The Awareness of Morphemic Knowledge for Iraqi High School Learners’ Vocabulary Acquisition in the EFL Context

Mohamad Yasin,Hussein Al-Suhail,Ahmed Mohammed

doi:10.5539/ells.v6n4p62

Abstract

The study attempts to assess the awareness of morphemic knowledge among Iraqi high schoollearners in the domain of English Foreign Language (EFL) context. Two tests were employed in this study namely, “Morphological Relatedness Test (MRT)” and “Morphological Structure Test (MST)” adopted and adapted from Curinga (2014). These two tests are essential and crucial instruments employed to measure the students’ morphemic knowledge for this research. The students’ ability was measured by the two tests to reflect and manipulate morphologically complex derived words in English. Twenty Iraqi high schoolstudents were involved to achieve the purpose of the study. The study analysis disclosed that the participants accomplished poorly in both tests of MRT and MST. The findings also revealed that there was no significant difference between the students’ performance on MRT and MST. They were unable to reflect and manipulate efficiently. However, the students’ performance on reflective aspect was a little higher than manipulative aspect. It is true that Iraqi students are suffering from the phenomenon of the morphemic knowledge. They indeed need to be aware of the importance of the morphemic knowledge because this knowledge can drive to construct new words and deconstruct the complex words in addition to the reading comprehension.

Highlights

Morphemes are the essential parts construction of words for both spoken and written language. Carlisle (1995) has defined morphological awareness as a “conscious awareness of the morphemic structure of words and their ability to reflect on and manipulate that structure” (p. 194)
The findings of the research are discussed in two main areas, first, to investigate the performance of the Iraqi English Foreign Language (EFL) students in both “Morphological Relatedness Test (MRT)” and “Morphological Structure Test (MST)”; second, to determine the significant difference between Iraqi EFL students’ performance on MRT and MST
The study indicates that morphemic awareness is an effective vocabulary learning strategy and it certainly can become an obstacle for vocabulary acquisition for both English Second Language (ESL)/EFL students in learning English vocabulary if they are not aware of this strategy

Summary

Introduction

Morphemes are the essential parts construction of words for both spoken and written language. Carlisle (1995) has defined morphological awareness as a “conscious awareness of the morphemic structure of words and their ability to reflect on and manipulate that structure” (p. 194). Words with more than one morpheme are divided into the smaller pieces, cues are provided for three: “meaning, spelling, and pronunciation” (Carlisle, 2003). In this regard, the word payment includes two morphemes, the main part or the base is (pay) that is a verb and the suffix -ment that is added to transform the verb into a noun. Some researchers claim that vocabulary is a vital factor in learning a language especially English language (Asgari & Mustapha, 2011; Gu, 2003; Letchumanan & Tan, 2011; Kitchakarn & Choocheepwattana, 2012). Learners encounter difficulties and obstacles in their communication and language development when they have deficiency of vocabularies (Kitchakarn & Choocheepwattana, 2012; Letchumanan & Tan, 2011)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion