Luận văn thạc sĩ VNU ULIS challenges in english vocabulary learning of ethnic minority grade 10 students at muong bi high school

Aims of the study

The study aims at investigating the areas of challenges in learning English vocabulary of ethnic minority grade 10 students in Muong Bi high school, Hoa Binh mountainous province Also, it is expected that some solutions to overcome challenges encountered will be suggested To be more specific, in realizing this study, the objectives are:

 To investigate the areas of challenges that ethnic minority grade 10 students have encountered when learning English vocabulary

 To offer some solutions with the hope of helping English language teachers in Muong Bi high school overcome difficulties in teaching vocabulary, improve the quality of their teaching, which helps improve ethnic minority students‟ language learning quality.

Significance of the study

The study is hoped to be beneficial to both teachers and ethnic minority students in mountainous high schools First, the findings of the study, the challenges in learning English vocabulary of ethnic minority grade 10 students in Muong Bi high school could be shared among teachers of English to improve the quality of teaching and learning in the coming years Next, it might highlight the rationale for professional development programs for high school teachers of English in mountainous areas in Vietnam Finally, the findings could be used as a data base for further study.

Scope of the study

The study only concentrates on problems in learning vocabulary from the textbook

“Tiếng Anh 10” (by Hoang Van Van et al) of ethnic minority grade 10 students in Muong

Bi high school in Hoa Binh province and some possible solutions for teaching vocabulary

The study combined qualitative and quantitive approaches Data were collected via questionnaires and classroom observations:

- A Survey questionnaire for 100 grade 10 students was used to clarify the difficulties of ethnic minority grade 10 students in learning English vocabulary

- Classroom observations were also carried out to get information about both teachers‟ ways of teaching and students‟ ways of learning in class

6 Organization of the study This study consists of three parts :

 Part One: Introduction presents the rationale, aims, significance, scope, method of study, and organization of the study

 Part Two: Development consists of three chapters:

- Chapter One - Literature Review provides a theoretical basis for the study

- Chapter Two – Methodology includes an overview of the approach used in conducting the study It also provides a thorough description of the data collection procedure as well as the analytical procedure

- Chapter Three – Findings and Discussion reports the findings of the study and discusses the prominent aspects

 Part Three: Conclusion presents the conclusions of major findings, recommendations, limitations for the study, and suggestions for further studies

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: Literature review

Research in English teaching and learning in ethnic regions

In the past 30 years, many scholars (Naimen, et al., 1978; WEN, 1996, 2003,2004;

CHENG & ZHENG,2002; CHEN,2005; ZHOU,2007) made research studies on learning strategies and/or vocabulary learning strategies, and most of them made great success

However, most of them took undergraduates as subjects, and few scholars focus on the English vocabulary learning difficulties of ethnic students Very few of research studies focus on the ethnic minority students in senior high school in Vietnam

1.1 The importance of vocabulary in language teaching and learning

Vocabulary is commonly accepted to be the most important language elements among pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar Wilkins (1972) emphasized this with his saying, "without grammar, very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed" (p.1l) Pyles and Algeo also supported this idea with "when we first think about language, we think first words It is words that we arrange together to make sentences, conversations and discourse " These statements are enough to conclude that vocabulary is the decisive element in language communication

This is all true in learning a foreign language If a learner has a wide range of vocabulary, he can to make himself understood and understand others easily On the contrary, if his vocabulary is limited he will surely have difficulty in doing so and in English learning Therefore, vocabulary is a "must" for all language learners by all means

It cannot be denied that vocabulary is an essential element in learning a foreign language Therefore, it is important to concern first the criteria for selecting vocabulary to help the teacher make valid decisions on the right vocabulary items to teach at the learner's different level Gairns and Redman (1986) proposed some main criteria as frequency; student's needs and level; cultural factor and expediency In teaching, the teacher needs to select the most frequently used words to teach first The vocabulary should be appropriate to students' level and their needs, the priority given to vocabulary for English as a subject in the curriculum might be different from that of English for specific purposes The Culture factor has great influenced on teaching, which means that the learners' background is to be considered, since people from different countries may need differentwords to express their ideas in the second language Expediency is one of the important criteria that needs to be concerned since the classroom is a world by itself and requires specific types of vocabulary such as grammatical terminology and activity instructions Harnler (1991) also adds more criteria for selection of vocabulary as concretion vs abstraction (concrete words should be taught at lower levels whereas abstract terms should be taught at higher lever); coverage (general words should be taught in more specific terms) and rapport (the student's involvement with the words is a major motivator for vocabulary learning)

In general, when the teacher teaches a new English word, he should, by all means, provide his learners with its meaning, forms and use at the same time Among these three areas, the use of a word is the most important, but it cannot be achieved if the forms and meaning of the word are not firmly understood and grasped by the learners

 Pronunciation and spelling : Each English word has its spelling and pronunciation Learners have to know all the spelling, pronunciation and irregularities of the word they are learning In teaching, we need to make sure that these aspects are accurately presented and learned

 Grammar The grammar of a new word should also be taught to the learners They need to know the grammatical function, the unpredictable change of form in certain grammatical contexts, the regularity and irregularity, the singular and plural forms of the new word so that they can use it correctly For example, when teaching the verb think, we might give its irregularity in past form thought

 Denotative and connotative meaning The meaning of a word is primarily what it refers to in the real world, meaning is found in a dictionary For example, dog denotes a kind of animal, common, domestic carnivorous mammal A less obvious component of the meaning of a word is its connotation in different contexts or its connotative meaning This is the associations or positive or negative feelings it evokes This meaning may or may not be indicated in a dictionary For instance the word , as understood by most British people, has positive connotations of friendship and loyalty: whereas the equivalent in Arabic' as understood by most of the Arab countries has negative associations of dirty and inferiority The connotative meaning of a word is varied from one context to another

 Meaning relationship How the meaning, especially denotative meaning, of one word relates can also be useful in teaching It is noted that the teacher has to make a careful choice of and decision on which meaning of a word to teach and how many words to teach in the given class time or else learners will be impeded by the pressure to absorb too many meanings and words

This often results in confusion or forgetting

The most important thing for learners to learn a new word is to know how to use it appropriately and effectively in different oral and written contexts or else it may become a dead or forgettable word To use a new word well, they need to know how to collocate it with other words correctly Therefore, the teacher should put words into collocation For example, when introducing words like "to make” and "to do", the teacher may note that both words mean "to perform" but can be distinguished by the words they collocate with

We often say "to do the homework" but never say "to make the homework"

In short, students should be taught the form, the meaning, and the use of words in vocabulary lessons The teacher should ensure that vocabulary is regularly recycled/revised because if students do not get the chance to put it into use they will easily forget it

Unknown vocabulary is low in such messages, considerable vocabulary learning can occur even though students' attention is not directed to vocabulary learning Rubin and Thompson (1994: 82) suggest 3 strategies for dealing with this approach of vocabulary learning These strategies include receding a series of texts on a related topic, guessing the meaning of new words from context, and breaking up a word into components Similarly, Decanico (in Celce-Murcia 2000: 255-299) says that implicit vocabulary learning or incidents vocabulary learning is learning that occurs when the mind is focused elsewhere, such as on understanding a text or using language for communicative purposes

It is believed that the factors that affect the learner in language learning also have an effect on his vocabulary learning These factors include, according to Lighbown and Spada (1999: 51-68), intelligence, aptitude, personality, motivation and, attitudes, learner preferences, learner beliefs, age, some kinds of activities Rubin and Thompson (1994: 3 -

8) suggest a similar list of factors affecting learning: age, aptitude, attitude (emotions), personality (extroversion, inhibition, tolerance of ambiguity), learning style (learning by strategies Ellis (1997: 76) emphasizes the importance of learning strategies, when he states that studies have shown that successful learners use more strategies than unsuccessful learners and successful learners use different strategies at different stages of their development He emphasizes that if crucial learning strategies can be identified, they can be taught to students Learning strategies are the decisive factor for vocabulary learning

Organization of the study

 Part One: Introduction presents the rationale, aims, significance, scope, method of study, and organization of the study

 Part Two: Development consists of three chapters:

- Chapter One - Literature Review provides a theoretical basis for the study

- Chapter Two – Methodology includes an overview of the approach used in conducting the study It also provides a thorough description of the data collection procedure as well as the analytical procedure

- Chapter Three – Findings and Discussion reports the findings of the study and discusses the prominent aspects

 Part Three: Conclusion presents the conclusions of major findings, recommendations, limitations for the study, and suggestions for further studies

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: Literature review

Research in English teaching and learning in ethnic regions

In the past 30 years, many scholars (Naimen, et al., 1978; WEN, 1996, 2003,2004;

CHENG & ZHENG,2002; CHEN,2005; ZHOU,2007) made research studies on learning strategies and/or vocabulary learning strategies, and most of them made great success

However, most of them took undergraduates as subjects, and few scholars focus on the English vocabulary learning difficulties of ethnic students Very few of research studies focus on the ethnic minority students in senior high school in Vietnam

1.1 The importance of vocabulary in language teaching and learning

Vocabulary is commonly accepted to be the most important language elements among pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar Wilkins (1972) emphasized this with his saying, "without grammar, very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed" (p.1l) Pyles and Algeo also supported this idea with "when we first think about language, we think first words It is words that we arrange together to make sentences, conversations and discourse " These statements are enough to conclude that vocabulary is the decisive element in language communication

This is all true in learning a foreign language If a learner has a wide range of vocabulary, he can to make himself understood and understand others easily On the contrary, if his vocabulary is limited he will surely have difficulty in doing so and in English learning Therefore, vocabulary is a "must" for all language learners by all means

It cannot be denied that vocabulary is an essential element in learning a foreign language Therefore, it is important to concern first the criteria for selecting vocabulary to help the teacher make valid decisions on the right vocabulary items to teach at the learner's different level Gairns and Redman (1986) proposed some main criteria as frequency; student's needs and level; cultural factor and expediency In teaching, the teacher needs to select the most frequently used words to teach first The vocabulary should be appropriate to students' level and their needs, the priority given to vocabulary for English as a subject in the curriculum might be different from that of English for specific purposes The Culture factor has great influenced on teaching, which means that the learners' background is to be considered, since people from different countries may need differentwords to express their ideas in the second language Expediency is one of the important criteria that needs to be concerned since the classroom is a world by itself and requires specific types of vocabulary such as grammatical terminology and activity instructions Harnler (1991) also adds more criteria for selection of vocabulary as concretion vs abstraction (concrete words should be taught at lower levels whereas abstract terms should be taught at higher lever); coverage (general words should be taught in more specific terms) and rapport (the student's involvement with the words is a major motivator for vocabulary learning)

In general, when the teacher teaches a new English word, he should, by all means, provide his learners with its meaning, forms and use at the same time Among these three areas, the use of a word is the most important, but it cannot be achieved if the forms and meaning of the word are not firmly understood and grasped by the learners

 Pronunciation and spelling : Each English word has its spelling and pronunciation Learners have to know all the spelling, pronunciation and irregularities of the word they are learning In teaching, we need to make sure that these aspects are accurately presented and learned

 Grammar The grammar of a new word should also be taught to the learners They need to know the grammatical function, the unpredictable change of form in certain grammatical contexts, the regularity and irregularity, the singular and plural forms of the new word so that they can use it correctly For example, when teaching the verb think, we might give its irregularity in past form thought

 Denotative and connotative meaning The meaning of a word is primarily what it refers to in the real world, meaning is found in a dictionary For example, dog denotes a kind of animal, common, domestic carnivorous mammal A less obvious component of the meaning of a word is its connotation in different contexts or its connotative meaning This is the associations or positive or negative feelings it evokes This meaning may or may not be indicated in a dictionary For instance the word , as understood by most British people, has positive connotations of friendship and loyalty: whereas the equivalent in Arabic' as understood by most of the Arab countries has negative associations of dirty and inferiority The connotative meaning of a word is varied from one context to another

 Meaning relationship How the meaning, especially denotative meaning, of one word relates can also be useful in teaching It is noted that the teacher has to make a careful choice of and decision on which meaning of a word to teach and how many words to teach in the given class time or else learners will be impeded by the pressure to absorb too many meanings and words

This often results in confusion or forgetting

The most important thing for learners to learn a new word is to know how to use it appropriately and effectively in different oral and written contexts or else it may become a dead or forgettable word To use a new word well, they need to know how to collocate it with other words correctly Therefore, the teacher should put words into collocation For example, when introducing words like "to make” and "to do", the teacher may note that both words mean "to perform" but can be distinguished by the words they collocate with

We often say "to do the homework" but never say "to make the homework"

In short, students should be taught the form, the meaning, and the use of words in vocabulary lessons The teacher should ensure that vocabulary is regularly recycled/revised because if students do not get the chance to put it into use they will easily forget it

Unknown vocabulary is low in such messages, considerable vocabulary learning can occur even though students' attention is not directed to vocabulary learning Rubin and Thompson (1994: 82) suggest 3 strategies for dealing with this approach of vocabulary learning These strategies include receding a series of texts on a related topic, guessing the meaning of new words from context, and breaking up a word into components Similarly, Decanico (in Celce-Murcia 2000: 255-299) says that implicit vocabulary learning or incidents vocabulary learning is learning that occurs when the mind is focused elsewhere, such as on understanding a text or using language for communicative purposes

It is believed that the factors that affect the learner in language learning also have an effect on his vocabulary learning These factors include, according to Lighbown and Spada (1999: 51-68), intelligence, aptitude, personality, motivation and, attitudes, learner preferences, learner beliefs, age, some kinds of activities Rubin and Thompson (1994: 3 -

8) suggest a similar list of factors affecting learning: age, aptitude, attitude (emotions), personality (extroversion, inhibition, tolerance of ambiguity), learning style (learning by strategies Ellis (1997: 76) emphasizes the importance of learning strategies, when he states that studies have shown that successful learners use more strategies than unsuccessful learners and successful learners use different strategies at different stages of their development He emphasizes that if crucial learning strategies can be identified, they can be taught to students Learning strategies are the decisive factor for vocabulary learning

literature review 1.1 The importance of vocabulary in language teaching and learning

Principles of vocabulary teaching

It cannot be denied that vocabulary is an essential element in learning a foreign language Therefore, it is important to concern first the criteria for selecting vocabulary to help the teacher make valid decisions on the right vocabulary items to teach at the learner's different level Gairns and Redman (1986) proposed some main criteria as frequency; student's needs and level; cultural factor and expediency In teaching, the teacher needs to select the most frequently used words to teach first The vocabulary should be appropriate to students' level and their needs, the priority given to vocabulary for English as a subject in the curriculum might be different from that of English for specific purposes The Culture factor has great influenced on teaching, which means that the learners' background is to be considered, since people from different countries may need differentwords to express their ideas in the second language Expediency is one of the important criteria that needs to be concerned since the classroom is a world by itself and requires specific types of vocabulary such as grammatical terminology and activity instructions Harnler (1991) also adds more criteria for selection of vocabulary as concretion vs abstraction (concrete words should be taught at lower levels whereas abstract terms should be taught at higher lever); coverage (general words should be taught in more specific terms) and rapport (the student's involvement with the words is a major motivator for vocabulary learning)

In general, when the teacher teaches a new English word, he should, by all means, provide his learners with its meaning, forms and use at the same time Among these three areas, the use of a word is the most important, but it cannot be achieved if the forms and meaning of the word are not firmly understood and grasped by the learners

 Pronunciation and spelling : Each English word has its spelling and pronunciation Learners have to know all the spelling, pronunciation and irregularities of the word they are learning In teaching, we need to make sure that these aspects are accurately presented and learned

 Grammar The grammar of a new word should also be taught to the learners They need to know the grammatical function, the unpredictable change of form in certain grammatical contexts, the regularity and irregularity, the singular and plural forms of the new word so that they can use it correctly For example, when teaching the verb think, we might give its irregularity in past form thought

 Denotative and connotative meaning The meaning of a word is primarily what it refers to in the real world, meaning is found in a dictionary For example, dog denotes a kind of animal, common, domestic carnivorous mammal A less obvious component of the meaning of a word is its connotation in different contexts or its connotative meaning This is the associations or positive or negative feelings it evokes This meaning may or may not be indicated in a dictionary For instance the word , as understood by most British people, has positive connotations of friendship and loyalty: whereas the equivalent in Arabic' as understood by most of the Arab countries has negative associations of dirty and inferiority The connotative meaning of a word is varied from one context to another

 Meaning relationship How the meaning, especially denotative meaning, of one word relates can also be useful in teaching It is noted that the teacher has to make a careful choice of and decision on which meaning of a word to teach and how many words to teach in the given class time or else learners will be impeded by the pressure to absorb too many meanings and words

This often results in confusion or forgetting

The most important thing for learners to learn a new word is to know how to use it appropriately and effectively in different oral and written contexts or else it may become a dead or forgettable word To use a new word well, they need to know how to collocate it with other words correctly Therefore, the teacher should put words into collocation For example, when introducing words like "to make” and "to do", the teacher may note that both words mean "to perform" but can be distinguished by the words they collocate with

We often say "to do the homework" but never say "to make the homework"

In short, students should be taught the form, the meaning, and the use of words in vocabulary lessons The teacher should ensure that vocabulary is regularly recycled/revised because if students do not get the chance to put it into use they will easily forget it

Unknown vocabulary is low in such messages, considerable vocabulary learning can occur even though students' attention is not directed to vocabulary learning Rubin and Thompson (1994: 82) suggest 3 strategies for dealing with this approach of vocabulary learning These strategies include receding a series of texts on a related topic, guessing the meaning of new words from context, and breaking up a word into components Similarly, Decanico (in Celce-Murcia 2000: 255-299) says that implicit vocabulary learning or incidents vocabulary learning is learning that occurs when the mind is focused elsewhere, such as on understanding a text or using language for communicative purposes

It is believed that the factors that affect the learner in language learning also have an effect on his vocabulary learning These factors include, according to Lighbown and Spada (1999: 51-68), intelligence, aptitude, personality, motivation and, attitudes, learner preferences, learner beliefs, age, some kinds of activities Rubin and Thompson (1994: 3 -

8) suggest a similar list of factors affecting learning: age, aptitude, attitude (emotions), personality (extroversion, inhibition, tolerance of ambiguity), learning style (learning by strategies Ellis (1997: 76) emphasizes the importance of learning strategies, when he states that studies have shown that successful learners use more strategies than unsuccessful learners and successful learners use different strategies at different stages of their development He emphasizes that if crucial learning strategies can be identified, they can be taught to students Learning strategies are the decisive factor for vocabulary learning

Hence many scholars have striven to introduce different vocabulary learning strategies in order to help learners of English improve their vocabulary learning The representatives of those scholars are Nation (1982,1990, 2001), Lacey, Trench, and Vanderpump (1990), Taylor (1990), not to mention many other scholars who are interested in learning strategies such as Oxford (10001, Ruhin et Thompson (1994), Nunan 1991), Cook (1993), Wenclen and Rubin (1987), Wenden (1991), etc

There have been different opinions or factors that affect vocabulary acquisition

However, they all share some main points Below are four types of factor said to have great impact on language learners‟ vocabulary acquisition

The first type is the person- dependent factors including age, sex, language, and cognitive and learning style These factors differ from person to person They are relatively stable, and they determine to a large extent how a learner approaches a task

The second is the learning task which includes the materials being learnt (such as the genre of a piece of reading) as well as the goal the learner is trying to achieve by using these materials (such as remembering, comprehending or using language) Different types of task materials, task purposes, and tasks at various difficulty level demand different strategies

The third type of factor is the learning context It is the socio-cultural-political environment where learning takes place The learning context can include the teachers, the peer, the classroom climate, the family support, the social, cultural tradition of learning, the curriculum, and the availability of input and output opportunities These factors have a certain effect on the ways learners approach learning task and acquire vocabulary knowledge

In short, the factors discussed above (person, task and context, ) exist together and make a configuration of a particular learning situation that will help to bring about the effectiveness of vocabulary

Methods in teaching vocabulary

In short, the factors discussed above (person, task and context, ) exist together and make a configuration of a particular learning situation that will help to bring about the effectiveness of vocabulary

Markey (1978:138) states, “The method used has been said to be the cause of success or failure in language learning, for it is ultimately the method that determines what and the how of language instruction” This statement shows us the importance of method It is method that determines success or failure in language teaching That is the reason why teacher have to understand well about different methods so that they can choose the best ones for their learners Below is a brief discussion on some methods in vocabulary teaching in history and their role in vocabulary teaching and learning

Some psychologists, according to Nation (1990: 43), believe that repetition is not as effective as the type of attention given to a new word Oral repetition of a word form is not as effective as recalling the form of the word However, the occuring frequency of a word affects the learning burden: the more frequently it is met, the easier it is to learn Seeing the word form and a definition of its meaning is not as effective as having to make an effort to recall its meaning before being shown the defnition as feedback

Similarities between words can make learning easier If the student has already known the word meaning he may learn the meaning more easily However, similarities between words can also make learning more difficult: a list of words that are strongly associated with each other (e.g opposites, free associates) is more difficult to learn than a list of unrelated words

The effect of learning an exception is to make the learning of a rule more difficult

For example, the word school and town are most often used as countable nouns, so when used as singular nouns, they are often preceded by an article, a demonstrative adjective, or a possessive adjective However, in to go to school and to go to town, they neither are nor proceeded by any of these words As a result, school and town are often used productively incorrectly.

Proficiency in the native language and the second language and the acquisition of

Language acquisition is one of the most impressive and fascinating aspects of human development In website http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/languageacquisition on June

20, 2011, language acquisition is defined as “the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive, produce and use words to understand and communicate This capacity involves the picking up of diverse capacities including syntax, phonetics, and an extensive vocabulary This language might be vocal as with speech or manual as in sign” Language acquisition usually refers to first language acquisition, which studies infants' acquisition of their native language, rather than second language acquisition that deals with acquisition (in both children and adults) of additional languages

With regard to second language acquisition, it is portrayed as the process by which people learn languages in addition to their native language The term "second language",

"target language", or "L2" are used to refer to any language learned after the native language, which is also called "mother tongue", "first language", "L1", or "source language" Second language acquisition also includes third language acquisition (L3)

1.5.2 Influence of proficiency in the native language and the second language on the acquisition of a third language

Although English is taught in Vietnamese high schools as a foreign language, for ethnic minority students, learning English is similar to learning a third language This is because these ethnic minority students have to learn Vietnamese in addition to their indigenous or native language This study was conducted in the Ethnic Minority Boarding High School and two high schools in remote districts of the mountainous province, where the majority of the students belong to ethnic minority groups Thus, what follows is a brief review of the literature on the influence of learners‟ first and second languages on the acquisition of a third language

The influence of proficiency in L1 and L2 on the acquisition of a third language has interested researchers for a few decades, but knowledge about those influences remains limited Cummings (2000) stated that according to „interdependence hypothesis‟, there is a positive and significant relationship between students‟ first language development, specially their development of literacy skills, and their second language development A similar relationship might be expected to hold good in the case of multilingual acquisition, so that different degrees of proficiency in the first and second languages would affect the acquisition of the third language

In addition, recent psycholinguistic research on third language acquisition has made clear that the acquisition of an L3 shares many characteristics with the acquisition of an L2 but it also presents differences Accordingly, the educational aspects of teaching English as an L3 differ from those of teaching English as an L2 Third language acquisition is more complex phenomenon than second language acquisition because, apart from all individual and social factors that affect the latter, the process and product of acquiring a second language can themselves potentially influence the acquisition of a third language

The educational aspects of the acquisition of English as a third language differ those of English as a second language, and have more implications regarding the optimal age for introduction of the different languages and the desired level of proficiency in each

However, several studies on L3 acquisition have convincingly shown a qualitative difference between the acquisition of a true L2 and the subsequent acquisition of an L3

Some studies even indicate that L2 takes on a stronger role than L1 in the initial state of L3 syntax (e.g Bardel & Falk, 2007; Rothman & Cabrelli Amaro, forthcoming) An explanation put forward by Williams & Hammarberg (1998) and Bardel & Falk (2007) as to why the L2 takes on a stronger role than the L1 is that of the L2 status factor According to Falk & Bardel, the L2 status factor is an outcome of the higher degree of similarity between L2 and L3 than between L1 and L3, regarding age of onset, outcome, learning situation, metalinguistic knowledge, learning strategies and degree of awareness in the language learning process

Also, the acquisitional setting may vary from predominantly informal acquisition, as is the case for instance in bilingual environments, to more formal settings, such as foreign language learning in the classroom On the one hand, it can be assumed that L3 learners, especially those who have learnt the L2 in a formal setting, are aware of the language learning process, and have acquired metalinguistic experiences and learning strategies to facilitate foreign language learning

Therefore, for students from ethnic minority groups, studying one more language, English – the third language, via Vietnamese – the second language might be very challenging This is because of the fact that when learning English, they comprehend English lessons by listening, switching into their native languages - and then translating or changing into Vietnamese and then English again Limited literacy or Vietnamese language skills can limit the acquisition of the third language As a result, it is observed that a large number of these students are almost illiterate in English despite many years‟ learning the language

This chapter includes a justification for the approach the author used in conducting the research It also provides a thorough description of how the author collected the necessary data as well as the analytical procedure to draw conclusions based on the collected information In the first section the author gives detailed description of the research setting where the study was conducted In the next sections, the author puts forward an explanation of the author‟s understanding of the methods used in this research and their advantages.

Research setting

Muong Bi high school is located in Hoa Binh, a mountainous province in the northwest of Vietnam, where over 80 % of the population belongs to ethnic minority groups, and where there have been many difficulties in life as well as in educational development, especially in the development of teaching a foreign language like English

Not much attention is paid to English learning though it is among the compulsory subjects in the national final examinations

2.1.2 The materials of teaching and learning

In terms of the materials of teaching and learning, the textbook currently used to teach English are Tieng Anh 10, published by Ministry of Education and Training The teaching content of English textbooks follows the theme-based approach and is developed on six broad themes The six themes are subdivided into 16 topics corresponding with 16 units and a “Test yourself” after every 3 units All units have the same structure, starting with the theme of the unit, following four lessons focused on language skills and ending with language focus Language skills are developed in parallel with the development of such language knowledge as grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation

With strengths, the textbooks are expected to contribute better quality of English learning in Vietnam high schools In terms of curriculum development, the introduction of the new textbook can be new fresh air blowing into the teaching and learning situation at secondary schools in Vietnam However, to a large number of ethnic minority students, the English textbooks are very difficult Very often the amount of new vocabulary in one unit was too much for students In addition, many topics in their English textbooks were strange to their daily lives and background.

Research questions

Questionnaries and classroom observations in this study were intended to address the following research question:

What are the challenges in learning English vocabulary of ethnic minority grade 10 students in Muong Bi high school?

Participants

The five participants who are currently teaching English to ethnic minority students at grade 10 level graduated from Hanoi Universities of Foreign Languages or have taken an English in-service training course; All of the teachers are female and from 28 to 32 years old Their teaching experience at high schools varies from 5 to 10 years The variety in the participants‟ age, sex, qualification, and teaching experience is expected to provide reliability and validity for the study

Teaching English for ethnic minority students in the remote mountainous area has long been a controversial issue Many ethnic minority students‟ English level is low and Vietnamese language skills are limited Besides, there is lack of proper teaching and learning materials at primary and secondary schools For them, English is simply an obligatory subject; they learn it mainly for marks, the only goal is to pass the tests The time, the input and exposure to the language are limited to the classroom Therefore, they seem to be passive in learning Students listen to their teachers and repeat passively and give a mechanical response They are likely to become demotivated to English learning, depending much on the textbook and teachers‟ method of delivery Language activities like role plays, problem-solving tasks, or information gap activities, therefore, seem strange to their culture of learning Even, when they fail to understand something, they are not daring enough to ask for clarification in public Therefore, “the English learning environment is described as a cultural island where the teacher is expected to be the sole provider of experience in the target language" (Canh, 1999, p.74).

Data Collection Instruments and procedures

In order to get information, the main data collection instruments for this study were questionnaires and classroom observations

At the beginning of March 2011, the author did a survey on this topic to develop an appropriate survey instrument for this study The final questionnaire was administered to 100 ethnic students In order to make sure that, all the students fully understand the questions, the questionnaires were written in Vietnamese All of the distributed questionnaires were returned with answers

The questionnaire focuses on three main factors that the author considers the causes of the students‟ difficulties in learning English vocacbulary such as: the learners‟ background, the material and the teaching methods The purpose of the questionnaire was to examine how important the ethnic minority students think of their learning English and what difficulties they often meet when learning vocabulary

In this study, from classroom observations, the researcher wanted to see how English classes were really going on by the teachers of English in a mountainous area such as how they organized classroom activities; how teachers conducted their teaching; what challenges students face in their classroom learning The observations were conducted in

10 English lessons at 10th grade of all selected teachers on language skills and language knowledge

According to Selinger and Shohamy (1989) once the researcher has selected a specific design for the study which is consistent with the objectives of the research, the next step is to collect the research data In collecting the data it is important to use procedures which elicit high quality data, since the quality of any research study depends largely on the quality of the data collected and the data collection procedure

As stated above, the study was carried out in Muong Bi high school The reason for the choice was that 100% students at these schools were ethnic minorities; that might be useful to give rich information for the data collection of the study Among the teachers of three schools, five were selected for interviews on voluntary basis and all of them were observed while teaching

The observations were conducted in five selected teachers at the beginning of the school year.

Data Analysis Procedure

The strengths of qualitative data rest very centrally on the competence with which their analysis is carried out According to Hatch (2002), interpretation, as interpretation of interview data, is a defining element that permeates all qualitative research through making inferences, developing insights, attaching importance, refining understandings, drawing conclusions, and extrapolating lessons Since researchers carry out interpretations in the research process, they make sense of the phenomenon under investigation This interpretive analysis was intended to link interpretation to the data in order to result in meaningful data

The analysis of the observation data in this study involved careful readings of the researcher‟s field notes of sample lessons Following the observation guide, the researcher conducted the analysis as follows In the first stage, the researcher examined the field notes of all the lessons of the five observed teachers In the second stage, the researcher reviewed the detailed field notes coupled with questionnaire In the third stage, through analysis of field notes of the sample lessons, the researcher demonstrated how the teachers of English organized classroom activities in English lessons and how they dealt with the challenges in teaching to ethnic minority students

This chapter has examined the approach used in the study to illuminate its research questions about the challenges in learning English vocabulary of grade 10 ethnic minority students It also described the data collection as well as the analytical procedure which leads to the results of the research as presented in the next chapter – Results and discussion

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

Data analysis is not a simple description of the data collected but a process by which the researcher can bring interpretation to the data (Powney & Watts,1987) In the following parts, the researcher interprets the results from the feedback of the questionnaires and observations The study mentions the ethnic students‟ constraints in learning English vocabulary

3.1 Results and discussions from the questionnaires for students

In order to get information about the students‟ attitudes toward English vocabulary learning and the factors affecting their acquisition of the language the author poses here

10 questions for the students Following is the findings

Question 1 In your opinion, what is the role of vocabulary in learning English?

Although they know clearly that English is very important almost of them choose the answer “very important”, they still do not spend enough time on learning English, because of many factors that hinder them from doing so Firstly, they do not have time to learn, secondly, some of them think they can learn it later when they have opportunity

Question 2 In Tieng Anh 10 there are … new words in one unit

The results of in question 2 show that the greatest percentage (95%) of the learners say that they are overwhelmed by the amount of vocabulary in one unit, so after 3 periods a week they had to learn a great number of the new words in the text book and the words provided by teacher Only 5% of the students asked say there are not many vocabulary in one unit to learn

Question 3 The topics in the textbook are…

Most of the students (85%) state that many topics in their English textbooks are unfamiliar to their daily lives and background, that is the reason why the students usually face difficulties when they learn vocabulary The rest (15%) say that sometimes they find the contents of the lessons unfamiliar to them

Question 4 Number the following items from the least to the most difficult for you when you learn English vocabulary:

A Word form (pronunciation and spelling) 70

B Grammar rules of the word 30

As shown in the table, what students find the most difficult is the word form which is caused by the great differences between their mother tongue and English In addition they do not know how to learn and remember their spelling They listen to the teacher many times and repeat what the teacher say but they still state that their pronunciation is not better Also, half of the students write in the questionnaire that they have difficulty with word formation That there are quite a lot of suffixes and prefixes in English may make students confused when they learn As a result, 30% of them find grammar rules the most difficult, 20% choose aspects of meaning as the difficulty

Question 5 Do you find it is difficult to pronounce English words?

When being asked if students find that in English pronunciation is difficult, most of them say yes (82%) It is the fact that, minority ethnic learners always face many problems in learning vocabulary, they always confuse /d/ with /t/, /v/ with /b/ As seen in question 4 that 70% of the learners revealed that pronunciation is the most difficult item when learning English vocabulary They are totally dependent on imitating the teachers so after the lesson they cannot remember or read the words correctly by themselves

Question 6 How does your teacher present the meaning of new words?

C Explain the meaning in English 0

It can be seen from the table that most of the time translation is used to teach vocabulary There may be the reason why the students often find it boring to learn vocabulary lessons There is a small number of the teachers who used visual aids to teach vocabulary (27%) Some students (15%) noted that their teachers organised them into pairs and groups and help them do different vocabulary activities It is the fact that none of the teachers explain the meaning of the new words in English because it may cause more difficulty for students

Question 7 How does your teacher introduce the use of new words?

B Give examples and students draw out the rules 54

More than half of the students under the survey express that their teachers introduce the use of new words through examples This may be the easiest and the most economical way to teach word uses Besides, it can enhance the students‟ ability to draw out rules from examples 40% of the students say that their teachers introduce word uses by explaining it in Vietnamese This way can be easy for students to follow but it does not help them really understand in English and therefore cannot use the words later Only 6% say that they are not taught word uses

Question 8 How do you practice new words in the class?

It is clear that almost all the students under the survey practice word by doing multiple choice exercises This technique is not difficult and many of them like it However, sometimes it causes the lessons boring In fact only 15% of the teachers using word games to teach vocabulary May be doing gap filling exercises and write sentences are challenging tasks for the students so they are not used regularly

Question 9 Does your teacher give you chance to learn vocabulary in pairs/ groups?

90% of the students say that they learn vocabulary individually This may be the result of the fact that they do not have much time in class For example, the teachers keep delivering the new language items orally or by writing on the board while students look at the board and take notes Then they do practice before going to other tasks in the lesson

Pair work and group work are rarely used The interaction among teachers and students is one-way and only happens when the teacher asks and students answers The teachers simply follow the instruction of the text book and teach what is required in the syllabus

Hence, the teaching strategies used by the teachers in certain circumstances are not relevant and effective

A Make sentences with the words 20

FINDINGS and discussion 3.1 Results and discussions from the questionnaires for students

Results and discussions from the observation

The researcher observed four teachers‟ ten English lessons on language skills and language knowledge at grade 10 with their permission The analysis of the observation data indicated that difficulties emerged in the actual classrooms such as lack of various types of classroom activities associated with CLT, too many new words and structures were given in each lesson, students‟ preference of using their native languages or Vietnamese language, a large amount of teachers‟ using Vietnamese in class, and students‟ passiveness in learning

In general, all the teachers‟ lessons the researcher observed followed the basic steps of the lesson: warm-up activities, presentation, practice and consolidation and homework

The lessons on language skills included three stages namely pre-, while-, and post-stage In the pre-stage, teachers introduced the new language inputs to their students, often new words or phrases, students learned both spelling and sounds in class, in chorus or individually However, what follows is a discussion of some prominent challenges

First, there was lack of various types of classroom activities associated with CLT in English classes, the teachers commonly organized only two types of activities such as group and pair work in their vocabulary teaching, and left other activities out of account

Some teachers often let students take part in mechanical practice such as repetition drills and substitution drills in class This monotonous ways of teaching might be one of the reasons to make English lessons tedious to ethnic minority students and reduce their interest in participating in classroom activities Jacobs and Ball (1996) noted that “more emphasis should be given to active modes of learning such as pair or group work in problem-solving tasks, nevertheless, classroom group or pair work should not be considered an essential feature used all the time, and may well be inappropriate in some contexts” Besides, some teachers were not creative in carrying out groups or pair works, especially in arranging pairs or groups Sometimes, many students were reluctant to join in activities when being put into the same groups or pairs in class

The next challenge was that too many new words and structures were given in each lesson Teachers spent too much time in presenting new words, especially in reading and listening lessons Two of the lessons the researcher attended were reading lessons, after the lessons, the researcher even could not know what was going on, what objectives of the lessons were, because the teachers presented too many new words and structures, students had to write down and learn the words, whereas the reading passage was so long that both teachers and students had to “race” to finish the lessons on time

Another challenge was that a large amount of Vietnamese language used by the teachers in teaching in English classes The classroom observations revealed that most of teachers hardly used English in teaching language skills and language knowledge lessons

They used Vietnamese when introducing the topic of the lesson, analyzing grammatical structures, checking multiple answers in students‟ book, explaining students‟ assignments, and translating some difficult sentences, etc Although English was encouraged to be maximally exposed to language learners (MOET, 2006), the English language environment in classes was limited in the observed lessons Thus, in such a poor learning environment like that, it was difficult for students to acquire a foreign language effectively

Besides, students‟ preference of using their native languages or Vietnamese language during group work or pair work caused challenges for teachers in their teaching

When students were asked to have a discussion or joined in communicative activities, some students often discussed in Vietnamese or their native languages instead of English, they only shifted to English when the teachers approached them Limited English vocabulary and sentence structures, even limited Vietnamese language skills prevented ethnic minority students from communicating with each other efficiently They felt too it hard to express themselves in English However, in some English classes, the teachers did not offer any solutions to the case of students‟ using native or Vietnamese languages during group or pair works, others even did not realize this existing problem

One more problem which was also concerned with the students was the habit of studying of students in remote mountainous areas, especially those from ethnic minorities

About half of the students in the class were passive They depended on the teachers and their partners in learning and practicing the language they were learning Some students even did not know how to do the work given by teachers or looked for help from partners

Some completed the tasks quickly; however, when teachers checked their understanding, they kept silent; This wasted the time of the English lessons and that was one of the reasons why the lessons could not be finished as planned.

Findings and discussions from the questionnaire

Based on findings from the questionnaire, the researcher described the challenges of ethnic minority students in learning English such as students' low level of background knowledge, low level of English proficiency, the textbook, teachers‟ failure in applying communicative approach and classroom activities Below is a discussion of details of these challenges

The first challenging problem was the students‟ level of English It‟s the fact that many ethnic minority students possessed nothing after four years of learning English at lower secondary schools while the textbooks were developed on the basis of English syllabuses for 6, 7, 8, 9 grades The reasons were varied, both subjective and objective

However, as they said, their students were ethnic minorities with limited literacy or Vietnamese language skills and low level of background knowledge; in fact, the students entered the Muong Bi high school and other schools in remote districts with much lower grades than those entering schools in the central parts of the province In addition, students‟ motivation in English learning was very low; their students saw little benefit in learning English while they were still struggling with their Vietnamese, and they saw no future outside their home villages and thus, no need to communicate with English speaking people Most of them learnt English just to get marks because it was an compulsory subject at school They spent no time learning English except for some lessons at school As a result, many of the students were very bad at English; some could hardly speak even the simplest sentences about themselves in English It was the students‟ poor vocabulary, little knowledge of grammar structures that prevented teachers from running the lesson effectively The students could not absorb what the teachers presented or take part in activities in class The teachers, therefore, had to follow the schedule provided strictly, and they had to revise the learnt knowledge at low speed

The second hindrance in learning English was a triangular language environment

In Tan Lac district, minority students mainly use their mother tongues - Muong language - to communicate inside their families and small communities, while at school they had to learn Vietnamese to study and communicate with other people Students were still not fluent in Vietnamese, let alone English At home, most students in remote areas said they communicate with their parents in their native languages Therefore, there was too little use of Vietnamese or English Some students forgot almost everything related to English language because they lived and spoke only their native languages with their parents and relatives during summer vacation Furthermore, minority students found it more difficult to pronounce English words because their minority languages were greatly different from it

They always mispronounced /d/ with /t/, /v/ with /b/ It was really challenging them to change their pronunciation habit

Finally, the other challenge most of the students face was the material The textbook on the whole seemed to be too difficult for most of ethnic minority students, many topics in the English textbooks were strange to their daily lives and background such as “Undersea world”, or “Technology and You”, “Cities” etc, therefore, difficult to comprehend The students were not interested in these topics, but felt overwhelmed by the amount of new vocabulary in each unit The teachers even stated that they were trained in the light of the Communicative Language Teaching, which showed that not all the words could be equally taught However, they complained that their students‟ vocabulary was so poor If they did not teach most of the words appear in the passage, most of the students could not understand or take part in the tasks in class It meant that the objectives of the lesson would not be achieved by the students

From these above difficulties, the researcher introduces some vocabulary teaching techniques and some suggestions for solutions to help students overcome their situations

The researcher suggests some techniques, which she believes that they will be effective to ethnic minority students such as adapting the textbook and selection of vocabulary teaching…If these techniques are used in Muong Bi high school, the difficulties could be reduced and English teaching situations in general, English vocabulary teaching situations in specific will be better.

Recommendations

Based on the findings discussed above, in order to improve the quality of English teaching to ethnic minority students, the researcher would like to draw some points of recommendations such as adapting the textbook and selection of vocabulary teaching…

First, set the true goal of learning English for ethnic minority students

Teachers should delicately tell ethnic minority students about the story of advantages of knowing English language Because learning English is not only for getting marks, for passing the exams, but also for learning a means of communication to widen students‟ knowledge of different countries, to discover and access to many other subject-matters

Second, motivate students in English lessons It is crucial to employ various activities and techniques to help students become attracted to the lessons from the opening to the last stages Teachers should think of such activities as a vocabulary game or short funny story, some useful information about an interesting topic, etc, which link the learnt language items with the new ones as well as interesting remarks about forthcoming activities These are considered to lead to higher level of enjoyment of learning on the part of the students

Next, teachers should help students build up their self-confidence Ethnic minority students are encouraged to take part in classroom activities, to ask questions, share ideas, and give suggestions in class The open and friendly interactions among teachers and students and among students themselves are highly appreciated Because, as Canh (2004) pointed out that “most of students wanted to learn together with their fellow students in an atmosphere which is friendly and supportive” (p.172) Besides, teachers are also advisable to be gentle and sensitive to students‟ errors Students, especially those from ethnic minorities, are always afraid of making mistakes and being laughed at in public If they are hurt once, they will gradually get reserved and quiet Thus, positive praise from teachers should be given at the right time instead of negative ones Another important thing is that teachers should establish caring relationships with ethnic minority students, should show honest sympathies with their disadvantages to maximize their enjoyment of learning, enhance their achievement and enable their integration into the school community

In addition, teachers should guide students how to learn English effectively As some teachers revealed that some students could not memorize the words or use of the right structures although they enjoyed English and tried their best to learn It means that their failures in learning are not resulted from lack of motivation or effort but from lack of appropriate learning strategies The role of the teacher, therefore, is not only to teach students What, but also to tell them How to learn effectively

When discussing the issues related to the difficulties of the current textbooks and irrelevant topics to ethnic minority students‟ background and daily lives, it is strongly advisable for the teachers of English working in remote mountainous areas to adapt the textbooks, particularly the irrelevant topics to students‟ background The topics of English lessons should be chosen on the basis of students‟ needs and interests It is better to start teaching the ethnic minority students in simple and locally based issues By doing that, it is likely to increase ethnic minority students‟ exposure to English and to make them stress- free in learning English and to empower students at school and in society

Textbook adaptation can be done at three levels The first level is macro adaptation, which is ideally done before the language program begins After comparing what is covered in a textbook and what is required by the syllabus or examination, the teacher may find that certain areas or even whole units of the book can be omitted, and certain contents need to be supplemented Macro adaptation is very important because it helps the teacher to avoid wasting time of every of the teacher and the students as well It also helps the teacher see in advance what he or she needs to supplement so that he or she can keep an eye on the teaching materials that could be used

The second level of adaptation is adapting a unit This could be reordering the activities, combining activities, omitting activities, rewriting or supplementing exercise material, etc Unit adaptation helps to make the classroom teaching more smooth and cohesive It also helps the teacher to better fulfill the aims of a unit

The third level is adaptation of specific activities in a unit Occasionally an activity I regarded as valuable, but it is not well-designed or it is not feasible in particular class If the teacher does not want to give up the activity, he or she needs to adapt it

Despite the great effort that textbook writers make to meet the needs of the intended users, textbooks are subjective to adaptation when they are actually used in the classroom After all, most textbooks are written for any particular class The following options are suggested to adapt materials:

 omission: the teacher leaves out things which deemed inappropriate, offensive, unproductive, etc for the particular group

For example, when teaching Unit 1: A day in the life of…, teacher can ommit Task

3 (14) to spend more time in teching the others part of the lesson; Unit 15 (156-

165) can be ommitted due to the inappropriateness

 addition: where there seems to be inadequate coverage, teachers may decide to add to textbooks, either in the form of texts or exercise material

 reduction: where the teacher shortens an activity to give it less weight or emphasis

 extension: where an activity is lengthened in order to give it as additional dimension (For example, Unit 3 and Unit 5 (Reading lessons) can be taught in two more periods because vocabulary teaching activities need extended to draw attention to some syntactic patterning.)

 rewriting/modification: teacher may occasionally decide to rewrite material, especially exercise material, to make it more appropriate, more “communicative”, more demanding, more accessible to their students, etc

 replacement: text or exercise material which is considered inadequate, for whatever reason, may be replaced by more suitable material, which often taken from other resource materials

 re-ordering: teachers may decide that the order in which the textbooks are presented is not suitable for their students They can then decide to plot a different course through the textbooks from the one the writer has laid down

 branching: teachers may decide to add options to the existing activity or to suggest alternative pathways through the activities (For example, an experiential route or an analytical route.)

3.4.3 Selection of the vocabulary teaching

A student acquires vocabulary in two ways: the first is by discovery, through interaction and conversation with others, or by reading; the second is by more formal presentation of words in a classroom situation The teacher has various ways of achieving this: by pointing to objects, drawing pictures, miming an action or making a gesture, etc

But the selection of the vocabulary is also of great importance Words need to be introduced in a context where students can see how they are used, and teachers need to help students see connections between groups of words – for example, teach knife and fork, not knife and fish!

 One basis for selecting the words to teach is how frequently they are used in everyday speech The words which are most commonly used are the ones to teach first For example, we would teach 'like' before we teach 'similar'

Conclusion 1 Conclusions

Limitations of the study

Although the study has been seriously and intensively carried out, like many other studies, there are still some limitations

Firstly, in term of methodology, the study is limited in the fact that the data may not fully reflect all aspects of English vocabulary teaching and learning in this remote and mountainous school Secondly, the interviews are carried out mostly in Vietnamese, then translated into English The translation may loose some intention of both interviewer and interviewees

Followings are some directions that should be taken into consideration in the further research Firstly, further longitudinal studies are recommended to carry out at secondary and primary schools in the province Secondly, it would be interesting to investigate more challenges in teaching English in other aspects such as listening and speaking to ethnic minority students and to find out the possible solutions

It is hoped that from the findings and limitations of the study, further studies would be conducted in helping to improve the quality of English teaching to ethnic minority students in mountainous areas

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21 So Giao duc va Dao tao tinh Hoa Binh (2008; 2009) Tổng hợp kết quả các môn thi tốt nghiệp THPT: DoET

 What are the common classroom activities being used by the teachers of English in classes?

Please tick (P) the appropriate box

Activities (1) (2) (3) (4) Notes information-gap activities jig-saw activities task-completion activities role-plays information gathering activities group work pair work accuracy activities fluency activities mechanical practice meaningful practice communicative practice opinion-sharing activities information-transfer activities reasoning-gap activities

1 How are groups and pairs arranged by the teacher of English?

2 Does the teacher control ethnic minority students’ use of their native language or Vietnamese language when students take part in classroom activities? If yes, what are his (her) solutions?

3 How does the teacher actually conduct his (her) teaching?

4 What teaching methods are applied?

5 Do the problems documented by the teachers of English in the interviews exist in their teaching? If yes, what are the teachers’ solutions?

This survey questionnaire is designed for my study “Challenging in learning English vocabulary of 10 th grade ethnic minority students at Muong Bi high school” We would greatly appreciate if you could respond to the questions below Your opinions would be useful to this research Thank you very much for your valuable contributions Please answer the questions

1 In your opinion, what is the role of vocabulary in learning English?

2 In Tieng Anh 10 there are…… new words in one unit

3 The topics in the textbook are:

A Unfamiliar to your daily life

B Familiar to your daily life

4 Number the following items from the least to the most difficult for you when you learn English vocabulary:

A Word form (pronunciation and spelling)

C Grammar rules of the word

5 Do you find it difficult to pronounce English words?

B Yes Because they are too different from your mother tongue

6 How does your teacher present the meaning of new words?

C Explain the meaning in English

7 How does your teacher introduce the use of new words?

B Give examples and students draw out the rules

8 How do you practice new words in the class?

A Make sentences with the words

9 Does your teacher give you chance to learn vocabulary in pairs/ groups?

10 How much time do you usually spend learning new words at home?

C More than one hour a day

D Sometimes only when I am required to do homework by the teacher

After the lesson, the students will be able to compare the past and present of the town

Develop their listening skill through True or False and Gap-filling exercises

English book, Blackboard, Cassette, computer, projector…

*Crossword Puzzle You can choose any number from 1 to 10 to answer the questions and complete the crossword puzzle.Who can answer question 10 or find out the keyword will be the winner

1 This person plays an important role in your family (not dad)

2 The name of the farmer mentioned in the unit 1

3 The place that you are studying

4 You walk on the small in the village

6 The opposite direction of “The East”

7 You often stay in a when you are away from home

8 The place that people often spend their holiday (Eg: Tan Da…)

9 The streets now are so with vehicles

10 Because of the modernization, there have been a lot of _in my town in the past few years

Introduce some new words, Let Ss listen and repeat, explain the meaning of each word

Resort(n) : /ri:'zɔ:t / Narrow(a) : /'nổrou/

II Checking technique Ask Sts to work in pairs to match the words in column A with their Vietnamese equivalents in column B

1 Destroy a Làm lại mặt (đường)

Listen to the talk and do the tasks that follow

Task 1 Decide if the following statements are true (T) or (F) according to the talk

Ask Sts to read the statements, underline the key words and give predictions

Then let sts listen to the talk twice to finish the task Ask them work individually then compare their answers with partner

1 Popffero is on the west coast of England

2 Popffero used to be a tourist resort

3 The town no longer has its old atmosphere

4 There are more green trees in the town now than there used to be

5 Everybody in the town likes its changes

Elicit the answers from the Sts

Task 2 Listen to the talk again, and write in the missing words

Ask sts to read the passage, guessing the needed words the let them listen to the talk again once or twice if needed to fill in the blanks

The small old(1) _have been pulled down, and tall buildings have been put there instead They’ve also built a big(2) _ in the middle of the town The narrow streets have been (3) _and resurfaced, so the big trees on the two sides of the streets have been (4) _ down The large area of grass land in the suburbs of the town has been turned into an ugly (5) park Even the old corner (6) _isn’t there any more It has been replaced by a big (7) _store And there is an (8) restaurant where there used to be an old tea shop

Getting the answers by letting them play the game “Lucky numbers”

Divide the class into 4 groups Each group has three times to choose the number they want Behind the number is either a blank needed filling or a lucky number If it is a blank, the group has to

Individual and pairwork fill in the needed word to get 10 points with the right word If it is a lucky number, the group get 10 points without giving any word

The group with the highest points will be the winner

Ask Sts take turn to talk about the changes in your hometown or home village

Pay attention to the followings:

- Summarize the main point of the lesson Whole class

1 Write a short paragraph about the changes in your hometown

2 Prepare the next part: Writing

After the lesson, the students will be updated with names of some popular TV programs such as Quiz Show, Portrait life…

English book, Blackboard, TV schedules extracted from newspapers

Stages Teacher’s activities Students’ activities

- Gives Ss 10 words whose letters are in the wrong order

- Notes Ss that all the words are forms of mass media

- Asks Ss to work in groups and rearrange them in good order to make the right words

- Explains the term mass media:

Mass media or mass communications refer to public institutions that report news and other stories Mass media also keep people updated

- Asks Ss to give examples for each type of mass media

E.g: Newspaper: Tuoi Tre; Nhan Dan…

- Has Ss work in pairs, ask and answer the following questions

- Asks some pairs practice in front of the class

- Asks Ss to read the programs and point out the new words:

- Whole class listen to the teacher

- Listen to the teacher and write down the term mass media

- Work individually, give examples for each type of mass media

- Some pairs practice Others listen to

- population and Development -quiz show(n)

- Asks Ss to read the new words

- Asks Ss to read three TV program schedules and do Task 1

- Has SS compare and discuss their answers with a friend

- Tells Ss to read the programs carefully and decide whether the statements are true or false Correct the false information

- Calls on some Ss to explain their answers by giving evidence in the reading passage

- Checks the answers in front of the class as a whole

- Asks Ss to work in pairs, ask and answer the questions in the book basing on the information in the reading passage

- Calls on some pairs to ask and answer in front of the class

- Keeps Ss in pairs and asks them to tell their partner about one of the TV programs they like watching best and explain why

- Calls on some Ss to give short talks on the given topic

- Gives Ss Names of some popular programs on VTV:

* Rush Hour : Gio cao diem

* Sing to learn : hoc Tieng Anh qua bai hat

- Wheel of Fortune: Chiec non ky dieu

- Who wants to be millionaire?: Ai la trieu phu?

- The price is right: Hay chon gia dung

- One vs one hundred: Dau truong 100

- Who is who?: Ai la ai?

- Write down the new words

- Whole class repeat the new words after the teacher

- Compare the answers with a partner

- Some Ss to explain the answers

- Some pairs ask and answer

- Some Ss give short talks