Abstract:
Vocabulary is one of the most essential
components of language. Without an adequate vocabulary,
some undergraduates who enter the faculties that use
English medium instruction, struggle to achieve academic
success.After analysing the undergraduates’ performances
at English examinations in the Faculty of Science, it
was realized that the low proficiency students lack the
threshold level of vocabulary to express their ideas, to
write sentences using morphological and syntactic rules
correctly.Consequently, this study was conducted with
the objective of improving the vocabulary volume of
low proficiency undergraduates in the Faculty of Science
where the medium of instruction is English, in order for
them to read, listen and write more effectively in English.
This would help the undergraduates with their academic
work as well as future goals. The theoretical framework
of this study is morphological awareness, the ability to
reflect on and manipulate morpheme - the smallest unit
of meaning in words in developing English vocabulary.
This was a quasi- experimental study with a quantitative,
qualitative mixed method. The data samplein this
research was randomly selected 60 low proficiency first
year undergraduates. The sample was divided into two
groups, the control group and the experimental group.
A test was given as two items; a morpheme identification
test and a morphological structure awareness test. It
was administered before and after intervention. The
intervention was carried out with the experimental group,
and the control group only received the lesson material.
Results indicated that morphological awareness had
significantly improved the use of vocabulary among low
proficiency undergraduates. Furthermore, the findings
indicated that the morphological knowledge is helpful
for the undergraduates to analyse words and write
grammatically correct sentences. In conclusion, findings
imply a need to give more emphasis to increase the
morphological knowledge when preparing English for
Academic Purposes lessons to the undergraduates who
follow English medium instruction.
