Vocabulary Proficiency of Grade Ten Students of Kathmandu and Sarlahi Districts

Abstract

This research entitled “Vocabulary Proficiency of Grade Ten Students of Kathmandu and Sarlahi Districts ” was carried out to compare the vocabulary proficiency of the tenth grade students of Kathmandu and Sarlahi districts and to find out the difficulty level of vocabulary items. To meet the objectives, the researcher prepared a list of content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs) with their frequency counts from grade ten English textbook. The researcher selected the 60% of words having high frequency and 40% having low frequency. Twelve types of test items were constructed consisting of eighty individual vocabulary items including twenty six nouns, twenty two verbs, seventeen adjectives and fifteen adverbs. The test was administered in three different schools of Kathmandu and three schools of Sarlahi district. Twenty students were selected from each school by random sampling procedure using the fishbowl draw. The data thus obtained were tabulated and analyzed using descriptive approach and simple statistical tools, i.e. rank and percentage. The result of the test showed that the total vocabulary proficiency of the students was found satisfactory. The girls of Kathmandu were better than the boys and the boys of Sarlahi were found better than the girls. Similarly, the girls of Kathmandu were found far better than the girls of Sarlahi whereas the boys of Kathmandu and Sarlahi were found equal in vocabulary proficiency. The analysis of the difficulty level of vocabulary items displayed that 30% of them were found beyond the students’ intellectual maturity. The present work is divided into four chapters. The first chapter includes general background and definitions, review of the related literature, objectives of the study and significance of the study. The second chapter deals with the methodology. The third chapter is concerned with analysis and interpretation of data. Findings and recommendations are given in the fourth chapter. The model of the test items and students’ answers are given in the appendices.