Analyzing Teachers' Perspectives Regarding Antonym-Based Instructions for Vocabulary Acquisition of Undergraduate ESL Saudi Students

Abstract

The focus of this research is to analyze the ESL teachers' perspectives about using contrastive pair activities of antonyms in vocabulary acquisition strategies to undergraduate ESL students in different private and public colleges and universities in Jazan region of Saudi Arabia. The purpose is to prepare an objective evaluation of these perspectives to find gaps and subsequently suggest recommendations for increasing vocabulary. To address the main question, the study uses both qualitative and quantitative approaches with the structured interviews comprising 36 questions of 120 selected ESL teachers and recording observations of the live instructions in the classroom settings of the same teachers. The teachers have been categorized into more experienced and less experienced ones with equality in gender and experience both. MAXQDA and SPSS have been utilized to analyze qualitative and quantitative data respectively. The qualitative analysis shows that more experienced teachers have consistently expressed positivity about cognitive and other benefits despite having some reservations about barriers, while the majority of less experienced ones have expressed dissatisfaction about the same, indicating barriers with similar results from the quantification of the same. The significance of the study lies in assigning centrality to the teachers' opinion about using contrastive pair activities for enhancing the active vocabulary of the students in Jazan region. The data analysis and recommendations lead to a need for further longitudinal studies about students' engagement patterns and other related areas.