Rationale
Nowadays, learning English is more and more essential because it is considered as a vital tool in communication No one can deny its important roles in every field of the modern world such as culture, economy, society, science - technology or even the expansion of education In Vietnam, English is known as a compulsory subject in all levels There is a rapidly growing tendency for English to be adopted as the medium of communication, even when a majority of the population speaks a local language
In order to support the mastery of English, it is essential to learn vocabulary
Underscoring the importance of vocabulary acquisition, Schmitt (2000, p.55) emphasizes that “lexical knowledge is central to communicative competence and to the acquisition of a second language” Nation (2001) further describes the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and language use as complementary: knowledge of vocabulary enables language use and, conversely, language use leads to an increase in vocabulary knowledge British linguist Wilkins (1972: 111) once said, “Without grammar, little can be conveyed; without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed” Truly thanks to vocabulary, sentences, texts and language can be made and become richer
Today, there are research-based data on how best to provide students with effective vocabulary instruction And using word lists in class is considered as a new method which offer a systematic, teacher-directed approach to improving students‟ vocabulary use For teachers, using word lists offers research-based instructional resources that require minimal time Teachers also have benefits from the program‟s flexible instructional model, which allows them to customize instruction to fit their classroom schedules and meet individual student needs Besides, other benefits of word lists are: (1) Word lists are written in a very simple form, one word – with the single, most frequent meaning (2) Word lists are portable so students can look at them anytime and anywhere they want (3) Word lists reduce students‟ stress from learning pages of words from the textbook That is the reason why teaching word lists is being researched and conducted widely now
In Vietnam, the government has made some efforts to train human resources who are able to understand and master English well Therefore, English is not only taught for junior and senior high school students but also to the elementary school students so as to get students to be familiar with English as soon as possible and to use English fluently
In the context of Gia Vuong secondary school, Ninh Binh Province, vocabulary has been taught for students for a long time basing on textbooks From the researcher‟s observation and professional experience as a teacher of English, teaching and learning vocabulary has still faced some difficulties and the students‟ ability to use English has not improved significantly Many students cannot make sentences or dialogues; over 90 % among them even cannot communicate basically in English because of insufficient vocabulary Students even do not know how to use the vocabulary they have learned They only understand a text and do exercises easily when they know what most of the important words mean In a word, this lack of adequate vocabulary knowledge is an obvious and serious obstacle for many students in learning English and improving their skills
All the conditions above have offered me a chance to conduct a study on:
“Improving students’ vocabulary use through using word lists An action research project with 7th grade students at Gia Vuong secondary school” The study is conducted to test the continuing applicability of this method in the certain context of Vietnamese rural areas where there are not enough facilities for the leaners to learn a foreign language.
Aims of study
Surveying the 7 th grade students, who are directly involved in the program, the research firstly aimed at investigating their improvement in vocabulary use through teaching with prepared word lists and find out the effectiveness of this method
Secondly, the researcher explores students‟ attitude towards using word lists in teaching vocabulary Based on the findings, recommendations are made to promote student‟s proficiency and improve the implementation of this method.
Research questions
In order to achieve the above- mentioned aims, the following research questions are addressed in the study
1 What is the students‟ vocabulary use proficiency before the implementation of the research?
2 What is students‟ vocabulary use proficiency after the implementation of the research?
3 What is the difference in students‟ vocabulary use before and after teaching with word lists?
4 What are students‟ attitudes toward using word lists in the language classroom?
Scope of the study
The scope of this study is about the use of word lists in teaching vocabulary so as to help students get understanding about words and their meaning Besides, is the core of using word lists better for students to learn vocabulary and improve their vocabulary use? The researcher uses one class and the research is done at the seventh grade of Gia Vuong secondary school Then, the researcher compares the results of the pre- test and post- test that giving before and the last meeting Using the results from class observation, this study helps everyone see positive aspects/ strengths of using word lists in vocabulary teaching - learning process However, the result of this study may not be generalized to all Vietnamese students in rural areas.
Methods of the study
To achieve the aims of the study, a mixed method was applied Eight lesson plans were designed and taught at one class in grade 7 at Gia Vuong secondary school so that the researcher can investigate the effectiveness of teaching vocabulary with word lists Then, a quantitative method technique was applied as a survey questionnaire was administered for 40 students there in order to get a more detailed and comprehensive picture about what is investigated for the research Other research instruments were also designed and applied
A pretest and a posttest were given in order to evaluate the vocabulary use proficiency improvement The students‟ scores in the post- test will be compared with the scores of students in the pre-test to determine the effectiveness of the use of word lists in teaching vocabulary
The qualitative research method is involved in conducting and analyzing the class observation which is needed to find out how effective this method is
Then, the data were collected, sorted and analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively to obtain the results.
Design of the study
This study is composed of five following parts:
Part A :“INTRODUCTION” presents the background, aims, research question, the significance, the scope and the design of the study
Part B : DEVELOPMENT is organized in three main chapters:
Chapter I is “Literature review” which conceptualizes the framework of the study through the discussion of issues and ideas on theories of teaching vocabulary in the implementation of word lists
Chapter II is “Methodology” which presents the context, the methodology used in this study including the context, the subject, the data collection instruments, data collection procedure and data analysis
Chapter III is “Findings and Discussions” which consists of a comprehensive analysis of the data and a discussion on the findings of this study
Part C “CONCLUSION” offers a summary of the findings, gained research experience, recommendations, limitations and future directions for further study.
LITERATURE REVIEW
According to meaning
Semantically, vocabulary is divided into notional words and functional words
Notional words are words with clear lexical meaning They are indefinitely extendable, open classes- new items can be added to them The main notional words are nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs Members of these four classes are often connected by derivational relations
Functional words, in contrast, are closed system, including a limited number of members They cannot be extended by creating new items Prepositions, conjunctions, and articles as well as auxiliaries and words classified as “particles” are function words.
According to frequency of use
It is possible to distinguish two kinds of vocabulary: high- frequency words and low - frequency words
High- frequency words are the words that appear most often in oral communication and printed materials of different fields of life Learning to recognize high- frequency words by sight is critical to developing fluency in reading Considerable researchers been done to generate lists of the 1,000, 2,000 or 3,000 most frequently- used word in English Recognizing these words gives students a basic context figuring out other word
Low- frequency words are of a very large group of words that occurs very infrequency and cover only a small proportion of any text The younger the learner, the fewer words they are likely to have in their low- frequency bank
For a teacher, it is very important to distinguish between high and low – frequency vocabulary in order to decide which words to teach and how much class time should be spent on them.
According to language teaching methodologies
Methodologically, a foreign language learners‟ vocabulary is divided into active vocabulary and passive vocabulary Active vocabulary is the words which students can understand and use effectively in speaking and writing, whereas passive vocabulary is the words which the student can recognize and understand when they occur in a context, but he cannot remember or use in their own speaking and writing ( Nguyen Bang & Nguyen Ba Ngoc 2002: 36) However, the active and passive vocabulary of language learners changes constantly They start using words, try new meanings, forget words, and abandon words that have no use or revise words, etc
Lewis and Hill (1885, p 100) suggested that it was helpful to guide students towards the words which it would help them to add to their active vocabulary
In this study, the researcher classified the vocabulary according to meaning and frequency of use Both of them are useful for choosing wordlists and implementing them in class
1 3 The role of vocabulary in language teaching and learning
Vocabulary is an important aspect of EFL teaching and learning, the one that has called for a great attention from researcher, teachers and students Traditionally, second language instruction has focused on teaching grammatical knowledge
However, vocabulary is very crucial in language teaching and learning because people cannot understand others and express their own ideas without sufficient vocabulary Some authors, led by Lewis (1993, p 51) argue that vocabulary should be the center of language teaching since “language consists of grammaticalised lexis, not lexicalised grammar” Hunt & Beglar (2005) go on to say that effective second language vocabulary acquisition is particularly important for EFL students, who frequently have impoverished lexicons despite years of formal study
Learners seem to recognize the importance of vocabulary for their learning as Schmitt (2010, p 4) notes, “learners carry around dictionaries and not grammar books” This is also echoed by Laufer who stated: “solid vocabulary is necessary in every stage of language learning, as is now being openly stated by second language acquisition researchers” (1997, p.147) Besides, many other researchers conducted plenty of studies and pointed out that improving vocabulary makes student‟s ability to use foreign language better and more fluently The bigger vocabulary size language learners get, the better they understand and use Vocabulary learning is, therefore, one of the specific goals in a language classroom and the acquisition of an adequate vocabulary is essential for successful second language use In conclusion, vocabulary plays a key role in any EFL course, for any language students.
Aspects of word knowledge included in vocabulary teaching
One of the greatest concerns of a language teacher is selecting what aspects of vocabulary to be taught in a language classroom In general, when teaching a new English word, a teacher should by all means provide students with its meaning, form and use simultaneously Selecting what to teach, based on frequency and usefulness to the needs of the particular students is therefore essential In the book
“A course in Language Teaching” (1999, p 23), Ur suggested the four aspects of vocabulary as Form: Pronunciation and spelling, Grammar, Collocation, Aspects of meaning (1): denotation, connotation, appropriateness, (2): meaning relationship, Word formation need to be taught about vocabulary According to Nation (2001, p
27), to know everything about a word, one needs to know the word‟s:
Form: spoken form, written form, and word parts (e.g., prefix/ root/ suffix ) Meaning: meaning(s), concepts/referents, and associations (positive ) Use: grammatical functions, collocations, constraints (register, frequency )
Word form: Pronunciation ad spelling
In learning and teaching vocabulary process, it is commonly observed that students must know how to write the words and how to pronounce it correctly As Ur (1996, p 60) said, there are some important points that should be considered when teaching vocabulary that is form (pronunciation and spelling) in which pronunciation of a language is the main components of speech which combine together (Hewings, 2004, p.3) It is defined as the way in which a word is pronounced Rules of pronunciation vary widely from language to language
Spelling is the writing of a word or words with letters and diacritics Spelling is the arrangement of letters or putting letters together Spelling is important because it aids in reading and writing It helps cement the connection that is shared between sounds and letters
There is a relationship between spelling and pronunciation According to O‟neil
(1969), the spelling does not directly reflect the way in which a word is pronounced, but “the pronunciations of words are quite generally predictable in their spelling
This relationship often causes trouble for students, so a teacher needs to make sure that both these aspects are accurately presented and learned According to Davies
(2000, p 61), it is usually best to present new items orally first and in written form later, especially at lower level As a result, students can avoid getting the habit of using “spelling pronunciation”
Language teachers need to introduce the grammar of a new vocabulary if this is not obviously covered by general grammatical rules Specially, it is important to provide students information in case the item has an unpredictable change of form in certain grammatical contexts or may have some unusual ways of connecting with other words in sentences For instance, when teaching a noun, we may wish to present its plural form if irregular (man, men) or draw students‟ attention to the fact that it has no plural at all (beauty, knowledge)
According to Nation (2001, p.1), teachers are able to direct students‟ attentions to the use of words with several techniques such as quickly showing the grammatical pattern the word fits into (countable/uncountable, transitive/intransitive, etc), giving a few similar collocates, mentioning any restrictions on the use of the word (formal, informal, impolite, only used with children, etc), and giving a well- known opposite or a well- known word describing the group or lexical set it fits into
A collocation is a combination of two or more words together in a language They can be nouns and nouns, nouns and verbs, adjectives and nouns, adverbs and verbs, verbs and prepositions etc… According to Firth (1957, p.181), “collocations of a given word are statements of the habitual or customary places of that word” It does not mean every word can be used together In other words, the combination of words must follow certain rules, peculiar to each language For example, we have collocations “do homework” or “make a bed”, and we cannot put “make homework‟ or “do a bed”
The meaning can be classified according to the form they attach to It can be classified into three forms: lexical meaning, morphological meaning, and syntactic meaning Lexical meaning is the meaning of a word considered in isolation from the sentence containing it, and regardless of its grammatical context For example, the lexical meaning of learn in or as represented by learns, learned, learning, etc
Morphological meaning is the meaning that attaches to morphemes In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of a language
Grammatical meaning is the meaning that is conveyed by word order and other grammatical signals For example question attaches to the word arrangement in the sentence is he a student (Lado, 1964, p 209-212,)
Word meaning has four components, two of which are denotation and connotation
Denotation is conceptual meaning and dictionary meaning (Tarigan, 1985,p 58) and she states that connotation is feeling and emotion that occurs within a word How the meaning of one item relates to the meaning of others is important in teaching
There are different relationships Some of the main ones are synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms, co- hyponyms and superordinnates
Synonyms: are actually words of the same parts of speech that have similar or identical denotation, speech but differ in shades of meaning, connotation or combinability with other words
Antonyms: words of the same part of speech that are opposite in meaning are called antonyms Usually adjectives denoting quality, verb denoting actions or states and abstract nouns have antonyms
Hyponyms: is a word or phrase whose semantic field is included within that of another word They are decided based on the viewpoint of intension and extension
Co- hyponym or co-ordinates: other items that are the “ same kind of thing”
Superordinates: general concepts that “cover” specific items
According Bauer (1983,p 1), word formation is of central interest to theoretical linguistics of all persuasions because of light it throws on other aspects of language
We may consider word formation the creation of a new word
When talking about word formation, affixation is the first sector that is mentioned about Affixation is, thus, the linguistic process speakers use to form new words by adding morphemes (affixes) at the beginning (prefixation), the middle ( infixation) or the end (suffixation) of words, for example: redo, sickness New combinations using affixes are usual and the reader or hearer would be expected to gather their meaning from understanding of their components Besides, there are various other ways of forming new words such as compounding ( house+ work -> housework, etc)
All in all, words can be formed in different ways Students should know well about word formation and the way to use words in appropriate grammatical contexts
Therefore, this study focused on all aspects mentioned above
According to Armbruster, Lehr, & Osborn (2001), vocabulary can be learned in the following ways:
Directly: Students can learn vocabulary directly when they are explicitly taught both individual words and word-learning strategies
Indirectly: Students can learn the meanings of most words indirectly, through every day experiences with oral and written language, through conversations with adults, through being to read and through reading extensively on their own
However, this kind of learning is difficult and not very sufficient
Rubin & Thompson (1994) also characterize two general approaches as follows: with direct vocabulary learning, students focus their attention on learning words in lists or completing various vocabulary exercises; whereas, with indirect vocabulary learning, learner‟s attention is focused on conveying or understanding a spoken or written message, in the process of which they are likely to learn new vocabulary
Approaches to vocabulary Instruction
Traditionally, much vocabulary instruction has involved some variety of a definitional approach: students learn definitions or synonyms for instructed words In other word, it requires students to find word meanings independently There are obviously better versions of this approach Although it helps the teacher save time and enable them to progress to content matter, definitions alone can lead to only a relatively superficial level of word knowledge However, using the definitional approach should not be avoided Rather, learning definitions of words can be effective when students already have an understanding of the underlying concept of the term
Contextual Approaches: Another common approach to teaching vocabulary is the use of context When determining the meaning of an unfamiliar word, it is often helpful to see the word used in a sentence and to find clues within the sentence that suggest the word's meaning There is no question that learning from context is an important avenue of vocabulary growth and that it deserves attention and practice in the classroom But context, used as an instructional method by itself, is ineffective as a means of teaching new meanings, at least when compared with other forms of vocabulary instruction
Combining Definitional and Contextual Approaches
A combination of definitional and contextual approaches is more effective than either approach in isolation; such mixed methods do, in general, increase reading comprehension (Stahl and Fairbanks, 1986) Indeed, it would be hard to justify a contextual approach in which the teacher did not finally provide an adequate definition of the word or help the class arrive at one Likewise, a good definitional approach includes sentences that illustrate the meaning and use of the words defined Therefore, both definitional and contextual approaches have chosen in this study
1 7 Teaching with word lists 1.7.1 Definition of word lists
A word list is a list of words, for example words that someone has to learn or words explained in a dictionary According to Hatch and Brown (1995, p 1), the term vocabulary refers to a list or set of words for a particular language or a list or set of words that individual speaker of a language might use Nation(2001) mentioned four different lists of vocabulary categorized by high-frequency words, academic words, technical words, and low-frequency words These wordlists provide students with a useful solution to a problem in the naturalistic acquisition of the vocabulary needed for academic studies Besides, Millington and Siegel (2010) states, “the creation of vocabulary lists should be taken as an important duty that can have profound implications, assuming that students will invest time and effort attempting to acquire these lexical items, in addition to being evaluated on vocabulary tests” and they will probably acquire more knowledge about the target words since they spend considerable time engaged with new vocabulary Therefore, teaching specific words before doing tasks may help both learning vocabulary and practicing other skills
Coxhead ( 1998, 2000) at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand also studied academic word lists ( AWL) as a list of words which appear with high frequency in English - language academic texts The list was compiled following an analysis of over 3,500,000 words of text which come from academic journals, textbooks, course workbooks, lab manuals, and course notes and occur frequently in a range of academic subjects, including the Arts (including history, psychology, sociology, etc.), Commerce (including economics, marketing, management, etc.), Law and the Sciences (including biology, computer science, mathematics, etc.) This means that the AWL is helpful and necessary to all second-language learners who wish to study in an English-speaking institution no matter what their field of study
The difficulties that students have in mastering the vocabulary necessary for written test are obvious In order to read and write successfully, students need to be able to recognize as many words as possible in the textbooks and use as many as possible in their assignments Teaching vocabulary through word lists is useful because most of the words in lists are quite common and students can frequently see in newspapers, magazines, and novels, and hear on television, movies or in conversation As a result, they can improve vocabulary size by themselves For beginners, the basic wordlists are great guides to master essential words for general English use For students with academic needs, the academic word list is an excellent source of words which will be useful in a wide range of academic fields and topics There is, however, a need for a new word list, catering to the needs of advanced students, who require additional words for daily use in English-speaking contexts In this study, word lists are defined as lists of words related to specific topics for the purpose of daily life use
1.7.2 Selection of vocabulary items in word lists
One guideline for effective vocabulary teaching is careful selection of words to learn or to teach and frequency has been the most common principled way of selection of vocabulary in second or foreign language learning For middle school a key website is Word Generation, based on a large research project: http://wg.serpmedia.org Hiebert and Lubliner (2008) discuss academic vocabulary in schools (including Hiebert‟s Core Academic Word List), as does Marzano (2010) See also Harmon, Wood, and Hedrick
(2008) for middle and secondary content vocabulary and its instruction Kinsella‟s
(2013) text is also geared toward middle school students Teachers who teach English as a foreign language need to help students build up a large vocabulary of useful words during the course However using word lists for rural students is not easy Before setting a criteria for deciding which vocabulary items should be chosen, teachers have to be clear about their aim to decide on what is involved in word lists They also have to know what kind of words and how many words that students should master in a course The reasonable quantity of new words which teacher decides to use in a lesson is also important because if there are too many words, the students may be confused or stressed They feel difficult to remember all
In this study, word lists which were drawn up include target words chosen from the chapters of the course books Research recommends that students learn fewer words (about 8 to 10 lexical items/a word list) and the English language work so that they can infer the meanings of new words The teacher designed these word lists in term of topics The target words will be presented in such a way that their meanings are perfectly clear and unambiguous Then, the students will be practiced using those words through different types of exercises and there are frequent opportunities for students to interact with the words in meaningful contexts Interacting with words in multiple ways and in varied contexts result in durable word learning
1.7.3 Related Studies to word lists
The effectiveness of vocabulary lists has been given importance and has been advocated by so many linguistics (Millington and Siegel, 2010; Sokmen, 1997;
Schmitt and Schmitt, 2012) The studies below have been mentioned to the use of vocabulary lists
In EFL classroom research at a university in Japan, Hoshino (2010) worked with 46 students who were to learn 20 pairs of words for each of five types, namely synonym, antonym, categorical, thematic, and unrelated, divided into lists of 5 or 10 word items Students received the various lists of English words and their Japanese translations and could study them for several days In class, they went through the various lists before they were tested on them using an English-to Japanese translation task Hoshino‟s findings were clear, with statistically significant results: these EFL students learned the words on the lists quite well, and although student learning style did not appear to determine which type of list participants learned best, the test scores and further analyses indicated that the categorical words were apparently “a more effective type of list for L2 vocabulary learning than other lists”
(p 310) Hoshino (2010,p 310) thus concluded, “Presenting new vocabulary in categorical lists promotes vocabulary learning” in the classroom, and “learning from related word lists … should be encouraged”
TakahashiSo (2009,2010) introduced vocabulary instruction through using original word lists The Participants are 55 Bunkyo Gakuin University students in grammar- oriented class, all sophomores from 19 to 21 years of age During spring semester, no special instruction was given to the control group except the pronunciation practice No word lists were provided to these students They were required to learn voluntary and prepare for the vocabulary chapter test on their own During fall semester, experimental group students were given 10 minutes to work on vocabulary in each class period, followed by a feedback test The primary objective of this instruction was to establish students‟ study habits and help them get higher scores on the chapter tests The instruction involved the following four procedures:
(1)10-minute classroom learning using original word lists, (2) 5-minute Feedback testing followed by 10-minutes of study, (3) Clarifying objectives, (4) Emphasizing the importance of repeated study the outside classroom He asked students to review each word list 10 times before the test He made a check box on the top right corner of each word list and had them to mark every time they finished 10-minute vocabulary learning As a result, most individual students improved their test scores This study show that word lists worked well for the students And after the proof, the efficiency of using word lists should be further investigated
In brief, this chapter introduces an informative and theoretical understanding of vocabulary and their relevant aspects This part also presents how to teach word lists in teaching vocabulary All of them were considered the basic background for the current study The next chapter gives a fully detailed description of the methodology to carry out the present study.
METHODOLOGY
This study was carried out as an action research project The aim of action research is to improve the current state of affairs within the educational context in which the research is being carried out To put in another word, action research is a “small- scale intervention in the functioning of the real world and a close examination of the effects of such intervention.” (Cohen & Manion, 1994)
The reason why the researcher chose this approach is that the aim of the study was to improve the current situation - students‟ vocabulary use and in order to investigate how well the students and teachers judge the teaching word lists designed and draw the pedagogical implementation for both teachers and students in their teaching and learning Taking everything into consideration, it was believed that action research was the most appropriate approach to this thesis
It is significant to recognize action research‟s procedure which needs to be followed from one step to another In order to carry out an action research, Ferrance ( 2000, p.18) suggested an action research cycle as follows:
As can be observed from this cycle, to carry out an action research, in the first step, the researcher must identify the problem Then the data is collected for a more detailed diagnosis After that, the researcher has to design a plan of action to make change and to study that change Data on the results of the intervention are collected and analyzed, and the findings are interpreted in light of how successful the action has been At this point, the problem is re-assessed and the process begins another cycle This process continues until the problem is resolved
However, when applying the action research approach, this study follows the general of an action research cycle suggested by Nunan (1992) because it is more specific
Before conducting this action research, the researcher basing on her experience as an English teacher at a secondary school and talking to students gained understanding of their problem in vocabulary learning Some students said that they tended to forget words quickly after class; some know words but do not know the pronunciation and others still remember words, yet they do not know how to use them appropriately It was proved from their English scores which were still low On the other hand, the teacher did not try to improve the situation by applying or using other methods or techniques in order to gain students curiosity, participation and activeness relating to present and practice new vocabulary The teacher liked to have less noisy students, so that there would be less disturbance in teaching-learning activity
Step 2: Preliminary investigation- the researcher based on data which are collected to help understand the nature of the problem: students lack of vocabulary items and they are bad at using vocabulary
Step 3: Hypothesis- A hypothesis is formulated after reviewing the initial data
After having the information from informal chat with students, the researcher developed the following hypothesis for this action research: Using word lists to teach vocabulary is effective It helps students learn, retain and use vocabulary better Besides, this approach provides the teacher an effective way in order to motivate their students in vocabulary learning
Step 4: Intervention- A number of strategies are devised and applied
The researcher designed word list activities and exercises which were believed to be appropriate to the students‟ proficiency These activities and exercises were employed in the classroom with the students after that
Step 5: Evaluation- An assessment is carried out to evaluate the intervention Some steps may be repeated
The research assessment instruments used in this study were a pretest, a posttest, the lesson plans, survey questionnaire, one class observation checklist in which survey questionnaires concluded 19 questions involving the contents of the lesson and teaching method and class observation was carried out to find whether students are interested in the lesson or not
Step6: Dissemination- A report of the research is published Ideas emerged from the research are shared The results of this action research are clearly reported in this thesis
Step7: Follow – up: Alternative solutions for the problem are continually investigated
Having completed the first cycle of this research, the advantages and the limitations of “Using word lists to teach vocabulary” were realized This understanding will be the foundation for the next cycle of the action research, which will be shown in the next chapter
In conclusion, considering that action research is the best choice for the purpose of improving students‟ vocabulary acquisition, and that the action research design is the most practical and feasible for the researcher, the author made decision to conduct an action research which followed the seven- step model suggested by Nunan ( 1992)
2.2 Background of the study 2.2.1 Context of the study
The study investigates the implementation of using word lists in teaching vocabulary to improve students‟ vocabulary use and it was conducted at Gia Vuong secondary school which is located in Gia Vien district, Ninh Binh province There is only one class in grade 7 including 40 students learning there They started learning EFL in the third grade in public elementary schools The researcher chooses this secondary school because she gets easy to do research at there Moreover, this school does not have permanent English teacher, the researcher can explore using word lists in teaching vocabulary by various methods with the head master‟s permission
The study involves 40 students in grade 7 They were chosen from the same class to participate in a 10- week research study to access to learning vocabulary with word lists Those students (both males and females aged twelve) are studying at Gia Vuong secondary school in Ninh Binh province Most of the students come from the poor families in rural area where their living conditions are low and teaching as well as learning conditions in English are limited Although most of them have learnt English for four years, their English knowledge is not good, especially about vocabulary Nearly no students has any kind of English reference at home, except “ Để học tốt tiếng anh 7” which gives the translation of the new word items and the answers to any exercises in the textbook The lazy ones do nothing just copy and write down in the textbook In addition, most of them are not interested in learning English, and they are not motivated in learning this kind of language I found that necessary to apply a different method to help them have more interesting and get a better result
In order to collect data for the study, the following instruments were employed: pretest, posttest, questionnaire, class observation and lesson plans
A pretest and a posttest are the instruments given in order to evaluate the vocabulary use proficiency The students‟ scores on post- test will be compared with the scores of students on pre-test with the same level to determine the effectiveness of the use of word lists in teaching vocabulary The pretest and the posttest in this study were designed equivalently and checked by the experts who are known to have deep understanding about testing Most of the vocabulary items in the tests were selected from the new lexical items in the text book and related to the contents of the topics that students learned before The pretest was conducted before the treatment, which was at the beginning of the term No special technique and language practice were applied in teaching vocabulary before In the pretest, students assigned to answer 40 questions to evaluate their competence in English vocabulary and students‟ understanding on collocation, part of speech especially noun, verb, adjective and adverb, word formation as well as realizing uncommon lexical items All of questions were designed like multiple choice questions which are composed of one question (stem) with multiple possible answers (choices), including one correct answer and several incorrect answers (distractors) 40 questions are divided into four parts: collocation ( 10 questions), uncommon lexical items (15 question), word family (10questions) and part of speech (5 sentences) Students select the correct answer by circling the associated number or letter on the response sheet Each correct answer was given 0,25 point and the maximum score is therefore 10 The test duration was 30 minutes The post test was conducted 8 weeks later with the same design as the pretest, lasting 30 minutes This test involved the lexical items from unit 1 to unit 8
The aims of this test was to assess students vocabulary size and their level of vocabulary use after 8 weeks of the study as well as to make a precise evaluation to see how much they acquired after the process
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
The previous chapter, Methodology, has described and justified the context, the participants, the data collection instruments and the procedures of the data collection and analysis of the study This chapter presents and discusses the findings drawn from the data which were collected to reveal the answers to the research questions of the application of using word lists in teaching vocabulary The data collected from scores of the pretest, the posttest, questionnaires as well as class observations will be analyzed to give answers for the four research questions
3.1 Research question 1: What is students’ vocabulary use proficiency before the implementation of the research?
The result of the pretest of 40 students was shown as followed:
Result of the Pre Test bad average quite good good excellent
Figure 3.1: Result of the Pretest
The pie chart illustrates five types of scores of students in the pretest: Bad ( below
5 mark); average ( from 5 to 6.4); quite good ( from 6.5 to 7.9); good ( from 8 to 9.9) and excellent ( 10) As can be seen from the figure 3.1 above, 35% for the average group while half of the students ( 50%) fell below mark 5 and only 10 % for the quite good group A small percentage of students who have good marks accounted for 5 % and no students got excellent mark In addition, based on the result of the pretest, the data showed that the mean score of pretest is 4.7/10 From that analyzing, it could be seen that almost of the first grade of students‟ vocabulary was still very low It means that they had small vocabulary size and low understanding on using those vocabulary
3.2 Research question 2: What is students’ vocabulary use proficiency after the implementation of the research?
Figure 3.2: Result of the Posttest
Figure 3 2 is truly pleasing in that “excellent” score made their first appearance with 2.5% although there was a small increase of 10 % for the good group and 22.5% for the quite group As observed from the pie charts, 18 out of 40 students
(45 % ) for the average group and 20% students fell below mark 5 Besides, the data showed that the mean score of post test was 5.9/ 10, there was an increase of students‟ mean score from students‟ vocabulary achievement on the preliminary study to that on the posttest In general, many students has improved their vocabulary
3.3 Research question 3 What is the difference in students’ vocabulary use before and after teaching with word lists?
3.3.1 The overall descriptive data of the pre-test and the post-test scores
The researcher used the results of the pretest and posttest to determine their vocabulary improvement after taking part in the study Descriptive data were collected from student‟s tests to determine if there was noted student improvement in this research First, before the main analysis, the internal reliability of the pretest and the posttest was calculated to see whether the items in the tests were reliable for students and they were acceptable instruments in the study or not
The reliability of the tests can be seen in Table 3 :
The pre-test: The post-test
Cronbach's Alpha N of Items Cronbach's Alpha N of Items
Table 3: The reliability of the test
As can be seen from the tables, the reliability statistics obtain two Cronbach‟s Alpha values of 0 688 for the pretest and 0.662 for the post test Based on this reliability test, it can be concluded that these research instruments are of acceptable internal reliability
It can be seen from Table 4, the mean of the pretest for this group is 4.7 and the mean of the posttest for this group is 5.9 For the pretest, the minimum score is 1 and the maximum is 8, whereas for the posttest, the minimum score is 3.25 and the maximum score is 10
Also according to frequency analysis, the number of the participants with the scores below 5 in the pretest was nearly 50 %, whereas in the posttest, this accounted for
20 % Also the percentage of the participants with really impressive scores (ranging from 8 to 10) in the pretest was only 5 %, but in the posttest, the number was nearly
10 % in total That showed a difference in the results from the two tests in which the later ones are higher
3.3.2 Descriptive statistics of sections in the tests
Collocations : Pretest analysis: Collocations: Posttest analysis:
Table 5: The overall descriptive data of collocations
As can be seen from this table, for the first section of the pretest and the posttest about collocations, the mean for the first part of the pre test is 1.20 while that of the post test is 1.64 The minimum score of this part in the pretest is 0.25 and the maximum is 2.25 whereas the minimum score of that for the posttest is 0.75 and the maximum score is 2.50
As a result, there is a small increase in student‟s collocation use ability
Uncommon lexical items : Pretest analysis: Uncommon lexical items: Posttest analysis:
It can be seen from table 6, the mean of the part “ using uncommon lexical items” in the pretest is 1.70 and the mean of that in the posttest for this group is 2.18 For the pretest, the minimum score is 0.25 and the maximum is 3.5, whereas for the posttest, the minimum score is 1.0 and the maximum score is 3.75 It helped to figure out the participants‟ improvement
Word formation - Pretest analysis: Word formation- Posttest analysis:
Table 7: The overall descriptive data of Word formation
As can be seen from this table, the mean of the part “ word formation” in the pretest is 1.06 and the mean of that in the post test is 1.20 For the pretest, the minimum score is 0.25 and the maximum is 2.25, whereas for the posttest, the minimum score is 0.5 and the maximum score is 2.5 It showed an improvement in the participants‟ word formation understanding
Part of speech - Pretest analysis: Part of speech - Posttest analysis:
Table 8: The overall descriptive data of part of speech
It can be seen from table 8, the mean of the part “part of speech” in the pretest is 0.74 and the mean of that in the posttest for this group is 0.84 For the pretest, the minimum score is 0 and the maximum is 1.25, whereas for the posttest, the minimum score is 0 and the maximum score is 1.25 All of these figures helped to
In conclusion, it could be seen from the data that the most outstanding improvement came from the part “using uncommon lexical items” with an impressive change from the mean: 1.70 in pretest to the mean: 2.18 in the post test, up to 0.48 score In contrast, there was a small increase in the part “ part of speech, only up to 0.1 score compared to the mean of this part between the pre test and the posttest The statistical results of this study demonstrated clearly that almost students have improved the skills of word lists although that was a small increase It means that using wordlists in the language classroom is more effective in helping students to learn the target vocabulary
In this part, one sample T- test was used to test the hypothesis of whether or not there is a statistical difference between the pretest scores and post test overall scores They are shown in the table below
Test Value = 4.7125 t df Sig (2-tailed)
95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
As can be seen from the above results, since p < 0.000, it is possible to reject the null hypothesis that the pre-test mean is equal to the post-test mean and to conclude that the mean of the pretest is significantly different from that of the posttest In other words, combined with the previous descriptive results, there is a high possibility that students have progressed significantly in their vocabulary with the use of word lists
3.4 Research question 4 What are students’ attitudes toward using word lists in the language classroom?
With the aim to investigate students‟ general attitude towards using word lists in the interpretively The results shown below are rather significant to the research This part will be presented into 3 main categories: attitude towards the contents of the word lists, attitude towards the skills of word lists, and attitudes to the teacher‟s activities
3.4.1.1 Attitude towards the contents of the word lists
