Aims and objectives of the study
The aim of this study is to investigate the perceptions of explicit vocabulary teaching held by the teachers working at YBMC and how they teach vocabulary explicitly
The objectives of the study are:
- To understand teachers' ideas of explicit vocabulary teaching at YBMC
- To examine how teachers choose vocabulary items to teach and what aspects of vocabulary they focus on in teaching vocabulary
- To find out the explicit vocabulary teaching techniques teachers frequently use
- To draw some conclusions on issues related to teaching vocabulary explicitly at this college.
Research questions
In order to achieve the above-mentioned aims and objectives, the research was carried out to seek answers to the following research questions:
1 What are teachers' perceptions of explicit vocabulary teaching at YBMC?
2 How do they choose vocabulary items to teach at YBMC and what aspects of word knowledge they focus on in teaching the selected words?
3 What are the explicit vocabulary teaching techniques most frequently used in the
Scope of the study
This minor thesis does not cover all the four language skills; it only focuses on teaching vocabulary explicitly to first-year students at YBMC It is confined to the investigation of the teachers' ideas of explicit vocabulary teaching, their choice of vocabulary to teach, the aspects of vocabulary addressed as well as the explicit vocabulary teaching techniques used in the context of one mountainous college and the relevance of these techniques in this context Then this study will suggest some pedagogical implications to make explicit vocabulary teaching in the researched college more attentive and more effective.
Method of the study
To achieve its objectives, this study employed qualitative methods of data collection which include interview, classroom observation and lesson analysis
First, interviews with the teachers were conducted to investigate the teachers' ideas of English explicit vocabulary teaching at YBMC as well as the way they teach words explicitly, which includes their choice of vocabulary to teach, the aspects of vocabulary focused on and their explicit vocabulary teaching techniques
Then, classroom observations were conducted to supplement teachers' interviews to test how English vocabulary is taught explicitly and the relevance of explicit vocabulary teaching techniques can be evaluated through lessons analyses.
Design of the study
There are three main parts in my thesis as follows:
Part A is the Introduction presenting the rationale, aims, objectives, research questions, scope, methods and design of the study
Part B, the Development, includes three chapters:
Chapter 1 is the Literature Review In this chapter, a basic theoretical background for the study is created by reviewing the relevant issues related to English vocabulary, vocabulary teaching and learning focusing on explicit and implicit approaches
Chapter 2 entitled Methodology is composed of some smaller parts: a description of the current situation of English teaching and learning at YBMC, the participants, the instruments and the procedures of data collection as well as data analysis employed to reach the aims of the research
Chapter 3 is the Results and Discussions which presents, analyzes and discusses the findings that the researcher found out from the data collected by means of interviews, class observations and lessons analyses
Part C, the Conclusion gives the summary of the study, states some limitations of the study, draws pedagogical implications of explicit vocabulary teaching and offers suggestions for further studies as well.
LITERATURE REVIEW
An overview of vocabulary
As among the three dimensions of language: vocabulary, grammar and phonology, vocabulary stands out as the primacy forming the ground for the development of other skills It has been paid great attention by researchers, linguists, teachers and learners However it is really hard to give an exact definition about vocabulary Hornby (2010) defined vocabulary as follow:
1 All the words that a person knows or uses
2 All the words in a particular language
3 The words that people use when they are talking about a particular subject
4 A list of words with their meanings especially in a book or learning a foreign language
According to Pyles and Algeo (1993), vocabulary is regarded as the focus of language with its sound and meaning interlock to allow us to communicate with one another Ur (1996: 60) offered a clear and specific definition of vocabulary by saying that: "Vocabulary can be defined roughly as the words we teach in the foreign language However, a new item of vocabulary may be more than a single word and also multi-word idioms." By this way, he defines that vocabulary is bigger than just the meaning of words It covers a huge aspect of language and it is the medium to express ideas or opinions
In summary, among all various ways to define the concept "vocabulary", the idea given by Ur (1996) that vocabulary is all the words existing in a language, including single words to express ideas as well as multi-word idioms understood in sentences or contexts is the most favorable
1.1.2 The role of vocabulary in language teaching and learning
As said above, vocabulary, like grammar and phonetics, plays an important role in mastering a foreign language In order to emphasize the special importance of vocabulary in teaching and learning a language, Folse (2004: 3) asserted that:
"Lack of grammar knowledge can limit conversation; lack of vocabulary knowledge can stop conversation." In fact, learners can express themselves with poor grammar
However, with poor vocabulary, communication is constrained considerably In other words, you can get by without grammar but you cannot get by without vocabulary
Shafaei and Nejati (2009: 32) also stated that “vocabulary is one of the most important objectives in teaching foreign languages.” In addition, Gower et al (2005) shared the agreement that vocabulary is very important to students; especially for communication purposes it is more important than grammar By all these statements, it can be concluded that vocabulary is the decisive component of all uses of language The main objective of language learners is to understand and be understood in their communication using the language acquired In order to achieve this aim, they have to achieve a certain number of vocabulary items If someone possesses an adequate vocabulary size, he or she is likely to feel more confident in communication and to express his/ her own opinions accurately, fluently in both oral and written forms
Vocabulary teaching and learning is a complicated and laborious process As an important part of the foreign language teaching, vocabulary teaching has the goal to help students not only to improve but to extend their vocabulary as well Building vocabulary is such an important aspect of learning a foreign language that each learner wishes to achieve an adequate vocabulary size The more words one knows well, the more successful he/she is in daily communication and the more information he can get from different sources such as books, newspapers, etc
Therefore, vocabulary deserves an important position in foreign language teaching and learning.
Principles in teaching and learning vocabulary
It is not impossible for us to deny that vocabulary is the most essential element in learning a foreign language Therefore, teachers who teach English as a foreign language need to help their students build up a large size of useful words during the course However, the teacher should make a proper decision on selecting the right vocabulary items to teach at the learners’ different level and they need to judge whether a particular word deserves attention or not
According to McCarthy (1990: 79), the most frequent words in the language must be presented in the early state of language teaching Nation (1994) suggested we regard the high frequency vocabulary as consisting of about 2,000 word families Nation (1995) also emphasized that "the most frequent 2,000 words are essential for any real language use, and so are worth the effort required to teach and learn them explicitly" (cited in Schmitt, 2000: 143) In Meara's point of view, these first 2.000 words of language are so important that teachers should focus on teaching them right at the beginning of a language course (Meara, 1995 cited in Schmitt, 2000) Knowing the first 2,000 words, students would be able to understand more of the speech they are exposed to and also more of the written texts that they read in their text book or from the other sources
Schmitt (2000: 144) stated that: "The 2,000 level is only a beginning, and teaching words explicitly beyond this level can still supply sufficient benefits that warrant the time expended." and "it makes sense to concentrate on the lower- frequency vocabulary" In addition, Nation (1994: 4) suggested "When the high frequency words are well known, then teachers may wish to spend time on low- frequency words." It is necessary for language teachers to help students acquire the strategies to cope with and learn these words on their own such as using dictionary, guessing from context, learning word roots and affixes along with mnemonic techniques
In short, teachers of English should have good decisions on which words to teach to the students as well as the number of vocabulary items taught during a lesson They also should take account of other factors such as the topic of the lesson, their students' proficiency More important, they should focus on what aspects of vocabulary to be taught in a lesson, which will be presented in details in the next following part
1.2.2 Aspects of word knowledge included in vocabulary teaching
In general, when a teacher teaches a new English word, he should, by all means, provide his learners with its meaning, forms, grammar and usage relatively
Learners will not be able to put the word in proper use if they do not understand its meaning, forms, grammar and its usage in appropriate contexts
According to Ur (1996: 60-62), it's necessary for the teacher to teach their students the following aspects of a new vocabulary item: Form: Pronunciation and spelling; Grammar: if it is regular or irregular, transitive or intransitive etc.;
Collocation; Aspects of meaning: denotation, connotation, appropriateness;
Meaning relationships: synonyms, antonyms, co- hyponyms, super-ordinates, translation; Word formation
As regard to this issue, Nation (2001: 27) gave the following description of truly knowing a word:
- Form: - spoken, written, word parts
- Meaning: form and meaning, concept and referents, associations
- Use: grammatical functions, collocations, constraints on use (register, frequency…)
In conclusion, all these above aspects should be taught to language learners in vocabulary lessons In other words, true mastery of a word involves knowing a variety of word knowledge aspects The more aspects of word knowledge we know about a word, the more likely we will be able to use it in right contexts in an appropriate manner Teachers should note that vocabulary should always be revised because learners will easily forget words if they do not have a chance to put them into use or practice them in learning other skills
1.2.3 Current approaches to L2 vocabulary teaching and learning
There are many different approaches, techniques as well as strategies to vocabulary teaching and learning These approaches involves both direct and indirect teaching and learning such as: the Grammar-translation method, the Direct method, the Reading method/ Situational language teaching, the Audio-lingual method, the Silent way and Communicative language teaching etc…In addition, Gairns and Redman (1986: 73-75) listed traditional ways of learning and teaching vocabulary including visual techniques, verbal techniques and translation Many researchers have had great concern about promoting the learners' vocabulary learning by using a variety of vocabulary learning strategies Among them, Schmitt and McCathy (1997) divided these strategies into five categories namely social, memory, cognitive, metacognitive and determination strategies
Hunt and Beglar (1998) considered three approaches to vocabulary teaching:
1) Incidental learning 2) Explicit or intentional instruction and 3) Independent strategy development
Incidental learning focuses on acquiring vocabulary through extensive reading and listening Accordingly, motivating learners to read and listen extensively can provide them with great opportunities to learn new vocabularies
Hunt and Beglar (1998) pointed out the incidental vocabulary learning can be a useful approach for acquiring vocabularies for learners at all levels especially for advanced ones This approach helps students to develop the ability of sustained silent reading and then most of the reading should be done outside of class
Another approach, explicit or intentional instruction concerns diagnosing the words learners need to know, presenting words for the first time, elaborating word knowledge, and developing fluency with known words This approach seems to be suitable for beginning learners whose reading ability is limited Some techniques were given in this approach such as word-pair translation, repetition and review
Besides, some activities to deepen students' knowledge of words were also introduced including sorting lists of words; making semantic maps with lists; generating derivatives, inflections, synonyms and antonyms of a word; making tree- words; identifying or generating associated words; cloze activity; collocation crossword puzzles or bingo
The last approach named independent strategies development which insists on promoting language learners' autonomy Many learners do use some common strategies for learning vocabulary are memorization, repetition and taking note on vocabulary In their research, Hunt and Beglar (1998) mentioned independent strategies such as practicing guessing from context and using dictionaries They stated that guessing from context is initially time consuming and is more likely to work for more proficient learners According to Nation (2001), learners need to acquire a few important vocabulary learning strategies such as guessing from context, using word cards, using word parts, using mnemonic techniques, expressing the keyword techniques and making use of dictionaries Therefore, applying particular types of strategies forms an approach to vocabulary learning that has great influence on the level of foreign language proficiency In my study, some vocabulary learning strategies are mentioned such as vocabulary notebooks and word cards along with using dictionaries in order to improve learners' vocabulary learning and encourage them to learn vocabulary independently
1.2.4 Explicit and implicit approaches to vocabulary teaching
As Schmitt (2000) asserted, there is no “right” or “best” way to teach vocabulary The best practice in any situation will depend on the type of student being taught, the words targeted, the school system and curriculum, and many other factors He also pointed out, it is advisable to use a proper mix of explicit teaching and activities from which incidental learning can occur in any well- structured vocabulary programs Graves (2006) shared the same idea that in addition to learning vocabulary indirectly through various reading and writing activities, students benefit from direct and explicit teaching of individual words In other words, students can learn incidentally/implicitly/indirectly through wide reading and other language-rich activities They also learn directly when teachers target individual words explicitly and promote word-learning strategies
According to a survey by Sửkmen (1997 cited in Schmitt, 2000: 146), explicit vocabulary teaching should be attached 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 student’s world in some way
In addition to these principles, Schmitt (2000) considered a few other points which are also worth remembering Firstly, the problem of cross – association is a genuine one for learners When two or more similar words, such as “left” and
“right”, are initially taught together in the same class, learning them might be more difficult Students are often confused in choosing which word form to go with which meaning Antonyms, synonyms, and closely related semantic groupings are listed as subjects to cross – association Secondly, it is worth teaching the underlying meaning concept of a word Many words are polysemous in English; that is, they have more than one meaning sense Besides, some of these different meaning senses often have a common underlying trait By defining the underlying meaning, teacher can help students to understand the word in a much wider variety of contexts and the effect of teaching is maximized Lastly, teaching word families should be made a habit to enhance vocabulary learning When teachers introduce a new word, they should mention the other members of its word family
The US Report of the National Reading Panel (2000) showed that direct/explicit instruction is highly effective for vocabulary learning In order to acquire the in-depth word knowledge, students should be explicitly taught individual words and word-learning strategies Beck et al (2002) and Graves (2006) summarized four strategies for teaching individual words explicitly: Provide a student-friendly definition, use the word in context and give contextual information, provide multiple exposures and offer opportunities for active involvement (cited in Hanson & Padua, 2011: 10) Word learning strategies are the tools students can use to figure out the meaning of unfamiliar words and increase their word knowledge
Principles for explicit approach to vocabulary teaching
In my opinion, teaching words explicitly should be done meaningfully and through a systematic approach so that students will establish routines for learning
Teachers should identify the potential list of words to be taught and determine which of these words to teach It is also important for him or her to pay attention to teaching the vocabulary "in spoken form" first to prevent students from mispronouncing, then explaining the word in written form and word meaning, placing the new items in context and revising them
There are many techniques to present new vocabulary items as well as activities to practice and consolidate these new words Teachers should have a good decision on which techniques or activities to apply in their contexts as long as the effectiveness of vocabulary teaching is likely ensured
In principles, there are such many things to which the teachers of English have to pay much attention in teaching vocabulary as presenting the form, explaining the meaning and the use of the new item as well as consolidating the word taught in class Nation (2005) proposed different techniques that are useful for anyone who are interested in teaching English vocabulary
In the first place, teachers quickly give the meaning of the word by (a) using an L1 translation, (b) using a known L2 synonym or a simple definition in the L2, (c) showing an object or picture, (d) giving quick demonstration, (e) drawing a simple picture or diagram, (f) breaking the word into parts and giving the meaning of the parts and the whole word (g) giving several example sentences with the word in context, (h) commenting on the underlying word meaning and other referents
Next, teachers can direct learners' attention to the form of the word by (a) showing how the spelling of the word is like the spelling of known words, (b) giving the stress pattern of the word and its pronunciation, (c) showing the prefix, stem and suffix that make up the word, (d) getting the learners to repeat the word pronunciation, (e) writing the word on the board, (f) pointing out any spelling irregularity in the word
Lastly, teachers can explain the use of the word by (a) quickly showing the grammatical pattern the word fits into (countable/uncountable, transitive/intransitive, etc), (b) giving a few similar collocates, (c) mentioning any restrictions on the use of the word (formal, colloquial, impolite, only used in the United States, only used with children, old fashioned, technical, infrequent), (d) giving a well known opposite, or a well known word describing the group or lexical set it fits into
In addition, Nation also listed some main principles in vocabulary teaching process The teachers should 1) keep the teaching simple and clear and not give complicated explanations, 2) relate the present teaching to past knowledge by showing a pattern or analogies, 3) use both oral and written presentation - write it on the blackboard as well as explain it, 4) give most attention to words that are already partly known, 5) tell the learners if it is a high frequency word that is worth noting for future attention, 6) not bring in other unknown or poorly known related words like near synonyms, opposites, or members of the same lexical set
After having been provided with the new words, learners should have a chance to practice these new items in a controlled setting in order to retain them in the long-term memory and to turn passive vocabulary into active vocabulary There are many exercises and tasks that give students practice in using the new words but course books cannot give enough space to this It is often up to the teacher to provide extra practice One way to help students retain new words is by getting them to repeat the words as often as possible It will be better if the new items are practiced in context not in isolation In other words, the teacher should encourage their students to record the new items by writing sentences that show both the meaning and how they work in the sentence Some other popular techniques of practicing and revising vocabulary can be listed such as gap-filling, words-matching
(synonyms or antonyms), word games, paraphrasing, using words in sentences or dialogues, role-play, picture stories, using prefixes and suffixes to build new words from given words and so on.
Challenges in vocabulary teaching
Vocabulary is one of three components of language together with grammar and phonology, which plays an important part in listening, speaking, reading and writing Hence, developing students' vocabulary is one of the most important tasks for English teachers Acquisition of vocabulary is an incremental and perhaps recursive process that involves the integration of various kinds of lexical knowledge along with the implementation of appropriate vocabulary teaching /learning techniques in language classes In general, teaching vocabulary is not an easy task, which depends on many factors such as the learners' characteristics, the learning task, the learning context and the learning strategies
Aganes (2008) found that many problems often appear during the teaching and learning process The problems faced by the teacher usually are on characteristics of the students themselves and the method or teaching technique approach Students' problems in learning vocabulary are also regarded challenges in language classes Firstly, the students get difficulties in pronouncing words correctly Secondly, it is difficult for the students to memorize the meaning of the words In addition, they are not interested in studying in English because they feel bored with the teaching technique Usually the teacher taught vocabulary by translating at the beginning of the lesson or translating of the material containing new words or glossaries at the end The teacher never uses self- defining context, definition in the target language, opposites, picture, dramatization, and reality to put across the meaning of a word to a class In the literature, it seems that the problems in the teaching and learning vocabulary tend to come from teachers These factors are listed followings:
(1) The teacher is not creative to use media as aids of teaching
(2) The teacher only gives a little time to practice in pronouncing the words correctly, whereas a little time to practice cannot create accurate pronunciation, especially for the beginners or low-proficiency students
(3) The technique of the teaching vocabulary that the teacher uses seems ineffective for the students It does not give the students great motivation to learn In other words, students are passive in learning vocabulary
So far the theoretical issues related to the topic of the research have been reviewed in this chapter The next chapter will describe the methods employed in the study and present procedure of data collection and data analysis.
Summary
The literature on the research topic has been presented briefly for the theoretical basis of the study As said in Part A, this study employed qualitative method which helped to provide qualified background data for finding out teachers' opinions of explicit vocabulary teaching and how teachers teach vocabulary explicitly The semi-structured interviews with the three teachers are carried out in combination with classroom observations, lessons analyses to ensure the reliability of the collected information and the relevance of the teachers' methods in teaching vocabulary at YBMC To continue, this chapter discusses in details the methodology applied in conducting this study, including the situation analysis, the participants, data collection instruments as well as the procedures of data collection and analysis
2.1 The current situation of English teaching and learning at YBMC
YBMC has been re-founded for nearly one year The college is responsible for training future nurses midwifes and nursing staffs for the needs on health care for people in Yen Bai province Beside specialized knowledge for the future jobs, English is also considered a compulsory subject in the training syllabus of this college However, there has not been much attention paid to this subject Most of language learning and teaching activities are carried out in the classroom A chalkboard and a textbook are the equipments used frequently in the classroom In each class, there are more than 50 students, which causes a lot of obstacles in the language teaching and learning process The teachers find it difficult to apply new methods in English periods, especially in teaching vocabulary, an essential component of language The college has one cassette-player, one overhead projector and one computer for 4 teachers In reality, teachers hardly use these teaching aids because of three following reasons: first, there is not enough equipment for many classes to use in the same time; second, they often ignore the listening skill for its unnecessary role in the final semester test of these non-English major students;
METHODOLOGY
The current situation of English teaching and learning at YBMC… 18 2.2 Participants
YBMC has been re-founded for nearly one year The college is responsible for training future nurses midwifes and nursing staffs for the needs on health care for people in Yen Bai province Beside specialized knowledge for the future jobs, English is also considered a compulsory subject in the training syllabus of this college However, there has not been much attention paid to this subject Most of language learning and teaching activities are carried out in the classroom A chalkboard and a textbook are the equipments used frequently in the classroom In each class, there are more than 50 students, which causes a lot of obstacles in the language teaching and learning process The teachers find it difficult to apply new methods in English periods, especially in teaching vocabulary, an essential component of language The college has one cassette-player, one overhead projector and one computer for 4 teachers In reality, teachers hardly use these teaching aids because of three following reasons: first, there is not enough equipment for many classes to use in the same time; second, they often ignore the listening skill for its unnecessary role in the final semester test of these non-English major students; third, they cannot use these aids skillfully There is also a library in YBMC with only a few references for English subject Most of books and laboratories are specialized for medical issues It can be concluded that materials are not available for teachers and learners to widen their knowledge of the English subject
Teachers are the most essential factors in the process of teaching To control this process properly, it is necessary for teacher to own good experience of teaching and understanding of the syllabus Among the 4 teachers of English at YBMC, one of them has been following an M A course and the rest ones have B.A degrees from Thai Nguyen University of Training Teacher In general, they often come to class without any teaching aids They mostly depend on the textbook and hardly have any creative activities or pre-teaching support They waste much time giving explanation to any unknown words that the students meet in each lesson To some extent, their communicative competence in language teaching is limited Hence, they accidentally make their students passive in learning English However, they are willing to devote their time and enthusiasm to language teaching: researching and debating to find out an appropriate and progressive way to teach English effectively
Students are the most vital factors in the process of learning Most of the students who have studied at YBMC come from remote and mountainous areas of Yen Bai province They are both male and female aged from eighteen to thirty and many of them are from poor families Their parents mainly work as farmers, gardeners or hired workers so their living conditions are very low Besides, their English level is low and mixed-ability Before entering YBMC, some of them have studied English for 7 years, some has 3 years of learning English at high school and some have not studied English for a long time They often find it difficult to speak out and write down anything because of their poor English knowledge, especially their lack of vocabulary In addition, the majority of the students think that English is not a major subject and not useful for their future job In their mind, the final goal is to pass the English exams in order to get necessary requirements for graduation
As a result, they learn English in a passive, independent and uncreative way They never prepare the lesson at home as well as review the lesson regularly
The teaching material currently used for the students at YBMC is the Lifelines-Elementary written by Tom Hutchinson The main aim of teaching English in this course is to provide students with background knowledge of general English for daily communication and social text comprehension This course book is divided into fourteen topic-based units presenting and practicing vocabulary and grammar, as well as developing the four language skills After every two units, there is an extension to check the learnt knowledge There are often five parts in a unit namely grammar, vocabulary, reading and writing, listening and speaking and pronunciation As for Vocabulary, it is designed according to topics It means that there are 14 topics corresponding with 14 units as follows:
Table 2.1: Vocabulary designed in the course-book Lifeline - Elementary
Unit 1: Numbers (p 7) Unit 8: Giving dates (p 56) Unit 2: Classroom language – (p 14) Unit 9: Verbs (p 64)
Unit 3: Describing people (p 22) Unit 10: Travel (p 70)
Unit 5: Food and drinks (p 36) Unit 12: Parts of the body (p 84) Unit 6: Daily activities (p 42) Unit 13: Phrasal verbs (p 92) Unit 7: Parts of a house (p 50) Unit 14: The world (p 98)
Besides these topics, vocabulary is integrated in other parts of a unit It is easily to realize that teaching vocabulary appears in all parts of every unit in this course book
Teachers were the central unit of analysis in this study because in any teaching and learning process, the teacher is the key factor, responsible for promoting or restraining students’ learning is taking an M.A course so she cannot participate in the study The three left teachers of English at YBMC are the major subjects of this study Because the teachers wished to remain anonymous, the researcher would like to use the term Teacher 1, 2, and 3 to refer to them General information of the participants was provided in Table 2
Participants Age Gender Years of teaching experience Qualifications
Data collection instruments
In social science, interviewing is one of the most basic research tools in which a researcher asks questions of participants In other words, it involves one person interviewing another person for personal or detailed information According to McDonough (1997), the in-depth interviews give room for individual expression, which is helpful to investigate subjects’ further opinions of advantages, hindrances, and recommendations Although an interview often requires considerable time to get commitments from both interviewer and interviewee, it is an excellent way to collect data As Oppenheim (1992) stated that interviews have a higher response rate than questionnaires because respondents become more involved and motivated and they are better than questionnaires for handling more difficult and open-ended questions Hence, the researcher chooses interview as an instrument to get data for her study
2.3.2 Classroom observation and lesson analysis
Classroom observation which is a useful technique for giving additional information about the topic being researched can be beneficial to all involved in the collaboration process For the one being observed like participants in the study, an observation can provide useful feedback that may not be revealed by other assessment methods For the one observing like the researcher in this case, it is a chance to learn from seeing a fellow teacher in action and makes her active, creative in the events being studied Classroom observation is important to this study because it helps to show the researcher how teachers choose vocabulary items to teach, how these selected words are taught explicitly In this study, the researcher observed and took notes in details of the key events that occurred in the class They included teachers' questions, students' responses and their participation in activities during a period
Lesson analysis is also chosen as an additional instrument to find out the relevance of the teachers' explicit vocabulary techniques to the lesson content and the teaching context at YBMC Therefore, this helps the researcher to realize the consistency and inconsistency between teachers' self-reports and their actual teaching vocabulary activities in a particular lesson
2.4 Data collection and data analysis procedures 2.4.1 Data collection procedures:
The process of data collection involved the following steps:
It was necessary for me to make some preparation for the data collection process, which consists of the designing of the interview questions to teachers and observation schedule Thanks to the invaluable help from my supervisor and friends, the interviews were carefully and reasonably designed
Before carrying out the interviews to teachers of English at YBMC, I met all of them in order to explain the purpose of the research and ask for their cooperation for my study Luckily, all the teachers gave me warmly welcome and were willing to collaborate with me
Because participants were too busy to come to a face-to-face interview, the researcher had to conduct interviews through chatting software, an interviewing technique that the interviewer and each respondent sit in front of their computers and communicate with each other The interview consists of two parts: The first one is about the respondents' own background and the second one concerns the participants' perceptions as well as solutions to explicit vocabulary teaching basing on the 8 questions (See the interview guides in Appendix A) Each interview lasted around 15 to 20 minutes in Vietnamese in a relaxing, friendly setting and then was transcribed, translated into English (See interview transcript in Appendix B)
In order to identify any gaps between what the teachers said in the interview and what they actually did in class, the researcher observed all three teachers The observed lessons were randomly chosen since the researcher would like to understand more about their vocabulary teaching in each lesson Classroom observations were carried out in two lessons for each teacher, altogether 6 lessons for 3 teachers (See classroom observation schedule in Appendix C) Because of the large class size, the researcher could neither tape nor video-record but observed and took notes All the events in classroom taken notes in details allowed the researcher to gain insight into the participants' selection of word items and aspects of word knowledge to be taught as well as explicit techniques used in the classroom
Finally, the observed lessons which were delivered by the respondents in the study were carefully analyzed to see the relevance of their explicit vocabulary techniques with the taught content and the teaching context at YBMC (See lesson plans under observation in Appendix D)
It took me more than two months to collect all the data for my research
Interview data was then analyzed in accordance with data gathered during the class observations and lessons analyses After all the data were gathered, they were transformed, analyzed both descriptively and interpretively and classified into different categories to answer the three research questions of the study The main categories are: i) Teachers' perceptions of explicit vocabulary teaching at YBMC, ii) Teachers' selection of vocabulary to teach, iii) Aspects of word knowledge to be taught, iv) Common explicit vocabulary techniques in the classroom as well as their relevance The qualitative data from the interview, class observations and lessons analyses will be presented in the next chapter.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Research question 1: Teachers' perceptions of explicit vocabulary
All the teachers who were interviewed found the explicit vocabulary teaching suitable to the teaching context like at YBMC where most of the students are at low English proficiency They all knew this approach involved in giving the meanings of the words directly to facilitate the students' English learning and designing some exercises or activities to help learners to practice as well as retain these words One of the interviewed teachers gave her opinion that:
In my opinion, teaching vocabulary explicitly is as simple as providing students with the meanings of the words directly I often use this approach in my vocabulary teaching (Teacher 2)
Teaching vocabulary explicitly is my usual way in class From my point of view, explicit vocabulary teaching is a teaching process which makes use of activities and exercises to direct learners' attention to vocabulary items
Not to make students difficult in learning English and waste class time, it is necessary for me to introduce the word directly with its spelling, pronunciation and meaning I often do this in my class (Teacher 3)
It is obvious that the participants often teach vocabulary explicitly in their teaching context All the interviewed teachers found this vocabulary method suitable with their students mostly at low English proficiency and with limited vocabulary size According to them, it is easy for students to get the word meaning and it doesn't cost them much time to present a new word item From the researcher's first view, the respondents seemed to distinguish the explicit approach and implicit approach to vocabulary teaching They all supported the explicit vocabulary teaching approach in which the teacher uses explicit techniques to present the new word and activities to practice as well as consolidate the item
However, their understanding of this approach only referred to giving the word meaning directly but not selecting the word items to teach and using explicit techniques in their teaching process
The researcher strongly agrees to the opinion of the Teacher 1 that teaching vocabulary explicitly is involved in designing some activities and exercises that encourage learners to pay attention to vocabulary items introduced in the lesson As we all know, most of EFL learners face many difficulties in learning English especially in learning vocabulary They can neither remember the pronunciation, spelling and meaning nor know how to use the new vocabulary item What should teachers do to help learners to enrich their vocabulary? In fact, the more impressively the new word is presented, the more activities for practicing the new item there are, the longer students can retain the vocabulary taught In other words, it is essential for teachers at YBMC to design some more activities or extra exercises of vocabulary in order to help their learners to learn vocabulary more effectively Then they may be highly motivated in learning English, especially in learning vocabulary and their vocabulary size may be gradually widened.
Research question 2: Teachers' selection of vocabulary to teach and
All the three participants shared the same idea on the selection of vocabulary to teach and explained their selection as well as the criteria for this selection
Through the classroom observations, the researcher found that they often choose some words to teach but not all the words included in the lesson
They gave many different reasons why they have to select some words to teach their students in English language class such as time constraints, students' limited vocabulary size and their difficulties in learning vocabulary as well as their poor knowledge of vocabulary learning strategies In addition, information collected from class observations showed that most of students at YBMC owned passive ways of learning vocabulary In class, some kept silent and noted down anything the teacher writes on the board while some others only added Vietnamese pronunciation forms beside the unknown words on their books They hardly prepared their lesson before going to class All these caused many difficulties to teachers of English at YBMC in vocabulary teaching process
In general, all the interviewed teachers agreed to select some vocabulary items to teach in each lesson It is impossible for them to pay attention to every new word included in the lesson because of many reasons mentioned above The researcher thinks that teachers in this context should take students' poor knowledge of vocabulary learning strategies into consideration They may encourage students either to make vocabulary notebooks and word cards to remember the words or to use dictionary and guess word meaning in context to learn new words independently
There have been different criteria for vocabulary selection to teach Many methodologists and linguists (Nation, 1990; Schmitt, 2000) suggest that teachers can decide and select the words to be taught on the basis of how frequently they are used by speakers of the language That is, the most commonly used words should be taught first Moreover, teachers can decide which words are useful and should be taught to their learners on the basis of semantics This means, that the word is more useful if it covers more things than if it only has one very specific meaning
All the interviewed teachers in this study insisted on choosing the words that are useful and high-frequency for their learners' daily conversation, exam and future job In their teaching context with lots of ethnic minority students, they also put an emphasis on selecting the words which are easy for the students to learn They all shared that their selection of a word item which is useful and highly frequent depends on their own judgment, but not bases on any principles The researcher recommends that these teachers should consult available words lists which help them to identify useful and high-frequency words such as The General Service List (West, 1953), a list of the most common 2000 words used in everyday English and the Academic Word List (Coxhead, 2000), a list of the most frequent academic vocabulary in written academic texts Then teachers can make sure that their judgment of useful and high-frequency words is suitable or not
However, the information obtained from observations was different from what the teachers said in the interview Observing some classes, the researcher found that the teachers taught all the new words in the vocabulary sections or vocabulary files of each unit and they chose some active words to teach in other skill sections Below are two extracts from a lesson delivered by the Teacher 2 and Teacher 3
T You are going to learn some names of clothes, today Look at the pictures and tell me what they are wearing
T Ok, I'll give you some words of clothes in these pictures (Writes all the names of the clothes and explains their meaning by pointing to the pictures)
+ T-shirt (n) + sweatshirt (n) + trainers (n) + high-heel shoes (n) + baseball cap (n) + dress (n)
T (Reads the new words and asks Ss to repeat in chorus and individually)
Ss (Listen to the T and repeat)
Extract 2: Reading and writing- A model pupil
T Are there any new words in the reading text?
Ss Yes, there are a lot of
T Ok, before you do the exercise 2 and 3, I'll give you some new words in this text (Writes the new words, reads aloud and gives their meanings) +to appear +catwalk (n) +different (a) +contract (n) + to offer + GCSE exam
T Any new words? (points at a boy raising his hand) Bao competition? education? prize? (pronounces with some mistake)
T Yes (writes those words on the board and gives their meanings)
Ss (Note down these words, listen to the teacher and repeat)
(Observation 2: Unit 11- Reading and writing)
Aspects of word knowledge to be taught
All the three teachers shared that they presented vocabulary in each lesson especially in grammar and reading lessons In teaching vocabulary, they often focused on teaching the form (spelling, pronunciation and grammar), the meaning and sometimes the use of the word As one of the teachers said:
After selecting some words which are useful and high-frequency, the teacher has to think of the way how to teach these words You see, there are many things to teach when we want to introduce a new word In my opinion, knowing a word means knowing its meaning, its form and its use in appropriate contexts (Teacher 1)
However, the researcher found that what the teachers said was different from what they did in their classroom The teachers observed often focused on the word meaning and the word form, they hardly mentioned to the word use Teaching note down on their notebook then learn those words by heart Memorizing may be good and useful as a temporary technique for tests, but not for learning a foreign language Language students need to learn vocabulary of the target language in another way Teachers should teach their students word-learning strategies such as using dictionary, context, word cards, vocabulary notebooks and word parts to unlock the meanings of the words they don’t know or to learn new words independently All the teachers interviewed agreed to provide students with some word learning strategies so that they can learn the new words by themselves They all highly appreciated the way that the students read and listen to English texts extensively to learn vocabulary implicitly or incidentally However, it is not suitable for their students who have low English proficiency and ineffective, passive ways of learning It is recommended that teachers should vary their vocabulary teaching activities to improve the students' vocabulary size In fact, the students' vocabulary size is still limited and they cannot use the taught words in oral or written communication As the teacher 3 said:
In order to help them to learn vocabulary independently, I often ask students to have vocabulary notebooks and encourage them to use dictionary or make word cards However, I find that my students' vocabulary is poor because they are too lazy to learn new words In their mind, they learn English in order to pass the final exam and get full requirements for graduation.
Research question 3: The explicit vocabulary teaching techniques
When being asked "How do you often teach vocabulary explicitly in classroom and your frequent explicit vocabulary teaching techniques?" the three participants said that teaching vocabulary must be integrated with language skills and grammar but not isolated in a lesson Teaching vocabulary means not only teaching long lists of words in isolation but also integrating new items in the practice of other language skills and grammar The teacher 2 shared:
Apart from teaching separate vocabulary part in each unit, I often integrate vocabulary teaching in language skill and grammar Presenting new vocabulary can occur in pre-teaching section or while-teaching section I often use L1 translation, pictures or drawings, realia to present vocabulary
Before teaching a new section, I often provide students with some new words as followings: write the word on the board, read it aloud, use some techniques to explain its meaning
Some extracts of teaching vocabulary by different teachers are as followings:
Extract 3: Listening and speaking- What's the matter?
T What we are going to learn today are stating the problem and giving some advice In terms of stating the problems, I'd like to give you some new words Look at my gestures and then speak out the meaning of the words
T (Making gestures accompanied with saying the sentences including the new vocabulary items, write the words on the board, read them and ask Ss to repeat)
I'm hungry; I'm thirsty; I'm tired; I've got a headache; I've got a stomach ache; I've got a toothache; I've got a sore throat; I've got a cough; My back hurts
Ss (Listen and repeat, take notes)………
T Now, look at the following advice at the page of 86 You have to choose some advice for each above problem Do you find any new words?
T (points at a girl) Mien, can you?
Mien (read the words with some pronunciation mistakes) painkiller optician's stay up late put on
T (write the new words on the board while Mien is talking Then provide their meanings to the students) Listen and repeat in chorus
(Observation 3: Unit 12- Listening and speaking)
Extract 4: Unit 11: Grammar- The present continuous tense
T Among these verbs, which words you don't know? Who can?
Luc (reads the new words with some wrong pronunciation) grab? hold? smile? park? take off?
T Thanks (writes the words on the board and gives their meaning)
T Listen and read after me
As we all know, there are a number of techniques in teaching vocabulary
Each teacher should select and try any technique that best fits the kind of learner(s) he (she) has The technique must be based on the identified needs of the learner If learners are properly motivated and their needs are determined, the right technique comes in very handy Whether the vocabulary teaching technique is effective or not mostly depends on the type of learners In the context of YBMC with many ethnic minority students who are at very low proficiency of English, there is a strong tendency towards the techniques of saying the words clearly one by one, writing them on the board and then explaining their meanings To explain the words' meanings explicitly, all the respondents in the study reported that they often used some different techniques such as using L1 translation, pictures or drawings, realia, gestures, synonyms or/and antonyms, situation and explanation All three teachers agreed on the necessity of vocabulary consolidation activities to help learners practice and remember the words taught in each lesson Their frequent activities of vocabulary consolidation were playing memory game, making sentences, words network, doing exercises and crossword puzzles Obviously, the more exercises of vocabulary practice the students do, the longer they remember or retain the taught words However, the information achieved from 6 classroom observations enabled the researcher to identify the gaps between the participants' self-reports and their actual explicit vocabulary teaching techniques in the classroom Besides, the researcher's lessons analyses should be taken into consideration to show the relevance of these explicit techniques with the lesson content and the teaching context at YBMC
From the observations, the researcher realized that the most frequent explicit vocabulary teaching techniques used by the participants were using L1 translation and using visual aids
Using L1 - mother tongue in explaining the new word's meaning was most frequently used by the teachers in the study Many English language teaching professionals dispute the L1 use in the classroom, something that should never happen in today’s modern, communicative lessons because the use of translation may encourage other use of the first language that seriously reduces the time available for use of the second language Whilst many professionals in the field of second language and foreign language acquisition agree that L1 should be used with students who are not highly proficient in the target language Nation (1990) suggested that the degradation of mother tongue has a harmful psychological effect on learners He also asserted the advantages of translation such as "being quick, simple and easily understood" (Nation, 2001: 86) The results of a recent study by Ramachandran and Rahim (2004) indicated that the translation method through using L1 could improve elementary ESL learner’s ability to recall the meaning of the word learnt Therefore, L1 plays an important role in language teaching, especially for the low proficiency learners like ethnic minority students at YBMC
An extract from the observation 2- Unit 11- Fashion- Reading and writing above showed that the Teacher 2 used L1 translation to explain the meaning of the new words selected in the reading text before the students read the text and do some tasks By the end of this lesson, students will be able to understand the text and answer the comprehension questions The researcher finds that using L1 translation as an explicit vocabulary teaching technique is completely relevant in this case because some new words should be introduced first to facilitate the learners' reading skill Moreover, the taught words are abstract ones; it can cause difficulties to the teacher if she applies other techniques For instance, regarding this lecture, teachers these words provided that they are able to use simple, proper language in their explanation and their students are excellent enough to understand them Then, it may cost teachers much time to give explanation of the word even this can make students misunderstood and confused Therefore, using L1 translation is the best and the most suitable way in presenting the new vocabulary items in this lesson
However, in order to widen the students' vocabulary size gradually, this observed teacher should provide some additional forms of the taught words For example, some other forms of the word 'appear' should be added like 'appearance', 'disappear', 'disappearance'; other forms of the word 'different' like 'differ', 'difference' and the structure with this word 'to be different from sb/st'
Using visual aids: pictures from textbook, realia, actions or gestures
The teaching aids facilitating the language teaching that can be seen are called 'visual aids' According to Gairns and Redman (1986), visuals include flashcards, photographs, blackboard drawings, wall charts; realia (i.e object themselves); gestures and mime They are extensively used for conveying meaning and are particularly useful for teaching concrete items of vocabulary such as food, furniture, clothes, part of body… and certain areas such as places, professions, description of people, actions and activities (such as sports and verbs of movement)
The advantage of using these aids is that learners can see an instance of the word meaning and this is likely to be remembered The respondents in this study stated that using visual aids in presenting vocabulary was beneficial to both teachers and learners It helped the teachers to reduce their domination in the classroom and encouraged the learners to freely express themselves in sharing their own opinions with their teachers and their classroom mates Owning to visual aids, teachers could ease their language teaching process, students had more chances to interact and discuss with one another even with teachers in language class From the observations, the researcher found that the participants used pictures from textbook and their own gestures to present new words in English lessons
An extract from the observation 1- Unit 11- Fashion- Vocabulary (Clothes) involving the use of pictures from the textbook to present words of clothes is very useful and interesting By the end of this lesson, students will be able to enrich their vocabulary of clothes and categorize these words according to their body parts In the reading text with three paragraphs describing some people's clothes, there are many names of clothes students haven't seen To teach these words explicitly, the Teacher 2 makes use of given pictures from the textbook In this lecture, the researcher finds that learners seem to be more attracted to their teacher' presentation, more enthusiastic to take part in the lesson and they are easily to get the meaning of the new items In the researcher' point of view, this technique is quite suitable in the teaching context of YBMC If only this observed teacher took full advantage of power point and projector If only this observed class were equipped with some more teaching facilitates This lecture would be likely to be more attractive and effective (See appendix E for some pictures of clothes recommended to apply in this lecture)
Using gestures to present the meaning of the new item is regarded an explicit technique An extract from Unit 12- Health- Listening and speaking (What's the matter?) delivered by the Teacher 3 makes the air classroom more pleasant and excited Actually, listening skill is often ignored at YBMC because of the following reasons First, the final semester tests focus on grammar, vocabulary, reading, writing except for listening Second, the equipment for foreign language teaching and learning is in not good condition and even scarce Hence, this lesson helps students know how to ask and answer about the problems Before asking the students to match the problems with the correct pictures the Teacher 3 introduces some words of stating the problems It is appropriate for her to use gestures to give meaning of some words like: hungry; thirsty; tired; headache; stomach ache; toothache; sore throat; cough; hurts Some of her gestures can be funny and sometimes makes students confused in defining the meaning of the word As a result, students can get the word meaning directly and quickly In order to equip the students with some words of giving advice, she uses L1 translation to present some other words like painkiller, optician's, to stay up late In this case, the researcher suggests that the teacher should break these words into parts, give the meaning of the parts and then the whole words The students will be able to understand more about these taught words However, the researcher asserts that the learners are likely to remember these above words for a long time because they belong to the topic 'health', a topic relates to their future career
Information from interviews to teachers showed their agreement that there should be some kinds of consolidation activities to help the learners themselves to use and remember the new words They reported that they often asked their students to do some exercises in the workbook, make sentences, make dialogues, play word- game or write word by word many times then learn them by heart Observing some classes, the researcher realized that the teachers spent little time revising the taught vocabulary in each lesson After presenting some vocabulary related to the lesson content, the teachers paid much attention to complete the tasks included in that lesson It took them only two or three minutes to ask their students to read again the new words at the end of the lesson and to learn the new words at home There were two among of the six class observations in which the teachers applied some consolidation vocabulary activities such as doing gap-filling exercises and making word networks (brainstorming words related to the current topic) as follows:
Fill in the gaps with the correct forms of the words given in the box fit healthy relaxed slim good long difficult expensive excellent popular bad heavy
1 Last year I was very fat I lose 3 kilos, now and look………
2 Football is one of the ………sports in the world
3 She often goes to aerobic club because she feels……….and
4 Walking along the street in the morning makes you………
5 I hope my next result will be……… than last term
6 Among these shirts, which is the………?
7 Who is the……… soccer player in Vietnam?
8 English is …………than any other subjects in the curriculum at my college
9 This film is very long and boring It is the……….film I've ever seen
10 In reality, women live………than men
The lesson aims at teaching students how to use the comparative and superlative of the adjectives After teaching some vocabulary explicitly, the Teacher
1 used a gap-filling exercise to help students revise the taught words in this lesson
The researcher finds this activity very practical and helpful Learners can use the words they have learnt in the appropriate forms and context Thanks to the gap- filling exercise like this, students can retain these words in their mind in class without spending much time learning new words at home Therefore, teachers of English at YBMC should pay more attention to designing or collecting vocabulary exercises for students' practice Beside this activity, the teacher can also encourage students to make sentences using the taught words by themselves It is likely that students will find English lectures more interesting and effective Then students can not only remember the word meaning, word spelling and word usage but improve their speaking skill as well
This is a word networks on the board Write all the words related to the topic 'Fashion - Clothes' today and organize the words into these categories: Things that you wear on your head, above your waist, under your waist and on your feet like following: on your hat Above your waist hat under your waist on your foot trainers
The topic mentioned in this lesson is fashion, which the youth are very fond of and pay much attention to The aim of the lesson is to equip students with some names of clothes so that they can describe what they and their classmates are wearing After many new words are taught explicitly, word -networks is used in this lesson to help students consolidate the new items by building a net-word of clothes
Pedagogical implications
According to the findings in this study, the explicit vocabulary teaching with the first-year students has been used by teachers at YBMC However, this vocabulary teaching method hasn't helped their students to widen the vocabulary size as well as retain vocabulary items in a long time Some following pedagogical implications for the matters of teaching vocabulary explicitly that the researcher is going to mention, to some extent, should be taken into considerations
At the first place, explicit vocabulary teaching is completely reasonable with students at YBMC who are at low English proficiency with limited vocabulary size
Therefore, it is vital for teachers to make a good decision of which words to be taught in each lesson Their selection of useful and high-frequency words should be based on not only their own judgment but also some other references like The General Service List or the Academic Word List In addition, teachers should focus on some different aspects of a word rather than just its meaning and provide meaningful learning opportunities It is obviously true that learners can enrich their knowledge of a word and perhaps remember it better by learning such different aspects of a word as its stress, its collocations, it grammatical patterns and seeing/hearing target word in a meaningful context or in both written and oral texts
Secondly, in terms of teaching vocabulary explicitly, it is strongly recommended that there should be a combination of various techniques Students can easily find themselves bored when a continuously single activity is identical for their every day lesson Apart from such traditional explicit techniques as saying words clearly, writing them on the blackboard and explaining the word meaning in Vietnamese or translating the word into Vietnamese, teachers at YBMC should try their best to innovate their ways of explicit vocabulary teaching Using known synonyms/antonyms, using simple definitions in the target language, using the word part strategy and giving several simple example sentences with the word in context are proposed to be necessary in explicit vocabulary teaching
Additionally, teachers are also advised to make their vocabulary lessons more interesting, attractive and impressive by the use of TV sets, head-projectors, songs or word games to present the new words and using mind-map, role-play or some kinds of other exercises to get students to practice the taught words Besides, students should be provided with some word learning strategies to learn vocabulary by themselves In this place, it is recommended that teachers should create a favorable teaching and learning environment though it often costs teachers much time to have well-prepared lesson plans or carry out activities to motivate students in English lessons
Finally, teachers should be given more opportunities to expand their knowledge of English language teaching methodology and their language competence in communicative activities In other words, workshops and training courses on language teaching methodology and language competence improvement should be delivered more regularly so that teachers can either update the new vocabulary teaching methods or gradually refresh their own ways to achieve a more effective vocabulary teaching Apart from encouraging teachers to participate in these programs as well as take part in further education courses, the college should invest and upgrade the English language teaching facilities such as equipping more computers, projectors, radio and English reference books for teachers and students.
Limitations of the study
In spite of the writer's effort, the research still has a number of shortcomings
First of all, the scope of the study is limited It only has involved in teaching vocabulary explicitly, yet not concerned with the other vocabulary teaching approaches The second limitation is the small number of participants at a college in Yen Bai province The findings presented in this study might not be representative for all the students of the college as well as all other colleges in Viet Nam The third, the time limitation prevents the researcher from observing some more lessons and conducting interviews with larger numbers of respondents
However, this research still shows out useful information of teachers' ideas of explicit vocabulary teaching at YBMC and how they actually taught vocabulary explicitly in the classroom With its findings, the research reveals that teachers' techniques of explicit vocabulary teaching were very poor and boring, they hardly focused on the word usage in context and they mostly depended on the textbook with so few given vocabulary activities and exercises In order to improve the current vocabulary teaching and learning situation, teachers of English at YBMC in particular have to take all these issues into account It is certainly that the research is also a reference for anyone who wants to understand more about the explicit vocabulary teaching for the beginners with limited vocabulary size like students at YBMC.
Suggestions for further studies
Vocabulary teaching can be seen as a process which consumes much time and energy in English language teaching Teaching vocabulary explicitly is a large field to do research on and applying suitable explicit vocabulary teaching techniques can be worthy of the researcher’s effort Basing on both findings and limitations of the research, several suggestions for further studies have been made
Firstly, further research should involve a bigger sample of participants for more valid and reliable results In addition, further study on teaching vocabulary explicitly should be conducted with the implementation of experimental methods
Certainly, some trial explicit techniques of vocabulary teaching in some classes would achieve surprising and useful findings
1 Aganes, P (2008), Improving Students' Vocabulary Mastery through Experiential
Learning, University of Surakarta, Retrieved on June 4 th , 2012 from: http://etd.eprints.ums.ac.id/2405/1/A320040254.pdf
2 Coxhead, A J (2000), A new academic wordlist, TESOL Quarterly, 34 (2), pp
213–23, Retrieved on August 20 th , 2012 from: http://edc448uri.wikispaces.com/file/view/Coxhead+2000+Acad+Word+List.pdf
3 Folse, K (2004), "Myths about Teaching and Learning Second Language
Vocabulary: What Recent Research Says?" TESL Reporter 37 (2), pp 1-13
4 Gairns, R., and Redman, S (1986), Working with Words: A Guide to Teaching and Learning Vocabulary, Cambridge: CUP
5 Gower, R., Phillips, D., and Walters, S (2005), Teaching Practice: A handbook for teachers in training, Oxford: Macmillan Publisher Limited
6 Graves, M (2006), The Vocabulary Book: Learning & Instruction, Teachers
7 Hanson, S and Padua, J (2011), Effective Instructional Strategies: Teaching vocabulary explicitly, Pacific Resources for Education and Learning
8 Hornby, A.S (2010), Oxford Advance Learners’ dictionary of Current English
9 Hunt, A and Beglar, D (1998), Current Research and Practice in Teaching
Vocabulary, The Language Teacher Online, Retrieved on April 8 th , 2012 from: http://www.jalt-publications.org/old_tlt/articles/1998/01/hunt
10 McCarthy, M (1990), Vocabulary, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11 McDonough, J and McDough, S (1997), Research Methods for English
Language Teachers, London: Arnold Publisher
12 Nation, P (1994), New Ways in Teaching Vocabulary, Pantagraph Printing,
13 Nation, P (2001), Learning Vocabulary in Another Language, Cambridge:
14 Nation, P (2005) "Teaching Vocabulary", Asian Journal 7 (3), pp 47-54
15 National Reading Panel (2000), Report of the National Reading Panel:
Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction,
Washington, DC: U.S Government Printing Office, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
16 Oppenheim, A N (1992) (2 nd ed.), Questionnaire Design, Interviewing and
Attitude Measurement, Printer Publishers London
17 Pyles, T and Algeo, J (1993), The Origins and Development of the English
Language, Fourth Edition, London: Harcourt Brace
18 Ramachandran, S D., and Rahim, H A (2004), "Meaning Recall and
Retention: The Impact of the Translation Method on Elementary Level Learners’ Vocabulary Learning", RELC Journal, 35(2), pp 161-178
19 Schmitt, N (2000), "Teaching and Learning vocabulary", In Vocabulary in
Language Teaching, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
20 Schmitt, N and McCarthy, M (1997), Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition and Pedagogy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
21 Shafaei, A., and Nejati, M (2009), Annals of Language Learning: Proceedings of the 2009 International Online Language Conference, Universal
22 Thornbury, S (2002), How to Teach Vocabulary, Essex: Pearson Education
23 Ur, P (1996), A Course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory,
24 West, M (1953), A General Service List of English Words, London: Longman
This interview is designed to examine teaching vocabulary explicitly to first- year students at Yen Bai Medical College Please answer all the questions and your answers will be kept confidential Thank you very much for your cooperation
Section 1: General and Demographic Information
Total years of teaching vocabulary: …… years
1 Anh/chị hiểu như thế nào về việc dạy từ vựng bằng cách cho nghĩa trực tiếp? Anh/chị có thường dạy từ vựng bằng cách này không?
2 Anh/ chị đánh giá thế nào về vốn từ vựng tiếng Anh của học sinh? Nguyên nhân vì sao họ có vốn từ vựng như vậy?
3 Theo anh/chị học sinh có những khó khăn gì khi học từ vựng? Anh / chị có giúp học sinh phát triển phương pháp học từ vựng để họ có thể tự học không? Cho ví dụ?
4 Khi dạy từ vựng anh/chị thường dạy tất cả các từ mới trong bài hay chỉ chọn ra một số từ để dạy? Tại sao anh / chị làm như vậy?
Nếu lựa chọn một số từ để dạy anh / chị lựa chọn những từ nào và dựa trên nguyên tắc gì để chọn?
5 Khi dạy những từ được chọn đó anh/chị thường dạy những gì?
6 Trên lớp, anh /chị thường dạy từ vựng bằng cách cho nghĩa trực tiếp như thế nào (Thủ thuật dạy từ vựng)? Anh / chị thường sử dụng thủ thuật nào giới thiệu từ vựng?
7 Anh/ Chị có thường xuyên cho học sinh ôn tập lại những từ đã học không?
Anh chị thường sử dụng những hình thức ôn tập từ vựng nào?
8 Một trong những cách học từ vựng là học sinh đọc và nghe tiếng Anh nhiều rồi các em sẽ phát triển vốn từ vựng của mình một cách không chủ ý, theo anh / chị cách học này có phù hợp với đối tượng học sinh của trường không? Vì sao?
Nếu không phù hợp thì giáo viên phải làm gì để giúp học sinh học từ vựng tốt hơn?
APPENDIX B INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT Question 1: In your opinion, what is explicit vocabulary teaching? How often do you teach vocabulary explicitly?
T1: Teaching vocabulary explicitly is my usual way in the class From my point of view, explicit vocabulary teaching is a teaching process which makes use of activities and exercises to direct learners' attention to vocabulary items
T2: In my opinion, teaching vocabulary explicitly is as simple as providing students with the meanings of the words directly I often use this approach in my vocabulary teaching
T3: Not to make students difficult in learning English and waste class time, it is necessary for me to introduce the word directly with its spelling, pronunciation and meaning I often do this in my class
Question 2: How large is your students' vocabulary from your point of view? Why do they have such an amount of vocabulary?
T1: My students' vocabulary size is limited They rarely speak out their opinion in class even the simple sentence because they don't have enough vocabulary The reason why they have limited vocabulary size is their laziness and their boredom in English vocabulary learning
T2: Most my students are very lazy and hardly pay attention to English, especially in vocabulary learning In class, they often keep silent, note down anything their teacher write on the board They seem to be shy of saying out the taught words in front of the class Generally, my students' lack of vocabulary challenges me much in vocabulary teaching process
T3: I can make sure that lots of students at this college own limited vocabulary size in spite of their learning English for some years I think whether students can widen their vocabulary size or not depends partly on the teacher's teaching vocabulary methods The teacher can attract students' attention by varying his/ her vocabulary teaching techniques to make the lesson more interesting
Question 3: What are your students' difficulties in vocabulary learning?
Do you teach them the word learning strategies in order that they can learn new words independently? If yes, for example?
T1: My students can't pronounce the new words, can't remember the word spelling as well as the word usage I often ask them to have vocabulary notebooks, to read and write vocabulary many times; encourage students to learn new words in context
T2: Spelling, pronunciation and usage of words make learners find it difficult to learn English new vocabulary items I think that word learning strategies are very helpful for students to learn vocabulary independently For example, I ask my students to make a list of taught words in class then learn by heart at home, sometimes I use word cards to check my students' memorization, I also ask them to guess the words in context or use dictionary to find the word meaning
T3: My students meet many difficulties in vocabulary learning such as the pronunciation, spelling, meaning as well as the use of the new vocabulary items In order to help them to learn vocabulary independently I often ask students to have vocabulary notebooks and encourage them to use dictionary or make word cards