The Effect of Teaching Short Stories on Solving English Language Vocabulary Difficulties Encountered by Sudanese Undergraduates.

Abstract

Many studies in Sudan have investigated vocabulary learning strategies from different perspectives, but few have surveyed the effects of teaching short stories strategy on vocabulary learning. The main concern of the present study is to probe the effects of teaching short stories on solving Sudanese university student vocabulary learning difficulties. The researcher used the descriptive, experimental and analytic methods for data analysis by designing questionnaire which addressed ELT teachers in Khartoum locality to this end, 50 participants were selected from Sudan university of Science and Technology. The participants were randomly assigned to an experimental group that received instruction on using short stories strategy and a controlled group which received no treatment. In order to guarantee the participants’ homogeneity, a pretest (PET test) was administered to them. After the treatment, a posttest was administered to the participants to find out the effectiveness of the instruction strategy. For analyzing the data, a T-test was employed. The result of this study has provided significant empirical evidence together with theoretical insights for of vocabulary research.. The study has come out with the following results; - Vocabulary Learning creates difficulties for the sample of this study. - The study participants hardly understand the meaning of word from the context. -The study participants are unable to differentiate between the root of word and its affixations and face difficulties in learning synonyms Based on the above mentioned results the researcher recommends the following: - Short stories should be taught for solving vocabulary learning difficulties, short stories should be taught widely in tertiary level to enhance students to learn English language vocabulary. - Short stories those are taught to university student should be selected to help them understand the meaning of the new words within context.