Luận văn thạc sĩ VNU ULIS promoting learner autonomy in learning vocabulary for second year students at hai phong medical university

Aims and objectives of the study

Firstly, the study aims at improving the students’ autonomous vocabulary learning by teaching them some helpful strategies, namely dictionary-related strategies, recording vocabulary and studying affixes Secondly, it is intended to evaluate their employment of these vocabulary-learning strategies in terms of performance, participation and maintenance These aims can be achieved by answering the following research questions:

1 What are the problems that the students encounter in their independent vocabulary learning?

2 How well do the students use the taught strategies in their guided vocabulary practice?

3 How much do the students use the taught strategies in their guided vocabulary practice?

4 To what extent do the students maintain the taught strategies in their independent vocabulary learning?

5 How effective is the strategy training programme in helping the students learn vocabulary, as perceived by the students?

Scope of the study

The research focuses on one specific way of developing learner autonomy: the explicit teaching of learning strategies A vocabulary-learning strategy training programme is conducted for ten weeks Within the scope of the study, only three strategy sets, namely dictionary-related strategies, recording vocabulary and studying affixes, are taught The effectiveness of the taught strategies is measured in terms of performance, participation and maintenance Performance refers to the extent of correctness when the students use the taught strategies while participation means how much they use these strategies in their guided vocabulary practice Lastly, maintenance refers to the extent of retaining the taught strategies in their independent vocabulary study

The participants include 27 second-year students of the same English class at Hai Phong Medical University and their teacher In this study, the teacher is in charge of teaching the class and plays the role of the researcher at the same time.

Methods of the study

The current study is carried out as an action research, which combines qualitative and quantitative approaches The action actually taken is a vocabulary-learning strategy training programme designed for the duration of ten weeks The programme is divided into three phases

In phase one, pre-treatment questionnaires are distributed to seek the answer for research question one regarding the students’ problem in learning vocabulary Then, the students are taught about three strategy sets, namely dictionary-related strategies, vocabulary-recording and affix-studying

In phase two, three word-learning records are provided as guided practice of the taught strategies The data from the word-records aim at answering the research question two and three about the students’ performance and participation in the use of the taught strategies

In phase three, the students keep free-style vocabulary learning diaries, in which they record the vocabulary they want to learn in their self-study time The diaries are used to answer the research question four about the extent of maintaining the taught strategies in the students’ independent vocabulary learning By the end of phase three, post-treatment questionnaires are distributed to answer the research question five about the learners’

The data from the pre-treatment and post-treatment questionnaires, the word- learning records and vocabulary-learning diaries are calculated with regard to items’ frequency, mean, and percentage.

Significance of the study

First and foremost, the habit of independent vocabulary learning will hopefully be developed for the second-year students at Hai Phong Medical University The students can overcome their difficulties in learning vocabulary by means of monitoring and regulating their self-study with appropriate learning strategies In this way, the researcher hopes that the students’ awareness of learning strategies and learner autonomy can be raised and nurtured

Second, the study offers an example of how learner autonomy can be fostered in an Asian context It is expected that the study will contribute an insightful picture of the practice of Asian learner autonomy to the literature and help to shed light on the concept of learner autonomy.

Overview of the study

The research paper consists of the following parts:

Part A Introduction Part B Development The development is divided into three chapters:

 Chapter one (Literature review) provides the theoretical background of the study, covering the key terms and review of related studies

 Chapter two (Methodology) justifies and describes the methodology of the study in details

 Chapter three (Results and discussion) presents full analysis of the collected data and discusses the findings

LITERATURE REVIEW 1 Vocabulary

Processes of vocabulary acquisition

According to Nation (2001), in order to remember a word, the learner needs to experience three processes, namely noticing, retrieval and creative (generative) use

Most simply, noticing means giving attention to an item This can happen in a variety of ways, including learners deliberately studying a word or having a word explained to them and the word appearing crucial in the textual input Noticing involves decontextualization, which occurs when “the word is removed from its message context to be focused on as a language item” (Nation, 2001: 64) The role of decontextualization is underlined by Nation (2001: 64) “ in order to acquire the language, learners need to consciously see language items as parts of the language system rather than only as messages”

Nation (2001) further distinguishes two kinds of decontextualization: negotiation and definition Although a large number of studies demonstrate that negotiated vocabulary items are more likely to be learned than non-negotiated ones, he points out that it is not the means by which most vocabulary is learned, suggesting the need for other complementary ways of decontextualizing items Especially noteworthy is the discovery that not only the learners actually negotiating but also those observing the negotiation learn the words

Regarding definition, an interesting and significant finding is that simple, short definitions are the most effective while more elaborate ones tend to be confusing rather than helpful for vocabulary learning (Ellis, 1995; Chaudron, 1982, cited in Nation, 2001) In addition, Nation himself has shown that many learners find learning faster if the word meaning is conveyed by a first language translation In the classroom, teachers directly influence students’ noticing process by deciding the context to put the wanted vocabulary items, by pre-teaching or consciousness-raising of the items before the activity and by using different attention-drawing techniques

The second process of vocabulary acquisition is retrieval, which reinforces the meaning of the word in the learner’s mind The more frequent the retrieval of a particular item in the learning process, the greater the chances that the item will strike deeper in the learner’s memory It should be noted that a repetition of a word can only be effective if there is some memory of the previous meeting with the word Thus, the span of time between encounters cannot be too long As Nation (2001: 68) states:

It is very useful to try to estimate how much listening and reading a learner would need to be doing per week in order for incidental receptive vocabulary learning to proceed in an effective way ( ) On average learners would need to listen to stories at least three times a week for about fifteen minutes each time They would need to read about one graded reader every two weeks

The last but major process of vocabulary acquisition is generation, which occurs when “previously met words are subsequently met or used in ways that differ from the previous meeting with the word” (Nation 2001: 68) Those new encounters push learners towards reconceptualization of their knowledge of these words There are also receptive and productive forms of generation Receptive generation occurs when a word is encountered in listening and reading and has slightly different meaning whereas productive generation involves using the word in a new context

The three processes discussed above tend to correspond to the three-point scale for describing depth of processing suggested by Stahl (1985, cited in Nation, 2001) The scale includes three levels, namely association, comprehension and generation.

Vocabulary learning and teaching

The question of what it means for a language learner to “know” a word is a central issue of second language vocabulary acquisition A close examination of the literature has revealed that the nature of lexical knowledge can be depicted as a continuum of several dimensions

On the one hand, several writers have regarded vocabulary learning as the task of mastering its constituents As illustrated by Ur (1996), learners have to know the word form - including pronunciation and spelling, grammar, collocation, aspects of word meaning, and word formation By grammar, he means the information such as irregular past form, irregular plural form, which should be showed to learners, especially when an item has an unpredictable change of form Ur differentiates two levels of meaning aspects

The first level includes denotation, connotation and appropriateness of use in a certain context, and the second level covers meaning relationships, namely synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms, co-hyponyms, superordinates Clearly, knowing a word requires more than just its meaning and form Sharing the view with Ur, Harmer (1991: 158) presents a more detailed and systematic summary of “knowing a word” in the following chart:

Meaning in context Sense relation

Parts of speech Prefixes and suffixes Spelling and pronunciation

Nouns: countable and uncountable, etc

Verb complementation, phrasal verbs, etc

In a much more concise manner, as stated by Finegan (2004: 40), using a word requires that the mental lexicon of children and adults alike should store four kinds of information:

 its sounds and their sequencing (phonological information)

 how related words such as the plural and past tense are formed (morphological information)

 its category and how to use it in a sentence (syntactic information)

On the other hand, some researchers have approached the learning of vocabulary from a broader view For example, Chapelle (1994) suggests a three-component construct of vocabulary ability including (1) the context of vocabulary use, (2) vocabulary knowledge and fundamental processes and (3) metacognitive strategies for vocabulary use

As regards context, it can influence lexical meaning in various ways The second component is further divided into four elements, namely vocabulary size, knowledge of word characteristics, lexicon organization (the way in which lexical items are organized in the mental lexicon) and fundamental vocabulary processes that users apply to access their lexical knowledge Finally, metacognive strategies or strategic competence can be avoidance, paraphrase, guessing meaning, asking teacher or consulting dictionary etc

Another direction in the research of lexical competence is to head for links and interrelationships between the different kinds of word knowledge (Schmitt & Meara,

2.2 Explicit approach vs Incidental learning approach

Vocabulary learning has been emerging in the literature review as a complex, interesting issue that involves different processes The most notable topic is the distinction between explicit and implicit (or incidental) learning

As regards explicit learning, the central idea is that the application of vocabulary learning strategies can greatly facilitate vocabulary acquisition, and learners play an active role in processing information (Ellis, 1995) Unsurprisingly, a large number of books have focused on numerous activities and exercises for explicit study of vocabulary According to a survey by Sokmen (1997 cited in Schmitt, 2000: 146), explicit vocabulary teaching should adhere to the following principles:

 integrate new words with old

 provide a number of encounters with a word

 promote a deep level of processing

 make new words “real” by connecting them to the students’ world in some way

In addition, Schmitt (2000) points out some other important principles First, the problem of cross – association should be prevented This usually happens when similar words, such as “left” and “right”, are initially taught together Students are confused when matching the word form with the right meaning Antonyms, synonyms, and closely related semantic groupings are particularly subject to cross-association As Nation (1990 cited in Schmitt, 2000) suggests, cross association can be avoided by teaching the most frequent word of a pair first and introducing the other only after the first word is well established

Second, the underlying meaning concept of a polysemous word is worth teaching For example, to define the verb “run”, it is best to explain it as “go quickly, smoothly, or continuously” This definition keeps the common underlying trait of several meaning senses like “the girl ran”, “the road runs up the hill”, and “run a business” (Nation, 1990 cited in Schmitt, 2000) Accordingly, students can understand the word in a variety of contexts and the effect of teaching is maximized Last, teaching word families should be made a habit to enhance vocabulary learning

Implicit learning, on the other hand, is defined as “accidental learning of information without the intention of remembering that information” (Hustijn et al., 1996)

Sternberg (1987) argues that most vocabulary is learned implicitly from context An extreme position, having its roots in Krashen’s Input Hypothesis (Krashen, 1989), even states that meanings of new words are acquired subconsciously as a result of repeated exposures in a range of contexts, where the conscious focus is not on form, but on the message To put it simply, the key to incidental learning approach is to make sure that learners get maximum exposure to the language In second language classrooms, this can be best achieved through reading

However, much of the literature has showed that incidental learning through reading occurs only to a limited degree This is attributed to several factors Firstly, lexical inferencing is not always successful For example, word meanings are not inferable from context or lead learners to make wrong inferences Alternatively, not all contexts are equally conducive to make informed guesses Secondly, incidental vocabulary acquisition is unlikely if new words are not noticed or processed deeply Furthermore, the question of how many and what kind of exposures are necessary for acquisition to occur remains unanswered As Hulstijin et al (1996) concludes, incidental learning in second language only occurs incrementally and in small quantities Besides, according to Schmitt and McCarthy (1997), the prerequisites for successful incidental acquisition include:

 Strategic knowledge of inferencing process

 Rich context with sufficient cues All things considered, it is generally agreed that any vocabulary program needs to include both explicit teaching and activities which promote incidental learning In the words of Schmitt (2000: 146), explicitly teaching all the words is necessary for beginners whereas beyond this level, “incidental learning should be structured into the program in a principled way.” Incidental learning not only helps to consolidate vocabulary but also exposes learners to different contexts in which a word is used, thus expanding the knowledge about the word Moreover, some aspects of word knowledge, especially collocation and register constraints, can only be fully acquired through numerous exposures Another reason is that explicitly presenting all the uses of a word to students is obviously an impossible task More specifically, Ellis (1995) contends that both implicit and explicit learning suit different levels of word meaning In his view, implicit vocabulary learning is suitable for simple pattern recognition of surface form, called “shallow processing” while explicit learning necessarily facilitates the mapping of those surface forms to their corresponding semantic/conceptual presentation Explicit learning, therefore, refers to the recognition of word meaning by means of “deep processing”.

Learner autonomy

A close look at the literature has revealed that it is not easy to put forward a proper definition of the concept “autonomy” There exists a range of definitions, each of which explores autonomy from a different perspective and within a certain scope Accordingly, it is essential to study a variety of interpretations in order to capture the full meaning of the concept

To start with, Holec (1981: 3), the so-called “father” of learner autonomy, provides a broad definition which considers learner autonomy “the ability to take charge of one’s own learning” This general but concise definition, from the researcher’s view, really touches upon the spirit of autonomy It is obvious from Holec’s definition that an autonomous learner not only possesses a sense of responsibility for his learning but he/she is also self-conscious of that responsibility

Other writers offer more specific definitions than Holec’s in that they detail what constitutes the ability to take charge of one’s own learning For example, in terms of behavior, Nunan (2000) describes autonomous learners as the ones who make decision on their own style of learning, actively involve themselves in learning process and independently choose their learning materials Alternatively, Little (1991) tends to focus on mental processes when he asserts that learner autonomy is “essentially the matter of the learner’s psychological relation to the process and content of learning – a capacity for detachment, critical reflection, decision making, and independent action.”

Turning attention to the aspect of attitudes, Scharle and Szabo (2000) seem to share the same interest with Holec (1981) when they present a persuasive analysis of the interrelationship between autonomy and responsibility According to the authors, autonomy is defined as “the freedom and ability to manage one’s own affairs, which entails the right to make decisions as well” whereas responsibility is understood as “being in charge of something, but with the implication that one has to deal with the consequences of one’s own actions.” (Scharle & Szabo, 2000: 4) They argue that autonomy and responsibility are interrelated and both require learners’ active involvement Since successful learning depends considerably on learners having a responsible attitude, students need to develop a sense of responsibility together with autonomy capacity

However, Benson (2001: 47) states that it is preferable to define autonomy as the capacity to take control of one’s own learning, largely because the construct of “control” appears to be more open to investigation than the constructs of “charge” or

“responsibility.” In his definition, he specifies three levels of control that a learner should take in order to develop his/her learning autonomy: “An adequate description of autonomy in language learning should at least recognize the importance of three levels at which learner control may be exercised: learning management, cognitive processes and learning content” (Benson, 2001: 50) This definition will be the guideline for the current study

Most interestingly, several writers have approached the concept of autonomy with reference to the combination between independence and interdependence Although independence from a teacher is often seen as an observable sign of autonomy, the value of interdependence, defined as “the ability of learners to work together for mutual benefit, and to take shared responsibility for their learning” (Palfreyman, 2003: 4), can hardly be denied Little and Dam (1998) also argue for the interdependence inside independence:

We are social creatures, and as such we depend on one another in infinity of ways

Without the stimulus and comfort of social interaction, for example, child development is disastrously impaired: it is our condition that we learn from one another Thus, the independence that we exercise through our developed capacity for autonomous behavior is always conditioned and constrained by our inescapable interdependence In contexts of formal learning as elsewhere, we necessarily depend on others even as we exercise our independence

Admittedly, autonomy does not exclude interdependence Learning, like other social communication activities, is more fruitful with the cooperation of people involved

So is autonomous learning Teachers and learners collaborate to contribute to the learning community and to the process of autonomy training Likewise, knowing how and when to seek for help does not mean learners are not independent Therefore, autonomy should be understood as the freedom to choose what action to take, whether to do it oneself or to consult others In fact, according to Palfreyman (2003), collaboration has come to be seen as an important component of learner autonomy Boud (1981, cited in Palfreyman, 2003) has even gone further to regard interdependence as a more developed stage of autonomy than independence

A more general interpretation of the concept “autonomy” is to put it into the frame of daily life An autonomous learner is then depicted as being a fulfilled and effective citizen in a society For example, Candlin (1997, cited in Palfreyman, 2003:2) refers to

“autonomy in language, learning, and above all else, in living.” Similarly, in the words of Delores et al (1996, cited in Palfreyman, 2003) “each individual must be equipped to seize learning opportunities throughout life, both to broaden her or his knowledge skills and attitudes and to adapt to a changing, complex and interdependent world.”

All in all, learner autonomy is a stimulating, multifaceted concept which can be interpreted from different viewpoints Learners’ autonomy encompasses not only their attitudes but also their behaviors It is both a process and a goal in language learning, in education and in living as well

Varied as it may be, the literature on principles of developing autonomy seems to have a common feature It is all concerned with explicit teaching and providing opportunities for learner autonomy to express and develop

First and foremost, in order to foster learner autonomy, it is crucial to increase a sense of responsibility A complete analysis of how to build up learner responsibility is presented by Scharle and Szabo (2000) They identify the building blocks of responsibility and autonomy on the part of learners and teachers The building blocks required of learners include motivation and self-confidence, monitoring and evaluation, learning strategies and finally cooperation and group cohesion Particularly noteworthy is their emphasis on monitoring and evaluation According to Scharle and Szabo (2000: 7), “when we encourage students to focus on the process of their learning rather than the outcome, we help them consciously examine their own contribution to their learning.” This is really the vital step to the development of a responsible attitude Another key point is the teaching of learning strategies, which are regarded as the tools for students to expand their language competence and to undertake their own learning responsibility Students should be shown a variety of available strategies and encouraged to find out which strategies work best for them in certain contexts Meanwhile, certain attitudes are also required of teachers They should be willing to share information with the learners in terms of both short and long term objectives, to take consistent control by clearly establishing expectations towards learners and lastly to delegate tasks and decisions to learners

With a view to reinforcing these skills and attitudes for learners and teachers, Scharle and Szabo (2000) go on to detail the process of developing responsibility that learners and teachers go through This process is divided into three phases: raising awareness, changing attitudes and transferring roles First, the stage of raising awareness includes highly controlled activities which are intended to present new experiences to learners and to make them conscious of the inner processes of their learning Second, the changing – attitude – stage allows repeatable, less controlled activities through which students practise and reinforce their new roles and habits Finally, the stage of transferring roles contains loosely structured activities that give students considerable freedom It is clear that as learners move from one phase to the next, they are facilitated to exercise greater autonomy and more responsibility

Vocabulary learning strategies

Strategy training can be used to help students achieve learner autonomy and linguistic autonomy (Cohen, 1998) By choosing their own strategies without continued prompting from the language teacher, learners should be able to monitor and evaluate the relative effectiveness of their strategy use, and more fully develop their problem-solving skills In this way, learners are encouraged to become more autonomous, to diagnose some of their own learning strengths and weaknesses, and to self-direct the process of language development This section offers a literature review concerning the training of vocabulary learning strategies

There is no consensus on a definition of learning strategies due to different interpretations of the term strategy in the literature

Several writers seem to pay attention to the utility of learning strategies when defining them For example, Rubin (1975: 43) provides a very broad definition of learning strategies as “the techniques or devices which a learner may use to acquire knowledge.”

Similarly, in the view of Willing (1989), learning strategies may be identified as specific study skills or techniques, a general ability to take the initiative or just an enthusiasm for learning while Beckman (2006) considers learning strategies a set of steps to accomplish a particular task such as taking a test, comprehending text and writing a story In a more specific manner, Oxford (1990: 8) states that “ learning strategies are operations employed by learners to aid the acquisition, storage, retrieval, and use of information.” She further stresses the richness of learning strategies by expanding the definition, “ learning strategies are specific actions taken by learners to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective, and more transferable to new situations”

(Oxford, 1990:8) It is obvious from these definitions that learning strategies serve as the tool to facilitate learning

Other writers, however, put more focus on the inner process that learners experience when they employ learning strategies In a helpful survey article, Weinstein and Mayer (1986: 315) define learning strategies broadly as "behaviours and thoughts that a learner engages in during learning" which are "intended to influence the learner's encoding process." Later Mayer (1988: 11) more specifically defines learning strategies as

"behaviours of a learner that are intended to influence how the learner processes information." These definitions have the root in cognitive science, with its essential assumption that learning involves information processing In a similar vein, Rubin (1987:

29) views learning as “the process by which information is obtained, stored, retrieved, and used”, so learning strategies can be any set of operations, steps, plans, routines used by the learner which affect this process More specifically, Cohen (1998: 4) portrays learning strategies as “ learning processes which are consciously selected by the learner.” He emphasizes that, “The element of choice is important here because this is what gives a strategy its special character These are also moves which the learner is at least partially aware of, even if full attention is not being given to them” (Cohen, 1998:4) In his view, the element of consciousness is what distinguishes strategies from those processes that are not strategic Although some writers maintain that strategies can be used unconsciously (Barnett, 1988 and Davies, 1995, cited in Yang, 2006: 316), Cohen’s emphasis on consciousness is quite reasonable In the researcher’s view, since learning strategies are operations used by learners to ease the learning process, the strategies can only work best if learners are well aware of what strategies they are using, how and when to use them

4.2 Classification of vocabulary learning strategies

Among several taxonomies of vocabulary learning strategies available in the literature, the one proposed by Schmitt (1997) is highly appreciated because of its advantages over the others; thus, the present study is conducted in the light of Schmitt’s comprehensive taxonomy

The classification in Schmitt’s study was based on the two dimensions developed by Oxford (1990) and Nation (1990) The first dimension was adopted from Oxford’s system of learning strategies which contain six groups: social, memory, cognitive, metacognitive, affective and compensation Social strategies (SOC) use interaction with other people to improve language learning Memory strategies (MEM) relate new material to existing knowledge Cognitive strategies (COG) exhibit the common function of manipulation or transformation of the target language by the learner

Metacognitive (MET) strategies involve a conscious overview of the learning process and making decisions about planning, monitoring, or evaluating the best ways to study

Affective strategies exhibit how to manage one’s emotions in language learning

Compensation strategies involve different ways of compensating for missing knowledge

However, Schmitt (1997) only adopted four strategy groups: Social, Memory, Cognitive, and Metacognitive Besides, he added a new category – Determination Strategies (DET) to account for situations when an individual discovered a new word meaning without resource to another person’s expertise The second dimension is the distinction between initial discovery of word meanings and remembering words that divide strategies into discovery and consolidation groups respectively (Nation, 1990) Taken together, Schmitt’s taxonomy contains 58 individual strategies characterized by the discovery – consolidation division and into five groups, namely social, memory, cognitive, metacognitive and determination Appendix 1 presents Schmitt’s final version of taxonomy of vocabulary learning strategies

Before any discussion on setting an appropriate framework for strategy training, it is important to investigate some central issues in instruction in learning strategies

The first topic concerns whether strategy instruction should be provided as a separate program or as an integrated component in the language or content subject course

Those in favor of separate strategy training programs argue that students will learn strategies better if all their attention is focused on strategic processing skills (Jones et al

1987, cited in O’Malley & Chamot, 1990: 152) However, integrated strategy instruction programs tend to have much more advantages First, Wenden (1987) asserts that learning in contexts outperforms learning separate skills Scharle and Szabo (2000) also regard the regular school curriculum a meaningful context for strategy training Second, it saves time and money to combine strategy training with regular courses In the case of Vietnam, where few separate strategy training courses are offered, it is advisable that teachers integrate strategy instruction into their daily teaching

The second argument is between direct and embedded strategy instruction, which can be named explicit and implicit instruction respectively As defined by O’Malley and Chamot (1990: 153), “ In direct instruction, students are informed of the value and purpose of strategy training, whereas in embedded instruction, students are presented with activities and materials structured to elicit the use of the strategies being taught but are not informed of the reasons why this approach to learning is being practiced.” Again, direct instruction is more advantageous than embedded one Although Jones (1983, cited in O’Malley &

Chamot, 1990) points out that embedded strategy training requires little teacher training, other researchers criticize it for not fostering learner autonomy For example, in the words of Wenden (1987), “ students who are not aware of the strategies they are using do not develop independent learning strategies and have little opportunity of becoming autonomous learners.” In contrast, strategy training which includes a metacognitive component by informing students about the purpose and importance of the strategies can help to maintain strategy use over time and to transfer strategies to new tasks (Brown et al.,

1986, cited in O’Malley & Chamot, 1990: 153) In addition, according to Scharle and Szabo (2000), explicit training may also encourage a collaborative spirit between the teacher and the learner Because of the advantages discussed above, the strategy training component of the present study will be conducted as an integrated part of the language course in the most explicit manner

As regards frameworks for learning strategy instruction, most of them have been designed to raise students’ awareness as to the purpose and rationale of strategy use, to give students opportunities to practice the strategies that they are being taught, and to help them understand how to use the strategies in new learning contexts Cohen (1998) recommends seven steps towards the design of strategy training for learners They are outlined below:

 Determining the learners’ needs and the resources available for training

 Considering the benefits of integrated strategy training

 Preparing the materials and activities

 Evaluating and revising the strategy training Cohen (1998) emphasizes that an integral part of the strategy training is ongoing evaluation and revision The training program can be evaluated by means of student performance across language tasks and skills, maintenance of the new strategies over time, effective transfer of strategies to other learning tasks and a positive attitude towards the training program (Wenden, 1987; Oxford, 1990) This ongoing assessment is certainly based on feedback from the learners themselves

In the present research, the general guidelines from O’Malley & Chamot (1990) and Cohen (1998) will be followed.

METHODOLOGY 1 Background of the study

Current learning and teaching of English at Hai Phong

English, a compulsory subject for all the students at Hai Phong Medical University, is taught in two separate stages In the first stage, the students learn General English for four successive semesters They are expected to complete the elementary level after the first two semesters and then the pre-intermediate level after the next two semesters In the second stage, they study English for Medicine during the fifth semester Each semester lasts 15 weeks, and the English class meets for a four-period lesson each week Obviously, the time spent on English learning and teaching is rather limited.

Identification of the problem

By the end of 2009, the second-year class that I had been teaching at Hai Phong Medical University seemed to have a declining performance in English They showed a lack of interest in reading and vocabulary lessons and their first-term test results were rather low Having taught them for three successive semesters, I immediately realized that they were having some problems learning English I decided to investigate the situation by having an open talk with the whole class The talk turned out to be a lively discussion in which my students expressed their feelings about learning English Most of them shared the view that learning vocabulary was the most difficult and most important to them More specifically, a considerable number of new words in each English lesson might discourage them To make the matter worse, only four English periods per week meant that the in- class time for vocabulary learning was inadequate In order to help my students overcome their difficulty in learning vocabulary, I intended to further investigate the situation and then design a remedy plan Considering that the time in class was so restricted, the first thought that came to my mind then was how to teach my students to learn vocabulary effectively in their self-study time That idea was then further clarified into two tasks First,

I needed to raise my students’ awareness of learner autonomy in learning vocabulary

Second, I wanted to teach them some vocabulary-learning strategies that might help them to learn vocabulary effectively on their own To fulfill these tasks, I decided to carry out a vocabulary-learning strategy training programme as an action research with my students.

Participants

The participants of the action research included 27 second-year students from the same English class at Haiphong Medical University and I myself as the teacher-researcher

The students, aged 20, are all from the countryside Most of them have been learning English for over seven years, and three of them have been learning English for about five years During their first two years at university, they are required to attend General English courses as a prerequisite to move on to the Medical English course in the third-year Their level of English proficiency is that of pre-intermediate The textbook used in their second – year General English course is Headway – Pre-intermediate The English class meets every week for a lesson of four periods, which last nearly three hours and a half

I have been working at Haiphong Medical University for five years I have been teaching the class since they entered the university In this action research, I was the practitioner and the researcher at the same time I was responsible for the design and implementation of the vocabulary-learning strategy training programme, and later collecting and analyzing the data.

Implementation of the action research

The research was carried out to answer the following research questions:

1 What are the problems that the students encounter in their independent vocabulary learning?

2 How well do the students use the taught strategies in their guided vocabulary practice?

3 How much do the students use the taught strategies in their guided vocabulary practice?

4 To what extent do the students maintain the taught strategies in their independent vocabulary learning?

5 How effective is the strategy training programme in helping the students learn vocabulary, as perceived by the students?

In order to answer these research questions, a vocabulary-learning strategy training

First, this research was initiated in order to help students learn vocabulary more effectively in their self-study time The problem-focused nature of action-research really suits that purpose As Burns (2000: 293) defines, “Action research is the application of fact finding to practical problem solving in a social situation with a view to improving the quality of action within it, involving the collaboration and cooperation of researchers, practitioners and laymen” Sharing the same view, Carr and Kemmis (1983) states that

“action research is a form of self-reflective inquiry that can be utilized by teachers in order to improve the rationality and justice of their own practice, their understanding of these practices and the situations in which these practices are carried out”

Second, this study was not intended to make a generalization but to offer an insightful picture of the teacher - researcher’s own teaching practice with a class of 27 students Therefore, action research was chosen because “it is very focused on individual or small-group professional practice and is not so concerned with making general statements” (Wallace, 1998: 18) In other words, the characteristic of being context- specific is suitable for the current study As Cohen and Manion (1985) point out, action research is first and foremost situational, being concerned with the identification and solution of problems in a specific context

Last but not least, action research was the most suitable research methodology for the current study because it could be carried out concurrently with the teacher-researcher’s teaching The researcher herself is a teacher, so the research must not interfere with or disrupt her teaching job

The action research was conducted during the second term of school year 2009 -

2010 It was divided into three phases as follows:

This phase was intended to answer research question 1: “ What are the problems that the students encounter in their independent vocabulary learning?”

Week 1: The students were explicitly introduced to the vocabulary-learning strategy training programme so that they were well aware of what they were expected to do during the second semester of the school-year As already discussed in the literature review, the direct instruction approach was chosen because of its obvious advantages over implicit training It was also made clear to the students that their participation in the project was voluntary, and would not be marked for the official assessment of the semester Then, pre-treatment questionnaires were distributed to the students

Week 2 – 4: During the next three weeks, the students were given a strategy teaching lesson each week The strategy training was designed to be integrated into the vocabulary sections of the English lessons so that the students learned the vocabulary and the strategies at the same time In this way, the strategies being trained were connected to the vocabulary of the lessons and did not affect the teaching progress of the syllabus

From the taxonomy of vocabulary learning strategies suggested by Schmitt (1997), nine strategies were selected These strategies were then clustered into three sets based on how related they were as below:

Strategy Set Strategy Group Strategy

DET Using a bilingual dictionary MEM Study the spelling of a word

MEM Study the sound of a word

MEM Remember part of speech

COG Take notes in class

MEM Group words together to study them

DET Analyze affixes and roots

MEM Remember affixes and roots

These three sets of strategies were taught successively for three weeks The reason why the researcher had selected these strategy sets, namely dictionary-related strategies, recording vocabulary, and studying affixes, was that they could be considered the most basic ones to facilitate students in their independent learning

The lesson plans for these three strategy-training lessons can be seen in Appendix

2 The activities of the lessons were designed to present the strategy sets and offer some controlled practice of the strategies

The aims of this phase were to answer the following research questions:

2 How well do the students use the taught strategies in their guided vocabulary practice?

3 How much do the students use the taught strategies in their guided vocabulary practice?

Phase two, which lasted three weeks, provided the students with guided practice of the strategy sets that had already been taught in Phase One The students were given a word-learning record weekly and were supposed to complete it in their self-study time The word-learning records are described in greater details in the section of Instruments of data collection

This phase aimed at answering the last two research questions:

4 To what extent do the students maintain the taught strategies in their independent vocabulary learning?

5 How effective is the strategy training programme in helping the students learn vocabulary, as perceived by the students?

During Phase Three, the students were asked to keep a free-style vocabulary learning diary The purpose of the vocabulary diaries was to discover the students’ practice of independent vocabulary learning after they had been receiving strategy – training The diary details are given in the section of Instrument of data collection

By the end of the second semester, a post-treatment questionnaire survey was conducted to reveal the students’ perception of vocabulary-learning strategy training.

Instruments of data collection

4.1 Description of the pre-treatment questionnaire

The pre-treatment questionnaire consists of two questions Question 1 aims at discovering the students’ problems in learning vocabulary by asking them to rank five problems of learning vocabulary in the order of degree The five problems can be classified into two categories Items A, B, and C are context-bound whereas items D and E are task- specific Question 2 is about the strategies used by the students in their independent vocabulary learning However, only the three sets of the vocabulary strategy training programme, namely dictionary-related strategies, recording vocabulary and studying affixes, are included The purpose of question 2 is to investigate the students’ frequency of using these sets of strategies when learning vocabulary For each set of strategies, the students are asked to circle one of the numbers in a Likert scale from 1 to 5 to indicate how often they use the strategies Thus number 1 means “never”, number 2 means “rarely”, number 3 “sometimes” (50% of the time), number 4 “often” and number 5 “always”

Closed-ended questions designed as a Likert scale are helpful in that they elicit specific answers about the matter studied Space is also provided so that students can list other strategies that they use in learning vocabulary The pre-treatment questionnaires (English and Vietnamese versions) are presented in Appendices 5 and 6

4.2 Description of the vocabulary – learning records

The three vocabulary – learning records were used to offer the students guided practice of the strategy sets that had already been taught in phase one Each record consists of a short reading text, followed by two tasks Task 1 is intended to disclose the students’ actual practice of Strategy Set 1 (Dictionary-related strategies) and Set 2 (Recording vocabulary) whereas Task 2 aims at revealing their practice of Strategy Set 3 (Studying affixes) The reason why Set 1 and Set 2 are investigated in the same task is that because of the nature of this specific task, these two sets are quite interrelated and that learners may use multiple strategies at the same time to complete a task Both of the tasks are divided into two parts: Part A and Part B Part A is designed to score the students’ performance (how well) of using the strategy sets studied while Part B serves to score their participation (how much) in using these sets to study vocabulary In the current research, performance refers to the extent of correctness when the students use the taught strategies while participation means how much they use these strategies in their guided vocabulary practice More specifically, Part A and Part B aim at answering research questions 2 and 3 respectively In Part A, the students are given five words taken from the reading text and asked to complete information about them such as part of speech, pronunciation, translation, and example or collocation or extra note for Task 1, and to give the corresponding forms of noun, verb, adjective and adverb for Task 2 In Part B, however, the students are free to choose from any one to five words they wish to study and record them in the same way as in Part A The intended function of Part B is to cast light on their autonomous and self-directed participation in practicing the strategies The three vocabulary – learning records are given in Appendix 3 A criteria frame designed to mark the records is presented in Table 1

Table 1 Criteria for evaluating word-learning records

A To evaluate the performance of the strategy

The performance is ranked based on the percentage of correct items out of the answered items

B To evaluate the participation in the use of the strategy

Total items to fill in: 4 x 5 = 20 items

The participation is ranked based on the percentage of filled-in items out of the total 20

Note Performance: the extent of correctness when the students use the taught strategies Participation: how much the students use the taught strategies

4.3 Description of the vocabulary learning diary

The purpose of the free-style vocabulary diaries was to discover the students’ practice of independent vocabulary learning after they had been receiving strategy – training Consequently, no rigid form of the diary was given The learners were given clear instructions before they started keeping the vocabulary learning diaries For each entry of the diary, the learners were required to describe the context of the recorded vocabulary items and then record the items in any style they like The context includes information concerning the source of the selected vocabulary items, the time and the place of self- studying Since diaries are not “predetermined”, they promise to provide the researcher with real and rich information about how the students learn vocabulary (Rea-Dickins and Germaine, 1992:61) They help to reveal each learner’s style or strategy of learning vocabulary and to offer an insight into the degree to which the three trained strategy sets work for the students In other words, the vocabulary diaries function as the tool to score the students’ maintenance of the previously trained strategies Some samples of the students’ vocabulary learning diaries are shown in Appendix 4

In order to score the students’ maintenance of use of the three strategy sets, a holistic rubric was designed (See Table 2) Holistic scales or rubrics respond to language performance as a whole Each score on a holistic scale represents an overall impression; one integrated score is assigned to a performance The emphasis in holistic scoring is on what a student does well Holistic rubrics commonly have four or six points For the purpose of this research, the rubric mainly focused on the degree to which the students maintained using the strategies being studied By means of the rubric, each vocabulary learning diary was given three marks indicating the maintenance levels of the three strategy sets under investigation

Table 2 Holistic rubric for marking the maintenance of the trained strategy sets

A relatively large number of strategy occurrences or strategy entries; an adequate number of words for each strategy occurrence; includes full, accurate elaborations of each word; (items are well – organized; a variety of vocabulary organizations)

A sufficient number of strategy occurrences; an adequate number of words for each strategy occurrence; includes satisfactory elaborations of each word;

(clear, easy – to – follow organization)

A limited number of strategy occurrences; just a few words for each strategy occurrence; includes only some sketchy details of each word; (little variety of vocabulary organization)

1 Few or no strategy occurrences; just one or two words for each strategy occurrence; few details of each word; (no variety of vocabulary organization)

Note: Strategy occurrence is counted according to the number of diary entries in which the strategy is used

Those in brackets are ONLY supplemented to mark Set 2 - Recording vocabulary

4.4 Description of the post – treatment questionnaire

The rationale for the post – treatment questionnaire is to expose the students’ retention as well as their perception of the three trained strategy sets The questionnaire is made up of four parts Part I requires the students to circle a number in a Likert scale from one to five to indicate how often they use a specific strategy set after they have already attended the strategy training programme Part II also makes use of a five-item Likert scale to elicit the students’ evaluation of the usefulness of the three trained strategy sets

Similarly, in Part III of the questionnaire, the students judge the effectiveness of the strategy training program by means of a Likert scale With a view to discovering the students’ expectations towards the training of vocabulary-learning strategies, Part IV of the post-treatment questionnaire consists of three questions Among them, question 5 and question 6 are designed as open – ended ones so that students can freely express their ideas concerning vocabulary strategy training The post-treatment questionnaires (English and Vietnamese versions) can be seen in Appendix 7 and 8.

Data collection procedures

As already mentioned this action research was divided into three phases and carried out during the second term of school year 2009 -2010 Therefore, data was collected as each phase went on

During the first week of Phase One, pre-treatment questionnaires were delivered before the strategy training programme started From week 2 to week 4 of Phase One, the students were explicitly taught about the three selected sets of vocabulary learning strategies, namely dictionary-related strategies, recording vocabulary and studying affixes

Next, for three weeks of Phase Two, the students handed in a word-learning record weekly

That would result in the total of three word-learning records for each student Then came Phase Three with the task of keeping the vocabulary learning diaries for the next three weeks before the students submitted them to the teacher Finally, by the end of the semester, the post-treatment questionnaires were distributed

All the data from the two questionnaires, the word-learning records and the vocabulary-learning diaries were gathered and analyzed.

Data analysis procedures

The data were calculated by means of Microsoft Excel application The interpretation of the data was based mainly on the calculation of the percentage, the frequency and the mean To answer the research questions, the data from the word-learning records were used to work out the participation in and the performance of use of the trained strategies whereas the data from the vocabulary learning diaries served to display the maintenance of these strategies

The data from the pre-treatment and post-treatment questionnaires showed other dimensions of the students’ actual practice of using vocabulary learning strategies such as the difficulties encountered and their perception of strategy training The results were illustrated in tables and graphs to facilitate interpretations.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 1 Phase One - Research question 1: Students’ problems in independent

Phase Two

The aims of this phase were to answer the next two research questions:

Research question 2: How well do the students use the taught strategies in their guided vocabulary practice?

Research question 3: How much do the students use the taught strategies in their guided vocabulary practice?

To answer research question 2, three word-learning records of each learner were marked in terms of performance score whereas research question 3 was answered by means of participation score In the current research, performance refers to the extent of correctness when the students use the taught strategies while participation means how much they use these strategies in their guided vocabulary practice The criteria presented in Table 1 (Chapter 3) were used to calculate the performance and participation score of each word-learning record

2.1 Research question 2: Students’ performance in the use of the taught strategies

2.1.1 Students’ performance in the use of Strategy Set 1 and Set 2

The students’ performance in the use of Strategy Set 1 (Dictionary-related strategies) and Set 2 (Recording vocabulary) through three word-learning records is illustrated by Table 3

Table 3 Students’ performance in the use of Dictionary-related strategies and Vocabulary - recording strategies Word record 1 Word record 2 Word record 3

Obviously, almost all the students (26 out of 27) got the satisfactory performance scores, which range from mark 3 to mark 5 and are shaded in pink in the table In other words, 26 out of 27 students used dictionary-related strategies and vocabulary recording strategies quite well Only one student, who got a substandard mark (shaded in blue), failed to use these two taught strategy sets Most noticeably, a large number of the students got mark 5 – the highest score, and even more noteworthy, the number of mark-five scorers increased through the three records (14, 21 and 25) It shows that more and more students used the two strategy sets with remarkable accuracy throughout the phase of guided vocabulary practice

2.1.2 Students’ performance in the use of Strategy Set 3

Table 4 presents the students’ performance in the use of Strategy Set 3 – Studying affixes As can be seen, nearly all the students (26 out of 27) received the standard mark between mark 3 and mark 5, which is shaded in pink Approximately half of the students (48%) got mark 4 and about the other half got mark 5 for word record 1 and 3 It meant that the majority of the students could use affix-studying strategies accurately and effectively in their guided vocabulary practice Only one student got the substandard mark shaded in blue and was unable to use this strategy set

Table 4 Students’ performance in the use of Affix - studying strategies

Word record 1 Word record 2 Word record 3

In comparison with the number of mark-five scorers for dictionary-related set and vocabulary-recording set (14, 21, 25), that for affix-studying set is lower (11, 5, 13) It indicates that the students used dictionary-related and vocabulary-recording strategies better than affix-studying strategies This is probably because analyzing and remembering affixes requires not only practice but also sufficient knowledge of word formation such as prefixes, suffixes and compound words, which tends to take a longer time to accumulate and absorb than the skills of using dictionaries and recording vocabulary

To sum up, the majority of the students showed great performance of the three taught strategy sets, namely dictionary-related set, vocabulary-recording set and affix- studying set In other words, the students used the taught strategies quite well in their guided vocabulary practice

2.2 Research question 3: Students’ participation in the use of the taught strategies

2.2.1 Students’ participation in the use of Strategy Set 1 and Set 2

The students’ participation in using Strategy Set 1 (Dictionary-related strategies) and Set 2 (Vocabulary-recording strategies) for their guided vocabulary practice is represented in Table 5 As the figures show, only about two-thirds of the participants (96%, 63%, 78%) got the marks in the standard range from mark 3 to mark 5 (shaded in pink) It implies that only these two-thirds used the dictionary-related strategy set and vocabulary-recording set as much as required, which is rather low The other one-third, who got mark 1 or 2 (shaded in blue), just used these two sets of strategies to a very limited extent in their guided vocabulary practice From a quarter to nearly half of the students used dictionary-related strategies and vocabulary-recording strategies to the fullest extent (48%, 26% and 33% got mark 5 for the three word records respectively) A considerable fluctuation in the percentages of the five mark groups also indicates an uneven participation of the students throughout three word records

Table 5 Students’ participation in the use of Dictionary-related strategies and Vocabulary - recording strategies Word record 1 Word record 2 Word record 3

2.2.2 Students’ participation in the use of Strategy Set 3

Table 6 depicts the students’ participation in the use of Strategy Set 3 (Affix- studying strategies) Like the participation scores for dictionary-related strategies and vocabulary-recording strategies, the students getting from mark 3 to mark 5 made up over two-thirds of the participants (70.5%, 66% and 89%) It meant two-thirds of the students used affix-studying strategies as much as expected for their guided vocabulary practice

Also similar to dictionary-related and vocabulary recording set, the extent of using affix- studying strategy set was uneven among three word records This is illustrated by the fluctuating proportions of the mark groups throughout three word records For example, the proportion of the mark-five scorers considerably decreased (48%, 22% and 26%)

Table 6 Students’ participation in the use of Affix - studying strategies

Word record 1 Word record 2 Word record 3

Phase Three

Phase Three aims at answering the last two research questions:

Research question 4: To what extent do the students maintain the taught strategies in their independent vocabulary learning?

Research question 5: How effective is the strategy training programme in helping the students learn vocabulary, as perceived by the students?

Research question 4 is answered by calculating the maintenance scores of the taught strategies by means of the free-style vocabulary-learning diaries Unlike the guided practice of the three word records, the vocabulary learning diaries are the students’ self study, so they have the potential of revealing new aspects of the students’ independent vocabulary learning Research question 5 is answered by means of the post-treatment questionnaire

3.1 Research question 4: Students’ maintenance of the taught strategies in independent vocabulary learning

Based on the holistic rubric, each vocabulary-learning diary was given three marks indicating the maintenance levels of the three trained strategy sets Figure 2 illustrates the students’ maintenance of the strategies according to percentage and the four-point scale

As can be seen, about half of the students got mark 3 for maintaining dictionary – related strategies and recording vocabulary (55.6% and 44% respectively) It means half of the class continued using dictionary-related strategies and vocabulary-recording strategies to a significant extent for their self-study after they had been taught to use these two strategy sets On the contrary, nearly two-thirds of the learners had a rather low maintenance of affix-studying strategies: 63% got mark 1 It indicates that these two-thirds just used affix- studying strategies to a very limited degree for their independent vocabulary learning

F igure 2 Students' maintenance of the taught strategies in independent vocabulary learning

Dictionary-related strategies Vocabulary-recording

A glance at the mark-three group and mark-four group shows that the maintenance level of dictionary-related strategies was the highest, then vocabulary-recording strategies studying strategies Understandably, studying affixes requires a considerable accumulation of word formation knowledge, so it has little chance of being well-maintained within a short period of ten weeks The maintenance of the three taught strategy sets also indicates that the students used dictionary-related strategies the most frequently for their vocabulary self-study while affix-studying strategy set was the least frequently used among the three strategy sets

3.2 Research question 5: Students’ perception of the effectiveness of the strategy training programme

The pre-treatment and post-treatment questionnaires were used to explore the students’ perception of the vocabulary-learning strategy training programme It was revealed through a comparison between their reported frequency of using the three trained strategy sets before and after the training programme, through the usefulness of the trained strategies as perceived by the students and finally through the students’ evaluation of the training programme

3.2.1 Students’ frequency of using the taught strategies before and after the training programme

A means of judging the effectiveness of the vocabulary-learning strategy training programme was to compare the mean of frequency of using the three trained strategy sets before and after the training took place Figure 3 presents the students’ frequency of vocabulary strategy use before and after the training

Figure 3 Frequency of vocabulary strategy use before and after training

Obviously, the frequency mean of each strategy set after the training was higher than that before the training It implies that the students used all the three taught strategy sets more frequently after they had participated in the strategy training programme

Another worth-mentioning point is that the frequency order of the three strategy sets remained the same both before and after the training Dictionary-related strategies were the most-frequently used, and then came vocabulary-recording strategies and lastly, affix- studying strategies were the least-frequently used among the three strategy sets

3.2.2 Usefulness of the taught strategies

Figure 4 displays the usefulness of the taught strategy sets as perceived by the students Most significantly, nearly all the students considered dictionary-related strategies and vocabulary-recording strategies quite useful because they gave these two strategy sets the mark range from 3 to 5 Specifically, about half of the students (51.9%) gave mark 4 for dictionary-related strategies, which means the dictionary strategy set was judged to be highly useful by half of the students Nearly one-fifth of the learners (18.5%) thought dictionary-related strategies and vocabulary-recording strategies were extremely useful and gave mark 5 for these two sets As regards affix-studying strategies, two-thirds of the students, who gave the mark range from 3 to 5, considered this strategy set quite useful

The other one-third thought affix-studying strategies had only limited usefulness (7% gave mark 1 and 26% gave mark 2 for affix-studying strategies)

Figure 4 Usefulness of the taught strategies

Mark 1 Mark 2 Mark 3 Mark 4 Mark 5

To conclude, dictionary-related strategies were regarded as being the most useful of the three sets, then vocabulary-recording strategies came second, and the last position was for affix-studying strategies These findings tie in with the results of Schmitt (1997)’s study Schmitt asked a total of 600 Japanese students and company employees with regard to actual strategy use and perceived helpfulness The number one in both categories proved to be consulting a bilingual dictionary Similarly, Gu and Johnson (1996) and Wu (2005) found that the majority of students selected “bilingual dictionary” as the most used and the most helpful strategy

3.2.3 Students’ evaluation of the strategy training programme

The effectiveness of the vocabulary-learning strategy training programme was illustrated by Figure 5 As can be seen, the majority of the students assessed the training programme as highly effective (67% and 11% of the students gave mark 4 and mark 5 respectively to rate the effectiveness of the programme) Only 7 % gave mark 2, which means only two out of 27 students evaluated the programme as having a very limited effectiveness

Figure 5 Effectiveness of the strategy training programme

The students’ high opinions of the strategy training programme are further clarified by the information from the post-treatment questionnaires For questions 4 and 5 of the post-treatment questionnaire, all of the 27 students indicated that they would like to be further trained in vocabulary-learning strategies because of different reasons These reasons can be classified into five categories Firstly, 12 out of 27 students stated that the strategy training made them know how to learn vocabulary effectively As one student put it, “Vocabulary-learning strategy training made me more self-aware of learning vocabulary; helping to learn vocabulary better, faster and more effectively” Sharing the same idea, another student pointed out that “Not everyone has a good way of learning vocabulary for themselves Accordingly, vocabulary learning strategy training is vital for learning English” Secondly, 10 students listed specific usefulness of vocabulary-learning strategy training as a cause for promoting further strategy teaching According to them, the training programme made them invest more time into vocabulary study, learn vocabulary more regularly, learn more words and more meanings of the same words and enlarge their vocabulary Most remarkably, several of them shared the view that the training helped them memorise more words and memorise better To be specific, one of them claimed that,

“Because of the vocabulary learning strategies, I am now more active in learning vocabulary - I learn not only the words in the lessons, but also those in songs and newspapers The strategy of recording vocabulary makes the lessons easier and helps me remember words more easily” Thirdly, six of the students admitted feeling more motivated or interested in learning due to the strategy training For example, one student wrote, “I felt more interested in English; therefore, I learned more effectively At the same time, I was motivated to learn vocabulary in a self-aware manner and could memorize more words” Next, four students declared that the training programme helped to develop other skills like speaking, listening, reading and writing One of them clarified, “The training programme helped me to use words in writing and speaking” Lastly, one reason for more strategy training concerned the important role of vocabulary in language learning

As one student explained, “For many students, learning English is difficult mostly because of vocabulary; hence, it is very important to be trained in vocabulary-learning strategies”

Another student recommended that “Vocabulary-learning strategy training should be done regularly since vocabulary is the ground for the four language skills”

It is clear that the students felt the need for being taught how to learn vocabulary as they admitted when expressing their reasons for the desire to get more strategy training

All of them would like to be further trained, and about half of them stated that through training, they could learn the method of studying vocabulary better and more effectively

This is further explained by the information revealed from the pre-treatment questionnaire that the students’ biggest difficulty in learning vocabulary is not knowing how to learn

Pedagogical implications from the findings

The findings of the present study have yielded several implications for the training of vocabulary-learning strategies

Firstly, it is worth considering what strategies should be taught to students It is clear from the findings that the strategy sets of using a bilingual dictionary and recording vocabulary were not only perceived as most useful but they also proved to be regularly- used and well-retained Accordingly, these two strategies sets can be regarded as the basic ones that should be trained first and foremost In other words, it is essential to introduce students to the strategies of using a bilingual dictionary and recording vocabulary as early as possible, paving the way for any further instruction of other vocabulary-learning strategies

Secondly, it is highly advisable for teachers to take account of the characteristics of each strategy For example, the strategy of studying affixes tends to require considerable time duration in order to be effectively used and well-maintained This should be borne in mind when teachers design a plan for strategy instruction

Lastly, the students’ feedback from the post-treatment questionnaire reveals that explicit strategy training is heartily welcomed and highly appreciated by learners

Therefore, it is recommended that strategy instruction should be conducted in a most explicit way so that students become well aware of the rationale and manipulation of each strategy Furthermore, the students’ appreciation of explicit strategy instruction indicates that strategy training is of great importance if teachers want to develop learners’ vocabulary.

Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study

Despite the researcher’s attempt to carry out the research, some shortcomings are unavoidable

In the first place, this action research was conducted for 10 weeks, which may be a relatively short time If the duration of the strategy training programme had been lengthened, the results of the study could have been more comprehensive and reliable

Additionally, the study just focused on three specific strategy sets, namely dictionary-related strategies, recording vocabulary and studying affixes Future research into other vocabulary-learning strategies is still much needed

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Appendix 1 Schmitt’s taxonomy of vocabulary learning strategies (1997)

Strategies for the discovery of a new word’s meaning

DET Analyze part of speech DET Word lists DET Analyze affixes and roots DET Flash cards DET Check of L1 cognate SOC Ask teacher for an L1 translation DET Analyze any available pictures or gestures

SOC Ask teacher for paraphrase or synonym of new word DET Guess from textual context SOC Ask teacher for a sentence including the new word DET Bilingual dictionary SOC Ask classmates for meaning DET Monolingual dictionary SOC Discovery new meaning through group work activity

Strategies for consolidating a word once it has been encountered

SOC Study and practice meaning in group

SOC Teacher checks students’ flash cards or word lists for accuracy

MEM Affixes and roots (remembering)

SOC Interact with native-speakers MEM Part of speech (remembering) MEM Study words with a pictorial representation of its meaning

MEM Paraphrase the word’s meaning

MEM Image word’s meaning MEM Use cognates in study MEM Connect word to a personal experience

MEM Learn the words of an idiom together MEM Associate the word with its coordinates

MEM Use physical action when learning a word

MEM Connect the word to its synonyms and antonyms

MEM Use semantic feature grids

MEM Use semantic maps COG Verbal repetition MEM Use “scales” for gradable adjectives COG Written repetition

MEM Peg Method COG Word lists

MEM Loci Method COG Flash cards

MEM Group words together to study them

COG Take notes in class

MEM Group words together spatially on a page

COG Use the vocabulary section in your text book MEM Use new word in sentence COG Listen to tape of word lists MEM Group words together within a storyline

COG Put English labels on physical objects MEM Study the spelling of a word COG Keep a vocabulary notebook MEM Study the sound of a word MET Use English – language media

(songs, movies, newcasts, etc.) MEM Say new word aloud when studying MET Test oneself with word tests MEM Image word form MET Use spaced word practice MEM Underline initial letter of the word MET Skip or pass new word MEM Configuration MET Continue to study word over time

Unit Title: Unit 11 Read all about it Lesson Title: Vocabulary (page 82)

Trained Strategy: Strategy Set 1 Dictionary-related strategies

Teacher: Tran Thi Hoa Level: Pre-intermediate level of English

Class size: 27 students Time allowance: 50 minutes

Overarching Objective(s): After this lesson, the students will be able:

1 To use a bilingual dictionary to look up a word

2 To use some collocations correctly

Materials and resources needed for this lesson

1 Soars, J & Liz (1991) Headway: Pre-intermediate Great Britain: Oxford University Press

2 Carr, J C., Cunningham S and Moor P (2005) New cutting edge: Pre-intermediate – Teacher’s resource book Singapore:

The teacher elicits information from students about their practice of using a bilingual dictionary in terms of frequency, and its

 Have you got an English – Vietnamese dictionary?

 When do you use your dictionary?

 Is it important to learn about how to use a dictionary in language learning?

Activities 1 - 7 are supplemented by the handout Activities 8 – 10 are included in the Headway textbook

Instructional Objectives Description of Activities

Activity 1 Given two entries in the English Vietnamese dictionary, the students will be able to correctly name the kinds of information included for each entry

Students work in pairs to complete activity 1 Teacher checks the answer and gives explanation

Activity 2 Given two words with their translations and examples in activity 1, the students will be able to clearly explain what help them the most in understanding the words, the translations or the examples

Students discuss the question in pairs The teacher monitors the class, and helps if necessary

Activity 3 Given some sentences with certain underlined words and a dictionary, the students will be able to accurately identify the dictionary translation and the part of speech that match each underlined word

Students do the exercise individually Teacher checks the answer with the whole class

Activity 4 Given some words and a dictionary, the students will Students do the exercise in pairs Teacher checks the answer

58 be able to precisely determine the part of speech of each word with the whole class

Activity 5 Given some words and a dictionary, the students will be able to correctly write the pronunciation of each word

Students do the exercise in pairs Teacher checks the answer with the whole class

Activity 6 Given some words and a dictionary, the students will be able to correctly pronounce the words

Students practice pronouncing individually or in pairs Teacher monitors and gives help Teacher does the choral drill with the whole class

Activity 7 Given some collocations being used in certain sentences, the students will be able to correctly match them with their grammatical descriptions

Students do the exercise individually or in groups Teacher checks the answer with the whole class

Activity 8 Given a verb and some nouns, the students will be able to correctly decide which noun goes and which one does not go with the verb (exercise 1 Verbs and nouns that go together, page 82, Headway textbook)

Students do the exercise individually or in groups Teacher checks the answer with the whole class

Activity 9 Given the verb-noun combinations from Activity 8, the students will be able to write two sentences for each verb with no errors in collocations (exercise 1 practice, page 82,

Students do the exercise individually Teacher monitors and helps if necessary

Activity 10 Given some sentences with missing prepositions, the students will be able to complete them with the correct prepositions (exercise 2 Words and prepositions that go together, page 82, Headway textbook)

Students do the exercise individually or in pairs Teacher checks the answer with the whole class

The teacher summarizes the content of the lesson

Informal assessment is done by means of monitoring of work

1 Look at these extracts from the English Vietnamese dictionary What kinds of information are included for the words “share” and “holiday”?

2 Look at the extracts in activity 1 again What help you the most in understanding the words “share” and “holiday” – the translations or the examples?

3 The words underlined in the following sentences have more than one meaning

Look them up in the dictionary and write down the dictionary translation and the part of speech that match each sentence a They run a restaurant in the centre of town b Guido’s a popular restaurant, so you have to book a table in advance.

c I don’t like mean people d Holland is a flat country share /ʃeə(r)/ n 1 cổ phần 2 phần

(đóng góp, đƣợc chia) v 1 chia sẻ, chia phần (we shared a room: chúng tôi chung nhau một căn phòng; we shared his food: chúng tôi chia sẻ thức ăn của anh ta) 2 dự phần, tham gia 3 phân chia, phân phát (let’s share the last cake: chúng ta hãy phân chia chiếc bánh cuối cùng) 4 có chung (we shared the same belief: chúng tôi có chung niềm tin) holiday /’hɒlədi/ noun [C,U] 1 kỳ nghỉ:

Did you have a nice holiday? / It’s only three weeks until I go on holiday / She needs to have a holiday 2 ngày nghỉ: Next Monday is a holiday

4 Look in your dictionary and find out what part of speech these words are a pullover c protect e fame b spacious d hesitate f immediately

5 Look up the following words in the dictionary and write down their pronunciations

6 How do you pronounce these words? Find these words in the dictionary and say them to your partner

 arrive  married  crowded  fantastic  relatives

 excellent  professional  chaos  receipt  pigeon

7 There are many different types of collocations Look at the collocations underlined in these sentences and match them with the grammatical descriptions

1 I always listen to the radio when I’m getting up in the morning

2 Anne works hard all week, so she usually sleeps a lot at the weekends

3 Why don’t we have a party this weekend?

4 This is a true story about life in the 1960s a verb + noun b verb + preposition c adjective + noun d verb + adverb

Unit Title: Unit 12 Adventure Lesson Title: Vocabulary - Part 1 (page 90)

Trained Strategy: Strategy Set 2 Recording vocabulary

Teacher: Tran Thi Hoa Level: Pre-intermediate level of English

Class size: 27 students Time allowance: 50 minutes

Overarching Objective(s): After this lesson, the students will be able:

1 To record vocabulary in the way that suits their preferences and learning styles

2 To put adverbs into an appropriate position in sentences

Materials and resources needed for this lesson

1 Soars, J & Liz (1991) Headway: Pre-intermediate Great Britain: Oxford University Press

2 Carr, J C., Cunningham S and Moor P (2005) New cutting edge: Pre-intermediate – Teacher’s resource book Singapore:

The teacher elicits information from students about their practice of recording vocabulary in terms of frequency, and its

 Do you keep a vocabulary notebook?

 When do you record vocabulary?

 What information do you include when you record new words?

Activities 1 - 4 are supplemented by the handout Activities 5 – 6 are included in the Headway textbook

Instructional Objectives Description of Activities

Activity 1.Given two lists of words, the students will be able to carefully compare the two lists and accurately select the extra information included in List B

Students work in pairs to discuss the question Teacher monitors, then checks the answer and gives explanation

Activity 2 Given a sketchy list of vocabulary, the students will be able to rewrite the list so that it includes more details and is more useful

Students rewrite the list individually Teacher monitors the class, gives comments and helps if necessary

Activity 3 Given five samples of recording new vocabulary, the students will be able to clearly differentiate the methods used in the samples for recording vocabulary and to reasonably analyze the advantages and disadvantages of each method

Students discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each method in groups Then teacher conducts a whole- class discussion as a round-up

Activity 4 Given six examples of how collocations are recorded, the students will be able to reasonably evaluate the six ways of

Students discuss the questions in groups Teacher monitors the class, then conducts a whole-class discussion

64 recording collocations as a round-up

Activity 5 Given some sentences that include adverbs, the students will be able to tell the exact positions of the adverbs used in these sentences (Exercise 1 Adverbs Page 90, Headway textbook)

Students do the exercise in pairs Teacher checks the answer with the whole class

Activity 6 Given some adverbs in a box and some incomplete sentences, the students will be able to fill in the blank with a suitable adverb (Exercise 2 Adverbs Page 90, Headway textbook)

Students do the exercise individually Teacher monitors and then checks the answers with the whole class

The teacher summarizes the content of the lesson

Informal assessment is done by means of monitoring of work

HANDOUT FOR LESSON 2 RECORDING NEW VOCABULARY

1 When you write new vocabulary in your notebooks, it is useful to include extra information about the words Look at these two lists of words and decide what extra information is included in List B

List A List B rent: thuê yoga: experienced: có kinh nghiệm explain: giải thích nervous: bồn chồn, hồi hộp check: kiểm tra rubbish: rác rưởi write down: ghi lại to rent (a DVD) (reg) : thuê also a noun – you pay rent for your flat