Agnieszka Kuchta gr.

A I SUM

Lexical attrition of some Arabic speakers of English as a foreign language: a study of word loss by Hassan Al-Hazemi critical review

In the recent years many studies have been conducted that aimed at examining the most prominent and vital aspect of language which is lexical knowledge. Unfortunately, the researchers tended to omit the problem of attrition, that certainly exists. The phenomenon may also be defined as word loss which is manifested by experiencing difficulties with recalling a vocabulary item. According to Welten (1993), there is a prominent difference between the process of forgetting and attrition. The first is characterized by facing some obstacles when trying to recall the meaning of the word but being able to do it after listening to some clues, whereas the latter is labeled as a process in which the word cannot be retrieved even after receiving some hints. Taking into consideration the results of the study undertaken by Cohen (1989), the greater the knowledge the more is being forget, especially when the gained knowledge is disused for a longer period of time. Contrary to the results of the research carried out by Cohen (1989), Bahrick (1984) investigated that a certain amount of knowledge is lost regardless to the total knowledge. However, further study showed that young learners experience greater attrition than adult learners in the same period of time. Unfortunately, most researches that examined the phenomenon of word loss paid their attention only to children, that is the reason why the study carried out by Al-Hazemi focused on adult learners. The study aimed at investigating the aspect of word loss and how it had affected lexical knowledge of learners after two to twelve years of disuse. The participants of the study were sixty males who were officers of Saudi Military Forces. There were three groups of officers, namely, Lieutenants, Captains, and Majors. They were graduates of King AbdulAziz Military Academy that is located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The subjects were taught both general and military English when they were cadets in the academy. In order to collect data the officers were given a multiple-choice test that was to check whether they know the meaning of forty words, which had been chosen from a group of vocabulary items that they

had been taught before. Half of the forty chosen words were connected to military terms. In order to make sure that the participants came across those lexemes during the process of learning English the lexemes were selected from the materials that were used during their learning process. In addition, they were presented to the senior teachers that used to work at the academy thanks to which words that were not taught were neglected. Before handing the test to the target group of testees it was again given to the senior teachers in order to eliminate any possible difficulties. The subjects were not obliged to write their names on the tests in order to lower the fear of public failure as well as to guarantee more adequate results. They were also instructed not to use any aids such as dictionaries or books. The data that has been collected after evaluating the tests revealed that the subjects had forgotten more than half of the words being tested. However, gathering data was not an easy task because many of the officers were not willing to taking part in such research as they were anxious of showing their weaknesses as far as English language is concerned. Taking into consideration the differences between the groups are, a slight increase of the scores of the second group was observed. Furthermore, according to the outcomes of the study, time seemed not to influence the process of forgetting, which may be supported by the fact that even the group of Lieutenants, who had graduated from the academy two years before the research was done, displayed the same inability to recall half of the words as Majors who became graduates twelve years before the study. It has to be underlined that the results of the study do not precisely answer the question whether the process of attrition took place. It is caused by the fact that one test may not measure if the words that were tested were lost or just forgotten. Having provided the students with the same test after some time would enable the researcher to examine whether the testees still are not able to recognize the meaning of the words which was not recalled during the first test. That would probably contribute to defining if the phenomenon of attrition took place. Another aspect of the study that may arouse doubts is the way in which the vocabulary items were chosen. Although the words that were selected were certainly taught when the subjects were still students of English, there does exist a possibility that the words might not have been learned by them. The next problematic issue is the fact that the clues that were to help the subjects to recall the meaning of a certain word were given in English, which probably did not help and might have made the task even more difficult. The author of the study should consider creating a different test which would involve hints in Arabic. The low proficiency of English is indicated by the outcomes of the study as well. Because of the fact that the participants were not advanced students of English the word loss occurred as some of the

words might not have been fully retrieved and that made them be forgotten faster. Furthermore, the environment the participants of the study live in should be also mentioned and taken into account while preparing the tests, because it may have be one of the factors that quicken attrition. It should be stated that before the time of disuse, the exposure of English was very poor and the subjects did not have many chances of using English in the situational context, as Saudi Arabia is not an English speaking country, and the access to authentic materials used to be complicated when the subjects were students. Finally, the study and its reported results provide many pedagogical implications. First of all, the teachers should make sure that the vocabulary that has been taught is constantly revised and what is more they should provide some time during which students would use the words in context. The teachers may, for example, prepare some points for discussion that will require using the vocabulary items. Moreover, the amount of exposure seems to play a prominent role in preventing attrition from taking place. It means that not only should teachers use as much English as it is possible in the classroom but also they should make sure that students are exposed to authentic language. It should be suggested to use a great number of authentic materials, such as videos, recordings, magazines, etc. Inviting native speakers to take part in the lessons may also be highly beneficial. However, not many schools can afford employing native-speaking teachers that is why teachers, who are not native speakers of English, should be eager to teach students how to use the Internet as a source of authentic materials. They can show ways in which learners can use chat rooms or online messengers in order to make friends with native speakers or other speakers of English. It should give them the ability to use learned lexemes in the context which is believed to enhance the process of retrieving lexical knowledge. Summing up, the problem of attrition is one of the obstacles that learners and teachers have to face during the learning process. Although some aspects of the study might be improved, the results of it are very thought-provoking. Thanks to them, teachers have the opportunity to realize that presenting vocabulary items is only the beginning of the process of learning them. Moreover, it shows that the responsibility for teaching and learning vocabulary does not only lay with the teachers but also with the students themselves. The outcomes indicate as well that there is a need for further study to be conducted, which would deal with the phenomenon of attrition examining more subjects. There also should be a research carried out that would investigate which lexemes are forgotten faster, general or military ones.
(1380 words)