Email this article 
Hide
Show all
Effectiveness of Oral Proficiency in English for Secondary Schools (OPS-English) Programme in Improving English Language Vocabulary among Secondary School Students
Abstract
Speaking is an important skill that needs to be mastered as it is the best way to communicate with other people in order to deliver opinions and express ideas, but the fact is that secondary school students’ ability in speaking English is low in Malaysia. It is caused by several factors such as lack of vocabulary, poor pronunciation, weak grammar and poor fluency that hinders the mastery of English language. In this research, Oral Proficiency in English for Secondary Schools (OPS-English) Programme was employed to improve students’ speaking skill by engaging them in vocabulary based activities. The main objectives of this study are to investigate the effectiveness of OPS-English in improving the students speaking skills and increasing their vocabulary count. This is an experimental pretest-posttest control group design study which involved 70 students from a school located in one of the districts in Kedah, Malaysia. The duration of the study was 8 weeks. The data collection was done using pre-test and post-test. The data from the pre-test and post-test was analysed quantitatively using independent sample test. The findings of this study show that OPS-English can improve students’ vocabulary. This is proven by experimental group’s students’ test score that showed improvement in the post-test. OPS-English is a suitable programme that should be used to improve students’ vocabulary. The result of this study provides useful insights for English language teachers in teaching speaking.
Keywords: OPS-English, speaking ability, secondary school students, vocabulary activities
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Ahmad A. M. (2009). English Vocabulary Learning Strategies Among Malaysian Second Language Tertiary Students. Unpublished PhD thesis, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia.
Arikunto, S. (2006). Prosedur Penelitian sebagai Suatu Pendekatan Praktek.Jakarta:Rineka Cipta
Bailey, K.M & Nunan, D. (2005). Practical English language teaching speaking. New York: McGraw-Hill Education.
Biemiller, A., & Slonim, N. (2001). Estimating root word vocabulary growth in normative Acquisition. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93, 498-520.
Brown H. Douglas, (2004). Language Assessment Principle and Classroom Practices, NY: Pearson Education
Bruner, J. S. (1960) The Process of education, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Bruner, J. S. (1961). The act of discovery, Harvard Educational Review, 31, 21-32.
Bruner, J. S. (1966). Toward a theory of instruction, Cambridge, Mass.: Belkapp Press.
Carmal Teresa a/p Aroney Pereira (2005), The Effectiveness of Using Authentic Materials to Teach Vocabulary among Lower Secondary School Students: A Case Study Faculty Of Languages, Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris
Coakes, S. J & Steed, L. G. (2003). SPSS: Analysis without anguish. Australia: John Wiley.
Cresswell, J.W. (1998). Qualitative inquiry and Research Design. Choosing Among The five traditions. Sage Publications, CA: Thousand Oaks. Diamond, L. & Gutlohn, L. (2006) Teaching Vocabulary, Retrieved 20 September 2009. From http://www.readingrockets.org/article/9943.
Fauziah Hassan, & Nita Fauzee Selamat (2002). Why aren’t students proficient in ESL: The Teachers’ perspective. The English Teacher. Vol. 31, 107-123.
Gay L.R. (2011). Education Research Competencies For Analysis and Application.
Goh, C. (2007). Teaching speaking in the language classroom. Singapore: SEAMEO Regional Language Centre.
Haley, M.H., & Austin, T.Y. (2004). Content-Based Second Language Teaching and Learning: An Interactive Approach. New York: Allyn and Bacon.
Herrel. A.L. (2004). Fifty strategies for teaching English language learners. An ESL teacher‘s tool kit. 2nd ed. Winnipeg. Canada. Penguin Publishers.
Hussin, S., Marrof, N. & D’Cruz, J. V. (2000). Sustaining an interst in learning English and increasing the motivation to learn English:An enrichment program. The Internet Tesl Journal 7(5) from http://itselj.org/Techniqies/Hussin Motivation.
Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition.
Krashen, S. (1982). Newmark's "Ignorance Hypothesis" and current second language acquisition theory, Unpublished manuscript.
Krashen, S. (2003). Explorations in Language Acquisition and Use. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Lindsay, C., & Knight P. (2006.) Learning and Teaching English: A course for Teachers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Naginder, Kaur. (2012). Learner autonomy in second language lexical development amongst pre Malaysian University English Test learners at Universiti Teknologi MARA. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. School of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia.
Naginder, Kaur. (2004). Role play: The relationship between self-concept and learner participation in an experiential learning process. Malaysian Journal of Learning and Instruction. Vol. 1(1), 85-110.
Nazara, Situjuh. (2011). Students’ Perception on EFL Speaking Skill Development. Journal of English Teaching, 1, 29-43.
Norzanita, Othman (2009). Measuring the vocabulary size of UUM undergraduate students, Paper presented at 2nd International Conference ILLANS 2009. Issues in Language Teaching and Learning amongst Non-native Speakers: Language Competence and Performance: Shah Alam, Malaysia.
Nation, I. S. P. (1990). Teaching and learning vocabulary, New York: Newbury House.
Nation, I.S.P. (2001). Learning Vocabulary in another Language, Cambridge University Press.
Nunan, D. (1998). Language Teaching and Methodology, London: Prentice Hall.
Nunan, D. (2001). “Aspect of task-based syllabus design”. [Available online] http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/syllabusdesign.html
Nguyen, T. T. H. & Khuat, T. T. N. (2003). Learning vocabulary through games. Asian Efl Journal from http:www.asian-efljournal.com/dec_03_sub.Vn.htm.
McNamara, T. F. (1996). Measuring second language performance. London: Longman.
Ministry Of Education (2012). Oral Proficiency in English for Secondary Schools (OPS-English)@ English Language Teacher Center.
Ratnawati, M. A. & Ismail, S. A. (2003). Reading in a Foreign Language Vol 15(2) from http:nflrc.hawaii.edu/rfl/mohdasraf.mohdasraf.html
Rosemala, Ismail (2008). Factors affecting less proficient ESL learners’ use of strategies for language and content area learning. Unpublished PhD. thesis. Faculty of Modern Languages, Universiti Putra Malaysia Serdang.
Schütz, Ricardo (2007). "Stephen Krashen's Theory of Second Language Acquisition." 2007. English Made in Brazil.
Stahl, S.A. (2005). Four problems with teaching word meanings and what to do to make vocabulary an integral part of instruction. In E.H. Hiebert and M.L. Kamil (Eds.), Teaching and learning vocabulary: Bringing research to practice. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Segler, T. A. (2001). PhD Research proposal: Second language vocabulary acquisition and learning strategies in ICALL environments. Retrieved February 9, 2008 from http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/s9808690/fi nalpaper2.pdf.
Susanti.A.D.H. (2007). Using role-play in teaching speaking skill. Jakarta: unpublished dissertation. Retrieved from: https://www.google.dz/search?q=Susanti%2C2007+communicative+circumstance&rlz=1
C1GTPM_enDZ528DZ528&oq=Susanti%2C2007+communicative+circumstance&aqs=chrome.0.57.26568j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Tarone, E. (2005). Speaking in a second language; In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning (pp. 485-502). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Taylor, L. (1990). Teaching and learning vocabulary, Herefordshire, UK: Prentice Hall International.
Tengku Intan Suzila Tengku Sharif, Mohd Yusri Mohamad Noor, & Harlina Yunus (2008). Vocabulary knowledge: Students’ profiling. Voice of Academia (Special Edition). Vol. 3, 27-39.
Thornbury, S. (2005). How to Teach Speaking. Harmer, J. (Ed). London: Longman.
Pikulski, J. J. and Templeton, S. (2004) Teaching and Developing Vocabulary: Key to Long-Term Reading Success. Houghton Mifflin Company
Oxford, R. L. (2001). Language Learning Strategies. In R. Carter & D. Nunan, The Cambridge guide to teaching English to speakers of other languages, Cambridge University Press, 166-172.
Wilson, R. (2000). A Summary of Stephen Krashen's Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition Language Impact.com, Web. 18 April 2011.
Zaira Abu Hassan Shaari (2008.) Peer interaction and meaning construction among ESL learners in comprehending texts in 2nd language context. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. Faculty of Modern Languages, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang.
Zimmerman, C.B. (2007). Vocabulary learning methods. Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Zulfa Zakaria (2005). Dictionary as tool in vocabulary acquisition for rural students, Unpublished master’s dissertation, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia.
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
2010-2023 (CC-BY) Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.
Advances in Language and Literary Studies
You may require to add the 'aiac.org.au' domain to your e-mail 'safe list’ If you do not receive e-mail in your 'inbox'. Otherwise, you may check your 'Spam mail' or 'junk mail' folders.