Những khó khăn và giải pháp cho việc dạy từ vựng cho sinh viên chuyên ngành tin học trường THSP thanh hóa

Facing this problem, the teachers of English of THTTS want to do something to changethe ways of teaching and learning vocabulary in order to improve the students' learningeffectiveness t

on our education curriculum as a compulsory subject It is known that, in learning aforeign language in general, and English in particular, the knowledge and mastery ofvocabulary play an extremely important role Pyles and Algeo (1970) noted that:

"When we first think about the language, we think about words It is words that wearrange together to make sentences, conversations and discourse of all kind" In fact,vocabulary is the element that links the four skills of speaking, listening, reading andwriting all together In order to communicate well in a foreign language, studentsshould acquire an adequate number of words and should know how to use themaccurately However, both teachers and learners have faced many difficulties inEnglish teaching and learning, especially in teaching and learning vocabulary It seemsdifficult for teachers to apply the suitable way to teach learners

In the context of Thanh Hoa Teachers' Training School (THTTS), students withVocational Training level are taught English as a compulsory subject And students ofInformation Technology start learning IT English at the beginning of the second year.The short period is mainly aimed at improving reading and translating skills However,with limited knowledge of vocabulary and English grammar, it is difficult for them tostudy English for IT, especially in reading and translating exercises They often learnvocabulary passively through their teachers' explanation, It is hard for them tomemorize new words Thus, it requires a great deal of help from teachers

ESP (English for specific purpose) is viewed as something hard to teach for languageteachers As a teacher of English for IT, I myself find out many difficulties duringteaching vocabulary They arise from the lack of specialized knowledge, so teachersfail to provide every reasonable explanation Moreover, the target students at THTTSare lower in comparison with those at colleges or universities on the ground of needs,interest and motivation In addition, it is difficult for teachers to understand a lot ofterminology, complicated structures and countless expressions

Facing this problem, the teachers of English of THTTS want to do something to changethe ways of teaching and learning vocabulary in order to improve the students' learningeffectiveness to help them succeed in their future job Therefore, I have conducted aresearch to find out the main difficulties in teaching IT vocabulary at THTTS Then tooffer some solutions to these problem

2 Aims of the study

The study aimed at:

- Giving a brief overview about ESP and vocabulary and its relevance in teachingand learning English for IT

- Finding out difficulties that ESP teachers at THTTS are facing in teaching Englishvocabulary to students of IT

- Suggesting some solutions to the learning of vocabulary to students of ITeffectively

4 Scope of the study

The study limited itself to the investigation of difficulties in teaching vocabulary tostudents of Information Technology at Thanh Hoa Teachers' training school Thesolutions are also provided to help to improve teaching and learning English in general,teaching and learning English vocabulary of IT in particular at THTTS

5 Methods of the study

In order to achieve the aims mentioned above, the study was designed to use varieties

of methods such as: interview and questionnaire The data can be recorded formallyand informally The interview is used to record information from teachers The surveyquestionnaire to students is to get more information to support the study

6 Design of the study

This study is organized into 3 main parts:

Part 1: Introduction: in this part the rationale, the aims, the research questions, the

scope, the method, and the design of the study is presented

Part 2: Development: It consists of three chapters.

Chapter 1 provides the theoretical background, which is relevant to the purposes of thestudy

Chapter 2 presents an introduction on the context of learning and teaching vocabulary

of Information Technology at THTTS

Chapter 3 is the main part of the study It includes the context of the study, thesubjects, and the data collection methods and data collection procedure Also in thischapter, the data will be analyzed and the finding will reveal teachers' difficulties inteaching vocabulary to students of IT On the basis of these findings, solutions inteaching and learning will be suggested

Part 3: Conclusion: This part offers a summary of the study and some suggestions for

further study

Part 2: DevelopmentChapter 1: Literature review 1.1 An overview of ESP

1.1.1 What is ESP?

"ESP" stands for English for Specific Purposes and different authors have defined this term

so far According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 19), ESP is "an approach rather than aproduct to language teaching in which all decisions as to content and method are based onlearner's reason for learning" For Hutchinson and Waters, starting point in determiningappropriate input for ESP course is identifying learners' need

Similarly, Munby (1978: 2) states: "ESP courses are those where the syllabus and materialsare determined in all essentials by the prior analysis of the communication needs of thelearner" And Robinson (1991: 3), discussing the criteria to ESP, also emphasizes thestudents' needs element of ESP: " An ESP course is based on a needs analysis, which aims

to specify as closely as possible what exactly it is that students have to do through themedium of English" She defines that time period should be specified clearly for an ESPcourse, in which their objectives have to be achieved

Likewise, Streven (1988: 1) stated: "ESP is a particular cause of the general category ofspecial purpose language teaching"

It is obvious that all the above definitions stem at different time by different authors, thesedefinitions reveal that any ESP course must be based on learners' needs

1.1.2 Classification of ESP

It can be seen that, language varies according to the context of use Thus, there are manytypes of ESP Traditionally, ESP has been divided into two main areas Kennedy andBolitho (1984: 4) defined the types of ESP:

"English for Occupational Purpose (EOP) is taught in a situation in which learners need touse English as a part of their work or profession" Whereas, "English for AcademicPurpose (EAP) is taught generally within educational institutions to students needingEnglish in their studies"

Robinson (1991) provides the distinction between these two areas

For study in a specific discipline In- study

EEP/ EAP Post- study Independent

As school subject

Integrated

Figure 1: Types of ESP (Robinson, 1991: 3-4)

This division of ESP plays a very important role in affecting the degree of specificity that

is appropriate to the course However, according to Hutchinson (1987: 16) " This is not a clear- cut distinction: people can work and study simultaneously, it is also likely that in many cases the language learnt for immediate use in a study environment will be used later when the student takes up, or returns a job"

Figure 2: Types of ESP (Hutchinson, 1987: 16)

On Hutchinson' ELT tree, there are three categories basing on nature of the learners'specialism English for Science and Technology (EST), English for Business andEconomic (EBE) and English for the Social Science (ESS) Though ESP if classified bydifferent author, they are common that ESP can be divided into EAP and EOP On ELTtree mentioned above, English for Information Technology belongs to English forTechnician

1.1.3 The roles of ESP teachers

The roles of ESP teachers have been pointed out by a variety of studies An ESP teachermust master fully the roles of General English teachers and ESP course process Inlearning process teacher must help the learner achieve their goals effectively Especially,

in vocabulary teaching, the teacher mostly focus on words, idioms to express the topics

like "computer and its application" or "computer types", etc, plus words in the general,

and (s)he has to provide the students with the anxiety- free atmosphere Besides, (s)he alsohas to create favorable environment in which students are able to practice to memorizenew words According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 157), the ESP teacher will have todeal with need analysis, syllabus design, materials writing or adaptation and evaluation.Whereas Martin (1992) lists and explains different roles of the teacher He views the roleupon the process of carrying out a task in ESP lesson" before, during and after a task Ateacher wishing to support learning throughout the various phrases of a task would need to

be able to play an extended a set of roles including explorer, organizer, adviser, instructorand a guide Little Wood (1981: 51) states that the ESP teacher is expected to "perform in

a variety of roles, separately or simultaneously" Nunan (1988) also said that these roles of

an ESP teacher include an instructor, a manager, counselor, facilitators, organizer,curriculum developer, material writer, material writer and even a friend Robinson (1991)gives his own opinion, '' the ESP teacher does not only teach but very often he or she isinvolved in designing, setting up, administering, evaluating and testing the ESP course"Obviously, the ESP teacher must be flexible and their roles will vary according to type ofsyllabus and course, teaching and learning environment, etc

1.1.4 The problem of ESP teachers

Robinson (1980: 83) stated some problem of ESP teachers "Lack of sufficient preparation time", "lack of personal and professional contact with subject teachers", and" the contentmay be very specific indeed, requiring a high degree knowledge and skill from teachers".ESP teachers may also have to struggle to master language and subject beyond the bound

of their previous experience because most of them have been trained for General Englishteaching and has unexpectedly found themselves required to teach the texts whose contentthey know little or nothing about It is true to all teachers teaching at THTTS They are

teachers of GE who lack experience, the needed specialized knowledge and the choice ofappropriate teaching methodologies seem to be the major concerns Obviously, it is noteasy and does take time for the teachers to become familiar with the ESP course materials

as well as with the language of the subject

1.2 Vocabulary teaching in ESP

1.2.1 Definition of vocabulary

The term "vocabulary" appears to be a very simple concept but in fact, we can find itextremely difficult to give an exact definition of vocabulary Based on different criteria,linguistics defined vocabulary in different ways According to Peny, Ur (1996: 60),vocabulary "as the words we teach in the foreign language However, a new item ofvocabulary may be more than a single word: a compound of two or three words or multi-word idioms" Pyles and Algae (1970: 96) also noted that: "It is in words that sound andmeanings inter- lock to allow us to communicate with one another and it is words that werange together to make sentences, conversations and discourses of all kinds"

In general, vocabulary is the total number of all the words that a language possesses,including a single word, two or three word items expressing a single idea and multi- wordidioms whose meaning cannot be deduced from the analysis of the component words.Vocabulary can be defined as the words we teach in the foreign language and a usefulconvention is to cover all such cases by talking about vocabulary "items" rather than

"words" It can be seen that a "vocabulary" item can be more than one word Therefore, it

is necessary not to make confusion between vocabulary item and word

1.2.2 Main principles in Vocabulary Teaching

1.2.1 Decision about the content

Before considering the main principles in vocabulary teaching, we should pay attention where we select vocabulary from According to Ruth Gairns and Stuart Redman (1999:54) vocabulary reaches the classroom from four mains sources such as the course book,supplementary materials, the students, and specific vocabulary activities designed by theteacher for his particular group of students

The course book: This will include the written and spoken texts, activities for the

presentation and practice of grammatical structures, testing exercises, and so on Even theinstructions for classroom activities can form a source of new vocabulary

Supplemental materials: these are not designed specially not for vocabulary development

or provided by educational institution, or selected by the teacher himself This mayinclude texts, drill, role- plays, video, exercises etc

The students: a wide range of unanticipated and unpredictable items will inevitably

surface from student enquires, queries, and errors

Specific vocabulary activities designed by the teacher for his particular group of students

1.2.2 Criteria for selection

It can be seen that vocabulary should be selected in a suitable teaching setting That is,every situation is different and so core items in one context may be useless in another.Teaching can effectively deal with only a small amount of information about vocabularyitems at a time Thus, teachers have to take into considerations factors We should considerthe following table

Criteria Order of importance Definition

word in a language

in which a word occurs

by the learner in order to communicate Availability and

familiarity

4 The word the learner is mostly in contact

with and somehow ' know'

1.2.3 What need to be taught in English Vocabulary?

According to Penny Ur (1996), when vocabulary is introduced to learners, pronunciationand spelling, word form, grammar, collocation, aspects of meaning, word- formation need

to be taught

1.2.3.1 Word form

When learning vocabulary students should be introduced its pronunciation and its spelling

To many students, the complex relationship between sound and spelling in English seems

to make the language inexplicable It is easy understand when we consider the number of

homophones in English such as: weight/ wait, sole/ soul, and the number of similar forms that differ wildly in their pronunciation like hurry/ humor

1.2.3.2 Grammar

There are two main pedagogic issues involved: the highlighting of regular and irregularforms, and the role of source books in allowing learners to be sift- sufficient as RuthGairns and Stuart Redman stated In the classroom, the new item is not obviously covered

by general grammatical rule, grammar will need to be introduced or examined The

teachers need to clarify regular forms and common regular forms for students When a

new word is taught, for example we might also give its past form such as: buy/ bought and

it is transitive or intransitive, when a noun such as a person is taught, it should be given its plural form as people.

1.2.3.3 Collocation

Collocation is the way in which words are used together regularly in a specific language Itrefers to the restriction on how words can be used together in right contexts Thus, this isanother piece of information about a new item, which may be worth teaching For

example, you throw a ball but toss a coin We can talk about thick fog and dense fog, thick

smoke and dense smoke with the same meaning However, we cannot say dense hair

instead of thick hair

Connotation of a word is less obvious component of its meaning This is association, orpositive and negative feelings the word evokes which may not be indicated in a dictionarydefinition Connotation includes stylistic, affective, evaluation, intensifying value,pragmatic communicative values, the word acquires by virtue of where, when, how and bywhom, for what purpose and in what context it is or it may be used

Appropriateness is more subtle aspect of meaning that indicates whether a particular item

is appropriate one to use in a certain context or not Thus, it is useful for a learner to knowwhether a certain word is very common, or relatively rare or taboo in a polite conversation,

or tends to be used in writing but not in speech, or is more suitable for a formal thaninformal discourse or belongs to a certain dialect

It is necessary to list aspects of meaning in the sense of meaning relationships This canalso be useful in vocabulary teaching and learning They show how the meaning of oneitem relates to the meaning of others These are various relationships and here are some ofthe main ones like synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms, co- hyponyms or co- ordinates, superordinates, and translation

1.2.3.5 Word- formation

Word can change their shape and their grammatical value Vocabulary items whether word or multi- word, can often be broken down into their components "bits" Students need

one-to know facts about word formation and how one-to use words one-to fit different grammaticalcontexts.

For their parts, students should be taught the common prefixes and suffixes and how theywork, For example, if learners know the meaning of "sub", "un" and "able", this will help

them guess the meaning of words such as "substandard", "uncomfortable", and "enable".

However, students should be warned that in many common words the affixes no longer

have obvious connection with their root meaning (for example: "consider" ->

Linguists have stated varieties of definitions of technology In Longman dictionary of

applied linguistics (1985: 290) defines terminology as the special lexical which occur in“the special lexical which occur in

a particular discipline ”

According to Nguyen Thien Giap (1985: 308), “the special lexical which occur inTerminology, which is understood as a

special linguistic unit of a language consists of word and fixed phrase that provide definitions of objectives that belong to a particular scientific area” Also, Do Huu Chau

(1998) states: “the special lexical which occur inTerms are specialist words used within a scientific field, a procession orany technological field”

These definitions, though raised at different times and by different people indicate thatthere exist “the special lexical which occur inspecial words in specialized fields or branches of human knowledge” ,

1.3.2 Characteristics of terminology

Many linguists including Do Huu Chau (1981), Nguyen Thien Giap (1985) and Luu VanLang (1998) share the idea that terminology has at least three important features: accurate,systematic, and international

1.3.2.1 Accurate

This is the first criterion of a scientific term It means that a term should express a

scientific concept or definition concretely and precisely in order to avoid misunderstandingone concept for another Terms exist without connotational, amotional meanings and avoidpolysemy, synonymy and antonymy In other word, terms remain the basic nuclearmeaning and it works on the principle that ‘ one concept has only one term for it and viceversa’, it is fixed in specialized field and is attached to a definition This relationship iscalled the one- to- one equivalence between concept and a term

1.3.2.2 Systematic

Systematism is considered to be one of the most important features of terminology becauseevery field of science has its own limited system of concept which are denoted by certainterms and the value of each term is determined by its relationship with other term in thesame system As a result, term loses its value when it is isolated from its system.Generally, a term has to be a dependent member of its system

1.3.2.3 International

Due to the global integration, scientific and technological exchange, the international links

in sciences result in a number of terms, which are present in many different languages Forexample, video, radio, computer, telephone…are found in French, English andare found in French, English andVietnamese…are found in French, English andwith a little bit difference in form

To sum up, terms in general and technology in particular needs to possess the above essential characteristics

1.3.3 Classification of terms

Terms can be classified into two main groups according to their structural patterns: single terms and compound terms,

1.3.3.1 Single terms

Single terms are made up of one word (usually a noun or a verb)

For example: magnetize (tõ ho¸); access (truy cËp); transmit ( truyÒn ); load (t¶i); code ( m· ho¸); curse ( con trá); decoder (bé gi¶i m·); memory (bé nhí).

1.3.3.2 Compound terms

Compound terms are the ones which are composed of two or more than two words; thesewords, which are of different part of speech, combine together and create terms that have

the form of nominal groups For example: operating system (hÖ ®iÒu hµnh); application

software (phÇn mÒm hÖ thèng); source program (ch¬ng tr×nh nguån); programming language (ng«n ng÷ lËp tr×nh); Central Processing (Bé xö lý trung t©m); main memory (bé

nhí chÝnh)

1.4 Methodology in vocabulary teaching

According to Mackey (1971), “the special lexical which occur inThe method used has often been said to be the cause ofsuccess or failure in language learning; for it is ultimately the method that determined thewhat and the how of language instruction” In recent years, foreign language teaching hasundergone many dramatic changes In order to understand the scope of the subject,language teachers should have a clear perspective on the developments of languageteaching approaches as well as their inter- relationship between developed one Teachers

should make decision appropriate objectives of which approaches for the teachingsituation Following is a brief presentation of some major foreign language teachingmethod and their application in the vocabulary language teaching, especially in the context

of TTTC

1.4.1 The Grammar- translation method

The Grammar- translation method is one of the oldest method foreign language teachings

In general language teaching, the classes are taught mainly in Vietnamese, with littleactive use of English On regard of teaching vocabulary, much of it is taught in the form oflists of isolated words Then students are expected to study and memorize that list ofvocabulary together with their translation equivalents in the mother tongue And thestudents are also given the grammatical rules and paradigm to put words together Besides,the method aims at providing the rules with wide literary vocabulary in written exercises.Teachers also find it an easy and quick way to explain the meaning of words

In this method, the teachers' main task is to given the students grammatical rules,paradigm and the list of vocabulary by writing down the new words and its meaning inVietnamese to help students to do the written exercise in grammatical analysis, not theexercises in the context of text This method can be classed as mental discipline and iseasy to apply and simple to test and to control

1.4.2 The Direct Method

According to this method, the second language learning should be treated as the firstlanguage learning It associates directly foreign utterances with object and actions withoutthe use of the native language During the process of teaching and learning, only targetlanguage is used, no mother tongue is allowed This method requires no translationbetween first and second languages, little or no analysis of grammatical rules Besides, itlays an emphasis on correct pronunciation and grammar

This method is very useful for teaching vocabulary, the teachers introduces through objectsand pictures The words used are very common, active and concerning daily activities Bythis method, concrete vocabulary is taught demonstration while the meanings of abstractwords are made clear by association of ideas

1.4.3 The Communicative approach (CLT)

The communicative approach which teaches student how to use the language is considered

to be at least as important as learning the language itself In this method, vocabulary islearnt through for "real- life" communication in classroom, through interaction in thetarget language and through enhancement of the learner's own experiences as important

contributing elements to classroom learning and through an attempt to link classroomlanguage learning with language activation outside the classroom.

This method of teaching make students more confident when communicating with oneanother Being motivated, they also become more active in class That is the reason whyCLT is considered a good teaching method by a lot of Vietnamese researchers andteachers

Chapter 2: An introduction of the context of learning and teaching vocabulary of Information Technology students

at THTTS 2.1 Teaching staff and teaching methods

The English teaching staff at THTTS consists of 7 official teachers at the age from 27 to

38 They graduated from College of Foreign Languages- Vietnam National University,Hanoi, Hong Duc University and Vinh University One of them is Dr in Russian and re-trained to teach English Another is taking MA course at College of Foreign Languages-Vietnam National University, Hanoi The number of teachers is limited and there are noteachers who are in charge of ESP teaching separately Among them, 3 are engaged inteaching English for IT in which 1 teacher has 4- years experience and 2 others teachershave 3- years experience They are energetic and willing to devote their time and energy toteaching However, they find it difficult to deal with unfamiliar and unaccustomed subjectmatter They, therefore, have to face with many difficulties, of which the gap of contentknowledge and the choice of appropriate teaching methodology seem to be the majorconcerns

As far as the methodology is concerned ESP teachers usually apply different kinds ofteaching methods in ESP vocabulary lesson such as the Grammar- Translation method, theDirect Method, the Audio- Lingual method, and the Communicative approach Classes areusually conducted in the form of lectures, with most of the time the teachers playing thekey role in the classroom being the main speakers working through the text The teachersexplain new words, terms and even translate into Vietnamese However, the teachers arealways aware of the new trend in teaching methods and aware of the importance of theCommunicative approach when teaching English to their students in general andvocabulary in particular

2.2 Students and their background

Normally, there are two classes of IT, which made up totally 98 students The age of thestudents varies from 18 to 24 They come from different part of the province Some ofthem are from the rural or remote areas, where there are no good opportunities forstudying English, these students commonly did not spend much time learning English athigh school before The others come from cities, who, theoretically, have all finished threeyears or seven years of learning English at secondary schools before entering the THTTS.Most of them are male students (78%) To some extent, there are some students whoseEnglish is very good, but generally the target students' English proficiency is still lowlevel Most of them learn English to read specialized documents rather than speak English

to foreigners Some have strong pressure to pass exams with high mark; the others wouldprefer ESP enhance their specialized knowledge, which is required in their future jobs.However, specialized knowledge in Vietnamese makes it easy for them to learn Englishfor Information Technology, and, o the other hand, brings them high motivation inlearning ESP In addition, it helps students feel more confident to interact with teacher inESP class

2.3 The teaching materials

2.3.1 The textbook

The book "English for Computer" are subjectively selected by the teachers and thencompiled into the material to teach students of IT at THTTS in 60 periods, and with thefollowing features:

- "English for Computer" consists of six units, designed in combination with computertopic to enable students to develop both their language skills and vocabulary relating to IT

- A unit is divided into three parts, and each part focuses on grammar, function orvocabulary Every unit provides students many vocabularies through practice of listening,reading, speaking, and writing

2.3.2 The course content

English at THTTS is allowed to be non- major and not the compulsory subject for entranceexam Like many other subjects, English is taught in a formal setting (classroom) withoutlanguage environment and the students have to do two English courses, divided into threesemesters: 120- period GE for the first and second semester and 60- period ESP for thethird semester

The textbook "Lifelines (elementary) has been used recently for General English (GE) Inaddition, the book "English for Computer" are subjectively selected by the teachers areheld to evaluate students' language knowledge

2.4 Teaching facilities

Teaching facilities also play an important part in teaching English and may affect theteaching process positively or negatively All teachers are supplied with cassette recorder

to use for their class contact when necessary There are some modern devices such asoverhead projector and projector, but seldom can teachers and students use them becauseneither overhead projector nor projector is equipped in classroom except in Informaticsclass Thus, it takes much time for the teachers and students to move to that equippedroom, on the other hand, it is not convenient to bring it to the classroom There is onelibrary with some sort of materials for reference like English books, magazines,newspapers but it mainly provides book of Information Technology in Vietnamese, notEnglish books, especially ESP books It is obviously that teaching facilities at THTTS arepoorly supported This certainly has considerable negative effects on English teaching andlearning

Chapter 3: The study

3 1 Context of the study

At THTTS, English is a compulsory subject in the curriculum of teaching and learning.English course is divided into two parts: General English and English for special purpose.The course is applied for students of all departments General English is taught during thefirst and the second term with the total of 120 periods with the aim of giving the studentsbasic general knowledge of English At this stage, the teacher concentrates on developingstudents’ 4 basic language skills in order to prepare for students’ knowledge towards ESPtaught in the third term The textbook chosen is Lifelines- Elementary by Tom Hutchinson,Hai Phong Press, 2004 During the third term students are introduced English for specialpurpose (ESP) which is written by the teachers of English at THTTS in 60 periods Thepurpose of teaching ESP is to enable students to read books and materials related tostudents’ major so that they will be able to use English for their study and future career

3 2 The subject

In order to achieve the aims of the thesis and answer the above research questions, themain subjects of the study include a group of 4 teachers of English for IT currentlyteaching at THTTS All of them are female They have at least 3 –years experience inteaching English And 45 second- year students of IT

The number of participants is limited to only 4 teachers and 45 students because there areonly 7 teachers teaching in THTTS at the time the study was being carried out 4 teachers

is not a small number in comparison with the total The teachers involved in the study arethose who have experience on teaching English for IT At present, there is one class with

45 students of IT in THTTS The students are in their second year of studying in the schooland 15 of them are female

3 3 Instruments for collecting data

According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 59), there are a number ways in whichinformation about the needs can be gathered such as questionnaires, interviews,observation, etc The researcher of this study decided to choose questionnaires andinterviews as main tools for collecting information

vocabulary for IT, and what teaching methods used by teachers they would enjoy (Seeappendix 2)

3.3.2 Interviews with ESP teachers

The interviews will be conducted because they are personalized and permit a level of depth information- gathering, free response, and flexibility (Selinger & Shohamy, 1995:172) In addition, the interviews will be not time- consuming as the number of subjectslimited (Only 4 ESP teachers)

in-The interview was organized to find out what teaching methods they are using, whatdifficulties the teachers are coping with in teaching English in general and teachingEnglish vocabulary for IT in particular, and some solutions made by them

3 4 Data collection procedure

The questionnaires were delivered to the students in their classroom in the first class hour.They were encouraged to give their true answers I confirmed to them that the researchwas carried out to improve their own English learning and teaching in general and theirEnglish vocabulary of IT in particular so all their information is kept secret and only usedfor research

The interviews between the researcher and 4 ESP teachers to collect more data for thisstudy were organized They were carried out during short breaks or after lessons focusing

on their teaching methods, comments on vocabulary teaching difficulties for IT, and theirsolutions It was recorded for later reference

3 5 Data analysis results

This section deals with the results of the survey and the interviews collected from theteachers and the students

3 5 1 The students' questionnaires

1 What do you think of the role of vocabulary in learning a foreign language?

Students' attitude towards vocabulary learning

8% 2%

very importantimportantnot important

Chart 1

As shown in pie chart, most of the students consider vocabulary a very importantelement in language learning This number presents 90%, only 8% of them thinkvocabulary is important and 2% not important This means that most of these studentsare well aware of the importance of vocabulary in their English learning Thisawareness leads to good motivation in their learning process

2 Which way (s) do you find the most effective in learning English vocabulary for IT?

Ways of learning English vocabulary for IT Percentage

b Store new words in notebook and read them everyday 5.3%

c Write the words in English and Vietnamese 22%

e Write the words in English many times in pieces of paper 21.4%

f Write the words and meaning, their synonyms or antonyms 10.8%

g Other ways (song, game, internet, TV, radio program,) 12.2%

Table 2 Ways of learning English vocabulary for IT

The result in table 1 shows that 23.2 % ensure that they can remember new words moreeasily if the teacher uses visual aids It seems that it is visual aids and context that makestudents involved in and fascinated by the lesson Most students are influenced bytraditional ways in their learning habits such as write the words in English and Vietnamese

or write the words in English many times in pieces of paper and trying to learn by heart.Thus, more than half of students learn new words by writing them again (22% & 21.4%).Obviously, it is not effective ways in learning vocabulary, as Decarrico (2001) states thatwords should not be learnt by memorization without understanding The percentage ofstudents who usually learn English vocabulary via song, game, internet, TV, radio program

is less than those of the above mentioned cases (12.2 %) while making sentences withthem, storing new words in notebook and read them everyday and writing the words andmeaning, their synonyms or antonyms takes up only 6.5 %, 5.3 % and 10.8%corresponding

It can be seen that students focus only on the spelling aspect of the words rather than how

to use the words in sentences or context (only 6.5 %) Thus, they will failure in both

speaking and writing skills

3 Which ways of presenting new words are you interested in?

Options

Question

Which ways of presenting new

words are you interested in?

a Translating all the words into

Vietnamese

b Using visual aids

c Using mines, gestures and

facial expressions

d Using target language to

define the new word

e Saying the words clearly one

by one and writing them on the

Table 3 Ways of vocabulary presentation students interested in

As clearly stated in table 3, at the presentation stage, 25.7% of students answered that they like saying the words clearly one by one and writing them on the board The next position

is translating all the words into Vietnamese, counting for (18.2%) The number of students who are interested in new words presenting by using visual aids and using target language

to define the new word hold nearly the same percentage (16.3% and 17.5%

correspondingly) Using synonyms and antonyms receives 13.5% while presenting new words by using songs, games, or TV takes only 5%

4 What would you like your teachers to do in vocabulary lesson?

Students interest towards teachers' vocabulary teaching