1.1 Aim
The present study aims to investigate (1) the types of information utilized and the strategies employed by students to complete banked cloze items; (2) the main strategies students use to acquire vocabulary; and (3) whether there exists any correlation between students‟ banked cloze reading processes and the way they acquire vocabulary. Afterwards possible implications for vocabulary acquisition will be speculated on.
1.2 Material and Method
To carry out the investigation, both the participants and research materials were carefully selected. A banked cloze test and two questionnaires, each followed by a brief informal interview, are involved as the main sources of data to be analyzed in this study.
1.2.1 Participants
The participants of the present study are twelve Chinese sophomores majoring in Chinese Medicine at a university in eastern China. They are selected and grouped
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from 100 sophomores of this university according to their scores on the CET-4 taken in December 2009. Another reason why they are chosen is that, as college students, they have been learning English as a second language for more than eight years and their learning styles are comparatively stable. What is more, they are cognitively developed and mature enough to be aware of and self-examine their own learning process and strategies. In order to provide a basis for comparison, the chosen participants were divided into two groups based on their score. To minimize possible influence of gender difference, the distribution of boys and girls was the same with 3 girls and 3 boys in each group. The High Group is the collection of students whose CET-4 score is above 580 while the Low Group is the students with a score below 400. The criterion of score is set in such a way in order to see the distinction between the two groups in terms of English proficiency. Thus, the results of the study may be clearer and more convincing.
1.2.2 The banked cloze test
The banked cloze test (see Appendix 1) used in the present study was chosen from model tests of CET-4 (Dec. 2009). It is the same test format as that in Gao and Gu‟s (2008) research. The difference lies in the content and length and the time to finish the test. The chosen passage is about the history and development of rock and roll and has 236 words. The passage is followed by a bank which contains ten correct options and five distracters. The participants are required to restore the deleted words in ten minutes. With respect to Gao and Gu‟s research in which no time limit was set, this banked cloze test with time constraint is more likely to reflect the test-taking processes in normal testing situations. It has been established that the selected participants in the present study did not take this banked cloze test before.
1.2.3 Questionnaires
A questionnaire is a good way to access the learner‟s point of view, and in this study it is also a convenient way to get information from the chosen participants in China. Two different questionnaires are used in this study to help demonstrate students‟ reading processes for the banked cloze test and their vocabulary acquisition strategies.
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Questionnaire 1 Questionnaire 1 (see Appendix 2) is used to elicit students‟ test-taking processes for the banked cloze test. It contains four information sources and nine strategies students commonly use in the completion of a certain text. The participants are required to choose one or more information sources and strategies they have used in the reading process for each item. Based on Bachman‟s (1985) classification of cloze test items and the research of Gao and Gu (2008), the information sources are as follows:
1. Clause level information: the information within the clause 2. Sentence level information: the information outside the clause but within the sentence. 3. Text level information: the information outside the sentence but within the text. 4. Extra-textual level information: the information outside the text instead
The nine strategies are based on the strategies revealed in the research of Feldmann and Stemmer (1987) and the research of Gao and Gu (2008) where twelve strategies were identified in testees‟ verbal protocols. In the present study, the purpose of investigating test-taking processes on a banked cloze test was to give a revelation or an implication of students‟ vocabulary acquisition strategies. Thus, only the most frequently used strategies reflected in Gao and Gu‟s study were employed and slightly modified to help elicit the main tendency of the testees‟ test-taking processes in the present study. These nine strategies were grouped into three categories as bottom-up processing strategies, top-down processing strategies and test-wise processing strategies in questionnaire 1 for the testees to choose from. Bottom-up processing strategies include: guess the unknown words; admit failure to understand unknown words; analyze the sentence structure. Top-down processing strategies include: preview the text; evaluate critically the text; predict the meaning of the text. Test-wise processing strategies include: preread the options; use the options to match a blank; guess blindly.
Questionnaire 2 Questionnaire 2 (see Appendix 3) is about the students‟ vocabulary acquisition strategies. The listed nine common strategies are the ones that students tend to adopt in their vocabulary acquisition process and are mainly deduced from vocabulary acquisition theories. The suggested nine strategies are placed from the most
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contextualized to the most decontextualized. The placement order is based on theories and the researcher‟s personal evaluation. The participants are required, according to their own study experience, to rate three most useful and most frequently adopted ones among these strategies. Point 3 should be given to the most useful and 1 to the comparatively least useful one. At the end of this questionnaire, the participants are offered the chance to describe other possible strategies that are not mentioned in the list but are among their own most useful categories of vocabulary acquisition. The supplementary strategies are asked to be included in the rating system.
1.2.4 Interviews
In this study each questionnaire was followed by interviews with the participants. Interviews immediately following questionnaire 1 intend to provide additional and more specific information about the participants‟ reading processes for the banked cloze test. This brief informal interview serves as participants‟ after-thought explanations of their own behavior of internal cognitive process. Thus, the questions used in the interview may be slightly different for each interviewee as they are mainly based on the participants‟ response to questionnaire 1 and their performance on the test. Nonetheless, the questions are mainly about why and how the participants chose certain items in the cloze test. With the prompting of the researcher the interviewees could spontaneously comment on his or her reading process for the previous test and answer the researcher‟ questions concerning their choices of information sources and strategies to certain items. The purpose of the interviews immediately following questionnaire 2 was to get more information about participants‟ choice of strategies. The questions used are about why they chose certain strategies instead of others.
The interviews were carried out on an individual basis and conducted in the form of computer-accessed personal interviewing. That is, the interviewer i.e. the researcher and one interviewee i.e. one participant sit in front of computer and communicate through the chatting software – QQ. The content of the interviews was recorded for further analysis.
1.2.5 Procedure
The procedure consists of certain sequential steps, which were conducted with the
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help of QQ – an instant message (IM) software similar to MSN but more popular among Chinese students to communicate with via the computer.
The first step was the selection of participants, which was settled under the aid of the researcher‟s colleague at a university in China. The chosen participants with the CET-4 score of above 580 or below 400 have been taught by the researcher herself. They showed great willingness and support when informed of the objective of the study. The collection of their QQ numbers made it possible for the researcher to communicate directly with the participants.
The second step was to make sure the chosen participants understood the meaning of certain terminologies used in questionnaire 1. The colleague of the researcher gave the participants a rough instruction of certain terminologies that may cause trouble to some participants, with the main focus on the participants‟ understanding the linguistic forms without telling them the usage and purpose of the terminologies. This procedure was conducted one week before the participants took the banked cloze test for the purpose that the instruction would not heighten the participants‟ awareness of the subsequent test. Furthermore it could help to reduce the chance that the participants were prompted to deliberately adopt certain new strategies in the coming test (though it should not be dismissed that the potential possibility still existed) thus affect or distort their normal pattern of reading process.
The third step was the administration of the survey, which was carried out on an individual basis. No survey information leaked during the time interval of different participants‟ personal investigation due to their cooperation and interest in this study. The complete survey for each participant lasted about thirty minutes. The detailed procedure for this step was as follows:
The chosen banked cloze test was delivered on line to each participant to finish in ten minutes. On completion of the test, questionnaire 1 was immediately delivered to them to elicit and replicate