High School Teachers' Attitudes Towards An Awareness-Raising Approach To Vocabulary Teaching
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Date
1994-06
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Publisher
AAU
Abstract
This study is an attempt to inves ti ga te to what ex tent the teaching
and learning of vocabulary by an awareness-raising approach would be
considered feasible and acceptable to teachers in high schools .
For this investigation, thus, materials represen ting an approach
of a different nature to that cu rren tly practised in high schools were
collected from di fferent sources. The subjects were made to study
th ese materials for three to five days . To determine their attitudes
towards the materials at an initial stage and how acceptable or feas ible
the activities might be, a ques tionnaire was issued to all the subjects
and interviews were conducted with some . Reactions to the materials
at this stage were based on past experience, teaching habits , traditional
ex pectations, etc .
Following this , the researcher arranged practice teach ing sessions
in which the use of the tasks was demons trated in typical high school
classes while the subjects observed. The same questionnaire was
admin istered again and every subject was made to ex press his feelings
about the approach . Reactions at this stage were based, on the one
hand, on r e flections on the materials in stage 1 and any modification
of attitudes that migh t have taken place at this stage and, on the
oth er, on the reac tion to observations of the materials and the approach
used in the class room .
T he emphasis was to find out the degree to wh ich teachers can
modify their attitudes in itially throu gh exposure to materials representing
a diJferentappr6ach and throu gh observations of such materials
being taugh t . Th ere for e, a comparison V.ยท'lS made between tedchers'
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initial reactions to the first questionnaire and their attitudes as
expressed during discussions and in the same questionnaire administered
pas t-teaching.
The result of the f indings shows that teachers could modify their
attitudes in a fairly short period of time. The teachers also r eported
that an awareness-raising approach to vocabulary learning would be
acceptable and feas ib le in high school situation. But they hod no much
confidence about the value of such on approach in fac ilitating learners'
learnings of new lex ical items. On the bases of these findings, it is
concluded th at it is possible to introduce an awareness-raising approach
to vocabulary learning in new textbooks for high school classes.
Finally, recommendations are made.
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Keywords
learning of vocabulary