate use in a context. The subject of the research demonstrated satisfying results by being able to translate and use words in different contexts independently. It should be taken into consideration that these results were achieved by an introverted student and it can be concluded that extensive reading is not only helpful for increasing vocabulary but also lowering anxiety and achieving higher results. The results proved that extensive reading is an effective way to enhance vocabulary for introverts who often have anxiety. Because extensive reading is itself an interesting process, it raises willingness to read and learn more by lowering anxiety or any kind of unpleasant feeling which hinders the learning process.
We would highly recommend that extensive reading should be applied in classrooms for both the aim of developing vocabulary and benefiting all types of learners including introverts who enjoy reading. It suits all types of learners not only introverts but also extraverts as well giving the same successful results. However, while applying an extensive reading some rules should be followed. Firstly, the teacher needs to consider the period and as extensive reading takes a bit long time, it is better to be given for home reading. Secondly, the material for an extensive reading should be self-selected to arouse more interest in students. Thirdly, the reading material should be understandable and appropriate for learners' levels. Furthermore, the chosen material should be interesting and various which covers diverse topics. Finally, it will lead to a better result if learners are encouraged to share their impressions and exchange ideas after reading with their peers. Here, the role of the teacher is to create a friendly and learning atmosphere and to guide students by teaching needed reading strategies. We Academic Research, Uzbekistan 1172 www.ares.uz
ACADEMIC RESEARCH IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 6 | 2021
ISSN: 2181-1385
Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF) 2021: 5.723 DOI: 10.24412/2181-1385-2021-6-1164-1174
think if all these suggestions are put into practice, more successful results can be achieved both in improving vocabulary and satisfying introverts' needs.
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ACADEMIC RESEARCH IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 6 | 2021
ISSN: 2181-1385
Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF) 2021: 5.723 DOI: 10.24412/2181-1385-2021-6-1164-1174
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