The influence of morphological and lexical competences in the reading proficiency of fourth year students from modern languages major at the department of foreign languages of the University of El Salvador during the year 2014

Hernández Martínez, Luis Armando and Montoya López, José Luis and Flores Cortez, Cecilia Rosibel (2015) The influence of morphological and lexical competences in the reading proficiency of fourth year students from modern languages major at the department of foreign languages of the University of El Salvador during the year 2014. Bachelor thesis, Universidad de El Salvador.

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Abstract

English is a worldwide language and several researches have been done about this language. Many scholars have written books about English as a second language and books for teaching English but these investigations have been carried out in diverse countries with contexts totally different from the ones that Salvadorian students live in. This research has been conducted with the objective of providing sources to future English learners, especially for students and teachers of the Foreign Languages Department of the Arts and Sciences School of the University of El Salvador; so that students of the Foreign Language Department can have access to researches done in their own context. This study was aimed to determine how influential vocabulary knowledge and morphology are in reading comprehension. The research question was “What is the influence between the lexical, morphological competences and reading proficiency of English learners of fourth academic year of Modern Language Major at the Foreign Languages Department of the University of El Salvador?” In this research, three main skills profile were taken into account: Vocabulary level (lexical competence), the morphology knowledge of words and the level of reading comprehension. This study has been carried out by following the quantitative method. In order to collect the data required by the nature of this study it was necessary to use three different tests. The first one is a vocabulary test which is a section of the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) that measures the ability of non-native speakers of English provided by the Educational Testing Service (ETS). The second one, a morphology test that was designed to carry out an investigation about morphology at the University of Queensland in Australia, after being validated by some teachers of the Foreign Language Department. And the last one, a reading comprehension test of the TOEFL designed by the ETS. These tests were administered to 80 out of 90 students that are in the fourth academic year of Modern Language Major at the Foreign Language Department of the University of El Salvador during the second semester of 2014. After administering the tests, the students’ results of each test were divided into levels in order to organize the information gathered. These levels were established by the points that the TOEFL provides to measure the students’ performance in each test. This organization helped researches to analyze the data to answer the research question. Microsoft Excel was used for the statistical procedure. Pie graphs were done to represent the data so that researches could interpret the results for achieving the conclusions of the research. A general view is shown in a graph line. The results of the research indicate the proficiency levels of the students in the different linguistic areas that took part of the test and remark the influence among morphological, lexical competences and reading proficiency as it is described in the theoretical framework. The conclusions and recommendations of this research are going to be helpful not only for students but also for teachers since it gives an overview of the impact that vocabulary level and the morphology knowledge have on students’ reading proficiency. This research has been carried out at the Foreign Language Department of Arts and Science School of the University of El Salvador

Item Type: Thesis (Bachelor)
Uncontrolled Keywords: Enseñanza del idioma inglés ; Morfología
Subjects: 400 Lenguas > 420 Inglés e inglés antiguo
Divisions: Facultad de Ciencias y Humanidades > Licenciatura en Lenguas Modernas: Especialidad en Frances e Inglés
Depositing User: Msc Carlos Ferrer
Date Deposited: 01 Mar 2018 15:57
Last Modified: 01 Mar 2018 15:57
URI: https://ri.ues.edu.sv/id/eprint/15756

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