INTRODUCTION
Rationale
The important role of teaching vocabulary for foreign language learners in general and for English learners in particular is transparent and undeniable A learner cannot succeed in learning a foreign language without prolific vocabulary
Nevertheless, to teach vocabulary successfully is always a challenge to all English teachers The question “How to teach vocabulary effectively?” is really one of my big obstacles in the teaching process
The students who participated in this research attended an English course at my private English class All of them learned at Lam Thao Lower Secondary School; however, they came from different classes Two months after the course started, it was realized that the students‟ performance showed their poor vocabulary
Especially, the students never learned vocabulary before attending my class
However, they were required to retain a large amount of vocabulary to pass the high school entrance exam, which led their need of learning vocabulary This inquiry was a challenge to them because the amount of time for teaching vocabulary at class was limited while their ability of learning vocabulary independently at home was ineffective Consequently, explicit vocabulary teaching (EVT) was chosen to apply for the students because it is believed to be able to help students not only understand vocabulary clearly and quickly but also resume many lexicons simultaneously (Burn & Joyce, 2008) Nevertheless, there has been no best method to teach a foreign language in general and vocabulary in particular EVT may not bring unpredictable disadvantages to learners Hence, the requirement of evaluating the effects of this method of teaching vocabulary on students‟ vocabulary retention was given
Another research reason is related to the lack of information in the theoretical framework in terms of the effects of using EVT to students‟ vocabulary retention
The previous studies which shared the same topic and similar research background had not been implemented in Vietnam This resulted in the impossible application of the implications provided by these studies
Due to the urgent demand of strengthening the students‟ vocabulary retention, a research was required to be carried out The research named “An action research project on the effects of explicit English vocabulary teaching on grade-9 students’ vocabulary retention at Lam Thao Lower Secondary School”.
The aims of the study
The aim of this research is to study the effects of explicit English vocabulary teaching (VT) to grade-9 students‟ vocabulary retention at Lam Thao Lower Secondary School.
Research question
To fulfill the aim as set above, the following research questions are raised for exploration
1 How does explicit English vocabulary teaching (VT) influence the students‟ vocabulary retention in this research?
2 How does explicit English VT improve the students‟ vocabulary retention in this research?
Research methodology
This research is an action research The research data which included both quantitative and qualitative information was collected by various means This research method was believed to help the researcher improve the efficiency of teaching vocabulary to her students and find out the emergent problems which should be solved in the next cycle The rationale of using action research will be given in some detail in the following parts of the thesis.
Scope of the study
The research focused on the grade-9 students‟ vocabulary retention at Lam Thao Lower Secondary School The results of this research are expected to be helpful for the researcher to teach vocabulary for grade-9 students in particular and for other teachers to work in the similar conditions.
Significance of the study
It is hoped that the results of this research will be helpful for the researcher to improve her students‟ vocabulary retention, especially unmotivated students They will help the researcher realize the cause of the current conflict aspects in her teaching process to enhance the efficiency of the students‟ vocabulary learning
Besides, the research also makes a contribution to enriching the related theoretical theory, which helps teachers working the similar conditions to improve their work
LITERATURE REVIEW
Vocabulary retention
Retention is defined in Cambridge Advanced Learners‟ Dictionary (4 th e- edition) as “the continued use, existence or possession of something or someone”
Besides, Oxford Dictionary Advanced Learners‟ Dictionary defines this term as
“the continued possession, use, or control of the fact of keeping something in one‟s memory.”
Based on the definition of retention given above, vocabulary retention in this paper is defined as the continued use, existence or possession of vocabulary in the English learners‟ memory.
Effect
According to Cambridge Advanced Learners‟ Dictionary (4 th e-edition),
“effect” is defined as “the result of a particular influence” Furthermore, Oxford Advanced Learners‟ Dictionary also defines this term as “a change which is a result or a consequence of an action or other cause”
In this researcher, “effect” is understood to be the result or consequence of explicit English VT for grade-9 students of Lam Thao Lower Secondary School.
Long-term and short-term memory
Long-term memory has the ability to store information away indefinitely
According to Gairns and Reman (1986) it is the ability of assuming an unlimited amount of new information in an automatic processing and realize them without any effort
In contrast, short-term memory holds information in mind over a brief period of time Short-term memory is a controlled processing procedure at which the learners can retrieve their new knowledge with effort It is believed to be limited in capacity according to Gairns and Reman (1986)
The definitions of short-term and long-term memory given above do not mention how long a period of short-term memory lasts Besides, the unlimited capacity of information retention mentioned by Gairns and Reman seems incredible and fabulous Most of the learners do not have this ability Consequently, short- term memory in this research is identified as the ability of remembering the vocabulary right after learning at the class Besides, the long-term memory is identified as the ability of remembering the taught vocabulary within at least twelve weeks after being taught This period of time is equivalent to the average time of a semester, and the students often take a semester test after this specific period.
How has vocabulary been taught?
1.2.1 Empirical background of explicit English vocabulary teaching through the previous studies
Many researchers have done studies about the effects of explicit English teaching Each scholar brought new ideas and findings about the effects of explicit English teaching in general and explicit English VT in particular
Firstly, it is given by the side of the scholars who underestimate the effects of this strategy It is believed that students learn languages most effectively by way of expressing ourselves and trying to understand and communicate, not by studying separate building blocks in the language (Skolverket, 2011) Navy (1997, cited in Shakouria et al (2014)) sharing the similar idea with Skolverket argued that the amount of vocabulary is too much; hence, EVT is “time-wasting” and “only accounts for a very small proportion of native speakers‟ vocabulary growth”
Remarkably, although Nation (2001 cited in Shakouria et al (2014)) did not absolutely appreciate EVT, he concluded that it is only suitable to teach “high frequency words, a very small group of words, which deserve time and attention”
In contrast to the opposing idea given above, many other scholars highly appreciate EVT Hanson and Padua (2011) suggested that using EVT with English teaching as the second language to give multiple encounters with words may provide deep word knowledge Beck et al (1982) concluded that participants processed word meanings more accurately and more rapidly due to this instruction method
Researchers agree that implicit word learning is important, but it is equally important to have a balanced approach to word learning Moreover, explicit learning has been shown more frequently to be of higher effectiveness in improving acquisition (Bardovi –Harlig Hatford, 1998; Beaton, Cruneberg and Ellis, 1996;
Hulstjin, Hollander and Greidanus, 1996; Knight, 1994)
It is summarized that EVT can be given through providing word definitions, synonym pairs, word lists, word associations, the keyword method, semantic mapping and semantic feature analysis (Duin and Graves (1987, cited in Shakouria et al (2014)) Harmer (1991) states that the introduction of new vocabulary can be carried out through the use of realia, pictures, mimicry, contrast, enumeration, explanation and translation All these vocabulary teaching techniques involve direct teaching Hence, EVT and directing teaching have the same characteristics
Burns & Joyce (2008) clarified the traits of teaching explicitly as below: telling learners how new activities link to previous activities in earlier lessons or earlier segments of the same lesson, explaining the learning goals of activities and how they link to learning in previous activities, giving students the terms, allowing sufficient time for activities to ensure successful completion by all learners, providing learners with clear course introduction that frames and structures learning goals and material These traits given by Burns & Joyce are considered the clues for the researcher to plan and implement curriculum to meet instructional goals and standards in this paper
However, it is realized that the results of the previous studies mentioned above are not useful and sufficient to apply for the participants of this research Although explicit vocabulary teaching is pointed out to be suitable for the learners with their poor vocabulary, how this method improves the learners‟ vocabulary retention in a particular period has not been shown clearly It is difficult for the researcher to make her vocabulary teaching plan, especially vocabulary revision activities, to enhance her vocabulary retention in long-term memory Besides, the participants in the previous studies had more chances to communicate in English than the participants of this research as well as most of the learners the researcher usually works with Because of the difference in the learning environment, the results of the previous studies may not work well with the learners taught by the researcher
In conclusion, results of the previous studies in relation with EVT assert EVT is worth applying at first for the situation of this research although it still bares its weak points Besides, the findings of this research are hoped to fill the knowledge gap of the previous studies
1.2.2 What are students taught in terms of vocabulary?
Nu (2004) gave the different criteria of classifying vocabulary such as morpheme, meaning, function, frequency of use, etc Below are the most common ways of classifying vocabulary
In terms of morpheme, words can be divided into three kinds: simple words, derived words and compound words Simple words are ones that consist of a root morpheme like like, car Derived words are those that consist of a root and one or more derivational morphemes such as interested, actor
In terms of meaning, vocabulary is classified as lexical meaning and grammatical meaning Therefore, vocabulary can be divided into notional and functional words
In terms of function, with different functions of words in a sentence, vocabulary can be divided into different terms as parts of speech such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions and pronouns Each part has to comply with grammatical rules and relates to one another This kind of vocabulary can be called
In terms of the form the vocabulary is expressed, it can be classified in spoken and written forms Spoken form of vocabulary is expressed through pronunciation
To conclude, learners should be taught about grammatical meaning, lexical meaning and pronunciation in process of learning vocabulary
1 2 3 The influential factor on the tudent ’ foreign language learning performance
The factors which are frequently mentioned include the age of learning, the learning environment, the learner motivation, the learner attitude and the learner strategies
Firstly, many scholars believed that learning foreign language at early age is easy for learners to achieve better results than adults Lenneberg (1976) explains that the flexibility of learning language decreases over time in the process of puberty Hence, post-adolescent language acquisition becomes more difficult The participants of this thesis were teenagers Adolescents are at a stage in life when they increasingly want to start taking responsibility for their own lives, including forming views about their own education, and the manner in which it is conducted (Ur, 1996) Hence, it is suggested giving learners more chances to learn by themselves rather than instruction, and avoiding scolding them
Moreover, it is believed that the learners can get better results if they are well facilitated by the environmental factors Asgari et al (2011) concluded that when home environment supports the learners, they will be strongly pushed to learn It is suggested that encouragement is more useful to make learners learn with fun
Asgari et al (2011) also emphasizes the teacher role It is believed that teachers have an important role of providing their students with different strategies and training them to practice these strategies with useful tasks and assignments As Oxford (1990) remarked, the students having suitable learning strategies have more advantages and make the progress by themselves But they often have lack of knowledge and experience related to learning strategies
Noticeably, the learner motivation is highly appreciated It is believed that motivation is a key factor to bring the progress to the foreign language learners (Reece & Walker, 1997; Shulman, 1986) Crookes and Schmidt (1991) define the motivation in terms of choice, engagement and persistence, as determined by interest, relevance, expectancy and outcome Especially, it is remarked that the students should be aware of learning by themselves because their attitude is just the key to everything (Asgari et al (2011)) The learning strategies can be successfully implemented only when learners are aware of doing it actively
Rationale for the use of action research
Mills (2003) defines action research as "any systematic inquiry conducted by teacher researchers to gather information about the ways that their particular school operates how they teach and how their students learn The information is gathered with the goal of gaining insight, developing reflective practice, effecting positive changes in the school environment and on educational practices in generals, and improving student outcomes."
This research method is believed to bring benefits to the teaching and learning process, which promote both personal and professional growth of a teacher and help him solve his problem on his own or in collaboration with other teachers if he is trained to conduct action research (Johnson, 1995; Burns, 2010)
In summary, action research has a lot of advantages in comparisons with other types of research, and it is highly practical (Burns, 2010).
Background of the study
Fourteen participants in this study were the students in the researcher„s private class They attended this class once a week However, the information of twelve participants were analysed in this research because two of the fourteen participants did not attend all lessons during the research The participants were the students from Lam Thao Lower Secondary School, which the researcher did not teach for Consequently, the researcher had no impact on their grade formally This was the case where the students only learned when they needed and really wanted
It was impossible to force them to learn anything they did not want to Some of them were rather naughty or had strong ego, which sometimes made the instruction of the researcher and their parents useless Most of the participants in this study showed that they did not like learning English And they learned it because it was a compulsory subject
All of participants learned at Lam Thao Lower Secondary School, but they came from different classes None of them majored in English Hence, they did not focus on learning English in general and learning English vocabulary in particular
Especially, four of the participants often majored in other subjects such as chemistry, geography and biology; hence, they had less time to learn English than the others All of the participants started to learn English at the age of eight
Besides, none of them had ever learned any other foreign language Consequently, there was no influence of previous foreign language learning experience on their process of learning English
Especially, the learning environment was not favourable to the participants
They did not have opportunities to communicate in English outside their English class And they did not have many chances to communicate even at their English class because their teacher had too many students to take care of In addition, the participants did not have the frequent useful support outside the class or learn with technological supports Although they had good financial background and were provided with these appliances, they were seldom allowed to use them because their parents wanted to prevent them from entertaining with these tools Noticeably, the participants did not like learning English They felt tired of learning English, especially vocabulary
In brief, the participants in this study did not spend an appropriate amount of time learning vocabulary and have a good attitude to learn vocabulary although they had a limited amount of English vocabulary Besides, their learning environment was not good enough for them to improve their English, especially their vocabulary
Tests are often used to check students' vocabulary ability and knowledge in language acquisition study The instruments used in this study twelve progress tests which were designed following the text of each lesson and given to the learners once a week (See Ap 7, p XL, for more information) It is expected to test how the students remember the new vocabulary of the lesson on place From week 1 to week
4, oral tests were applied with word cards; however, paper-tests were used from week 5 to week 13 Each progress test included twenty tested items
A posttest and a delay test were used to measure how students changed over time under the effects of EVT The posttest was conducted in the fourteenth week
The delay test was conducted after the posttest twelve weeks to test the learners‟ vocabulary retention following the target retention after an interval The posttest and delay test were vocabulary tests prepared carefully by the researcher The posttest and the delay test had the same model Because both posttest and delay test were long, the students were allowed to complete their part A in sixty minutes, have a ten- minute break, and then continue completing part B in sixty minutes The allowed time of the tests were measured based on the average time that two grade-9 students from Van Lang Lower Secondary School spent doing these tests in a pilot study One of the two students often got bad marks while the other often got good marks Their ability was also believed to be relatively equal to that of the participants They were not informed to take both the tests previously to have the reliable results related their vocabulary retention These two lessons were ten minutes longer than usual
The tests had two parts In part A, the learners were required to write the Vietnamese meaning and the word family of the given words which were all the new words or phrases noted in their lessons This was expected to ensure the transparence of their understanding and bore the characteristic of EVT Besides, they were supplied with the text where the words or phrases appeared in case they encountered the ambiguity and the bad influence of homonym In part B, the learners were required to answer multiple choices with four options (A, B, C, or D)
The learners were required to answer twelve phonetic questions, twenty four word formation questions and sixty vocabulary questions
After the tests were graded, they were analysed with mean and standard deviation
Four questionnaires were used in this research (See Ap.3, p XI, for details)
Questionnaire 1 was based on the suggestion of designing questionnaires given by Burns (2010) It was conducted to investigate the learning and teaching environment of the participants, their foreign language learning experience and attitude of learning English before this research was carried out Questionnaire 2 was conducted in week 5 to discover how the learners evaluated the effects of teaching vocabulary with word cards and how they reviewed vocabulary after class
Quesitonnaire 3 was given to the learners after the posttest to find how the learners evaluated the effects of EVT, especially the comparison among the used teaching techniques Questionnaire 4 was conducted after the delay test to find the answer to how the learners reviewed the taught vocabulary after the posttest and what the researcher should improve in the next cylce of the research In these questionnaires, the questions related to the learners‟ learning and teaching vocabulary environment were repeated to reinforce the reliability of the information and avoid the bias prone to occur due to the environment changes
The questionnaires were designed mainly to get quantiative data The qualitative data was mainly taken via interviews which will be mentioned in details below
It was realized that the information collected in the questionnaires was insufficient This resulted in the interview conduction on the purpose of collecting insightful data
Three students were invited to participate in the interviews They were the representatives of three students groups classified following their average marks
One had the average mark of 4; one had the average mark of 6; one had the average mark of 8 The interviewees were separated to answer the questions which are listed in Ap 5 (p XXVII) This made sure that the students were affected by the opinion of the others Questions and answers were given in Vietnamese to avoid the misunderstanding due to the students‟ limited English using ability All interviews were recorded and transcribed for translation
After five weeks of training, the first interview was conducted to obtain more in-depth data to find the answers in terms of how students assessed their progress when applying the techniques of teaching with cards and why the students had not been learning vocabulary before class The full translated transcript of the first interview is given in the Aps
Ten weeks after the first interview, the second interview was carried out to find out how they evaluated the effects of EVT techniques Especially, this interview was expected to explain why the students continued not to learn vocabulary before class The full translated transcript of the second interview is given in Ap 5 (p XXVII)
Thirteen weeks after the second interview, the final interview was conducted to explain the conflict points between their results of learning vocabulary and their evaluation related to the effects of EVT
Data collection procedure
According to Nunan (1992), there are seven steps of action research This study was implemented based on these steps as below
Step 1: Initiation (Identify the problem)
Before carrying out this action research, it was noticed that the students tended not to give their correct answers to their exercises due to their limited vocabulary
When they were supplied with new words in the exercises they did wrong, they often gave the correct answers immediately without more explanation of the researcher
Step 2: Preliminary investigation (Collect data through a variety of means)
From the further observation, the students were realized not to understand many familiar words appearing in the previous grades Hence, they could not guess the meaning of new words based on the vocabulary in the textbook of the previous grades Besides, it was found that the new words outside their textbook were not reminded to learn by their teachers at school
Step 3: Hypothesis (Develop research question)
Explicit teaching method is believed to be favourable to learners whose English level, especially vocabulary, is limited Due to the students‟ limited vocabulary which prevented them from learning vocabulary in implicit teaching method, EVT method was expected to work well in this case Consequently, the hypothesis was given for this action research as below
“EVT method helps students learn and retain vocabulary better.”
Step 4: Intervention (Devise strategies and innovation to be implemented)
In this research, EVT method played the important role to improve my students‟ vocabulary Based on the theoretical background with regard to EVT, some techniques of teaching English vocabulary were planned to use in the teaching process The criteria to choose the suitable technique for each lesson were changed following the changes of the teaching process This follows the characteristics of an action research, which observes the changes in the teaching and learning process for the later necessary changes
Games and gifts were used to motivate the learners in all the lessons for the purpose of avoiding the negative effects of learning without motivation on the results of EVT Hence, evaluating this teaching method would be more reliable
Because the English class worked once a week, vocabulary of each lesson was reviewed within two lessons in row Besides the vocabulary in the grade-9 textbook, all new words and phrases in extra exercises asked by the learners were listed on the board Teaching content of each lesson was given in Ap 1 (p I)
Step 5: Evaluation (Collect data again and analyse it to work out the findings)
The instruments used in this study included twelve progress tests of vocabulary; a posttest and a delay-test were used to measure how students changed over time due to EVT The posttest and delay test were vocabulary tests prepared carefully by the researcher The posttest was carried out in the fourteenth lesson
Twelve weeks after the posttest, the delay test was conducted to evaluate the learners‟ vocabulary retention based on the target time of three months
The results of the action research in terms of the effects of explicit English VT are reported in this thesis
Step 7: Follow-up (Find alternative methods to solve the same problem)
Having completed the first cycle of this action research, the advantages and the limitations of explicit English VT were revealed This achievement will help the researcher to build the foundation for the next cycle of the action research, which will be presented in part C of this thesis.
FINDING ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
The results of the observation
The students were observed based on the criteria suggested in “Doing Action Research in English Language Teaching: A guide for Practitioners” (Burns, 2010)
However, according to the specific purposes of this research, the observation was carried out to find the answers to the following questions:
Question 1: Do the students remember the new words of the previous lesson?
Question 2: Do the students take part in the lesson eagerly? Why?
Question 3: How is the students‟ ability of remembering the new words on place?
Question 4: How do the students do their synthetic exercises exactly after being provided with new vocabulary?
The questions given above will be answered below The observation notes were written once every twenty minutes in each lesson The inference and the conclusion based on these notes were done at the end of each lesson a Do the students remember the new words of the previous lesson? Why?
The students were required to give the answer to their homework including the new words of the previous lesson They had to translate the given text into Vietnamese to ensure that they really comprehended
The findings showed that the learners did not review the vocabulary of the previous lessons carefully or hardly did it before class They often said to each other in their informal talks that they had not reviewed because they forgot to do it or had to do too many exercises of other subjects (Ap 2, p III) They bore anxious faces
Hence, the interviewees in the first interview were required to explain this situation (Ap 5, p XXVII, items 4&5) It was pointed out that the students only reviewed when being reminded and tested by the teachers Therefore, the learners‟ parents were informed whenever their children did not review the lesson before class
Nevertheless, the observation results revealed that the vocabulary learning results were only a bit better in weeks 6 and 7 (Ap 2, p III, items 6&7), but they were not improved remarkably in the later weeks The students even reacted rather negatively when they talked to each other aloud and arrogantly that they did not feel scared (Ap 2, p III, item 8) The cause for their reaction was believed to be under the impact of their strong ego and puberty, which reminds teachers to consider choosing suitable interfering activities Hence, the researcher increased the time of reviewing the vocabulary in each lesson and stopped calling the students‟ parents too much b Do the students take part in the lesson eagerly? Why?
It is very important for learners to join in the lesson excitedly Hence, this was one of the observation items The students were scrutinized if they volunteered to answer the questions, if their eyes focused on the lesson, if they implemented the researcher‟s request They were motivated with games and gifts The gifts were food or drink This kind of gift seemed suitable because the learners turned out very satisfied when receiving It was explained via informal talks that they felt hungry because this private class started after they had finished their extra class at school, and food and drink were wonderful to reduce their hunger Besides, the researcher tried to keep calm to avoid scolding the students
The first finding is that the students joined in most of the lessons eagerly
They tried to compete with other students to get the gifts They even showed their pride in front of the losers (Ap 2, p III) They laughed very happily Nevertheless, the students were badly impacted in lesson 7 because they felt dissatisfied with their teacher at school They were so shocked that they could not focus on the researcher‟s lessons, and even had negative reactions although the cause was not related to the researcher After discovering the cause, the researcher showed that she sympathized with them and gave them some advice She let them some minutes to give their opinion This way proved to work well because the learners started to join in the lessons more excited It can be concluded that the students‟ attitude tends to change easily under the environmental changes The lesson results can be improved by solving these conflict problems which are sometimes unrelated to the teaching activities
Finally, the observation results pointed out that the students joined more eagerly in the lessons where they were taught with cards and pictures than in the lessons where they learned with word listing (Ap 2, p III) Teaching vocabulary with cards and pictures helped students concentrate on the lesson longer before and attracted them better In contrast, the students turned out more conserved when learning with word lists c How is their ability of remembering the new words on place?
The different methods of testing were applied to find out how the students remembered the new words of the contemporary lesson
Within the first four weeks, testing with word cards was used The results were exact with this method (Ap 2, p III, items 1-4) The tests were conducted as a game to motivate the learners Hence, the learners turned out eager to join in the lesson However, testing with word cards was time-consuming and difficult to control time The average time for it was about twenty minutes each lesson To have more time for other activities, the paper tests were used in the rest of the research
Most of the learners preferred testing with word cards However, two of them seemed shy to be tested with cards They could not answer although they knew it
Hence, this kind of testing is not suitable for this group of learners, which implies the application of different testing methods for different learners
In general, it was found that the students could remember the new vocabulary very fast The means of these tests changed from 5 to 8, and the mean of the progress tests were 6.89 (Ap 7, p XL) However, the scores for lessons where listing word was used were not as high as other lessons This showed that this technique was less effective to help the students remember the new vocabulary on place But the means of these lessons did not fall too low and still fluctuated between 4.2 and 7.5 (Ap 7, p XL, item 2) This result proves that explicit English
VT turned out relatively effective to help the learners to assume the new vocabulary very fast
According to the observation notes, four of the learners had stable performance They proved to be better at remembering the new vocabulary than the rest They often took the tests confidently and finished them perfectly although they did not always like the technique so much It can be explained that they have ability of assuming the vocabulary quickly d How do the students do their synthetic exercises exactly after being provided with new vocabulary?
The purpose of teaching learners vocabulary is enhancing their vocabulary retention to understand the text and do their exercises better However, to evaluate how the vocabulary assumption of the learners influenced on the exercise results was rather difficult because it depended on many different factors such as grammatical assumption, strategies of doing exercises, etc Generally, it was found that the learners could do exercises relatively correctly when they were supplied with the information related to the vocabulary appearing in the text The observation notes showed that most of the mistakes the learners made were prone to grammatical mistakes, unawareness of word family and using wrong learning strategies (Ap 2, p III)
Firstly, the learners were often required to translate the text into Vietnamese to identify how they understood the text In common, most of the students proved not to face the obstacles in terms of vocabulary after being given the new vocabulary in the text They faced grammatical obstacles instead
Strangely, the learners often gave the lexical meaning of the words and phrases in the text correctly; however, they did not always understand the text meaning After observing carefully, it was found that the learners were stuck with translating complex sentences and noun phrases The researcher could not explain why it happened because she explained to her students how to translate these patterns and supplied the information of the word family for them It was only answered after the posttest and the delay test In the posttest and the delay test no one gave the word family of the given words and phrases despite being required
This habit was so difficult to change that they continued not to learn it after the posttest despite being reminded to do it; consequently, they still gave no the information of word family to the given words as required (Ap 2, p III, items 6-9;
The results of the questionnaires
The first questionnaire was conducted on the purpose of finding out the influential factors which resulted in the students‟ vocabulary learning performance
The questions were designed with the aim at discovering the students‟ vocabulary learning habits, their learning environment conditions, and their learning attitude to English in general and learning English vocabulary in particular (see Ap 3, p XI, for details)
Firstly, the first nine questions were designed to investigate the learners‟ vocabulary learning habits The findings of the first questionnaire pointed out that the learners did not have a suitable learning strategy and have inactive learning style (Ap 3, P XI, items 1-9)
It is revealed that 66.7% of the learners did not learn new vocabulary on place and review them frequently at home (Ap 3, p XI, item 1) 75% of them turned out inactive learners because they confessed only to learn when being warned to have a test or required by their teachers (Ap 3, p XI, item 2) Their learning strategy seemed inefficiency when 75% of them often watched new words until they remembered (Ap 3, p XI, item 3) Especially, 33% of the learners usually ignored the new vocabulary they encountered (Ap 3, p XI, item 4)
Noticeably, 41.7% of the respondents shared that they sometimes noted the new vocabulary they encountered in the exercises (Ap 3, p XI, item 6) Moreover, the results of the questionnaire pointed out that 75% of them did not learn this group of the vocabulary after noting and remembered just by encountering with them many times in exercises (Ap 3, p XI, item 7) It was explained in the informal talks between the researcher and the student that the answer for question 3 (Ap 3, p XI, item 3) was only for learning the textbook vocabulary This is one of the main causes for their limited vocabulary and the trend of forgetting the new vocabulary
Besides, most of them cared about the Vietnamese meaning and pronunciation, but none of them wanted to know their word family (Ap 3, p XI, item 9) This might result in that none of them gave the word family of the given words in the posttest and the delay test later
Secondly, part 2 of the first questionnaire was designed to find out the learning environment conditions of the learners (Ap 3, p XI, items 10-17)
The findings showed that their most common supporters to learn English outside class were their friends However, 100% of the respondents believed that this source of support was not frequent (Ap 3, p XI, item 11)
Besides, the result pointed out that the learners were applied with the necessary tools to learn Noticeably, 66.7% used computers or laptop to learn while 41.2% had mobile phones set up with English dictionaries (Ap 3, p XI, item 12)
Their parents have the good financial background to afford their studying expenses (Ap 5, p XXVII, item 3) This means that the learners also have advantages to learn English if they are active to do it
Especially, aware of the big impact of the teacher on the student performance, questions in part 2 were designed to scrutinize the English VT method of the teachers who taught the respondents at Lam Thao Lower Secondary School It is revealed that 83.3% of the teacher taught all the vocabulary in the textbook (Ap 3, p XI, item 13); however, it is found that 100% of the teachers did not teach the learners all new words they encountered in the extra exercises (Ap 3, p XI, item
17) Remarkably, these teachers did not test the vocabulary frequently, and did not test the outside-textbook vocabulary (Ap 3, p XI, items 15 and 18) In brief, the teacher finished their task in explaining the basic knowledge of the textbook; however, they did not focus on teaching the learners extra vocabulary outside the textbook, and care about how to motivate their learners In addition, the respondents shared that they did not have any chance to communicate in English, even with their teachers (Ap 3, p XI, item 20) And English is the first foreign language for all the learners (Ap 3, p XI item 26) Hence, they cannot be influenced by their previous foreign language experience Besides, most of the respondents found it difficult to remember the vocabulary without knowing the pronunciation It was discovered that 58.3% of the learners knew the IPA (Ap 3, p XI, item 24), but 25% of them could use it This means that most of the learners cannot learn the phonetics actively even with dictionaries
Finally, the purpose of part 3 in the first questionnaire is finding out the learners‟ attitude to learning English in general and English vocabulary in particular (Ap 3, p XI, items 27-34)
The result is rather intriguing Although 100% of the respondents found it necessary to learn new vocabulary, 50 % of them disliked learning English vocabulary (Ap 3, p XI, items 27, 28, 29) In the learners‟ opinion, the first- ranking causes for their limited vocabulary were their laziness, shortage of studying appliances and having strong motivation (Ap 3, p XI, item 31) Strangely, 83.3% thought that they did not have enough modern supporting although the results of part 2 pointed that 66.7% used computers or laptop to learn, and 41.2% had mobile phones set up with English dictionaries (Ap 3, p XI, item 12) The informal talks between the researcher and her students explained that their parents seldom let them use these instruments because they tended to overuse them for their entertainment purpose whenever they used Besides, the first motivation for all the learners was passing English exams (Ap 3, p XI, item 32) Moreover, according to the learners‟ demand, IPA is believed to be useful and should be taught b The results of questionnaire 2
After the first five lessons, questionnaire 2 was conducted to investigate the learners‟ learning environment, find out how they review the vocabulary after class and how they evaluated the effect of the technique of using word cards to teach vocabulary (Ap 3, p XI, items 35 - 44)
The findings showed that 75% of the learners did not review the vocabulary outside class frequently (Ap 3, p XI, item 35) They said that they only learned when being reminded to have a test at school Especially, 83.3% of the learners confessed that they did not learn with cards as suggested The rest answered that they used it once in the first week and stopped using it later because of time- consuming and difficult storage (Ap 5, p XXVII, item 6) This discovery indicated that their practice was not as frequent as expected
Secondly, the findings pointed out that 75% of the respondents found learning with word cards effective while the rest found it normal (Ap 3, p XI, item 38)
Hence, it can be concluded that most of them found this technique effective
Remarkably, 83.3% found it interesting while 16.7% found it normally interesting (Ap 3, p XI, item 39) This means that the learners appreciated this technique
Furthermore, to avoid the environment changes influencing on the student performance, the questions were given to get the relevant information The findings showed that 75% of the students usually spent rather much time learning other subjects 41.2 % of the students spent less than one hour each week learning new vocabulary, and 42.1% of them did not learn anything while 16.7% of them spent from one to two hours doing it (Ap 3, p XI, item 43) c The results of questionnaire 3
With the aim at evaluating the students‟ performance more objectively, the third questionnaire was conducted one week after the posttest
Firstly, the answers to the first question showed that 16.7% of the students learned the target vocabulary once a week while 83.3% answered that they
“sometimes” learned, especially their parents and their teacher warned them (Ap 3, item 45)
Secondly, the rest of the questionnaire was given to investigate how the learners evaluated the fascination and the effects of each VT techniques used in the research The findings showed that the students appreciated the technique of teaching with pictures the most highly 58.3% of the learners liked learning vocabulary with pictures shown on Galaxy tab 4 while 41.7% of them found its fascination normal (Ap 3, p XI, item 48) 83.3% of them found learning with paper pictures normally interesting while a low index of 16.7% did not like it (Ap 3, p
The results of focus group interview
Besides conducting questionnaires, interviews were implemented to collect the information in depth The questions of the interview were made with aim at finding out the conditions of learning environment, the learners‟ attitude, their learning habits as well as giving the answers to the emergent problems in the teaching process The results will be concluded in the following parts a The learning environment
The researcher decided to scrutinize the factors involved in the learning environment because the observation notes showed that the students had not reviewed new words outside the class, which worsened their ability of remembering the vocabulary The researcher intended to find the causes of this situation The participants revealed as below
Firstly, the interviewees were asked if their classmates and they had to do so much housework and the homework of other subjects that they did not have enough time to learn English, especially vocabulary All participants confessed that they had no burden of doing much housework; that they should have arranged time to learn English, but they were too lazy to do it (Ap 5, p XXVII, item 1, 2, 12 & 13)
The only student shared that he was rather busy learning his major subject, but he believed he could have arranged more time to learn English, especially English vocabulary Besides, the participants also determined that there was no student who tolerated this situation
Secondly, the participants were encouraged to share their family financial background to identify the students under the bad financial impact All interviewees believed that they did not share this kind of burden with their family (Ap 5, p
XXVII, item 3 & 14) Their parents had stable finance and always tried to give them chances to learn Furthermore, the participants ensured that none of their classmate faced any financial difficulty Hence, no students felt nervous or worried, which influenced on their learning performance badly
In brief, no students had difficulty in their daily life Hence, the causes for the problem that the students did not review the vocabulary before class were not related to this factor b The studying habits
The learning strategies play the important role to lead the students‟ progress
The results showed that 75% of the learners usually learned vocabulary by watching them until they remembered or encountered them many times or did not learn them (Ap 3, p XI, item 3&7) This strategy proved not to be effective by the students‟ confession and their learning results Hence, the students were suggested to learn vocabulary with cards outside the class However, the students were discovered to continue ignoring with vocabulary learning before class, which led the conduction of the first and second interviews The findings pointed out that most of the students did not learn the vocabulary outside the class frequently and only learned when being reminded or having school tests or only got the bonus points (Ap 5, item 4)
Despite the researchers‟ interfering activities within eight weeks after the first interview, they continued not to review the vocabulary at home (Ap 5, p XXVII, item 15)
Besides, it was proved that the students were conservative to change their studying habit and follow the researcher‟s instruction when they seldom or never learned with the cards as suggested (Ap 5, p XXVII, item 6) All of the interviewees said that they learned many words at once, did not divide them to learn in a small number in different days They even learned a plenty of words and phrases each time, “about forty new words”, which prevented them from embedding the vocabulary for a long time (Ap 5, p XXVII, item 8)
Finally, all of the interviewees shared in the second interview that they hardly learned word family by heart as requested by the researcher (Ap 5, p XXVII, item
19) They found it difficult to embed this kind of vocabulary They did the kind of exercises related to word family following the familiar patterns they encountered many times (Ap 5, p XXVII, item 19) c The evaluation of the learners toward learning English vocabulary and EVT
Good student‟s evaluation and attitude in the teaching and learning process is very necessary Aware of this point, the questions were given to investigate the learning attitude and evaluation of the students These questions were designed with aim at finding how the students liked learning English, especially vocabulary, and how they evaluated the EVT method The interview results revealed the following noticeable points
Firstly, most of the interviewees shared that they did not like learning English, especially learning vocabulary while the only interviewee confessed that he hated learning English (Ap 5, p XXVII, items & 11) The most common reason was the big number of words and phrases they had to learn Interestingly, it was found that the students learned English more eagerly when they started to learn it at primary school (Ap 5, p XXVII, item 23) They had chances to play with English and did not have so many exercises to do
Moreover, the interviewees shared some intriguing information They shared that they became familiar with their parents‟ complaints, felt them “useless” The students explained that they did not follow their reminding because they did not like English, and that they were afraid of gaining nothing Interestingly, the results pointed out that all of them liked learning English at primary school more than at secondary school (Ap 5, p XXVII, items 23 & 24) The simple cause is that they did not have to do too much homework in the past and had chance to play
Noticeably, the interviewees were expected to reveal the information related to their evaluation about the effectiveness of EVT method In general, most of them recognized the effectiveness of this method They found this method time-saving and easy for them to remember the vocabulary (Ap 5, p XXVII, item 18)
However, their evaluation about different kinds of techniques used in the research is not similar All of the interviewees highly appreciated learning with word cards and pictures because they felt motivated to keep learning many words without tiredness
Discussion and conclusion
The findings given in the previous parts of this thesis intrigued the researcher to find the interactive relations among them and analyse them logically The following discussion points will be scrutinized based on the analysis of these relations
3.5.1 The obstacles of the students to learn vocabulary well
Investigating the difficulties the students face in their learning process is very necessary to help them improve their learning performance The research discovered the following obstacles which have prevented the students from learning English well, especially vocabulary
Learning environment has a big impact on the students‟ learning performance
The findings of the research pointed out that the participants did not have enough support from the people around them although they were relatively well- equipped Remarkably, the teachers at their school were too busy to take care of a crowded class, which resulted in insufficient supply of new vocabulary appearing the exercises Moreover, they did not have suitable motivating activities for the learners Furthermore, the learners did not have any chance to communicate in English Besides the motivation of passing the exam, the learners liked using it to sing English songs and understand English guidance of English games However, they could not do them easily because they were not allowed to use the internet or the computers by their parents Hence, the learners did not know other purposes of learning English except passing English tests and exams It can be concluded that the learners‟ learning environment lacks of motivation This may be one of the main causes which led the students‟ English learning apathy Most of them shared in the questionnaires (Ap 3, p XI, item 28) and the interviews (Ap 5, p XXVII, item 23) that they did not like learning English, particularly vocabulary In the research, the students turned out eager to join in the lessons at class This sign showed that it was possible to attract them to learn because it was very clear that they participated in the lessons excitedly and had good results at the end of each lesson Besides, they also shared in questionnaire 4 that they did not hate learning English at primary school It indicates that the students should be fascinated to learn this subject right at the beginning and at the early age
Especially, it was found that the student performance was worse when the time passed The problem that the students did not review after class showed their infrequent practice while learning frequently is believed to be very important This indicates that the results of the students in this research might have been better if they had reviewed the vocabulary after class Providing necessary and timely support and motivation for the learners after class is considered as an urgent problem and a difficult question
3 5 1 2 The tudent ’ vocabulary learning habits
The results of the research revealed that the students had three main bad learning habits
Firstly, it is pointed that most of the students tended to focus on doing their homework but ignored to review the vocabulary after class This was the consequence of unawareness of arranging time suitably It was discovered that the students often learned dozens of new words and phrases at the same time and did their English homework one day before the class, even right before it started
Consequently, they found it difficult to remember the vocabulary, or they even had no time to learn it because they had to focus on finishing their homework To help the learners to solve this problem, the researcher suggested that they should learn a small number of new words and phrases each week Besides, the students were made to review the vocabulary right at class This seemed effective Although the students continued not to review the vocabulary after class and followed the researcher‟s suggestion about learning strategies, the students‟ scores did not get worse in the posttest
Noticeably, the students did not have suitable vocabulary learning strategies It was found that they usually learned with word listing or watching the vocabulary until they remembered These techniques proved not to be effective Besides, they did not take notes of new vocabulary, or they noted them but did not review them
This problem was solved in the research by supplying new vocabulary for them and testing them frequently Especially, it was a problematic learning strategy when they did not care about learning word family and seldom cared about learning word collocation, only focused on learning Vietnamese meaning and the pronunciation of the words Aware of this problem, the researcher tried to teach her students word collocation and word family as well as give them many exercises related to these categories However, this bad habit has not changed even though the research ended Noticeably, the results of part A and part B in the posttest and the delay test were rather conflict In part A, none of the students could give word family of the given words while they still gave the correct answers to the exercises of word family This ambiguity was cleared in the second interview that the students did not learn word family, but they could do the relevant exercises because they were rather similar to the patterns they had ever done before Based on the inference from the data, this point can be explained that word family was not included in the vocabulary progress tests The students were taught it and only did the relevant exercises without explicit tests, which did not give them an impetus to learn word family Besides, the importance of frequency is emphasized once again when the student‟s popular strategy is just encountering with a unit of vocabulary many times to remember it Briefly, there are not frequent tests, the students do not learn
Hence, the students have to be tested explicitly about a specific object if it is expected that they master in it
Finally, it was realized that the students were attracted to entertain more than learning in general and learning English in particular As mentioned above, the research participants were well-equipped; however, they were limited to use this support source by their parents because they tended to abuse technological equipment to entertain rather than learn Therefore, this support source seems useless to help them This problem is believed to relevant to the parents‟ unawareness of controlling their children suitably The children should be supervised to use technological equipment usefully rather than forbidden to use this learning support source It is very convenient and time-saving to learn English vocabulary with these tools, which helps students not feel depressed to use time- consuming paper dictionaries
3.5 1 3 The tudent ’ attitude toward learning vocabulary
The attitude is a key factor to lead the success of the learners In the research the attitude of the participants was not stable, which influenced badly on the research results The attitude of the learners was good at class when they took part in the lessons excitedly In contrast, it was bad after class when they ignored to review the vocabulary, even reminded Their apathy of reviewing the vocabulary frequently is considered as the main cause for the failure of long-term vocabulary retention although many causes can be accounted for
Firstly, it can be argued that the students‟ ability of vocabulary retention is different from each other A group usually remembered the vocabulary faster and longer than the rest Nevertheless, the deviation standard of the progress tests showed that the ability of assuming the new vocabulary among the leaners was not so different Besides, the better group often finished their English homework and sometimes cared about reviewing the vocabulary after class although this group was just the people who were often busier to have more extra classes than the others
And it was cleared that there was no students facing financial difficulty or doing much housework All of the participants were well facilitated to focus on learning
Besides, at the beginning, it could be explained that the students did not a suitable of arranging their timetable suitably However, they were reminded to review it and suggested the strategies to do it later Therefore, there was no reason when they did not review the vocabulary after class It can be concluded that the problem is just the students‟ laziness
Especially, the participants proved to be conservative people, which made their vocabulary performance worse In the research process, the suggestion related to learning strategies given to help the learners learn vocabulary more effectively inside and outside the class Firstly, based on the findings of questionnaire 1 the students were advised to use word cards to learn vocabulary after class; however, most of them did not use Besides, they were advised to learn a small number of new words and phrases to learn each time based on the findings of the first interview Regrettably, they did not follow Especially, the learners‟ parents were informed to remind their children to review vocabulary after class, which made some learners react arrogantly and impolitely They refused to follow the researcher‟s request and gossiped in the class Besides, the attitude of the learners turned out easy to be changed by other irrelevant factors As mentioned above, they could not bear sitting following the seat arrangement at their school, which made them not concentrate on the lesson Especially, they did not speak to the researcher respectfully although it was not related to her In that situation the sympathetic behaviours of the researcher seemed effective to make the students‟ attitude more positive This indicates that exciting activities or clever solution should be the better ways rather than strict punishments or serious reminding
3.5.2 How does EVT method improve the tudent ’ vocabulary retention?
Finding the effects of EVT method is the main purpose of this research Based on the data collected in the research process, negative and positive effects of this method were founded In general, it was proved that this method is effective and suitable to apply for the students with a limited amount of vocabulary However, three typical techniques of this method were used in this research Hence, the effects found in this research were related to these techniques The strong and weak points of each technique will be discussed below
3.5.2.1 Strong and weak points of the three used techniques a Teaching vocabulary with word cards
Learning vocabulary with cards is proved to be effective although it is not the favourite technique in the learners‟ opinion
Firstly, learning vocabulary with cards was highly appreciated by both the participants and the researcher Most of the participants liked learning with it, and no one disliked learning in this way Although the participants liked learning with pictures most, learning with cards proved to be the most effective The amount of vocabulary taught in this way was embedded at the best level by the learners despite the fact that it was taught firstly In the delay test the mean for the lessons taught with this technique was 5.4 while their standard deviation was 1.913 (Ap 8, p XLI, item 1) Moreover, using cards in games is easy to excite the class atmosphere It is also a relatively accurate testing tool
Limitations
This research was conducted to find out the effects of EVT to grade-9 students‟ vocabulary retention Consequently, its results can be only applied for the group of students who share the similar characteristics with the research participants These research participants were teenager students with limited vocabulary and apathetic attitude to learning English vocabulary Besides, most of the participants had the ability of assuming new vocabulary relatively fast
Especially, the effects of this method were analysed based on the effects of three typical techniques of this method including teaching with word cards, word lists and pictures
Besides, the effects of EVT to the students‟ vocabulary retention were evaluated in short-term and long-term which are identified specifically for the research purpose Short-term memory in this research is ability of remembering the vocabulary on place while long-term memory is ability of remembering the vocabulary within three months after last teaching and learning that vocabulary unit
In brief, the research limitation is that the research results are only evaluable for the situation sharing the mentioned-above conditions.
Implications
Based on the data analysis in the research process, the following implications will be withdrawn for the future research and suggested application for teaching activities
3.1 Attitude and the suitable age of starting learning English
The significance of positive attitude toward studying English is highly emphasized in this research At least, their attitude should be good enough to follow the teacher‟s instruction The participants were suggested the learning strategies; however, they did not follow them, which led their worse results than they should have been It is undeniable that a solution to improve the learners‟ attitude to learn English should be given the priority to find out
Following the observation of the researcher, it is inferred that the learners are easily attracted and reminded by the teacher and their parents at the early age The researcher believes that the students should start to learn English at early age The more learners study English, the more vocabulary they have to study, the more they dislike it They should be taught vocabulary as much as possible at the early age, which makes them join in vocabulary learning more eagerly and remember the vocabulary better The purpose is making learners master in English vocabulary before they dislike learning it or get more difficult to be attracted
Hence, the further research should be implemented to identify this inference point “How should English be taught the children at the early age?” needs an answer
3.2 The importance of learning English vocabulary frequently
Learning vocabulary frequently is determined to be the main factor which leads to the good results of vocabulary retention It was very difficult to change the students‟ bad habit of ignoring vocabulary revision after class in this research although they were motivated with many activities Besides, it was found out that these teenager students were interested in technological equipment Hence, teachers can edit their teaching material via these tools to attract their students But today many students are often forbidden to approach technological equipment by their parents Consequently, teachers and parents should work together to find out appropriate control methods to train their children to have healthy lifestyle but still facilitate them to learning vocabulary more effectively
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1 12/9/2015 Lesson 1 -Teach new vocabulary in unit 1(textbook)
2 19/9/2015 Lesson 2 -Teach new vocabulary in Test 1
-Review the vocabulary of lesson 1 -Grammar: conditional sentence type 2 with
3 26/9/2015 Lesson 3 -Teach new vocabulary in unit 2
-Review the vocabulary of lesson 2 -Grammar: Review simple past and past progressive
4 3/10/2015 Lesson 4 -teach new vocabulary in Test 2
-Review the vocabulary of lesson 3 -Grammar: Review simple past, past progressive, present perfect, and conditional sentence type 2 with “wish”
5 10/10/2015 Lesson 5 -Teach new vocabulary of unit 3 in the textbook -Review the vobulary of lesson 4 -Grammar: Review passive voice
6 17/10/2015 Lesson 6 -Teach new vocabulary in Test 3
-Review the vocabulary of lesson 5 -Grammar: Review passive voice, simple past and past progressive
7 24/10/2015 Lesson 7 -Teach new vocabulary in unit 4 in the textbook
- Review the vocabulary of lesson 6 -Grammar: Adjective and adverb, preposition of time
8 31/10/2015 Lesson 8 -Teach new vocabulary in Test 4
-Review the vocabulary of lesson 7 -Grammar: Review adjective and adverb, learn word formation
9 7/11/2015 Lesson 9 -Teach new vocabulary in unit 5 in the textbook -Review the vocabulary of lesson 8
-Grammar: Review adjective and adverb, preposition of time
10 14/11/2015 Lesson 10 -Teach new vocabulary in Test 5
-Review the vocabulary of lesson 9 -Grammar: Review reported speech
11 24/11/2015 Lesson 11 -Teach new vocabulary in unit 6 in the textbook -Review the vocabulary of lesson 10 -Grammar: Tag question
12 28/11/2015 Lesson 12 -Teach new vocabulary in Test 6
-Review the vocabulary of lesson 11 -Grammar: Review tag question and reported speech
13 5/12/2015 Lesson 13 -Review the vocabulary of lesson 12
-Grammar: Review reported speech and passive voice
Item Lesson Observation analysis and conclusion
1 Lesson 1 1 The students were not tested because there was no new vocabulary of the previous lesson to test
2 They joined in the lesson happily Learning with cards in their eyes seemed similar to playing with cards (a kind of game) Most of them competed to speak faster the words or phrases which they had to guess than the others to get my candies T and M said that they liked these gifts so much because they were very hungry
3 Testing with word cards was used The students remembered the new vocabulary well The mean was 7.5 The students could not ask for the help of the others The results were reliable But it took fifteen minutes to carry out the test
4 The students gave the answers to the exercises rather well
teaching with cards was effective in this lesson
2 Lesson 2 1 Although they remembered the vocabulary well in the last lesson, the studens forgot most of them in this lesson Four of them (T., Th.,
D and H.) still remembered about 60% of the vocabulary of lesson 1, the rest hardly remembered They did not review them at home
2 The students participated in the lesson eagerly within the first 10 minutes before making noisy There were too many new words they had to learn Games and gifts only helped in a short time
3 They still participated in the test as eagerly as in the game But they could not remember the new vocabulary as well as they did in lesson 1 because the vocabulary was too much The mean was 7.1
Three of them (T., Th., H.) proved to have excellent memory
Especially, testing with cards which took 25 minutes in this lesson was too time-consuming
4 The students could comprehend the given texts But some students had some obstacles with remembering the structure of “wish” or forgot to add “s/es” to “wish” used after singular nouns
Teaching with cards was still effective But testing with cards was too consuming Besides, the learners could not focus in a too long time The vocabulary should be divided to teach many times in a lesson
3 Lesson 3 1 They bore anxious faces when being required to translate the texts in their homework The girls whispered to each other that they forgot to learn M spoke very loud and impolitely that he did not want to learn because there were too many new words Most of the students did not remember any new words of lesson 2 They were made to review at class later
2 The atmosphere seemed sadder than the previous lessons because the learners were criticized for their laziness But they got happy to learn later when a game was carried out when I tried to speak happily
3 Testing with word cards was used The students remembered the new vocabulary well But most of them could not differentiate
“stripe” and “plaid” The mean was 7.5 However, D and T still seemed shy to be tested with cards and took much time to answer So the test last twenty minutes
4 Most of the students did synthetic exercises incorrectly although they understood the text They did not remember the usage of simple past and past progressive They did not review it at home So they were made to learn at class Besides, five of them did not remember past forms of irregular verbs well
Teaching with cards was still effective But the students were lazy to review both vocabulary and grammar after class, which should be solved as soon as possible
4 Lesson 4 1 The students remembered the vocabulary of lesson 3 although six of them did not remember so much It was realized that they started to review some minutes before this lesson started
2 The students still joined in the lesson eagerly The new vocabulary was divied into 2 groups to teach They focused on the lesson very much
3 Testing with word cards was used The students remembered the vocabulary rather well despite its big number The mean was 7.2 T seemed inconfident because she did not remember well, but D proved to remember well despite his shyness of answering in front of the class
4 The students could do the synthetic exercises correctly But they had difficulty translating noun phrases into Vietnamese They did not realize them although they were easy
Teaching with cards was still rather effective The students were required to learn the content of word family carefully to solve the emergent problem
