The morphology-vocabulary- reading mechanism and its effect on students’ academic achievement in an English L2 context

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Abstract

The high lexical density and complex morphology of written standard English in academic and administrative contexts have raised concerns about their effect on reading proficiency across educational levels. This study provides empirical evidence of a serial multiple mediator model supporting the relationship between English L2 students’ morphological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, reading proficiency and academic achievement. Comparisons were made at two levels: general English and academic English. Data were acquired from 454 second- and third-year English L2 university students in Ghana, West Africa. Using two different mediation analyses, the study produced significant evidence for a two-mediator model at both levels. Morphological awareness is modelled as affecting academic achievement through four different pathways: indirectly through vocabulary, indirectly through reading comprehension, indirectly through vocabulary and reading comprehension sequentially, and directly. This shows that knowledge of morphology both directly and indirectly influences academic achievement at tertiary level in English L2 contexts.

Introduction

The development of students’ literacy skills is essential for their future participation in society. A lack of these skills hampers students from learning content at school and eventually limits their opportunities in the labour market (World Bank, 2018). This observation is corroborated by research evidence that the literacy development of a population positively influences a country’s political, social and economic development (Mullis, Martin, Kennedy, & Foy, 2007; Paran & Williams, 2007; UNESCO, 2005; World Bank, 2018). In 2016, approximately 86% of the world’s population could read and write to some extent (UNESCO, 2020), while about 50% uses more than one language or dialect in their everyday life (Ansaldo, Marcottea, Schererc, & Raboyeaua, 2008), suggesting that many people around the world need to learn how to read and write in a second language (L2). With approximately 800 million second-language speakers, English is the most widely spoken L2, followed by Mandarin and Hindi (Matthiessen, 2015). The fact that English has many more L2 speakers than mother-tongue speakers (between 335 and 360 million people) confirms its international standing (Matthiessen, 2015).

As a result of its colonial past, Africa is one of the continents where English is widely used. Not only is it an official language in 21 out of the 54 African countries,1 it is estimated that the total number of L1 and L2 speakers of English in Africa amounts to 130 million people, with L1 speakers in the minority (around 6.5 million). This figure does not include the users of West African Pidgin English, with approximately 75 million speakers (Kroulek, 2018). English plays an important role in education in Africa, and is used as the medium of instruction at secondary and tertiary level in almost all low- and middle-income postcolonial countries (Milligan & Tikly, 2016). In spite of this widespread use of English as a language of instruction in many postcolonial societies, its use negatively impacts on the academic results of learners, who achieve better results when they are taught in their mother-tongue (Trudell, 2016).

One phenomenon that contemporary learners of English in both native and non-native contexts are confronted with is the rapid development of new vocabulary to meet the lexical pressure on English as a global language of education and administration. Many new words develop through layers of morphological processes. For instance compute has given rise to computer, computerise and computerisation, while globe is the base form for global, globalise and globalisation. Such increasing complexity in word morphology is a reflection of the metaphorical mode of discourse that has become characteristic of standard English, especially in its written form, which developed in the formation of the nation-state in British history and subsequently in the spread of English as a globalising language (Halliday, 2006; 2008, p. 111). The following excerpts illustrate this metaphorical mode of discourse in academic writing in science (1), applied linguistics (2), and administrative discourse (3):

  • (1)

    Planetary motion is caused by the gravitational attraction of the sun (Halliday, 2008, p. 156).

  • (2)

    Hong Kong’s political and economic reintegration with a resurgent China, may point to a slight contraction in the role of English vis-a-vis Cantonese … (Evans, 2010, p. 153).

  • (3)

    Failure to reconfirm will result in cancellation of your reservations (Halliday, 2008, p. 109).

Common features across these texts are high lexical density, complex nominalisation and derivational morphology. Whether in academic or administrative contexts, this kind of discourse represents prestige and power, “one aspect of the phenomenon that is known as ‘standard language’ … a particular dialectal variant that has gained some special economic, social and cultural prominence, defined by its phonology and morphology” (Halliday, 2008, p. 111). Arguably, one objective of teaching English, especially in L2 contexts, should be to identify essential aspects of this prestigious variety of English and teach them explicitly in order to ensure a more effective participation of the learners in a globally competitive knowledge economy (cf. Matthiessen, 2015, p. 3).

The importance of developing literacy skills to improve students’ understanding of academic concepts is supported by evidence that shows a positive relationship between reading proficiency and academic performance in content specific areas, such as science and mathematics (cf. Stoffelsma & Spooren, 2019; Korpershoek, Kuyper, & Van der Werf, 2015; Ní Ríordáin & O’Donoghue, 2009). Because scholars have only fairly recently acknowledged the importance of disciplinary literacy for the academic achievement of adolescents, there is a lack of specialized knowledge on this topic (Carnegie Council on Advancing Adolescent Literacy, 2010).

We argue that the field could benefit from a better understanding of two other literacy skills, besides reading proficiency, which appear to support students’ understanding of academic concepts and consequently impact on their academic achievement: morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge. The specific aims of the present study are twofold. Firstly, it attempts to advance our understanding of the linguistic skills (morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge) that underlie the reading comprehension skills of English L2 learners, and the direct or indirect impact of these skills on academic achievement. Secondly, it aims to build an empirical foundation for more effective educational interventions that address the English L2 reading comprehension and learning challenges faced by students in English L2 contexts.

The study targets students who are not native speakers of English in African university contexts, specifically Ghana. While acknowledging the importance of mother tongue education, we employ a practical stance in this study by assuming that English, as the language of instruction, is the status quo in many universities in Africa, as well as other Anglophone postcolonial educational institutions in which English is an official language. While it is not unlikely that language policies in education might change in the future, there is an urgent need to address English L2 reading proficiency at tertiary level in the current system (Stoffelsma & De Jong, 2015). It is, for instance, interesting to note that Ghanaian university graduates seeking admission for further studies in the UK have recently been included in the category of students required to take IELTS, suggesting a worrying decline in the English language proficiency of candidates, which has raised concerns at the international level.

The debate about language of instruction policies (L1 versus L2) features prominently in national and international endeavours to improve the quality of education in the poorest regions of the world. Sub Saharan Africa is one of the key focal points for educational improvement, and has been targeted by educational interventions for over 40 years (cf. UN, 2001). The focus of these interventions has recently shifted towards reading-specific interventions on the premise that reading achievement is an indicator of overall learning (Trudell, 2016), with students’ reading proficiency as an important predictor of academic achievement (Stoffelsma & Spooren, 2019; Lyengar, 2007; Mol & Bus, 2011; Mullis, Martin, Kennedy, & Foy, 2007). Although the targets of these reading interventions are generally children at primary and secondary schools, research evidence suggests that higher education institutions in African countries have a far stronger role to play in promoting economic growth and poverty reduction than was previously assumed (Bloom, Canning, Chan, & Luca, 2014). In light of this evidence, we argue that, in addition to the substantial focus on reading achievement at primary and secondary levels, English L2 reading proficiency at tertiary level in Sub-Saharan Africa also warrants attention. This is supported by evidence that, although reading proficiency plays a prominent role in higher education institutions, processing academic texts remains a challenge for many students in both western and non-western contexts (Stoffelsma & De Jong, 2015; Livingston, Klopper, Cox, & Uys, 2015; Starcher & Proffitt, 2011).

Section snippets

Conceptual background

We proceed to discuss the conceptual foundations of our study, in particular the concepts of reading comprehension (Section 2.1), the relationship between reading proficiency and vocabulary knowledge on the one hand (Section 2.2) and morphological awareness on the other (Section 2.3), and how morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge influence each other (Section 2.4). We also describe the research context (Section 2.5) and present the conceptual model that is tested in this study as

Method

This section describes the instruments that were used for data collection (Section 3.1), the sample and sampling procedure (Section 3.2), as well as a description of the data analysis (Section 3.3).

Results

This section presents the results of our study, including the language test outcomes per academic group, the correlations between the general and academic models and the outcomes of the two conceptual models that were tested.

Discussion and conclusion

This study investigated the roles of morphological awareness (predictor) on three consequents: vocabulary knowledge, reading comprehension and academic achievement, in a sample of 454 English L2 students, by using serial mediation analysis. A distinction was made between general English and academic English. First, the major findings in relationship to the four hypotheses will be discussed, followed by implications for educational policy and suggestions for future research.

Based on the

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Lieke Stoffelsma: Conceptualization, Investigation, Formal analysis, Writing - original draft. Wilbert Spooren: Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing - review & editing. Isaac N. Mwinlaaru: Resources, Investigation, Writing - review & editing. Victor Antwi: Resources.

Acknowledgements

Funding: This work was financially supported by Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. The authors would like to express their sincere gratitude to the students and staff in Ghana for their participation in this research. The authors would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback, and Matthew Landman for his assistance during data processing.

Dr. Lieke Stoffelsma obtained her PhD at VU University Amsterdam (2014). Her research interests include academic literacy and vocabulary development in English L2 contexts. She is an affiliated researcher at Radboud University Nijmegen (The Netherlands) and research-fellow at the Department of Linguistics of the University of South Africa (UNISA).

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  • Cited by (0)

    Dr. Lieke Stoffelsma obtained her PhD at VU University Amsterdam (2014). Her research interests include academic literacy and vocabulary development in English L2 contexts. She is an affiliated researcher at Radboud University Nijmegen (The Netherlands) and research-fellow at the Department of Linguistics of the University of South Africa (UNISA).

    Prof. dr. Wilbert Spooren (1956) got his PhD from Radboud University Nijmegen (1989). He published on text structure and text quality, and has a specific interest in texts functioning in new media. He is presently professor of Discourse Studies of Dutch at the Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen.

    Dr. Isaac N. Mwinlaaru holds a PhD in language sciences from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and is currently a Lecturer at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana. His research interests include systemic linguistics theory, functional grammar, grammaticalization, English for Academic Purposes and Literary Stylistics.

    Dr. Victor Antwi is Associate Professor in the Department of Physics Education, University of Education, Winneba (UEW), Ghana. He completed his PhD in 2013 at the Freudenthal Institute for Science and Mathematics Education, Utrecht University, The Netherlands. Dr Antwi has taught Physics and Physics Education for over twenty years.

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