EFL LEARNERS’ VOCABULARY DEFICIENCIES DURING
COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Maria Laurensia Adeline Angelika Wijaya 112011072
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION PROGRAM
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
EFL LEARNERS’
VOCABULARY DEFICIENCIES DURING
COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Maria Laurensia Adeline Angelika Wijaya 112011072
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION PROGRAM
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
vi
Copyright Statement
This thesis contains no such material as has been submitted for examination in any course or accepted for the fulfillment of any degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and my belief, this contains no material previously published or written by any other person except where due reference is made in the text.
Copyright@ 2016. Maria Laurensia Adeline Angelika Wijaya and Dian Toar Y. G. Sumakul
All rights reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced by any means without the permission of at least one of the copyright owners or the English Department, Faculty of Language and Literature, SatyaWacana Christian University, Salatiga.
vii
Table of Content
Approval Page………...ii
Publication Agreement Declaration………...iii
Copyright Statement………...iv
Table of Content………..v
List of Figures………..vi
Introduction………..1
Review of Literature………....3
The Study………8
Findings and Discussion……….10 Conclusion………..20 Acknowledgement………..22 References………...23
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List of Figure
Figure 1. Example of chat-log
Figure 2. Excerpt of awareness of grammatical functions from Participant S02
Figure 3. Excerpt of mental-lexicon‟s structure and semantic features from participant S01 Figure 4. Excerpt of vocabulary size from participant S08
Figure 5. Excerpt of vocabulary size from participant S09 Figure 6. Excerpt of lexical organization from participant S03
Figure 7. Excerpt of revision of lexical organization from participant S05 Figure 8. Excerpt of revision done by participant S06
EFL LEARNERS’ VOCABULARY DEFICIENCIES DURING
Vocabulary knowledge is one of important aspects in language learning, especially for EFL learners who use English as their foreign language. Meanwhile, vocabulary deficiencies are one aspect that often occurs unconsciously to EFL learners. This study aims to identify which type of vocabulary deficiencies that mostly occur in Faculty of Language and Literature learners, SatyaWacana Christian University, Salatiga during online chatting in English. Using Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC), the participants did an online chatting and recorded. The data precede using Stimulated Recall Protocol (SRP) and a semi-structured interview. The data were analysed based on four vocabulary deficiencies classsification by Rahsidi and Koshravi (2010). One type of vocabulary deficiencies was found out to have the most occurrences and two deficiencies were found to be related to each other. The findings of this study might provide helpful guideline for EFL teacher and/or learners to anticipate and give a better understanding of vocabulary deficiencies.
Keywords: vocabulary, vocabulary deficiencies, computer-mediated communication
INTRODUCTION
Communication is known as the most important part in living. As an essential part of daily life, communicating holds an important part to every day‟s living. English, which is
known as an international language, is still found to be difficult for some people whose mother-tongue is not English. In communicating using English, especially for EFL learners is found to be challenging. Meanwhile, as EFL learners, they use English as a medium of
communication almost every day, as during teaching and learning process. They surely find many barriers in communicating. Common difficulties in communicating using English are
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Studies show that vocabulary is one of the important causes of communication problems. This idea is supported by Krashen (1989,as cited in Moghadam, et. al, 2012) who
states that vocabulary holds an important part as a proper indicator of language ability since learners regularly make use of dictionary than grammar books to find a certain word.Sharing
the same idea, Wilkins (1972, as cited in Moghadam et. al, 2012) also mentions that “without grammar, very little can be conveyed.Without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed”(p.558).
He explains that knowing a great amount of vocabulary is necessary because it helps learners
speak more and give good influence to other people as well. In sum, a great amount of vocabulary knowledge is required for being competent in foreign language acquisition since a
word will be linked to other words and ideas in a lexicon, so it will provide a correct and appropriate link to enable learners to use their chosen words appropriately and well (Moghadam, et. al, 2012). In short, the importance of vocabulary in enhancing
communication is crucial, especially for EFL learners because lack of vocabulary knowledge leads to failure in building up words to form a sentence, and it means failing in
communicating with others.
Supported with an extreme development in technology, Internet has become an essential part of communication in this era. Through Internet, communication becomes easier
with almost no barrier but language. It is no other than because of many different languages and English, as an international language, as mentioned before, still considered difficult for
some people whose mother tongue is not English. Computer Mediated communication (CMC) explores more of communication happened within Internet, such as online chatting. In Indonesia, the location of the present study, EFL learners face language barrier while chatting
in social media, such as emails, Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter,etc. The language barrier also includes the lack of vocabulary knowledge, i.e. how words collocate, form idioms, words
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(Moghadam, et. al, 2012). This vocabulary problem, or commonly called as vocabulary
deficiency, can be overcome using communication strategies.
This present study wanted to focus on what kind of vocabulary deficiencies non-native English learners encounter. To conclude, this study wanted to answer the research question: What are vocabulary deficiencies that mostly occur during online chatting by FLL
learners? It is hope that the result of this study provides a guideline for teachers and learners to be aware of what problems they encounter during online chatting in English and be able to
implement it to teaching and learning process.
Literature Review
Computer Mediated Communication (CMC)
Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) is defined as a change made in the face to face communication by using any kinds of electronic devices that connected to the Internet,
people can communicate easily. Recently, using online chat (social media, internet messenger) as a media of communication is more flexible and effective to communicate with
people around the world (Lenhart, Madden, Cacgill, and Smith, 2007). Using online chat means that CMC focuses on text-based activity, in which it allows people to easily communicate with everyone around the world by typing a message using any kinds of devices
(computer, netbook, laptop and/or cell phone) which connected to the Internet, and the message will directly shown on their devices. This is also supported with many kinds of
social media and/or online chatting application, such as Blackberry Messenger (BBM), Kakao Talk, LINE, Whatsapp, Twitter, and Facebook.
Lee (2002) stated that CMC itself is a real-time situation where it allows people to
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CMC to communicate with others, one of the important parts will be about vocabulary knowledge as stated abovesince it is one aspect that matters in communication.
Vocabulary Knowledge
Vocabulary knowledge itself is defined as a complex understanding and
acknowledgement of all aspects of linguistic knowledge, from pronunciation, spelling, morphology to the knowledge of word‟s syntactic to semantic relationship of words to
another words, including antonym, synonym, hyponym and collocational meanings as stated
by Moghadam, et. al (2012).
Further study of vocabulary knowledge is productive and receptive knowledge by
Nation (1990), who defined productive and receptive knowledge as a broad study of vocabulary. He defined productive knowledge as every word that is used to express meanings in spoken and written forms while receptive knowledge is a process of perceiving the form or
a word and retrieving its meaning. In sum, receptive knowledge is thelanguage that learners acquirethrough listening or reading from which they retrieve its meaning. Meanwhile,
productive knowledge is the language that learners use to speak and to convey the meaning. That knowledge is also included as important aspects in CMC where learners use their receptive knowledge to acquire vocabulary (receptive) and produce it in a sentence
(productive).
To conclude, vocabulary knowledge itself is a systematic process in which various
aspects of knowledge are required before being understood as a whole. Therefore, vocabulary knowledge is not a single dimension but more like a multidimensional structure. The multidimensional structure of vocabulary knowledgealso includes vocabulary deficiencies
which occur as a barrier for EFL learners in receptive and productive knowledge.
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Vocabulary deficiency is defined as an effort to produce some words in people‟s mind with their knowledge. However, there is a gap between what they want to produce and
what they have in their mind. According to Rahsidi and Koshravi (2010), there are four dimensions of vocabulary knowledge: vocabulary size, depth of vocabulary knowledge,
lexical organization, and automaticity or receptive and productive knowledge.
Vocabulary size is defined as the total number of words learners have to understand. The problem included in vocabulary size is the learners‟ difficulties to find specific words
they want to utter due to their lack of basic vocabulary knowledge. For example, the minimum words meaning they understand and their lack of interpretation to gain some
meanings for some words. For example, an EFL learner wanted to utter ‘I want food’ when they were at a restaurant. They might use the word ‘food’ though they wanted to say something more specific, like ‘fried rice’ or ‘hamburger’ because they failed to recall their
memory and found the most appropriate words to convey their exact meaning. Therefore, they ended up using ‘food’ though it did not really convey their meaning. In sum, vocabulary
size defines as lack of vocabulary bank therefore learners tend to use others words which do not really convey the meaning. Lack of vocabulary bank might also lead to the second deficiency called as the depth of vocabulary knowledge.
The depth of vocabulary knowledge is defined as the lexical characteristic of some words, where the learners are aware of the choice of words, and they tend to change the
words with more specific words they remember since the meaning is more appropriate to represent their thought. For example, an EFL learner uttered „the food is good‟, then they changed it into „the food is delicious‟ because they thought it would be more specific to
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Lexical organization is defined as storage, connection and representation of the words. A possible problem that might occur based on this dimensions is that the learners are aware of
the English words they want to utter. They tend to try and recall some vocabulary on their mind to find specific words to represent their thought, so that they might hesitate before
typing or utter something in English. When they hesitate and takes time before typing or utter something in English, they considered having vocabulary deficiencies since they are not automatically producing words to communicate. For example, an EFL learner uttered „the
movie was interesting‟. She then changed it into „the movie was amazing‟ because they thought of other words (amazing) which they found best describe the meaning. She also
might think of the connection between each word in a sentence therefore she tended to hesitate before she decided to type or utter the words they have in mind. The process of pausing before typing is known as a failure in automaticity of productive knowledge.
Automaticity of receptive and productive knowledge is defined as the fundamental process of phonological and orthographic encoding and decoding, mental lexicons structure
and semantic features, lexical-semantic integration and representation, and morphological parsing and composing. A possible problem related to this one is that the learners tend to reconsider the words they want to utter because they realize that the words they want to utter
have to be understood by their partner who is speaking. They also consider their partner‟s thoughts so they tend to carefully choose their words to make sure the words represent their
meaning. For example, learners wanted to utter „have you had your lunch?‟, but they then revised it into „have you eaten‟. It was all because they were hesitant about the connection and the meaning of the words conveyed, therefore they changed it into something they
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To conclude, vocabulary deficiencies are any possible problems that happen when people cannot express the words they intend to utter due to the lack of vocabulary knowledge
as classified in those four vocabulary dimensions. Previous Studies on Vocabulary Deficiency
Ishiiand Schmitt (2009) have conducted a test on vocabulary size and depth to find out the kinds of difficulties considered as the trigger of vocabulary deficiencies for learners. In their study, they listed four lexical problems which teachers agree to be some problems which
often occur as difficulties for learners. The lists are taken from another study related to this case; hereby are the lists to make it easier to understand the study:
1. Students know only a limited number of words (Laufer, 2000).
2. Students have limited knowledge of secondary meaning senses (Schmitt, 1998).
3. Students have limited awareness of derivative forms of a word (e.g. silly, silliness)
(Schmitt and Zimmerman, 2002)
4. Students use L1 translations when they understand the meaning of L2 words (Jiang,
2004).
Laufer‟s (2000) statement is included as vocabulary size while points number 2-4 is
considered vocabulary deficiencies: lack of depth vocabulary knowledge. Laufer (2000, as
cited in Ishii& Schmitt, 2009), also stated that this lacking of vocabulary depth could lead to misuse of vocabulary, as an example; learners might say “the food is very nutrients”. Here,
the learners understand the word nutrients and also the meaning of the word therefore they could use it in a sentence. The problem is that theylack invocabulary knowledge depth so they do not understand the adjective form of the word, which is nutritious. However, such
vocabulary size test cannot merely be used as a guideline to define the vocabulary deficiencies. Therefore, to detect the cause of vocabulary deficiencies, a vocabulary test on
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Nation (2001: 27) in Ishii and Schmitt (2009) providea useful specification of various types of vocabulary knowledge which should be known by the learners in order to avoid the
vocabulary deficiencies, including written and spoken form, meaning and association connections, grammatical characteristic, collocation and contextual constraints such as
register and frequency.
Various researchers have attempted to develop tests to measure that vocabulary knowledge. Read (1993) developed the Word Associates Test to measure how well is the
association of words is understood. Gyllstad (2007) developed a Collocation Tests for Swedish learners learning English. Laufer and Goldstein (2004) developed a CATSS (a
computerized test) to measure the indication of receptive/productive mastery of the form-meaning link of words based on learner‟s lexicon. However, those tests are only to measure
the single vocabulary knowledge was not showing how they are related and how can each
aspect have a connection to each other.
THE STUDY Context of Study
This study analyzed which type of vocabulary is considered as the most difficult for the learners and defined the reason why such problem occurs. The type of vocabulary will be
based on Rahsidi and Koshravi (2010) ; vocabulary deficiencies. This was a qualitative study taking place at SatyaWacana Christian University, Salatiga, Central Java, Indonesia.
Participants
The participants of this study were 10 students from the active year (2011-2014) from
Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana Christian University. The 10 students were chosen randomly without any limitations of gender.
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This study used Stimulated Recall Protocol (SRP) as a method to collect the data. This method is proposed by Jimenez (2007) with the same idea of thinking aloud process but
participants did not directly verbalize their thought. Rather the verbalization was done after the communicative process; means after the online chat was done by the participants. This
method is used so that the participants were able to verbalize their thought on what they did when they encountered vocabulary deficiencies during a given task. Participants verbalized their thought with the help of some media, a video recording, to recall their memory.
To record the communicative process of the participants, the researcher used
CamStudio2.0.Software which records the desktop‟s screen. This software records the chatting process and save it into video file which used as a stimulus for the participants to recall their memory.
The results of the video recording were transcribed using REFOG Free
Keylogger6.2.3.1112, a software use to record keystroke produced by the participants. The results of the chat-log were used as a proof of pauses and revisions done by the participants
during the communicative process. Data Collection Procedure
The data collection procedure started with the online chat the participants do with a
foreigner using Facebook messenger using provided laptop by the researcher. The participants were asked for an appointment before. The duration for each participant was 45
to 60 minutes and maximum 2 hours. The participants were free to choose what topic they like to discuss during a chat with their partner. The chatting processes were recorded using screen recording and keystroke logging as a media which later will be helpful for the
participants to recall the process. After the participants finished the chatting process, they watched the video with the researcher. During this process, the researcher asked some
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The data analysis, in a form of keystroke log, will be presented as in figure:
Figure1. Chat-log example
The figure shows every step during chatting in sequences. This figure shows
backspace, space and typing process during chatting. Pauses are symbolized by the word „P‟ and Revisions by the word „R‟. Numbers as ‟02, 03, etc‟ after the word „P‟ or „R‟ are
indicating the order of the occurrences of pauses and revisions done by the participants, for
example P01 to indicate the first pause done by the participants and R07 to indicate the seventh revisions done by the participants. Other keystrokes by the participants were put in
the brackets. For efficiency reason, further explanations of the keystroke symbol were put in the appendix.
The data analyzed by matching the participants‟ results with four types of vocabulary
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Table 1. Vocabulary Deficiencies occurrences per participant and its frequencies
The findings of this study were classified into two; the vocabulary deficiencies as the main problem for FLL learners and the similarities and differences between those deficiencies. The data provided is in a form of a table to see the occurrences of the deficiency
and a chat-log with a marked keystroke to indicate the process. Table 1 shows a list of vocabulary deficiencies followed by the number frequency occur on each participant.
According to the Table 1, the highest vocabulary deficiencies that occur as the
obstacle for FLL learners is the automaticity of the receptive and productive knowledge with the total of 24 occurrences.. Followed by the lexical organization and vocabulary size which
share the same number of 23 occurrences. The least vocabulary deficiency that occurs is the depth of vocabulary knowledge with 20 occurrences.
Hereby, the analysis of what types of vocabulary deficiencies that learners encounter
is going to be presented in this study from vocabulary deficiency that has the most occurrences to the least one.
The automaticity of receptive and productive knowledge
The automaticity of receptive and productive knowledge which has the most occurences of 24 times to 8 out of 10 participants is mostly because of difficulties learners
11 [Backspace]ooowh...[Space]fortunate
[Space](P05) [Backspace]ly[Space] you[Space] still[Space] can[Space] skip[Space] the[Space] class[Space] hahahha[Left mouse-click][Enter]
vocabulary knowledge is the ability to recall the form and meaning of a foreign language while receptive knowledge is the ability to recognize the form and define the meaning or find
the synonym of the word.
One example of this is from Participant S02 below:
.
Figure.2 Excerpt of awareness of grammatical functions from Participant S02 The excerpt in the box above is an example of how participant S02 typed „fortunate‟ then she space to continue to type other words but she pause for a second then she backspaces, then she added „ly‟ after the word fortunate, then she continue typing her sentences.
Participant chose the word „fortunately‟ over the word that has typed before „fortunate‟
because the participant thought that the word „fortunately‟ is more appropriate to represent the meaning and also fit properly in the sentence. The example shows that the participant is aware of the diction to make her sentence grammatically correct.
This is considered as vocabulary deficiencies; automatic in receptive and productive skill because learners are aware of their lexical-semantic integration and representation. They tend to carefully choose their words before typing because they are aware of the sentence‟s
structure. Learners are also facing difficulties on how the sentence can represent their meaning correctly. While chatting or typing in English, learners are processing the words in
their mind. When learners take a long time to pause before they type, it means that there is something in the mind that slows them down from fluently typing in English. In this study,
we can see learners paused to process the words and they tend to revise it and check it carefully. The steps happen are considered as deficiencies because it slows learners to type automatically and continuously because they had difficulties in producing the words in their
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but[space] now[space] they‟ll[space] show[space] their[space] affet[backspace] ction[space] (P01)[left] [left] [left] [left] [left] [left] from[space]
[right][right][right][space] on[space] (R01)
[right][right][right][right][right][right][right] in[space] front[space] of[space]
us[fullstop][fullstop][fullstop] [enter]
Grammatically correct in speaking and writing for FLL learners is considered as very important. Since they are foreign language learners, they have to grammatically aware of the
grammatical structure and they keep in mind that they have to write and speak in correct and proper grammatical order. However, as learners who learn basic grammar rules during school
tend to face difficulty and end up producing incomplete and limited sentences when it comes to speaking and writing (Kawauchi, 2014). Because they are aware of grammatical structure and pattern, they tend to pause and revising so many times when they write in English. This
tendency leads them to focus on how to write a sentence correctly according to the grammatical pattern.
Another example is taken from Participant S01. See the excerpt below:
Figure.3 excerpt of mental-lexicon‟s structure and semantic features from participant
S01
In the box above, Participant S01 typed „…but now they‟ll show their affection‟, then she space and pause. She moves the cursor to the left five times before the word now and then
she typed from and space. She moves the cursor to the right three times, space, then she typed on, space. She revised her phrase by adding „from‟ before the word „now‟ followed by „on‟.
Participant S01 change the word „now‟ with „from now on‟ because she realizes that the use of word „now‟ only cannot represent the meaning the participant want to say. From the
interview done with the participant, she said that when she typed „now‟, she then realized that
13 you[Space] need[Space] to[Space](P02)
stop[Space] the[Space] chat[Space] for[Space] a[Space] wg[Backspace]hile ?[Enter]
‘sekarang’ in Indonesia, cannot represent what she intended to. So she revised to the phrase „from now on‟ which more appropriate to represent her meaning.
The awareness of such case as participant S01 did is considered as an awareness of mental-lexicons structure and semantic feature. By revising the words or phrase that learners
thought does not really convey their meaning, they are aware of the semantic feature of a
Vocabulary size occurs 23 times to 8 out of total 10 participants, which means only 2 participants didn‟t experienced this kind of deficiencies. This deficiency is mostly occurs
simply because the lack of basic vocabulary knowledge. Learners with this kind of deficiency are not able to produce words they want to utter due to very limited words‟ meaning they
understand and also they are lack of interpretation to predict some meaning of some words. Though EFL/ESL learners have a quite large receptive knowledge, they found still relied heavily on the high-frequency words in their productive use. (Zhong, 2006). With this
deficiency, learners tend to do pausing for quite a long time before they type or they ended up choosing other words they understand to convey their meaning, though sometimes those
words do not really appropriate in term of grammatical pattern and semantic structure nor convey her meaning.
An example is from participant S08:
14 lego[Space] in[Space] your[Space](P01)
mind[Shift]?[Enter]
An excerpt in the box above is an example of pause that participant S08 did because she tried to find a word that can convey her meaning. She typed „…you need to‟, then she
space and paused. She then typed stop and space then she continues typing other words. During the interview, the participant wants to ask if her partner wants to turn off her phone
because it ran out of battery, or not. Participant S08 paused for a moment because she said she think of appropriate words to complete her sentence. She ended up using the word „stop‟ because she thinks that is more general than using „turn off‟.
An example from participant S08 is considered as vocabulary deficiency because she hardly found words that represent her meaning. She ended up choosing the word that comes
to her mind while paused, although she knows that it does not really convey her meaning. Another example of vocabulary size deficiency is also pausing before learners‟ type something because they find it difficult to recall what the correct word is.
Another example is taken as an example below:
Figure.5 excerpt of vocabulary size from participant S09
The excerpt above is an example paused from participant S09 because he tries to
recall the word from his mind to represent his meaning. He types „…lego in your‟ then he space then he paused for a while. He then typed mind, shift question mark, and enter. He wants to type „good lego in your mind?‟ but he took some time to recall the word „mind‟.
This happens because participant S09 is in vocabulary size deficiency where he hardly
recall words from his vocabulary bank and he find it difficult to find other words best represent his meaning. From the two excerpts showing that the participants are using words they know to convey their meaning, or called as High-frequency words. High-frequency
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encounter leaves a trace which makes them easier to retrieve. (Shahov, 2012). Though what happen to participant S09 considered as vocabulary size, similar case with participant S09 can
also be considered as a lexical organization. Lexical Organization
Lexical organization occurs to 7 out of total 10 participants, with the total occurrences of 23 times. Learners with this deficiency might also find it difficult to find some words they want to utter due to their lack of vocabulary knowledge. The lexical organization is found to
be very similar with Vocabulary Size. Though they both very similar, the reason behind why those deficiencies occur found to be a bit different. Lexical organization and Vocabulary Size
both occurs when learners are hesitated and/or decide to change the words or phrase because they lack vocabulary knowledge, but, lexical organization deficiency occurs not only because learners lack vocabulary bank but also it can be because they are considering the connection
and the representation of the words. They tend to carefully recall some words they want to utter and they think of the connection of the words. This makes lexical organization is a bit
different with vocabulary size though they are very similar. An example is provided below:
Figure.6 excerpt of lexical organization from participant S03
The excerpt above is an example of how participant S03 overcomes the lexical organization. From a cut dialog above, participant S03 typed God in Tolkien‟s world, shift
16 meaning so she ended up typed „what is that?‟
From the example above, we can see that participant S03 had a hard time producing a
sentence that represents her meaning. From the excerpt, we can see that she paused quite a long time before she continues chatting. From the interview, we found out that she paused because she gets confused on how to make a sentence which represents her meaning asking
what it is about so she decided to type what is that. Participant S03 paused because she cannot find appropriate words to represent her meaning, so she changed to a phrase which commonly
used and which she understand the meaning in order to keep the conversation going and as a replacement of what is she intend to say. Sometimes, to overcome the deficiency, learners also do some revision as a sign that they consider the connection between each sentence.
The example below is taken from participant S05:
Figure.7 excerpt of revision of lexical organization from participant S05
Participant S05 type „did yi‟ backspace, type „ou‟ then space, type meet space, type u, space, type with then space, press caps lock, type ARI then space, type in, space then she paused. She continues typing previous, space, day, then she shifts- question mark. She moves
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tablos[Backspace][Space] said[Space] that[Space] he'll[Space] te[Backspace]reat[Space] t[Backspace](R01)
everyone[Space] well[Enter]
think of how to make the phrase more clear and specific to represent her meaning. So she ended up typed „previous last day‟. After the first revision added the word „last‟, she realized
that it is not natural so she revised it again to „last previous day‟.
Paused and revision from participant S05 considered as lexical organization because
she had difficulty in finding appropriate words to represent her meaning and she choose to use the word she understands the meaning. The participant also did revision to the sentences because she thinks about the connection of the words and she wants to make sure its
naturalness. From the interview, we found out that she did revision because she wants to make her meaning clearer by adding the word “last”. The last revision she did was changed the order of the word from “previous last day” to “last previous day” because she realized the
connections between words have to make sense. The way participant S05 thinks in revising her words kind of have connections with the fourth deficiency, which will be discussed as
follow.
The Depth of vocabulary knowledge
The depth of vocabulary knowledge occurs to 8 out of total 10 participants with the total occurrences of 20. Almost connected with the lexical organization, the depth of vocabulary knowledge defines as an awareness of diction which most learners do. They tend
to focus on choosing which word best represent their meaning and sometimes change the word to make it specific as they can recall the word they understand the meaning. Moghadam,
et.al(2012) stated that depth of vocabulary means a link between words and may be restricted to register and context. In short, vocabulary depth means knowing a word more than a sentence and it includes collocation and register. To provide clear distinguisher, hereby the
example;
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have[Space] you[Space] started[Space] taking[Space] your[Space] thesis ?[Up][Up][Up][Left
mouse-click][Backspace][Backspace][Backspace][Backspace][Backspace][Backs pace]writing(R01)
Figure.8 Excerpt of revision done by participant S06
In the box above is the example of revision because of the depth of vocabulary
knowledge by participant S06. The participant types tablo, backspace, then space, type said, then space, type that and space, type he‟ll and space, type te, backspace, type reat and space.
She then types t, backspace, then she type everyone, and then space and type well, enter.
While the depth of vocabulary knowledge is defined as the awareness to make sentences more specific and clear, here, the changes she made is because she wants to make
her sentence more general so she used „everyone‟. The changes she made is also because she realized that she is actually quoting someone said and she wants to make it more general as it is not her statement. From this excerpt, we found out that the reason why learners changed
their words is not only because they failed to recall the words best represent their meaning and decide to use another word and make it as specific as they intend to, but also to make the
situation and the origin of the sentence clear. For example as what participant S06 done, she changed the word into more general ones because she herself realize that it is not her own
statement so she wants it to be clear and it does not change the origin.
A similar case of depth of vocabulary knowledge, learners might also consider the literal meaning they process in their mind and choose the best word to represent it and make it
clear as they intend to.
For example as what participant S10 did.
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He type have you started taking your thesis? Then he scrolls up three times to review the conversation before. He moves the cursor to the left, he backspace six times then type
writing. From the interview, the participant said that he think about the context of the topic. So when he typed „have you taking your thesis?‟ he thinks that the word „taking‟ was not
really representing his thought about the topic. Then he revised it into the word „writing‟ because he tends to make his partner have the same referent with him and make it clear that „taking thesis‟ in his referent means „writing thesis‟. By changing the words into more
specific as he wants, participant S10 case is considered as the depth of vocabulary knowledge in which the participant consider the referent and aware of the diction that he understand.
Discussions
From the findings above, we can see that the vocabulary deficiencies that EFL learners had are considered as one big problem in communication. Since experiencing
vocabulary deficiencies can be an obstacle for learners to fluently and automatically communicating in English. From the data above, we can see that mostly EFL learners facing
with Automaticity of receptive and productive knowledge.
This happens naturally because as Zhong (2006) stated that as EFL learners with large receptive skill and knowledge, it is still hard for learners to deal with productive skills.
Having a great amount of vocabulary is essential for EFL learners to help them doing great in communicative process using English. However, with large of vocabulary knowledge, it
might be also difficult for learners in their productive skills, like oral and written English. From the findings, we can see that most learners are having difficulties in communicative process (online chatting) because they tend to reconsider and hesitate a lot before they type
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the depth of vocabulary knowledge which cause them to slows down in communicative process.
This study also found out one interesting part that vocabulary size and lexical organization are occurring simultaneously and often occur at the same time. The result is
similar to result of the study from Vermeer (2001) in Ishii, T., and Schmitt, N. (2009) which found that vocabulary size and depth tend to grow in parallel. However, Ishii, T., and Schmitt, N. (2009) have stated that the correlations between the two in various studies do not
approach, so they suggested that both of it need to be tested separately.
CONCLUSION
The purpose of this study is to find out which types of vocabulary deficiencies that EFL learners encounter in Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC). To get the data, 10 participants were involved and their online conversations were analysed based on the
occurrence of pauses and revisions. The Four types of vocabulary deficiencies classified by Rahsidi and Koshravi (2010) is used to analyze the data from EFL learners.
The results of this study found that automaticity of receptive and productive
knowledge have the most occurrences of four types of deficiencies with total score 24 occurrences. This study also found that vocabulary size and the lexical organization has
proven to be closely similar and have same occurrences with the total of 23 occurrences. The findings of this study are hopeful can be a useful guideline for teacher teaches EFL to be more aware of EFL learner‟s difficulties during teaching and learning process. The findings
also might be helpful for EFL learners to give them a better understanding of vocabulary
deficiencies.
21
chatting) done with the native and non-native speaker. More participants who chat with only native speaker might give better and useful data for this kind of study, because
communicating with native speaker might encourage and motivate learners do to better and it might give a better result in this study. Second, the limited time of the data collection process
which only 30 minutes is a quite short time. Because some participants were only have limited time and they are free to choose the conversation topic, some of them were having difficulties to keep the conversation going smoothly because they ran out of topic to discuss.
22
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
My highest gratitude to the almighty, Jesus Christ, for always guides and led me in
writing my thesis. Bunch of thanks for my magnificent supervisor, Dian Toar Y. G. Sumakul, M.A, for all the guidance and contributions, also unlimited patience in guide me working on my thesis. For my superb thesis examiner, Anne I. Timotius, M. Ed, because of endless
patience and kindness in reading and giving feedback on my thesis.To my parents, Johannes Handoko Widjaja and (†)Tin Kumala Dewi for giving endless support for me to finish my
thesis.
Thanks to all my friends, Clarissa, Hezky, Raisha, Asvergi and Valentino, you guys
are the best. Also to Eleveners, the participants who help me conducted this study, Agni, Putra, Raisha, Winda, Ruth, Puput, Vicky, Theodora, Mayang, without your cooperation this study will never exist. Thanks to Virna for spending times to read and give some feedback to
this study. Last but not least, thanks to Faculty of Language and Literature, SatyaWacana Christian University for having me learning and working and gained so much experience
23
References
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24 APPENDIX
(Pxx) : indicating relatively longer-times interval before participants continues typing.
(Rxx) : indicating revisions and/or editing process done by the participants.
[left] : participants press the left arrow-key to move to the previous words to insert or delete letters of words.
[right] : participants press the right arrow-key to move to the next words to insert or delete letters or words.
[enter] : participants press the enter-key on the keyboard to send the text or insert space after words or sentences.
[backspace] : participants press the backspace key on the keyboard to delete letters or words. [space] : participants press the space key on the keyboard to insert space between letters or
