SLA ASSIGMENT: REVIEWING A JOURNAL

Rohib Adrianto Sangia (Kemenag Class)

NIM. 137835102
The target of this article is reviewing a journal article written by Subekti
and Lawson (2007) which dedicated in researching the vocabularies strategies
which conducted by Indonesian students who were getting their post degree by
reading activity. It will be discussed in this about three important points as the clue
in accomplishment of this writing. The first part will be a brief summary of the
article. The summary of article is the process of highlighting and presenting the
essential main point and the parts of arguments completed research studies. A
journal article summary provides potential readers by taking out the least important
points, sorting the important one based on the connection and stating them in
paraphrases (Vander Mey, Meyer, Van Rys, & Sebranek, 2014: 9). After the
summary, it will be continued with comments about the article. It will be filled with
the responds to the material which is supporting the research. The supporting
materials are concepts, arguments, author position, research elements, such as
participants, setting, method, analysis, etc. The comments and responds will be
presented by pointed out the weakness and the strangeness the author supports.
The final part will be discussed about the further possible research based on the
result or finding from the article. It can give many opportunities and input for the
next researcher whether to exploring deeper inside or to conduct some parallel
researches based on the main results of the article (Blessing & Chakrabarti, 2009:
124).
Article Summary
The beginning of the article, the authors started by stated the purpose of
their article which is to describe their research of Indonesia postgraduate students
vocabulary acquisition strategies through reading. In some reason, this research is
conducted by considering some theories which describes the significance of new
words in second language acquisition. It is stated by the authors that the success of
foreign vocabulary acquisition can be affected by some factors includes the
effectiveness and use of vocabulary learning strategies.
In the previous study, it is revealed that one of the authors which are M.J
Lawson and his partner has been doing the similar research with the object native
English who learns Italian both in university level in 1996, which makes them
purposed taxonomies of vocabularies learning strategies and Australian secondary
school in 1998. The authors also tagged at last three experiments in different level
of vocabulary acquisition strategies for second language learner through reading.

All of the experiments show an increase from eight until twenty per cent in the
latest experiment.
Those experiments noted the authors that there two major factor which are
the level of acquisition word meaning and the level of recall, so that their intended
to do the research for the international postgraduate students in here Indonesian
students, because they were expected to be an independent reader along their
study. It gives the authors formed question to be solved by the research that are
kind of procedures in achieve and remember meaning of unknown English words,
number of frequency of use, procedures that they believe more effective, and finally
the effect their strategy on vocabulary recall performance immediately periodically
all the time.
For the research, the author had the participants which willing and available
to study. They were 25 persons which are 28 to 40 years old, study as English
language postgraduate student in south Australia, divided into ten male and fifteen
female, and not only had different IELTS score but also came from several
backgrounds from administrator, teacher, to lecturer.
In the method and procedure, they used TIME magazine as the text as the
medium in having them accomplishing two types of test which are Word
recognition Test (WRT) and Meaning Translation Test (MTT). The WRT is
intended to identify number of words (fifteen items as requirement) can be
remembered by the participants. The MTT is free recall test to the participants
collect fifteen words that should be they write down and translate it into their
native language. Both tests was administrated once a week for four weeks
regularly and filled with some interview in recorded environment.
After captivating all considered data, it was analysed by two types of
analysis which are qualitative analysis and statistical analysis. Qualitative analysis in
this research, the author was using NVivo 2.0 software in analysing the data which
the gain from participants verbalization, interview result, and observation data in
the first week and proceeded using taxonomy that has mention before in the first
part, that describe the development of vocabulary learning strategies. The result of
the analysis is grouping the participants in two categories, which are elaboration
strategies and non-elaboration strategies, thus they will apart four specific sub
categories: passive, active non-elaboration, simple elaboration and complex
elaboration. For statistical data, the main data that was both tests results across
occasion therefore analysed by using both SPSS 11.5 and HLM 6.0 (by using two
level models).
Findings shows, there are 63.9% participants were using non-elaboration
strategies and also 60.6% were in passive strategies subcategory. While for among
individual learners, Participants 1 used strategies the most often, thus max number

of strategy used in 16 by both Participant 5 and 17 while none can achieve all
strategies. For both WRT and MTT shows the same trend of curve. They were
dropped in time two but after all WRT scores are higher than MTT which is read
by the author that participants experiences facing available new words. For the
HLM, the authors conclude that in WRT, IELTS scores as a variable gave
congruent projection WRT scores. The number of different strategies used gave
positive impact in overall level, but generally it indicates that the effects were quite
small. MTT also exposed the effect of overall strategy use on mean level of recall
was pretty small.
As closing, the author stated several things. First, the author strongly
recommended that reading is useful as media in acquire the meanings of new
words. Then, the participants were considered as active strategy uses, so they were
better in WRT than MTT, point out that they can recognize the some words but
have difficulty in recall their meanings. The third, the quantity of knowledge
resource is positively significance which was shown by IELTS score. The fourth,
the author declared that the impact of overall test and treatments far from the
expectation from the results of HLM analysis. Finally, it is suggested to explore
deeper the use of reading as a medium to acquire new words as same as to develop
more complex elaboration strategies.
Comments
For this section, there will be explain two major things of the article, the
strengths and the weaknesses. There several tings which are showing the strengths
of this article. The first is the concepts of the research. No doubt, the list of the
previous study mostly has been done the second authors. It means, Lawson gave
Subekti strong path in running this research. The next is the elements of the
research, started from the participants which are complex from different
occupation, gender, etc. the place which is in learning environment. For the
method, it is exactly give opportunity no room for error, since most of the data
taken and preceded were naturally. The instrument which is used were four items
(participants verbalization, interview result, observation data, and Two type of
Test) that indicates a kind of serious effort in getting valid data. The method which
is used analysis data comes from various ways that gives various findings that
describes the answer of the research questions.
In my opinion, there were at least two things that can be highlighted from
the article. The first is the problem that can rise from the taxonomy. The research
data gaining was trapped by the twenty components, it means that there should be
a note from the author that whether the participants had different strategies out of
the taxonomy or not. The notes are useful in developing the taxonomy in getting

higher complexity. The second things that the author did not explain why they took
this kind of taxonomy and it is relevancy, without explaining another alternative
taxonomy, was that the only taxonomy or not, should be explained by the author.
For the last, the time of having the test until four times is considered as much. At
the first, participants were known this is a test, it could make them stress in facing
the test, so that can decreasing their productivity in acquiring the new words. To
me, this factor can be considered as the enemy of the objective research.
Suggestion for further research
It is believe that from the article, many inspirations can rise in conducting
further research. Based on the article, It is suggested the deeper exploration in
usage of reading as a tool to acquire new words. The research in investigating the
effect of training students in more complex elaboration strategies and it is impact
for the new vocabulary acquisition.
Since there is unexpected results mostly in the numbers of impact of overall
test, it is highly recommended to have another reduplication research by
considering the research component that suspected as the factor of the failure of
the this research. As explained in the previous section, the weaknesses can be
secure by considering the times of occasion as same as its intervals and the
taxonomy which gives general or simplified descriptions of the participants
probably done.
From the elements of the research, it can give various elements an
opportunity in conducting another research. For the participants, as the authors
used are the English learners, means that it can gives another chance to replace it
with non-native students which study another subject beside English. The
participants are parallel with the source of the reading. It is recommended to finds
another specific resource since the magazine is considered as general reading but
sometimes it contains such kind of particular register, which is not familiar with the
participants disciplines, the can make the decreasing of motivation in acquiring ne
words. Another prospect is the various grades of second language learners besides
university level, and IELTS score. Another element is the type of acquisition type,
which can be considered. For the next, it is surely can hold the research about
vocabulary strategies throughout listening, since this activity was held most aspect
of life. The last but not least, the development of taxonomy can be an interesting
aims of a research of language acquisition, not only for the reading, but also for
listening (O'Malley & Chamot, 1990: 34).

References
Blessing, L.T.M., & Chakrabarti, A. (2009). DRM, a Design Research
Methodology. London: Springer
O'Malley, J.M., & Chamot, A.U. (1990). Learning Strategies in Second Language
Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Subekti, Nanang Bagus, & Lawson, Michael J. (2007). Vocabulary Acquisition
Strategies of Indonesian Postgraduate Students through Reading.
International Education Journal, 8(2), 485-496.
Vander Mey, Randall, Meyer, Verne, Van Rys, John, & Sebranek, Patrick. (2014).
The college writer brief : a guide to thinking, writing, and researching
(Fifth edition. ed.). Stamford: Cengage Learning