Vocabulary Learning using Bilingual Knowledge Maps in Malaysian primary context - A pilot study

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BILINGUAL KNOWLEDGE MAPS VERSUS WORD-PAIR LIST FOR

VOCABULARY ACQUISITION

MOHD FHAIZAL HARITH MOHD SAKRI

A Project Paper submitted in Partial Completion of the Requirement for the Award

of the Degree of Bachelor of Education (TESOL)

..

TEMENGGONG IBRAHIM TEACHER EDUCATION INSTITUTION

APRIL 2013


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The undersigned, have examined the research report presented by Mohammad

Fhaizal Harith bin Mohammad Sakri, a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of

Education (TESOL) and hereby certify that, in their opinion, it is worthy of

acceptance.

Signature : .

Name of Supervisor : .

Date : .

Signature : .

Name of Supervisor : .

Date : .


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DECLARATION

I declare that this research project is the result of my own research

except as cited in reference.

Signature : .

Name of Candidate : .

Date : .


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DEDICATION

To my loving parents


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The author would like to express his sincere appreciation to the thesis

supervisor, Miss Nuraishah Goh for guidance and encouragement given the period of

the research.

Cooperation given by the Faculty of Education, University of Auckland, the

Language Department, Temenggong Ibrahim Teacher Education Institute, SK Mohd

Khir Joharis staff and pupils, lecturers, and friends are greatly appreciated.

Appreciation is also extended to all those involved either directly or indirectly

towards this research project.


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ABSTRACT

The purpose of this research study was to find out the influence of meaningful

semantic mapping for vocabulary learning in Malaysian primary school. The learning

approach was focused on a semantic mapping strategy called Bilingual Knowledge

map armed with an array of semantic linkers, going against a common word-list

strategy. The participants consisted of 36 pupils from Year 5A who possessed

considerable proficiency in English language skills. The collected data revealed a

notable but insignificant influence of semantic mapping in vocabulary learning. The

participants did well in both strategies, considering their performances and feedback.

The results of the study suggested that the use of semantic mapping strategy such as

BiK-Maps in vocabulary learning is useful to those who is capable of making the

connections using the semantic links to make sense of the vocabularies. Beyond that,

the BiK-Maps are neither superior nor inferior to the common word-pair lists.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER CONTENTS PAGE

Declaration 3

Dedication 4

Acknowledgement 5

Abstract 6

Table of Contents 7-9

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.0 Introduction 91.1 Background of the study 9

1.2 Statement of the Problem 10

1.3 Objectives of the study 10

1.4 Research Questions 10

1.5 Significance of the study 11

1.6 Limitation of the study 11

1.7 Definition of Terms 11

CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.0 Introduction 12

2.1 Theoretical Framework 12


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2.2 Related literature 12-15

CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.0 Introduction 16

3.1 Design of the study 16

3.2 Population and Samples of the study 16

3.3 The Research Instruments 17

3.4 Research Procedure 19

CHAPTER IV DATA ANALYSIS

4.0 Introduction 20

4.1 Quantitative Analysis 20

4.2 Qualitative Analysis 23

CHAPTER V SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS &

RECOMMENDATION 26

BIBLIOGRAPHY 27

APPENDICES 30


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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.0 Introduction

Over the past few decades, various learning techniques and strategies have

been developed to improve the vocabulary learning among young learners in English

as second language (ESL) context. One such strategy is semantic mapping. Semantic

mapping make use of meaningful links that give the learners comprehensible and

relatable connections to guide their vocabulary learning. This strategy provides the

learners the opportunity to learn using their cognitive space to make sense of new

information rather than intense memorisation.

1.1 Background of the study

The research study is based on the use of semantic mapping such as the Bik-

Maps in facilitating vocabulary learning among second language learners. Such

strategy has been piloted in several research studies and all of the results show

favourable advantage of the BiK-Maps strategy in facilitating second language

learners vocabulary acquisition over many other mapping strategies. However, the

studythat has been used in various version and contexts has not yet been done in

Malaysian primary ESL setting. This gives the idea of where this study can be

conducted and what kind of participant is required.


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1.2 Statement of the problem

The normal and common word-pair lists strategy lacks semantic organisation

between nodes and this is the problem in the current bilingual mapping strategy.

Without elaborate and meaningful semantic organisation, ESL learners (not

specifically Malaysian learners) may not be able to acquire vocabularies well enough

because of poor spatial organisation alternated (not simultaneous) exposure between

languages, and the limited amount of semantic linkers as on earlier word maps and

lists (Bahr & Dansereau, 2001). Therefore BiK-Maps, equipped with clear semantic

organisation, may have a certain advantage against the current strategy in the

vocabulary learning. This paper is designed to address this particular gap and to find

out what kind of influence the semantic mapping and organisation of the BiK-Maps

hold.

1.3 Objectives of the study

The objective of the research study is mainly focusing on the use of semantic

mapping strategy such as BiK-Maps in facilitating, or even enhancing the

participants vocabulary learning. The semantic and meaning-making approach may

have a certain influence or advantage over the common look-and-memorise

approach. The research study intents to find out to what extent the semantic mapping

facilitates young learners vocabulary learning, and how well it fares against the

current common non-linked word-pair strategy.

1.4 Research Question

The research question for this research study is therefore:

o Does the use of BiK-maps significantly facilitate vocabularyacquisition among Malaysian primary ESL learners in comparison to

normal non-linked bilingual mapping strategy (word-pair lists)?


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1.5 Significance of the study

The significance of this study lies in the current ESL situation in Malaysia.

Malaysian primary ESL syllabus is moving towards communicative approach in this

few recent years. The teaching and learning instruction is slowly changing with more

and more interactive teaching aids introduced and used in the classroom. The

emergence of the new primary school syllabus (KSSR) in Malaysian education

system promotes fun, interactive and meaningful learning experience for the pupils.

The pupils are encouraged to sustain and make sense of their in learning in a

meaningful and constructive way. Vocabularies cannot be learned just by

memorising; one must make connection and comprehend the meaning of each word

in order to fully make use of the words and widen their knowledge. If proven, it is

certainly interesting to see the addition of Bilingual Knowledge Maps strategy will

harmonize the teaching aid variety and provides the teachers and learners with a

useful vocabulary learning strategy in the Malaysian ESL primary context.

1.6 Limitation of the study

Any limitation has been reduced and addressed elaborately to no longer affect

the full research study.

1.7 Definition of Terms

ESLEnglish as second language

KSSRKurikulum Standard Sekolah Rendah

SLASecond language acquisition

BiK-MapBilingual Knowledge Map


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CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELEVANT LITERATURE

2.0 Introduction

As mentioned before, there are lot of theories and strategies that have been

developed by educators and scholars as well as researchers in order to improve

learners second language acquisition (SLA), particularly English. Famous scholars

for instance Stephen Krashen formulated his famous Monitor Theory to explain

individual differences in ESL (Willis & Willis, 2007). Theories, such as the Working

Memory theory that elucidates the notion of memory structure and how a learner

stores and retrieves informationoften developed in order to gain more insight into

SLA. Among all the theories and strategies in SLA, few will be referred and form the

ground for this research study.

2.1 Theoretical Framework

There are basically three conceptual grounds that pillaring this research

study: Bilingualism in SLA, Working Memory, and Knowledge Mapping.

2.2 Related Literature

Bilingualism in SLA

There is a common misconception about children learning capability at early

age; it is too difficult for the young children (aged 12 and below) to learn and acquire

two languages at a time (Lightbown & Spada, 2006). However, Genesee, Crago, &

Paradis (2004) claimed that there was little proven research to support the claim.


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Lightbown & Spada (2006) remedied the claim saying that there is no concrete

empirical evidence to support the claim that bilingual learning will interfere with

children linguistic performance or cognitive and academic development. Thus,

learning with two language mediums does not effectively impede the children

learning capability but improves the learning instead. The negative effect of

bilingualism is more to the imbalanced usage of the two languages, not the children

language learning capacity. If the children extensively use one language more than

the other one, then they will potentially either improve only in the more frequently

used language, or subsequently lose the lesser-used one (Wong Fillmore, 1991).

Despite all that, it is still a truth that many simultaneous bilinguals achieve high

levels of proficiency in both languages (Lightbown & Spada, 2006).

Working Memory Notion

The Working Memory theory (WM) is termed as the cognitive space in

which we actively process new information or information that is currently in focus

(Lightbown & Spada, 2006). WM is also called short-term memory. WMprovides

the insight of how learners store, process, and retrieve information within their

knowledge repertoire. The nature of the theory is vast and still being moderated by

educators and scholars alike. In this paper, the use of knowledge mapping to increase

the English vocabulary acquisition is more or less related to this theory. One can

create node-link networks by transforming text into unitary ideas that are connected

to one another via links that express relationships (Bahr & Dansereau, 2001).

Learners will use their working memory to link and understand the semantic

knowledge maps used in the BiK-Maps strategy, and store encoded information

(vocabulary).

Knowledge Maps in Learning

There has been an ongoing competition between inferential context learning

and semantic mapping since 1994. Both tools showed their strengths but inferential

context learning soon lost its ground to semantic mapping, due to the semantic

ambiguity, lexical and syntactic overstimulation (Bahr & Dansereau, 2001).

Semantic mapping is defined as a process of using words for constructing visual

displays of categories and their relationships (Svenconis, 1994). However, Svenconis


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study was plagued with poor spatial organization, alternated exposure between

languages, and the limited amount of semantic linkers. With wide range of link styles

and better spatial organization, the TCU k-maps therefore seemed superior compared

to Svenconiss semantic mapping. Further research and analysis followed to ascertain

k-maps strength in language learning, especially vocabulary acquisition. Winn

(1991) and Robinson et al (1999) in their studies valued the knowledge mapping as a

facilitator in encoding and decoding of information on a monolingual echelon.

Instead of common rote-memorization of vocabulary words, knowledge mapping

makes use of graphical construct that organizes information in two-dimensional

spatial domain (Bahr & Dansereau, 2001). The information is organized in terms of

nodes and arrows/links, and one such example is knowledge map (see Figure 1

below).

(Taken from Bahr & Dansereau (2001))

(Taken from Bahr & Dansereau (2001))


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The knowledge map (or k-map) in Figure 1 is developed by the Texas

Christian University (TCU) by transforming from text to a visuospatial

representation. Additionally, semantic connections are based on nine link types that

signify the relationships between the nodes (Table 1). One clear advantage of this

representation is that it reduces the amount of verbiage and eliminates word clutter

(Bahr & Dansereau, 2001). Bahr and Dansereau adapted this representation for their

own research on language acquisition.

Dansereau himself has conducted various research pivoted on the k-maps

construct in psychology files and has found many benefits of such strategy in his

research. He found that k-maps increases the recall of macrostructure information

(Rewey, Dansereau, & Peel, 1991), enhances the processing of nominal information

(Rewey, Dansereau, Skaggs, Hall, & Pitre, 1989), promotes embedded learning of

efficient information processing schemes (Chmielewski & Dansereau, 1998), and

surprisingly benefits individual with poor verbal skills (Dees & Dansereau, 1993).

The k-maps strategy has even been done in the area of drug abuse counselling (Bahr

& Dansereau, 2001). Further research done by Dansereau, Joe, Dees, and Simpson

(1996) and Dees, Dansereau, and Simpson (1997) resulted in a conclusion that k-

maps allow people to interact in an accessible language regardless of ethnographic

background; k-maps can act as the communication medium that transcends cultural

differences (Dansereau, Joe, Dees, & Simpson, 1996; Dees, Dansereau, & Simpson,

1997; Pitre, Dees, Dansereau, & Simpson, 1997).

Based on those research studies, Dansereau saw the influence k-maps have in

language learning context. The k-maps ability to support multiple languages was

seen as a versatile communication bridge between different language users, and

potential device to aid vocabulary learning (Bahr & Dansereau, 2001). Beginning

from this point, Dansereau further adapted the k-maps as a vocabulary learning aid

known as Bilingual Knowledge Maps (BiK-Maps). The features such as lack of

verbiage and word clutter, ideas clustering, focus on semantic, hierarchical and

contextual cues, and feedback loops equipped BiK-Maps with superior advantages

over textual constructs.


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CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.0 Introduction

The research study aimed to find out how well BiK-Maps facilitate

vocabulary learning among the Malaysian primary learners. The BiK-Maps version

used for this paper was adapted from the original works of Bahr and Dansereau. In

this paper, the BiK-map learning strategy was conducted against a common word-

pair list (to represent normal non-linked bilingual mapping strategy). The procedures

and the instruments were adapted to suit this research study intention.

3.1 Design of the study

The research study was designed with both qualitative and quantitative

aspects; following mixed-method approach. Quantitatively, the research intended to

find the empirical evidence and statistical significance of the BiK-Maps strategy

against the word-pair lists strategy. The research was also designed to gather

qualitative feedback through written responses and analysis.

3.2 Population and Samples of the study

The participants were selected based on the Malaysian primary ESL

classroom setting. The original scope of this study was large and may involve the

whole setting, but it was lowered down as to fit the population and time restriction.

The participants were sampled purposively. The participating school, SK Mohd Khir


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Johari, had a population of 400 to 500 learners. The sample size for this study was

one classroom of 36 learners, roughly 10 percent of total population.

Each participant was sampled based on the following attributes:

1. The participant is currently enrolled in Year 5 Malaysian primaryclassroom,

2. The participant has passed at least stage 3.5 in KBSR Reading SkillProficiency (Malaysia, 2001).

The justification for the sampling technique was that it was possible for the

school to appear as a third-tier primary school. Third tier schools generally had low

to average English proficiency mean score based on the schools general examination

performance (Yuddin, 2008). This condition therefore could exhibit the perspective

of this pilot study in some way although not necessarily so. The headmistress and the

teachers of the SK Mohd Khir Johari mentioned the school as low-performer in

academic fields but very excellent in co-curricular fields. Still, at Year 5, the learners

in the 5A class were the top of their cohort and old enough to have possessed all

necessary language skills to make use of the research instruments.

As for the reading skill proficiency level, it was a good preparation to have a

group of participants who were capable of handling the tests without any ambiguous

performance penalty due to lack of the required skill. At stage 3.5 of Reading Skill

proficiency level, an ESL learner was capable of reading and understanding the

meanings of words by guessing their meaning via the use of contextual clues

(Malaysia, 2001). The participants had achieved this level and it was an optimum

level to fully make use of the research instruments.

3.3 The Research Instruments

Four instrument sets were used for this pilot study. The instrument sets for

this study were a set of three adapted Bilingual Knowledge Maps (BiK-Maps), a set

of three word-pair lists, a set of three mix-match exercise papers, and a set of open-

ended short-essay for written feedback.


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First of all were the BiK-Maps instrument set and the word-pair lists set. The

BiK-Maps set was composed of three BiK-Maps with different vocabulary words

and topics. The word-pair set was also composed of three lists with similar topics and

words to the BiK-Maps, but different in configuration. The languages were English

and Malay. The BiK-Maps and the word-pair lists were included in the appendices.

The topics and the vocabulary words that were used in the measuring instruments

were based on the Malaysian Year 4 English Language textbook as this was the most

recommended for the participants (Division, 2003). A BiK-Map contained 9 to 10

nodes of words and the same went to the word-pair list. The number of words was

limited to ten per map/list because beginner learners learned better with small cluster

of words (Crothers & Suppes, 1967). These maps and lists were used in a study time

of 5 minutes per instrument prior to the evaluation exercise.

The evaluation exercises were composed of a set of three mix and match

exercises. There were nine to ten questions per exercise. All questions were based on

the vocabulary words used in the map/list instruments. The participants were

required to answer by matching the correct answer (meaning) to each of the

vocabulary word in question. The answer part of the evaluation exercises contained

one distractor to prevent the test-wise situation (where participants simply mix-and-

match the options without thinking). The test had time duration of 2 minutes each.

Each participant underwent the exercise set right after the study time to assess how

many English vocabularies and their meanings that they had remembered correctly.

The exercises were evaluated and provided a quantitative data pattern for the

research.

Finally, the open-ended short-essay feedback was purposed to collect general

and anonymous qualitative data regarding the BiK-Maps learning strategy. The

feedback essay was important in order to find out the participants opinion about the

learning strategy used in this research. The feedback paper consisted of one open-

ended question with approximately 50 words of answer limit. The feedback paper

was not compulsory to all participants but at least three voluntary participants were

required. The feedback essays were analysed qualitatively.


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3.4 Research Procedure

The duration of this pilot study was approximately 3 weeks (1 day

intervention per week). During the first week of the project, the researcher

introduced and briefed the nature of the research study to the participants and the

teacher. The participants were assembled in a classroom and the research instructions

were explained orally by the researcher. The participants were then divided into two

equal groups (18 participants per group); one group representing BiK-Maps and

another will be representing word-pair lists. The participants were assigned with

numbers from 1 to 36 for identification purpose. They were then given a piece of

either BiK-Maps or word-pair lists (according to the group they are in) and they

studied the item for 5 minutes. Then, the all maps/lists were collected and a first set

of evaluation exercises was handed out and the participants took 2 minutes to

complete the exercise. After 2 minutes, the test was ended and the exercises were

collected.

After that, all instruments were collected and the participants and the

involved teacher were thanked for the effort. The resulting data for the first

intervention were recorded. The number of correct and wrong answers was also

noted accordingly. This provided the first data of the English vocabulary learning by

the participants, with respect to word-pair lists and BiK-maps strategies. Next week,

the same procedure was repeated for the second time. The participants studied the

next set of word-pair list and BiK-Map and then did the following exercise. They

answered the following exercise, again. For the third intervention week, the similar

procedure was repeated again for a final time and additionally, at the end of the last

exercise, at least three volunteers were asked to fill in the feedback forms. The

feedback givers were asked for their consent. All the data were collected and

tabulated for analysis. The trends and patterns were analysed based on the

participants performance and understanding of the vocabulary words. Microsoft

Excel program will be used to analyse the data compilation of the three-week

intervention.


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CHAPTER IV

DATA ANALYSIS

4.0 Introduction

As mentioned in the Procedure section, each week, all participants were

divided into two groups equally and took either BiK-maps or word-pair lists to

memorise and then test their understanding on the exercise papers. After all

interventions had been done, the data were tabulated and analysed using Microsoft

Excel software. For statistical analysis, the Data Analysis in the Excel software is

used.

4.1 Quantitative Analysis

Table 1: Number of participants with full marks score.

Week (Topic) BiK-map (n = 18) Word-pair (n = 18)

Week 1 (Food) 15 participants 14 participants

Week 2 (Sports) 15 participants 17 participants

Week 3 (Communicative) 15 participants 14 participants

From the Table 1, early data showed the BiK-map group marked roughly

consistent performance on the exercise papers. Every week, out of 18 participants in

the group, only 3 participants did not get the full marks. A little contrary on word-

pair list camp, the word-pair list group showed different performance with 4

participants did not get the full marks on each week 1 and 3 respectively, as well as

only 1 participant did her exercise paper with errors on week 2. Next, the data were

examined in depth.


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Table 2: Word-pair Lists data (positive)

Week = Week 1 Week 2 Week 3

Number (n) = 18 18 18

Mean = 9.611 8.944 8.667

Standard deviation = 0.778 0.236 0.686

Correct answers (%) = 96 99 96

From Table 2, it can be seen that the participants (or the pupils) who worked

on the word-pair lists achieved good scores across three weeks in answering

vocabulary exercises. Week 2 showed best result with only one participant got 8/9

marks. The scores deviation of Week 2 at a value of 0.236 was showing smaller

difference compared to Week 1 and 3. Surprisingly, the data from BiK-Maps was

also excellent across all weeks. Refer Table 3 below.

Table 3: BiK-Maps data (positive)

Week = Week 1 Week 2 Week 3

Number (n) = 18 18 18

Mean = 9.722 8.833 8.778

Standard deviation = 0.669 0.383 0.548

Correct answers (%) = 97 98 98

Comparing Table 2 and 3, the most distinct result was reflected on Week 2.

BiK-Maps demonstrated better mean, standard deviation, and percentage scores

against word-pair lists on Week 1 and 3 but word-pair lists traded place with BiK-

Maps on Week 2. With better scores on the mean, percentage and standard deviation,

word-pair lists slightly superior to BiK-Maps on Week 2. This was an unexpected

result and thus was quite interesting to discover. Looking at the percentage

differences from both tables, BiK-Maps and word-pair lists traded blows on Week 1

and 2 with 1% difference. On Week 3 however, a slightly clear lead of 2% showed

up by the BiK-Maps in comparison to the word-pair lists.


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Table 4: t-Test for Week 1

t-Test: Two-Sample Assuming Equal Variances (Week 1Word-pair

Lists vs. BiK-Maps)

Word-pair

Lists

BiK-Maps

Mean 9.611111 9.722222

Variance 0.604575 0.447712

P(T


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finding also suggested closer relation to the null hypothesis stating there is no clear

difference.

4.2 Qualitative Analysis

Aside from the statistical analysis to find the significance of the BiK-Maps

against the word-pair lists, a qualitative error analysis was done to find out the

vocabulary word errors done by the participants when using BiK-Maps or word-pair

lists. The errors were coded into 5 themes based on the three topics (food, sports and

communication) which were; (1) frequency of errors, (2) word class errors, (3)

distractor errors, (4) mismatch errors, and (5) blank errors (see Table 7).

Frequency

Table 7: Frequency of errors according to topic

From the exercise papers, there were several similar errors happened more

than once. The frequency of the vocabulary word errors ranged from fourfold to

twice, and this suggested that these words may pose certain difficulties for some

participants to comprehend or make connection. The possible explanations for this

theme were perhaps unfamiliarity with the words and confusion in meaning. The

wrongly-answered words were listed in the table below.

Frequency Food Sports Communication

Fourfold nutritious (adj) - -

Thrice balanced (adj) movement (n) blind (adj), mute (adj)

Twice important (adj) - deaf (adj)


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Word class

Table 8: Errors according to word class

Word Class

Noun grains exercise, movement,

discipline

letter, symbol

Verb - - -

Adjective nutritious, balanced,

important

- blind, deaf, mute

The chosen vocabulary words sported in the research study were taken from

the Year 4 textbook and could be classified into three word class; nouns, verbs, and

adjectives. Result from Table 7 showed equal error counts on noun and adjective

classes while none on the verb class. However, cross-referencing with the frequency

of errors showed significantly heavier error counts on the adjectives compared to the

nouns (19 vs. 3). This showed that some participants found the adjectives were more

difficult to comprehend or make connection than the nouns and verbs.

Distractor, Mismatch and Blank Errors

Table 9: Distractor, mismatch and blank errors according to group

Types /

Group

BiK-Maps Word-pair BiK -Maps Word-pair BiK -

Maps

Word-

pair

Distractor

Error

- nutritious

- minuman

- movement

-

badminton

- blind -

gambar

Mismatch

Error

balanced

important,

food -

fruits

nutritious

grains,

balanced

nutritious

- - blind

mute

blind

deaf,

mute -

deaf

Blank

Error

important nutritious,

balanced

exercise,

movement,

discipline

- deaf,

letter

symbol


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Those three themes could be combined together as the types of error made by

the participants in answering the exercise papers, in regards to the topics and the

groups (BiK-Maps and word-pair lists). Distractor error happened when a participant

chose a distractor answer instead of the real answer. Distractor answer acted as a

diversion in the exercise instrument to prevent test-wise condition and thus

improving the reliability and validity of the instrument. In the Table 7s case, all

distractor errors came from the word-pair lists group only. Those who used BiK-

Maps did not exhibit such error.

Mismatch errors were errors made by mismatching two or more answers. The

explanation was either confusion or misunderstanding. The tendency of this error

type relied heavily on the participants understanding of the words considered; if the

participant failed to grasp the correct meaning of a word, then he/she would likely

choose the next plausible word available in the answer paper (i.e. food - fruits).

Blank errors were simply questions that were left unanswered. Again,

confusion and misunderstanding may play a role in this type of error but another

plausible reason could be the time factor. Given that the proficiency level of the

sample participants in English were the top of their class, the findings were quite

unexpected in some cases.


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CHAPTER V

DISCUSSION, CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATION

With reference to the data analysis, the research question can now be

answered. In general, BiK-Maps do show positive and consistent results with lesser

errors on the vocabulary learning (97.6% against 97% of the word-pair lists.

However, in statistical reference, the values are not significant (all p-values > 0.05)

and thus there is no clear difference or advantage of the BiK-Maps over the common

word-pair lists. The possible reasons are plenty. However, the most feasible reasons

are the intrinsic proficiency level of the participants and the participants preference.

The participants are originally reported to belong to the below-intermediate

level in English proficiency, according to the class teacher. However, the results

showed that most participants face negligible issue in learning simple 9 to 10

vocabulary words a day, suggesting a far better actual proficiency level than what is

expected (better reading skill than other language skills). However, from the errors

made, it can be deduced that the some participants do find certain difficulty in

comprehending adjectives and nouns, suggesting the word level of some

vocabularies used does pose a challenge.

From the general feedback essays gathered, most participants like the BiK-

Maps strategy but there are also those who prefer word-pair lists. As unique

individual, each participant has their own internal preference and learning aptitude

that work best for him/her (Bahr & Dansereau, 2001). Due to this finding, the

participants who create meaningful links between memorised information in

establishing meaning will work better with the BiK-Maps than the word-pair lists.

Option-wise, BiK-Maps prove strong results and are preferred by many

Malaysian primary ESL learners because of the useful spatial and semantic

organisation. However, in Malaysian context, the common word-pair lists may also

find its old strength among the primary ESL learners. The slight superiority is

negligible but may be changed with longer period of time (i.e. longitudinal study).


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Dansereau, D. F., Joe, G. W., Dees, S. M., & Simpson, D. D. (1996). Ethnicity and

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Dees, S. M., & Dansereau, D. F. (1993). Using schematic organizers to help college

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APPENDICES

Documents

Vocabulary Learning using Bilingual Knowledge Maps in Malaysian primary context - A pilot study