FOR INDONESIAN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS USING VOCABULARY PROFILER : A FAST TRACK TO IMPROVE STUDENTS

This research analyzed vocabulary profile used in one series of English textbooks currently used in Indonesian Junior High School. The sample text books were: When English Rings a Bell for grades VII, VIII, and Think Globally Act Locally for grade IX. These books have been recommended by the Ministry of Education and Culture for use in Indonesian Junior High Schools. This research used Classic Vocabulary Profileras a tool to profile vocabulary in the text books. The overall profile shows that vocabulary coverage of the most frequently used words (K1 and K2) was 92.65%, indicating that it is below the necessary level (95%) for easy comprehension. The analysis also reveals negative vocabulary profile, that is proportions of word families in K1 and K2 groups that were not found in the text books. This study recommends to improve the text book comprehensibility.


INTRODUCTION
When language is widely used in a community either as first or second language, vocabulary is learned randomly determined by specific choice, needs, and motivation of the learner and the setting encountered by the learner.In context where English is learned as a foreign language such as that in Indonesia, English is to a large extent, learned as a compulsory subject constraint by time and classroom space.In EFL classrooms, English learning particularly vocabulary is not learned randomly but systematically and structured which demands choices of approaches, methods, and techniques.
For most Indonesian learners, to know and use vocabulary as native speakers do may not be the goal of learning because it is impossible and inappropriate.The goal of teaching English to Indonesian learners has been stipulated in the 2013 curriculum.As far as vocabulary learning is concerned, most students may not need to learn all vocabulary in a textbook.They will only learn a limited amount of vocabulary covered in the mandated textbook.The question arises which vocabulary items are actually needed and how to determine and select those vocabulary items.
My experience in supervising teaching practicum shows that the school students were frustrated when they were confronted with a large amount of new vocabulary in reading a IJOLTL, Vol. 1, No. 3, September 2016p-ISSN: 2502-2326; e-ISSN: 2502-8278, Http://ijoltl.pusatbahasa.or.idAstika, Gusti. 2016.Profiling Vocabulary of English Textbooks for Indonesian Junior High Schools Using Vocabulary Profiler: A Fast Tract to Improve Students' Vocabulary Knowledge.

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piece of text in the textbook.The instructional task of the teacher in teaching vocabulary seems to run parallel to the vocabulary learning burden of the students when it comes to which words to introduce, how to select words that are actually needed by the students, and when during instruction new words are appropriately introduced.Moreover, when other things are considered such as the amount of effort, time, and money both the learners and teachers have committed to learning, it is imperative that a principled instructional vocabulary learning has to be designed to make vocabulary learning more effective and enjoyable.
The needs of sufficient vocabulary knowledge of the students at secondary level have been frequently voiced not only by the teachers but also by student teachers who had teaching practicum at the participating schools.Students' lack of vocabulary knowledge will prevent them from understanding textbooks being used.This deficiency has to be alleviated early during the students' academic life because failure to provide the necessary assistance may result in the students being unable to acquire important knowledge at this level which, in turn, may affect their English proficiency at a later stage of their schooling.At a more macro level, students with insufficient knowledge of English may not be able to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the progresses and conveniences of the 21 st century in which English is used as a tool for communication between peoples from different countries.
The importance of teaching vocabulary has been widely recognized.Knowledge of words is used to access background knowledge, express ideas and communicate with people (Sedita, 2005).Academic success is closely linked to word knowledge.With extensive vocabulary students will understand ideas and concepts they learn more effectively.When learners' vocabulary improves, it improves their ability to read.According Nation (2001) in addition to the first 2000 high-frequency words, students at university level should acquire academic words at the advanced level used in a different context.At the junior high school level, acquisition of academic words may not be necessary.However, acquisition of 2000 high-frequency words should be sufficient for comprehension of texts in English textbooks currently used at schools.The aim of this study is to profile the vocabulary of the textbooks currently used at schools and identify sections in the textbooks that may need reassessment for better text comprehensibility.Nation (1990:4) describes that vocabulary can be divided into high-frequency words, low-frequency words, and specialized vocabulary.Based on this frequency level, teachers need to decide which words are needed by the learners, how to select words for teaching, and how often those words should be exposed to the students for acquisition.The decision for teaching the selected words will affect how words are learned, the time needed for learning, and the type of learning goal, receptive or productive.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Studies have suggested that high-frequency words have to be prioritized especially at the beginning years of learning.Coxhead (2011), for example, argues that high-frequency vocabulary items are very essential in language learning.This indicates that instruction has to focus on those words that belong to most frequently used words in the high-frequency group.Once these words have been adequately acquired, instruction can continue to words within the lower-frequency level (Douglas, 2013). Stahr's (2008)  English instruction in schools may under-utilize frequency-informed vocabulary learning.One reason for this could be that English teachers do not consider frequent words as fundamentally essential and those words do not need to be taught systematically.Students will acquire them incidentally during classroom reading or speaking activities.While incidental learning may occur during learning, researchers such as Horst, Cobb & Meara (1998), as cited in Horst (2013), argue that this incidental teaching of vocabulary is not sufficient and the speed of students' vocabulary knowledge is low.In fact, according to Schmitt (2000), Nation (2001), andHorst (2013), high-frequency words, 1000 or 2000 word level, have to be taught quickly in the program because it is worth-it and pedagogically imperative.
In recent years, the importance of vocabulary in language learning has received a growing recognition.Research in this area has come out from corpus studies (Horst & Nicolae, 2013) showing the need for learners to know most frequent words in the language being learned.Similar studies (Zhang & Li, 2011;Read, 2004) have also revealed that vocabulary knowledge forms a fundamental basis for proficiency in second language learning.Lacking in vocabulary knowledge will hamper students from communication in the second or foreign language because vocabulary is a necessary component for improving all areas of communication (Godwin-Jones, 2010).
Learning vocabulary is one of the components in language teaching that is essential to reading comprehension.With sufficient vocabulary knowledge, learners will be able to access knowledge, express ideas, communicate, and learn new concepts.According to Hirsch (2003), the learner needs to know about 95% of the words in a text for adequate comprehension.Much research on vocabulary acquisition has found out that there is a high correlation between word knowledge and reading comprehension (Sedita, 2005).A linear relationship between vocabulary knowledge and comprehension is also indicated in Schmitt's and Grabe's (2011) study, the more vocabulary learners know in a text, the better their comprehension is.A vocabulary coverage point of 98% to enable learners to read English text independently (Laufer & Ravenhorst-Kalovski (2010) and comprehension with incidental vocabulary learning (Nation, 2011) is considered necessary.
For learners in an EFL environment such as that in Indonesian schools, the only source of input for vocabulary development is, to a large extent, from reading sources necessary for receptive vocabulary knowledge.Schmitt (2000) suggests that at early stages of learning, students should learn about 1000-2000 high-frequency words and then increase to about 3000-5000 word families necessary to read authentic texts that may include academic words for reading texts at university level.In his latest edition (Schmitt, 2010) he suggests that teachers do not have to teach every word in the text.Any other words will have to be left to the students to learn them through any form of exposure; particularly helpful is exposure through extensive reading.
It needs to note that learners have more difficulty with developing productive vocabulary than receptive vocabulary (Zheng, 2012).Adolphs and Schmitt (2004) estimates that learners should at least master 2000 word forms in order to be able to understand spoken discourse in different contexts.As Schmitt (2000) acknowledges, vocabulary acquisition is a developmental process, therefore, it has to become the attention of teachers that vocabulary development, receptive and productive, is a long-term process especially noticeable in an acquisition-poor EFL context that may be found in school contexts in Indonesia.Such an environment can not provide learners with adequate opportunity to use English words they learn in class.This condition, in turn, may weaken their motivation to develop communicative skills because their language learning outside class is not socially functional; hence, their vocabulary development may be diminishing.
The discussion above points to the needs for a principled and systematic analysis of vocabulary that can be effectively used for the development of students' reading comprehension.Therefore, this research used the Vocabulary Profiler (www.lextutor.ca)that has been widely applied to determine the profiles of the words in English textbooks currently used in junior high schools.
This research aims to produce profiles of the vocabulary in English textbooks currently used by the teachers at junior high schools.The profiles could provide information about the vocabulary in the textbooks that belong to K-1 words; the most frequently 1,000 words, K-2 words; the next most frequently 1,000 words, K-3 or AWL; the Academic Words List, and Off-list words; the words that do not belong to the three lists.The K-1 words are the most common and easiest words found in any text.The K-2 words are those words that are less common and less frequent in a text; therefore, these K-2 words are more difficult than K-1 words.These K-1 and K-2 words should be understood by the students at the junior school level.The AWL words are those words that are commonly used in academic texts.The Offlist words are usually names of places or people or specialized terms used in a specific discipline that students in junior high schools may not need to learn.Each of these classifications can also be used to provide information about the proportion (percentage) of the words used in the textbooks in comparison to the well-established word lists; the K-1, K-2, and AWL.This classification is very useful for teachers and students in selecting the vocabulary that is needed and most relevant for learning.With the background discussed above, this research had the following question, "What is the profile of the vocabulary used in the textbooks currently used in Junior High Schools?"

METHOD
This study used content analysis design that applied qualitative approach to analyze data.This study used a descriptive method to categorize the words in the text book samples into frequency levels using Vocabulary Profiler, a software program available for free at http://www.lextutor.ca,and to identify the vocabulary items in the New General Service IJOLTL (2016),1(3): 203-218.

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List (http://www.newgeneralservicelist.org), that were not found in the text books.The study was conducted in the second semester of 2015-2016 academic year.The data for the study were collected from the content and function words in the text books.Proper names, numbers, quotation marks, and symbols were excluded from the analysis because they were assumed to have been familiar to the students.The vocabulary items were copied into a word-file format and then fed into the Vocabulary Profiler for analysis.The data analysis for this study followed the instructions in the Vocabulary Profiler and the outputs from the analysis were automatically produced.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
The first part of this section presents the overall vocabulary profile of the textbooks showing the proportions of the vocabulary frequency levels, the negative vocabulary profiles, and the cumulative proportions of the vocabulary profile for the textbooks.The second part of the findings describes the vocabulary profiles of the chapters in each of the textbooks.See Table 2.
The first row in Table 2 shows three terms; family, type and token.Word family is head word, for example: the family or head word of discussion and discussing is discuss.Type is different words, for example: committee and comparison are different words.While discussion and discussing, or discussed are considered as the same type.Token is words in a text; the total number of words in a text.For example, if in a text there are committee [2], discussion [1], really [3], and students [5], the number of token is 11.

100%
Table 2 shows that more than two-third (84.13%) of the vocabulary used in the three textbooks fall within the most frequently used 1000 words group (K-1).With the additional K-2 word coverage (8.52%) the cumulative percentage of the word coverage was 92.65%, which is a relatively close estimate for good comprehension of the texts in the books.According to Hirsch (2003), an understanding of 95% of the words is necessary for comprehension.Based on the data in Table 2 above, this word knowledge band should include knowledge of academic words as much as 1.72% and some words in the Off-list group.Academic words are those words which are commonly used in academic texts.We need to question whether the academic words that amounted to 920 words used in the sample textbooks need to be introduced to the students in Junior High Schools.Another point that is worth considering is the number of off-list words that reached 3004 words.Although this offlist category is excluded from the frequency list and may occur infrequently (low frequency words), it may have words that students at this level need to know.This low frequency list should not be ignored in teaching and teachers have to make a selection for useful words in this category.See Table 3 for clarification.Table 3 shows total number of word families in the New General Service List -NGSL (http://www.newgeneralservicelist.org), total number of word families in the input textbooks and number of word families that were not found in the input textbooks.The number of word families in the table were automatically generated by the Vocabulary Profiler tool.As can be seen in the table, the percentage of negative vocabulary, that is the vocabulary not found in the textbooks based on the New General Service List, increases from K-1 to K-2 and K-3 frequency groups.The reason for this increase is the decrease of vocabulary coverage in the textbooks from K-1 to K-2 and K-3.In other words, the number of high frequency vocabulary (K-1) was larger that that of the next most frequently used words (K-2 and K-3).It appears that this is to be expected because at the Junior High School level, the priority of vocabulary learning should be on the high frequency words, while the K-2 and K-3 word groups may be postponed until the next higher level of education in High School or University.
The information provided in this table may point to the need for an assessment of the textbook which takes into account the number of negative vocabulary (224 word families) in the K-1 group.As indicated in the table, the word families in K-2 was close to half (47.97%) of the number of word families included in the NGSL.A selection has to be made to determine which vocabulary items are actually needed and relevant at this level of education (SMP).The vocabulary under K-3 frequency group that reached 23.20% or 132 words are usually used in academic texts and these words may impose much learning burden to the students at this level.In my view, the negative vocabulary items in K-1 and K-2 have to become the attention of the teachers or book writers in order to enlarge the students' vocabulary size.The list of negative K-1 and K-2 words is presented in the Appendix.
Figure 1 displays a comparison of the vocabulary coverage for each frequency group across the three textbooks.As can be seen in the figure, the vocabulary coverage increased in each frequency group from Book VII, VIII, and IX.The highest increase was indicated in the K-1 group where the increase from Book VII to Book VIII was twice as much as that from Book VIII to Book IX.A similar case was also revealed in K-2 and K-3 groups in which the increase of the vocabulary coverage from Book VII to Book VIII was about one and a half larger than that from Book VIII to Book IX.This pattern of vocabulary coverage across the three textbooks could present pedagogical implications to the teachers as well as the students in terms of the amount of vocabulary items that should be covered during learning.However, it remains to be questioned about the proportion of vocabulary items in Book VII that are recycled in Book VIII or Book IX.In other words, the token (word) recycling index has to be calculated in order to determine the text comprehensibility of the textbooks.Following Hirsch's (2003) assertion, a required level of vocabulary knowledge necessary for comprehension of a text is 95%. Figure 2 shows that this level of vocabulary knowledge should be the accumulation of K-1, K-2, and K-3 word knowledge.As discussed earlier, K-3 words are those words that are commonly used in academic texts which junior high school students would find too burdening and may not be needed at this level of education.A combined coverage of K-1 and K-2 words was still below the necessary required vocabulary knowledge for good comprehension of the textbooks; 92.63% in Book VII, 94.24% in Book VIII, and 91.53 in Book IX.If the target of teaching for junior high school students is to acquire the K-1 words, then, it is obvious that good understanding of the books seems difficult to achieve since the vocabulary coverage of the K-1 words was between 82.56% -85.78%.The students' learning achievement could be below this percentage range since not all students can acquire the K-1 words covered in the textbooks.Based on the data in Figure 2, it appears that Book IX is most challenging for both teachers and students because the cumulative percentages were below the other two textbooks.Figure 3 shows the distribution of vocabulary profiles in Book VII, VIII, and IX with K-1 and K-2 groups combined.The figure suggests that there were five chapters in Book IX with the lowest combined percentages: chapters 4, 5, 7, 11, and 13 with a range of 85.46% 90.91%.Further observation of the number of words in those chapters found the following information as displayed in Table 4.  IJOLTL (2016),1(3): 203-218.

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The second column in Table 4 shows the combined percentages of K-1 and K-2 groups in the five chapters of Book IX.As indicated in the third and fourth columns, the total number of K-3 (academic words) was 210 and the total of Off-list words was 689.These two totals may have lowered the vocabulary coverage of K-1 and K-2 groups.For assessment purposes, these two groups of words have to be replaced with words that are more frequently used as listed in the New General Service List (http://www.newgeneralservicelist.org) in order to increase text comprehensibility of the five chapters.

CONCLUSION
Vocabulary profiler could play a significant role to help teachers to develop learners' vocabulary knowledge in a way that is different from more conventional way of teaching vocabulary where teachers may rely on their teaching experiences and intuitive knowledge.This expert judgment in teaching vocabulary may serve as a short-cut in teaching.However, words selected in this way may or may not be those words that the students need to acquire at this level.The cumulative proportions of vocabulary frequency groups serves as a handy tool to determine the relative difficulty of the textbooks because output of the profiler points to the vocabulary coverage of the textbooks.As revealed in Table 1, the vocabulary coverage of K-1, K-2, and AWL words in the textbooks is 94.37% indicating that, in order to achieve good understanding of the textbooks (95% of word coverage), the students will have to cope with many academic words (1.72%, or 920 words) and other words that fall under Off-list group.
The list of vocabulary items not used in the textbooks (Table 2) points to the needs for more coverage of vocabulary items that learners should acquire, at least those words in the K-1 group.The negative vocabulary profiler shows that as much as 23.34% or 224 word families of K-1 group were not used in the textbooks.These 'missing' words should be taught to the students earlier than the other word groups (K-2, and AWL) since they belong to the first most frequently used words.The inclusion of these words in the school curriculum may require teachers' creativity and expert professional decision during teaching and learning process within the time frame available for the whole program.

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The comparison of the cumulative percentage of the vocabulary profile in the three text books indicates the relative difficulty of the text books.As indicated in Figure 2, it appears that Book IX is the most challenging for both students and teachers since the combined coverage of the vocabulary frequency groups is 93.47%, the lowest among the three text books in this study.Figure 3 and Table 3 provide further information about the profile of Book IX where some adjustments have to be made for vocabulary selection in order to make the text book more comprehensible to the students.
This study has been limited only to one book series.A similar research needs to be conducted with more samples of textbooks currently used in Junior High School as mandated by the Ministry of Education and Culture.More studies such as this one would provide teachers and researchers in this area with more data and findings for the betterment of teaching and learning English vocabulary in our schools.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Vocabulary entries of each frequency group in Book VII, VIII, and IX

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Cumulative percentage of vocabulary profile for the textbooks

2 words not found in the text books ABROAD
ABSOLUTE ABSOLUTELY ACCUSE ACCUSTOM ADMIRE AEROPLANE AFFORD AGRICULTURE AIM AIRPLANE ALIKE ALIVE ALTOGETHER AMBITION ANGLE ANXIETY APART APPLAUD APPROVE ARCH ARRANGE ARREST ARROW ASH ASHAMED ASIDE ASTONISH AUTUMN AVENUE AWAKE AWKWARD AXE BAGGAGE BALANCE BAND BARE BARELY BARGAIN BARREL BASIN BATHE BEAM BEARD BEAST BEHAVE BELL BELT BEND BERRY BILLION BIND BLADE BLAME BLESS BLIND BOAST BONE BORDER BOUND BOUNDARY BOW BRAIN BRASS BRIBE BRICK BROADCAST BROWN BRUSH BUNCH BUNDLE BURIAL BURST BURY BUTTON CAMERA CANAL CAP CAPE CARRIAGE CENT CENTIMETRE CENTURY CHAIN CHALK CHARM CHEESE CHEQUE CHEST CHIMNEY CHRISTMAS CIVILISE CLERK CLIFF COAT COLLAR COMB COMMERCE COMPANION COMPETE COMPLICATE COMPOSE CONFESS CONFIDENCE CONNECT CONQUER CONSCIENCE CONSCIOUS CONVENIENCE COPPER CORK CORNER COTTAGE COURAGE COWARD CRACK CRASH CREEP CRIMINAL CRITIC CROP CRUEL CULTIVATE CURIOUS CURVE CUSHION CUSTOM DAMP DEAF DEBT DECAY DECEIVE DECREASE DEFEND DELIGHT DELIVER DESCEND DESPAIR DEVIL DIG DIP DISGUST DISMISS DIVE DOT DOUBLE DOZEN DRAG DRAWER DROWN DRUM DULL EAGER EARNEST EDGE ELASTIC ELECTRIC EMPTY ENCLOSE ENCOURAGE ENGINE ENTERTAIN ENTIRE ENVELOPE ENVY ESSENCE ESSENTIAL EVIL EXCESS EXCITE EXPLODE EXPLORE EXTRA EXTRAORDINARY FADE FAINT FALSE FAN FANCY FASHION FASTEN FATE FAULT FEAST FIERCE FLAME FLASH FLESH FOLD FOND FOOL FORBID FORGIVE FORWARD FREEZE FREQUENT FRIGHT GALLON GAP GAY GRACE GRADUAL GRATEFUL GRAVE GREASE GRIND GUEST GUILTY GUN HANDKERCHIEF HARBOR HARVEST HASTE HATE HAY HEAL HEAP HESITATE HINDER HIRE HOLLOW HOLY HOOK HOST HOTEL HUMBLE HURRAH HURRY IDEAL IDLE IMAGINE IMMEDIATE IMMENSE INFORMAL INN INQUIRE INSULT INSURE INTERFERE INTERNATIONAL INTERRUPT INVENT INWARD JAW JEALOUS JEWEL JOURNEY KEY KISS KNEEL LEAN LEND LIBERTY LIMB LITRE LOAF LOAN LODGING LOG LONE LOYAL MAT MEANTIME MEANWHILE MECHANIC MELT MEND MERCHANT MERCY MERRY MESSENGER METRE MILD MILL MILLIGRAM MILLILITRE MILLIMETRE MINERAL MISERABLE MODEST MOTION MULTIPLY MURDER MYSTERY NEEDLE NEGLECT NEST NONSENSE NOON NUISANCE NUT OAR OBEY OFFEND OMIT ONWARDS OPPOSE OPPOSITE ORGAN ORNAMENT OVERCOME PAD PARCEL PARDON PASSAGE PASSENGER PASTE PATH PATRIOTIC PATTERN PAUSE PEARL PECULIAR PENNY PERMANENT PERSUADE PHOTOGRAPH PIGEON PILE PIN PINCH PIPE PITY PLASTER PLENTY POISON POLISH POLITE POOL POSTPONE POWDER IJOLTL, Vol. 1, No. 3, September 2016 p-ISSN: 2502-2326; e-ISSN: 2502-8278, Http://ijoltl.pusatbahasa.or.idAstika, Gusti.2016.Profiling Vocabulary of English Textbooks for Indonesian Junior High Schools Using Vocabulary Profiler: A Fast Tract to Improve Students' Vocabulary Knowledge.IJOLTL (2016),1(3): 203-218.217 PRACTICAL PREACH PRECIOUS PREJUDICE PRESERVE PRETEND PRIEST PRINT PRISON PROCESSION PROFESSION PROGRAMME PROMPT PUMP PUNCTUAL PUNISH PUPIL PURE PURPLE PUZZLE QUALIFY QUARREL QUART RADIO RAIL RAKE RAPID RAT RAW RAY RAZOR REFRESH REGRET REJOICE REMEDY RENT REPRODUCE REPUTATION REQUEST RESCUE RESIGN RESPONSIBLE RETIRE REVENGE REVIEW REWARD RISK RIVAL ROAR ROAST ROB ROD ROPE ROW RUDE RUG RUIN RUSH RUST SACRED SACRIFICE SADDLE SAKE SALARY SATISFY SAUCER SCATTER SCENT SCOLD SCORN SCRATCH SCREEN SCREW SEIZE SELDOM SEVERE SHADE SHAME SHAVE SHELL SHIELD SHILLING SHOCK SHOUT SHUT SIGNAL SINCERE SLAVE SOCK SOIL SOLEMN SOLID SOLVE SOUR SOW SPARE SPIN SPIT SPLENDID SPLIT SPOIL STAIN STAMP STEADY STEER STEM STIFF STING STOCKING STORM STRAW STRETCH STRICT STRING STRIP STRIPE STUPID SUPPER SUSPECT SUSPICION SWALLOW SWEAR SWEAT SWELL SWING SYMPATHY TAXI TELEGRAPH TEMPT TEND THEATRE THIRST THORN THREAT THUNDER TICKET TIDE TIGHT TIN TOBACCO TONGUE TOWER TRACK TRANSLATE TRAP TRAY TREASURE TREAT TREMBLE TRIBE TRICK TUBE TYPICAL UGLY UNIVERSE UPPER UPRIGHT UPSET UPWARDS URGE VAIN VEIL VERSE VIOLENT VOYAGE WAIST WANDER WAX WEED WHEAT WHIP WHISPER WICKED WIDOW WINE WIPE WIRE WITNESS WORSHIP WRECK WRIST ZERO