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Running head: ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT

Margaret KellyDr. Katie AngusFL 694November 29, 2016

Action Research Project: Vocabulary Retention, Study Habits, & Accountability

Problem Formation

I teach a Spanish 102 course composed of twenty-four students at the University of

Southern Mississippi (USM) on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week. The 102 level is

difficult because only some of the students in this class were in my 101 course. The rest of the

class had other 101 instructors, whether at USM or at other universities or colleges. Some of

them have not taken 101 in several semesters. What I wish to convey is that almost every student

enters 102 at a different level. Within the first week, I felt as though I was already trying to

“catch up” half of the class while trying to advance those who were prepared for 102. As the

midterm approached, I felt as though I had done a good job at equalizing everyone. I felt

confident that the midterm would reflect all of my and the students’ hard work. As I graded the

midterm exams, I felt depressed. The grades were polarizing. Some made nineties and eighties

while some made thirties, and forties. I was adamant that this situation would not be repeated on

the final exam.

I made each and every student come to my office hours to discuss their exam, regardless

of their score. I went over all of their mistakes with them and had them correct the errors

themselves. I retaught each of the students their what they struggled with and made sure they

understood what we were learning in class. Even the students who seemed the most lost at the

beginning of the course were able to fix their problems on the exam and I had hope that maybe

now they understood the material more clearly. My expectation was that the students would take

this “second chance” of understanding and maintain it as the semester moved forward. This,

1

however, was not the case. Nearly every class period, the students would need to have the past

information refreshed. When I would give them an activity incorporating previous material, I

would have to repeat the explanation of the concept.

As the semester progressed post-midterm, I began to feel as though the class was moving

backwards. I would ask for participation during the lesson and the students would hardly

respond. When I wanted them to vary their answers for more creativity, I was met with silence or

blank activities. In one chapter, there is upwards of seventy-five vocabulary words. I do not

expect my students to have memorized every single word by the time we finish the chapter, but I

do anticipate that they will know the majority of the key theme vocabulary. Once I saw that their

lack of participation was not because they were being obstinate, I began to pinpoint the problem.

The problem was a lack of motivation to learn the vocabulary. Since this course has an online

platform that records all their homework (which is an effort grade) and tests, they felt no

motivation to study outside of class time. If they were not being held accountable for the

information, why study? I began to think about what could motivate my students to study

vocabulary and keep up with the grammar concepts being taught in class.

Question Formulation

I narrowed my focus to solely vocabulary, as that seem to be what the students knew the

least of. After reflecting on this frustrating situation, I began to formulate the following question:

If students know they will be held accountable for vocabulary learned in class and relative to the

chapter, will they be motivated to study outside of class time? My decision to focus my action

research project on vocabulary is based on the necessity of vocabulary for successful second

language acquisition. Vocabulary is incredibly important for students to be able to function while

using the target language (Folse, 2004, p. 23). Wilkins best describes the need for vocabulary

ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT 2

when he writes, “While without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary

nothing can be conveyed” (Wilkins as cited by Folse, 2004, p. 23).

Folse has a solution to developing students’ vocabulary knowledge, as well as a problem.

He (2004) writes, “Designing proper written exercises to force students to retrieve newly

learning vocabulary lesson after lesson takes extensive time. The problem: teachers do not have

enough time” (p. 33). It is especially hard to make sure the students focus on vocabulary during

class time when teachers must also teach and practice grammar concepts. To this Folse offers a

solution: include it in routine quizzes and tests (Folse, 2004, p. 33). Multiple exposures to the

vocabulary are important for vocabulary retention, even if the activities or quizzes do not focus

specifically on vocabulary alone. Later in his book, Vocabulary Myths, Folse (2004) writes that

“the teacher can make a small change that in essence requires the learner to ‘touch’ the words in

a different way, which can result in better retention of the vocabulary” (p. 144). Here, Folse

reiterates the idea of multiple exposures. He is not saying, however, that teachers should

continuously reinvent the wheel in order to provide their students the different exposures. All

teachers need to do is manipulate activities in different ways in order to get the most out of that

particular activity.

Bisson, van Hueven, Conklin, and Tunney also focus on the importance of multiple

exposures to vocabulary in their article The Role of Repeated Exposure to Multimodal Input in

Incidental Acquisition of Foreign Language Vocabulary. In this article, the authors conduct a

study on intentional multiple exposures and the effects it has on the students’ retention of the

vocabulary. They cite that the inspiration for the research is based on other studies, “that have

found that vocabulary acquisition through reading requires many exposures to the novel words in

a meaningful context in order for knowledge to be acquired” (Bisson et al., 2014, p. 858).


However, in their research, these authors take it a step forward to investigate not simply if

multiple exposures are important, but multiple exposures to what types of materials are the most

beneficial. They decided not to use authentic materials, since the exposure to the key vocabulary

would be limited (Bisson et al., 2014, p. 858). The authors used “unimodal input (auditory

information), bimodal input (auditory and written information) and multimodal input (written

and/or auditory input with pictorial information” (Bisson et al., 2014, pp. 860-862). The authors

would then test the participants using word recognition to check for comprehension.

Bao focuses on a similar idea as Bisson et al. in that he concentrates on which types of

activities aid vocabulary retention and writes about it in his article, Task Type Effects on English

as a Foreign Language Learners’ Acquisition of Receptive and Productive Vocabulary

Knowledge. Bao’s study follows the ILH, which is the Involvement Load Hypothesis. Bao

(2015) writes that the ILH:

consists of need (n), search (s), and evaluation (e). Need is the drive to comply with the

task requirements related to the unknown words. Search is the attempt to find the match

between the form and meaning of an unknown word, Evaluation involved a decision

about the meaning of a given word, a comparison of its meaning with those of other

words or its proper use in the specific context. (p. 85).

In his study, Bao chose eighteen target words, which consisted of nouns, verbs, and adjectives.

He had two control groups, one that used receptive knowledge of the vocabulary, and the other

that used productive knowledge of the vocabulary. In his procedure, he began with a control task

for both groups which was a meaning matching exercise. In this task, the students had to match

the words with their definitions so he could gauge how much they knew going into his study.

Then Bao gave the students in both groups a definition task, followed by a writing task to


monitor their retention. After a break, the students would take a twenty-five-minute posttest on

the vocabulary they just learned. In his results, Bao (2015) notes that the results show a “strongly

positive effect a word focused output task has on vocabulary learning” but “that the participants

in all the tasks, especially in the output tasks, perform much better in the receptive vocabulary

knowledge than in the productive vocabulary knowledge” (p. 89). This means that when students

process the vocabulary by receiving the material receptively rather than productively, it has more

positive effects on their comprehension and retention. Receptive has the advantage because it

allows the students to observe the information naturally rather than being immediately forced to

use it and learn it “on-the-go”.

Another study by Wong and Nunan echoes Bao’s findings on the effectiveness of

students’ learning styles. For their research, the authors gave the students questionnaires asking

them to outline their preferred methods of learning in the classroom. Based on their findings, the

learning styles of the more effective learners in their study wrote down, “I like to learn by

watching/listening to native speakers” and “I like to learn English words by seeing them” as the

top two strategies (Wong & Nunan, 2011, p. 150). These two strategies are categorized as

receptive, according to Bao. The students receive the information by observing and taking in the

material. The very last strategy of the top five strategies of the most effective learners is “I like to

learn many new words” (Wong & Nunan, 2011, p. 150). This last strategy is important. The most

effective learners of foreign languages have the natural tendency to want to learn new words;

learning new words is a characteristic of successful students.

While students need to be held accountable for what they learn in class, they also need to

be encouraged to study outside of the classroom. When continuing learning at home, they would

continue to get exposures to the vocabulary and therefore help their vocabulary retention.


Studying outside of the classroom is very beneficial. As mentioned in the article The Role of

Study Habits in Foreign Language Courses, “In the foreign language context, research has

shown that the most successful learners are those who use learning strategies that tend to be the

most optimal for second language acquisition” (Ehrman & Oxford, as cited by Bailey &

Onwuegbuzie, 2002, p. 464). While they are not the same, learning strategies fall under the

category of study habits, not all study habits are learning strategies. Learning strategies, “(1)

focus on intentional actions and (2) require that the student chooses to perform the strategic

action” (McIntyre, as cited by Bailey & Onwuegbuzie, 2002, p. 464). When students utilize

learning strategies, they are studying on purpose. They are using very specific tactics to make

information become part of their schema. The students have specific materials that they are

studying. Bailey and Onwuegbuzie (2002) highly encourage that “foreign language instructors

should consider developing and implementing study skills interventions within the context of

second language acquisition” (p. 470). When I read this, it made me think of my original

question. I already encourage my students to study, but I have the evidence in their midterm

exam that they majority of them are not studying. What could be my intervention? The authors

continue, “Students can be encouraged to be more responsible for their studying and more

reasonable in their time allotment if assignments are given and graded in a way that forces the

students to keep up with a more regular and manageable coverage of new material” (Bailey &

Onwuegbuzie, 2002, p. 464). According to the authors, accountability through regular, graded

activities is one way to encourage students to study outside of class time (Bailey &

Onwuegbuzie, 2002, p. 464).

There is one component teachers need to keep in mind when implementing regular,

graded activities: are there any possible negative affects for the students (other than grades)?


Positive and negative affective factors can influence a student’s experience with foreign

languages. However, according to Koga (2010), “several studies have reported a negative

relationship between anxiety and language performance” (p. 174). Too much anxiety can cause

the students to struggle in mastering the target language. Méndez López and Peña Aguilar (2013)

write, “Feelings and emotions experienced by students are considered important in understanding

learning processes, student motivation, and effective teaching” (p. 112). If students begin to

experience negative feelings, such as fear or anxiety, they will start to associate those negative

feelings towards the language in general. Méndez López and Peña Aguilar, however, do say that

not all negative emotions can bear positive effects. They write that, “Language learning

awareness, language learning strategies, and developing motivational strategies” are all possible

results from some negative emotions (Méndez López & Peña Aguilar, 2013, p. 116). While

negative emotions can have adverse effects on students, if there is a healthy balance between the

positive and negative emotions so that there is not too much negativity, they can actually yield

positive results. In their study, Méndez López and Peña Aguilar interviewed eighteen students

about the positive and negative emotions towards foreign language classes and what effects these

emotions had on their attitude and learning in the class. The authors report that, “all (18) students

considered that emotions, both positive and negative, were of great importance for their language

learning process because emotions encouraged them not to quit their language classes and gave

them the drive to overcome those academic problems they were facing” (Méndez López & Peña

Aguilar, 2013, p. 116).

Drawing on the literature, I reformulated my original question into points I look to prove

with my action research project:


1. The effects of regular quizzes based on vocabulary presented in class are potentially very

helpful for vocabulary retention. During the first few days of incorporating the

vocabulary into the lesson for the purpose of teaching it, the teacher will support the

students by using activities that the literature shows students prefer will help them in

presenting and practicing the material during class time used to teach the information

they will be quizzed over in the future.

2. Not only can the effects of regular quizzes be beneficial for retention, it can help develop

good, positive study habits.

Developing a plan for intervention

After doing the aforementioned research, I developed my plan for intervention. I will

begin my action research project by giving my students a questionnaire about their vocabulary

knowledge as well as study habits and learning strategies. I will also ask them how much they

study during a normal week versus how much they study when they have an exam. This will give

me a better idea of what they are currently doing, pre-intervention implementation. Then, I will

give them a control quiz to test their base knowledge of vocabulary that they should already

know before the intervention point during the semester. I will warn them of an upcoming

vocabulary quiz for the following class period. I will do this in order to ease their minds and give

them time to study. I will also give them an idea of what will be on the quiz to help quell any

potentially powerful negative emotions. After the control quiz, a series of daily quizzes will

follow. The quizzes will build on one another and become more and more difficult and integrated

with grammar as the students will have more exposure to the vocabulary each class period. In

order to help support the students’ learning, and following my investigation into effective ways

of teaching vocabulary, I will be providing plenty of exposures in class time for the students to


get practice and gain experience with the vocabulary. I will also use activities to teach the

vocabulary that the research showed are most beneficial to students (i.e. receptive activities,

listening/watching native speakers, seeing the vocabulary, using the vocabulary in grammar

activities). Following the daily quizzes, an exit questionnaire documenting study habits post-

quizzes and positive or negative emotions will be given to the students.

Data Gathering

Day one of the action research project, I gave the students the questionnaire about their

current vocabulary knowledge, their study habits and learning strategies, and their thoughts on if

accountability would change their study habits. I wanted to be able to contrast their opinion of

their knowledge against what the control quiz would show me. I also wanted to see what their

current efforts and dedication to the course, pre-quizzes. Lastly, I wanted to see if they thought

that accountability would motivate them and contrast it with the exit questionnaire to see if they

followed through with their original opinion. In order to help them be as honest as possible on

the questionnaire, I told the students to complete it anonymously. The students first encounter the

chapter’s thematic vocabulary, which is clothing. They combine the practicing of a grammar

concept with the introduction a few clothing vocabulary words during the lesson.

The second day of the action research project, I gave the students the control quiz. The

quiz was a matching format, in which the students had to match the Spanish word its English

counterpart. This quiz was composed of twenty-nine verbs that they should know from previous

chapters. This will give me a baseline of how much vocabulary they have actually retained from

previous class periods. During this class period, I continued teaching the thematic vocabulary for

the chapter (clothing). I asked the students to tell me what clothing they already knew in Spanish.

Afterwards, I played a video of native speakers talking and using lots of the clothing vocabulary.


During the second showing of the video, the students were to write down all of the names of

clothing they heard. We then reviewed the vocabulary. I told them that the next class period,

there would be a quiz over the clothing vocabulary.

The third day of data collecting, I gave the students a quiz. It was a matching quiz. I had

pictures of twenty-five different clothing vocabulary. The quiz also contained a word bank in

order to give the students a stepping-stone. That day, the students did not have any clothing-

related instruction, but instead learned about irregular past verbs. I used several of the techniques

I read about in my research, such as giving them a bimodal activity (Bisson et al., 2014, pp. 861).

The students had to listen to a classmate read a short text and follow along at the same time, with

the new concept words in a bold font to raise their consciousness. They were not warned about

the quiz the following class period.

The fourth day of collecting data, I gave the students a new quiz. In this quiz, they had to

write a complete sentence using the verb for “to wear” conjugated correctly for the subject of the

quiz, Beyoncé. There was also a word bank in order to help them recall the vocabulary. During

this class period, the students were not taught the vocabulary explicitly, but I followed Folse’s

(2004) approach and used the vocabulary in my instruction of other grammar concepts (p. 144). I

also gave the students a bimodal activity of listening and reading along at the same time. They

learned the information first receptively, then were asked to produce a few short phrases to show

that they comprehended the new material. As this class was held on a Friday, I warned the

students about the next quiz and the new component that would be added.

The fifth day of the action research project, the students were given a slightly more

difficult quiz. There was a short matching section where they had to match some of the irregular

verbs with their definition (vocabulary exercise). Then, the students were asked to answer short


questions using their knowledge vocabulary exercise, with a grammar component of conjugating

the verbs and using them correctly. In the last section, the students were shown four people and

asked to use complete sentences to describe what they were wearing in the images. While the

students were not explicitly warned about a quiz in the next class period, they were asked if they

saw a pattern in the activities of recent class periods.

The sixth and final class period of the action research project, the students were given the

last quiz. This quiz required the most production out of all. In the first part, the students needed

to conjugate the irregular past verbs to describe what they did on a vacation to Jamaica they took

last year. Then, they needed to describe what they they wore during their vacation in order to

show they know the difference between the different clothing for different types of climates.

Since this quiz had two different difficult parts that required a lot of production, I included a

word bank. Afterwards, I gave the students the post-intervention questionnaire. This

questionnaire contained several of the same questions as the pre-quiz questionnaire, except it

contained the caveat of “after the quizzes”. The questionnaire also asked about their new study

habits as well as positive and negative emotions towards the quizzes. I included a space for

comments so that the students could make me aware of any thoughts or feelings they had toward

the class.

Analysis and Reflection

For the pre-quizzes questionnaire, I received twenty-one responses. The first question

asked on a scale of one to four (one being in least agreement with the statement and four being in

most agreement). Out of all the responses, twenty-nine percent responded with a one or two,

which relates to less confident with the chapter vocabulary. Seventy-one percent responded with

a three or four, which signifies that they felt confident with their knowledge of the vocabulary


for each chapter. However, of the students who responded with a three or higher on the first

question, only sixty percent responded with a three or higher (in most agreement) on the second

question: When I see the vocabulary in an activity, I automatically know it and do not need to

look it up. Of the seventy-one percent who responded that they felt confident with the

vocabulary, sixty-six percent wrote that they spend from one to two hours per week studying

Spanish outside of class time. The other thirty-four percent wrote that they spend between zero

and thirty minutes per week studying Spanish per week. From the group of students who felt

least confident with the vocabulary, there was an even split between three different groups of

outside study time. Thirty-three percent wrote that they spent between zero and fifteen minutes

per week studying Spanish, another thirty-three percent wrote that they spent between one and

two hours, and the last thirty-three percent wrote that they spent anywhere from four to six hours

each week studying.

The next part of the questionnaire asked about their study habits before a test. Again,

twenty-nine percent wrote that they spent between zero and thirty minutes. The other seventy-

one percent responded that they spent between one and five hours studying ahead of the test.

Next, I had the students answer between one and four (one least agree, four strongest agree), that

if there were more in-class accountability for their vocabulary knowledge, they would study

more outside class time. Sixty-six percent responded three or higher, while twenty-nine percent

responded with two or less. There was one questionnaire without a response to this question.

Based on the first questionnaire, a large majority wrote that they felt confident with the

vocabulary for each chapter. While those who felt most confident typically studied from one to

two hours per week, the amount of time dedicated to studying outside of class does not

necessarily correspond with confidence. The students who studied the most outside of class were


actually among the students who responded that they felt the least confident with the vocabulary.

The majority did respond, however, that they would improve their vocabulary study habits if

they knew they would be held accountable for their vocabulary knowledge.

The second quiz was the control quiz. It was composed of twenty-nine verbs that the

students have learned in Spanish 101 and 102. I received seventeen responses from students. Of

the seventeen, fifty-three percent failed the quiz. Of those that passed, thirty-three percent were

within a few points of passing. Forty-seven percent passed. Of the students that passed, sixty-

three percent made eighties and nineties. About half passed and half failed. When compared to

the original questionnaire, it appears that some of the students were over-confident with their

vocabulary knowledge. However, maybe the quiz caught them by surprise and there was a

negative affective factor influencing the results (anxiety).

The first quiz over the chapter vocabulary was pictorial matching quiz containing a word

bank. I received twenty-two responses. Only thirty-six percent failed the quiz. Sixty-four percent

passed. These results are more of a reflection of the original questionnaire. It is possible that

those who do study every week were able to concentrate on the vocabulary during their

individual study times and were able to be more prepared for this quiz. Another possibility is that

the format lent itself to process of elimination and thus rendered this quiz easy.

The second quiz was by far the most successful. The students were given pictures of

Beyoncé wearing different outfits. They were required to use complete sentences (subject + verb

+ objects) to answer the questions. The students had to conjugate the verb and write the number

of pieces of clothing given for each image of Beyoncé. The students were also given a word

bank. An overwhelming ninety-seven percent passed. Only three percent failed (which happened

to be just one person). I believe that the rhythm of the quizzes began to encourage the students to


study outside of class. I also called the students attention to the verb conjugation used in the

question asked in the instructions, so this may have had some effect on the number of students

who conjugated the verb correctly (all but one).

The third quiz had mixed results. I decided to analyze the results differently than I

analyzed the previous quizzes. I had twenty-one responses total. Out of the twenty-one

responses, nineteen percent failed the entire quiz. However, nineteen percent passed the entire

quiz. The quiz had two different sections: irregular verb vocabulary and use and clothing

vocabulary. The other sixty-percent failed the irregular verbs, but passed the clothing. I am not

exactly sure what happened at this point. I specifically told the students that they would have a

quiz and that irregular verbs would be on there since it was the weekend and I assumed they

would forget to study. I do not know if they did indeed forget or if they just did not study. Either

way, the clothing vocabulary was the only vocabulary that was truly retained.

For the fourth and final quiz, I received twenty responses. Like the previous quiz, I had to

analyze the results a bit differently. There were two different production sections: one writing

using past irregular verbs and the other clothing vocabulary. No one failed both parts, however,

only twenty-five percent passed both parts. The other seventy-five percent had the exact same

results: they failed the writing irregular verbs, but passed the writing clothing section. There are

several explanations for this. Perhaps I need to reteach the past irregular verbs. It is possible that

since this quiz came directly after Thanksgiving Break that the students retained only the

information that had been tested more consistently (clothing) rather than the vocabulary

(irregular verbs) which began to be included in the evaluations.

I received nineteen exit questionnaires. The first question asked if after the quizzes, the

students felt like they knew the vocabulary with more confidence. Fifty-nine percent indicated


that they agreed with this statement. Forty-one percent marked that they did not feel as though

this statement reflected their sentiments. Of the students that indicated they felt that the quizzes

helped them learn the chapter vocabulary, forty-five percent responded that they spent one or

more hours preparing for the quizzes. Another forty-five percent wrote that they spent thirty

minutes or less preparing. There was one without a response. Of the students that indicated that

they did not feel that the quizzes were very helpful to learn the vocabulary, sixty-three percent

wrote that they studied one or more hours. Thirty-seven percent responded that they studied

thirty minutes or less.

Another question on the survey asked if the students felt more prepared for the final exam

after having the daily quizzes. The responses were almost split in half. Forty-seven percent

responded that they did not necessarily feel more prepared due to the quizzes, while fifty-three

percent indicated that they did feel more prepared.

The last set of questions were aimed to get the students opinion of the quizzes themselves

I wanted to see their opinion and emotions towards the quizzes. Only sixteen percent of the

nineteen responses indicated that they did not feel strongly that the quizzes were beneficial. Of

that sixteen percent, all of them but one marked that the quizzes made them anxious and

therefore rendered the quizzes unhelpful. Of the eighty-four percent who found the quizzes

helpful, only eighteen percent of that group indicated that they felt the quizzes made them

anxious and therefore ultimately unhelpful.

In the comments section, I received a variety of responses. Of the two negative responses,

one student wrote that “They [the quizzes] were hard” and the other wrote that “It was hard for

me to remember material from the previous class.” Both of these students indicated that they

studied one and two hours each week outside of class time. In order to pinpoint what their exact


problem is for retaining information, I should have observed those two students to watch their

class time habits to see if they attend class, take notes, and pay attention. If not, those could be

contributing factors as to why they had trouble.

From the positive comments towards the quizzes, the students wrote that the quizzes

“were beneficial for retaining the verbs,” “they helped me learn,” “tested on the right knowledge

(nothing too far in the past/nothing we haven’t learned yet,” and “helpful.” These students all

studied one or more hours per week. I believe the hours they studied directly correlated with

feelings towards the quizzes. Each of the aforementioned commentators indicated that they felt

the quizzes were beneficial and did not cause anxiety.

There was a third group of comments that expressed a desire to have studied more

outside of class. These students wrote, “I’m sure that I would have done better if I would have

studied more on the vocabulary,” and “They helped a lot, but I need to study more and learn the

vocab.” One of the students wrote that wrote that they studied a half hour each week, while the

other one indicated that they studied two hours to prepare for quizzes per week. This particular

group, like the negative comments, are rather inconclusive due to the polarity of the amount of

time studied each week. Two hours should typically be sufficient time to memorize vocabulary.

There could be other factors influencing that comment as well, such as the student struggles with

memorization or does not take notes during class.

Ultimately, I believe that the intervention made a difference. The multiple exposures to

the information helped the students learn and recall the vocabulary. I also believe that the

adjustments of my implementation of the material during the lessons made a difference due to

the “tested on the right knowledge (nothing too far in the past/nothing we haven’t learned yet”

comment from a student. I followed the suggestions in the literature and used receptive, bimodal


activities as well as giving the students the opportunity to listen to native speakers present the

material in order to help facilitate learning while in class. One observation that surprised me is

the amount of time that my students claim to spend studying each week in the first questionnaire.

I feel as though even if they were being optimistic in their estimation, but the exit questionnaire,

they truly did study that amount of time each week.

One pattern I observed is that the students maintained their knowledge of the clothing

vocabulary from quiz to quiz. However, they did struggle with the added element of irregular

verb as vocabulary. In the future, I might not have the exit survey be anonymous so that I could

identify the students who said they struggled with the quizzes, yet indicated they studied multiple

hours each week. I would not do this to punish the students, but to intervene on an individual

level and to be able help them. I would like to observe the students during class as well as look

over their quizzes in order to help personalize the intervention.

This project has encouraged me to give the students more accountability. I feel as though

they did put in more effort and took more responsibility for their own learning with this project. I

do not know if daily quizzes are necessary, but I do believe that they are beneficial on a regular

basis. One tactic I adopted from the information I found in the article written by Bailey and

Onwuegbuzie. They (2002) highly encourage that “foreign language instructors should consider

developing and implementing study skills interventions within the context of second language

acquisition” (p. 470). So, I encouraged my students to make notecards and offered extra credit on

the final exam for each chapter they did from this semester. Overall, this project has been

extremely helpful for me to get to know my students’ study habits as well hold them

accountable. I have high hopes that this project will help them be more successful on the final

exam due to the accountability and the encouragement to study outside the classroom.


References

Bailey, P., & Onwuegbuzie, A. (2002). The role of study habits in foreign language

courses. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 27(5), 463-73.

Bao, G. (2015). Task type effects on English as a foreign language learners’ acquisition of

receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge. System: An International Journal of

Educational Technology and Applied Linguistics, 85, 84-95.

Bisson, M. van Hueven, W., Conklin, K., & Tunney, R. (2014). The role of repeated exposure to

multimodal input in incidental acquisition of foreign language vocabulary. Language

Learning: A Journal of Research in Language Studies 64(4), 855-877.

Folse, K. (2004). Vocabulary Myths. The United States of America: The University of Michigan

Press.

Koga, T. (2010). Dynamicity of motivation, anxiety and cooperativeness in a semester

course. System: An International Journal of Educational Technology and Applied

Linguistics, 38(2), 172-184.

Méndez López, M., & Peña Aguilar, A. (2013). Emotions as learning enhancers of foreign

language learning motivation. Profile: Issues in Teachers' Professional

Development, 15(1), 109-124.

Wong, L., & Nunan, D. (2011). The learning styles and strategies of effective language

learners. System: An International Journal of Educational Technology and Applied

Linguistics, 39(2), 144-163.


Appendix

Thank you for participating in this Action Research Project. Please answer each question accordingly. Be honest so your answers reflect your knowledge and study habits. If the answer requires an answer of 1-4, 1 represents the least agreement with the statement, and 4 the most agreement. When quantifying an amount of time, please circle either minutes or hours after writing a specific number. This is an anonymous survey.

1. I feel like I know the vocabulary for each chapter. 1 2 3 4

2. When I see the vocabulary in an activity, I automatically know it and do not need to look it up. 1 2 3 4

3. I spend more than one hour per week studying Spanish outside of class time. 1 2 3 4

4. When I study Spanish outside of class time, I typically focus on ______________.

5. I spend ________ hours/minutes outside of class time studying for Spanish each week.

6. When I prepare for Spanish tests, I study in advance: Yes No

7. I spend _________ hours/minutes studying for Spanish tests.

8. If there were more in-class accountability for my vocabulary knowledge, I would study more outside class. 1 2 3 4


Control

Nombre: __________________________

1. Encontrar2. Enseñar3. Explicar4. Invitar5. Pagar6. Recibir7. Regalar8. Terminar9. Ayudar10. Poder11. Hacer12. Acostarse13. Tener que14. Vestirse15. Afeitarse16. Despertarse17. Ducharse18. Nadar19. Oír20. Bailar21. Caminar22. Cantar23. Dar24. Viajar25. Limpiar26. Jugar27. Hacer ejercicio28. Ir de compras29. Comprar

A. To have to do somethingB. To doC. To shaveD. To showerE. To hearF. To giveG. To travelH. To go shoppingI. To buyJ. To teach K. To go to sleepL. To be able toM. To get dressN. To wake upO. To finishP. To walkQ. To travelR. To clean S. To playT. To work outU. To payV. To inviteW. To give (gift)X. To giveY. To receiveZ. To go to bedAA. To hearBB. To swimCC. To dance


Quiz 1 (2 pgs)

La corbata la falda la gorra el gorro los pantalones la ropa

Los zapatos de tacón alto las sandalias el suéter los guantes la camisa el cinturón

la chaqueta el abrigo el algodón la bufanda los calcetines la camiseta

los vaqueros/jeans los pantalones cortos el traje la blusa

las botas los tenis los zapatos


Quiz 2 (2 pgs)¿Qué lleva Beyoncé?

Usa frases completas (sujeto + verbo) para responder a la pregunta “¿Qué lleva Beyoncé?”

1. _______________________ 6. ______________________

____________________________ ________________________

____________________________ ________________________(1 prenda) (2 prendas)

2. _______________________

__________________________ 7. ______________________


___________________________ ________________________(2 prendas)

________________________(3 prendas)

3. ____________________

________________________

________________________(3 prendas)

4. ___________________________

_____________________________

_____________________________(4 prendas)

5. ___________________________

____________________________

____________________________(1 prenda)

El vestido la falda la gorra el gorro los pantalones la ropa

Los zapatos de tacón alto las sandalias el suéter los guantes la camisa el

sombrero la chaqueta el abrigo el algodón la bufanda los calcetines la

camiseta los vaqueros/jeans los pantalones cortos el traje la blusa

las botas los tenis los zapatos las gafas de sol el traje de baño


Quiz 3 Nombre: _______________________

En el preterito, algunos verbos tienen significados (meaning) diferentes. ¿Qué significan estos verbos en el pasado?

1. ¿Dónde estuviste ayer a las 11 de la mañana? _____________________________________________________________

1. Saber _____2. Querer _____3. No querer _____4. Poder _____5. No poder _____

A. To not manage to do something.B. To find out or figure out.C. To refuse to do something.D. To manage to do something.E. To try to do something.


2. ¿Qué tuviste que hacer ayer? _____________________________________________________________ 3. ¿Qué hiciste la semana pasada?

_____________________________________________________________ 4. ¿Quisiste estudiar español durante el fin de semana?_____________________________________________________________5. ¿Pudiste terminar la tarea para hoy? _____________________________________________________________6. ¿Supiste tus planes para el descanso de Thanksgiving? _____________________________________________________________

Describe lo que llevan puesto (wearing) estas personas con frases completas.

Quiz 4

I. Usa los verbos: tener, estar, poder, querer para describir tu vacación a Jamaica el año pasado.

_________________

_________________

_________________

_________________

_________________

Beyoncé (2 prendas)

_________________

_________________

_________________

_________________

_________________

Presidente (2 prendas)

_________________

_________________

_________________

_________________

_________________

Kirby Smart (3 prendas)

_________________

_________________

_________________

_________________

_________________

Selena (3 prendas)


II. ¿Qué llevaste durante tu vacación (7 prendas)?

Thank you for participating in this Action Research Project. Please answer each question accordingly. Be honest so your answers reflect your knowledge and study habits. If the answer requires an answer of 1-4, 1 represents the least agreement with the statement, and 4 the most agreement. When quantifying an amount of time, please circle either minutes or hours after writing a specific number. This is an anonymous survey.

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

El vestido la falda la gorra el gorro los pantalones la ropa

Los zapatos de tacón alto las sandalias el suéter los guantes la camisa el

sombrero la chaqueta el abrigo el algodón la bufanda los calcetines la

camiseta los vaqueros/jeans los pantalones cortos el traje la blusa

las botas los tenis los zapatos las gafas de sol el traje de baño


1. After the quizzes, I feel like I know the vocabulary for each chapter. 1 2 3 4

2. After the quizzes, when I see the vocabulary in an activity, I automatically know it and do not need to look it up. 1 2 3 4

3. To prepare for the quizzes, I spend ________ hours/minutes outside of class time studying for Spanish each week

4. After the quizzes, I feel more prepared for final exam. 1 2 3 4

5. I feel as though the quizzes were beneficial. 1 2 3 4

6. The quizzes made me more anxious than I feel were helpful. 1 2 3 4

Any final comments about the quizzes

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

Special thanks to: Hunter Anderson, Cory Barnes, Leonard Bentz, Tyler Bullock, Madelynn Cliburn, Morgan Covington, Chris Davis, Shanery Fox, Ryjiah Gleghorn, Darius Griffin, Devin Havard, Robert Hewettle, Hannah Hill, Kayla Jackson, Jasmine Lacy, Tyler Langham, Tyler Lee, Ryder Leifried, Jeneza McDonald, Brittany Richards, Megan Turner, Albert Williams, Briahnna Thomas, and Stephanie Gammon!


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