Tìm hiểu thực trạng tổ chức các hoạt động kiểm tra từ vựng ở lớp 10 tại các trường trung học phổ thông tại huế

ABSTRACT This research focuses mainly on investigating how teachers use vocabulary checking activities in English lessons of grade 10 at upper secondary schools in Hue The research aims to provide an overview of the real state of how teachers check vocabulary after presenting new words Accordingly, the research explored the techniques of vocabulary checking teachers apply to help students remember vocabulary and how teachers design the activities Together with finding out the impacts of the activities on student, the research discovered the activities are effective in vocabulary checking The subject of this study is composed of 300 students and 20 teachers at five upper secondary schools in Hue: Quoc Hoc School, Hai Ba Trung School, Nguyen Hue School, Gia Hoi School and Phan Dang Luu School The study uses both qualitative and quantitative methodology The findings of the study are obtained by means of questionnaires, interviews and class observations with the informants of the research The findings reveal that the teachers at upper secondary schools are aware of the importance of vocabulary checking activities in English lessons They agree on the great benefits from the activities for the students including students‟ quick reaction, attractiveness of the lessons to create long-term memory for the students Moreover, the majority of the students like vocabulary checking activities and this is a great motivation for the teachers to carry out the activities Vocabulary checking activities are proved to create the feelings of fondness, happiness and eagerness among the students However, the lack of clear instruction and encouragement certainly prevents the students from participating enthusiastically in the activities More importantly, techniques of vocabulary checking are suggested to be adapted by the teachers so that the students remember new words better when they participate in the activities Finally, the students are suggested to make great efforts to take part in vocabulary checking activities in order to get the most benefits from the activities CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale Nowadays, with the tendency of globalization and integration, English is an international language to communicate among people from different countries This requires students to learn since young every aspect of English language like grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, culture, etc Moreover, students have to master all language skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing It is necessary that teaching English at school enables students to achieve these skills and the knowledge of English language For a long time, English language teaching, in its own progress, has undergone many changes to complete its missions There have been different points of view about how to teach and learn English Previously, the acquisition of grammar used to be the focus rather than that of vocabulary For many years, vocabulary teaching has been considered to be inferior to grammar teaching as Nunan, D [9:117] said, “It was believed that if learners were able to internalize these basic patterns, then building of large vocabulary would come later.” However, nowadays, vocabulary has been given a much more important role and is the focus of intention This is because there has been an increasing demand in the use of English to communicate in real life The use of vocabulary in communication has been more and more necessary when speakers need to understand each other and get information quickly from words not grammar It is clear that vocabulary play an important role in communication as Sheehan, A [13:4] stated: “Vocabulary and lexical units are at the heart of learning and communication No amount of grammatical or other type of linguistic knowledge can be employed in communication or discourse without the mediation of vocabulary.” In addition, Harmer, J [2:153] claimed that “where vocabulary is used correctly, it can cancel out structural inaccuracy” Vocabulary, not grammar, certainly helps to get the right information Therefore, students are required to have a large number of vocabulary words to use in communication That is to say, what the students have to master is not only a basic knowledge of grammar, but also a wide range of words Especially, at present, together with grammar-translation method, communicative approach plays its important role in teaching and learning It helps vocabulary regain the status which once was considered inferior to that of grammar Besides this, Nunan, D [9:118] said, “These days, the consensus of opinion seems to be that the development of rich vocabulary is an important element in the acquisition of a second language” We know that a baby when he first learns its mother tongue, he starts with learning the new words It is vocabulary that provides him with a mean to listen and speak and then understand everything around him When we study a second language, that is English language, every word is new to us We have to follow a procedure like a baby learning its first language However, this is a difficult procedure for students because they are required to remember thousands of words while their time is limited On the other hand, the words students learn just come into their mind and stay there like cold stones Students not have many chances to use vocabulary in real life, that is, to communicate in English At school, if the teacher just presents new words once in a lesson and this is the only time for the students to study these words, it will be impossible for them to remember all the words after many lessons, especially if vocabulary teaching procedure is too short with no impression It is necessary that students look back on what they have learnt and check how much they can remember so that they have chance to learn the second time any words they have forgotten When teaching students a second language, the activities of vocabulary checking should be a great concern In reality, students are not able to remember all new words which their teacher has just presented one time only It is necessary to give the students more time to think of the words before moving to the next stage in the teaching procedure There should be an activity in which the students think of new words in a meaningful way It is time for them to apply new words in a given situation, then to check whether they can recall the words and use them correctly After this kind of activity, new words are no longer „new‟ to students Understanding the meanings of the words is not all in learning vocabulary To learn vocabulary is not to look at the words like looking at the stones on the paper and trying to remember the meanings from the letters On the other hand, when the teacher presents new words, the students learn them passively They listen, write, read and speak with the words as the teacher asks them to It seems that students are some kind of machine controlled by an operator that is the teacher Students should have a chance to express their feelings, thoughts and ideas Here, students not only receive the meanings of the words from the outside but also need to think and produce the words correctly in a given context From these requirements, many activities have been designed and brought into use to help the students acquire and consolidate vocabulary As far as teaching English in Hue is concerned, it is necessary for us to pay attention to this topic However, the question is, „How much have we accomplished with this?‟ On the other hand, the problem is that in the students‟ textbook, for example, textbook „Tieng Anh 10‟ which is being used at schools in Vietnam, there are very few activities for vocabulary checking Therefore, when designing lesson plans, the teachers themselves have to think of the techniques which are appropriate to check how much students have learnt after new words have been presented so as to help them remember every word This research has been carried out with the hope to find out the solutions to this problem There are also many questions related to the research: Do teachers really realize the importance of vocabulary checking? Do they apply any techniques to check vocabulary? If yes, they carry out the activities effectively so that students can remember vocabulary better? From the research, it is expected to find out an effective way to help students learn and remember vocabulary better Moreover, the researcher desires to discover new techniques and methods to check vocabulary successfully Besides this, it is hoped that this research will serve as a useful reference for the teachers teaching at upper secondary schools 10 1.2 Topic An Investigation into How Teachers Use Vocabulary Checking Activities in English Lessons of Grade 10 at Upper Secondary Schools in Hue 1.3 Research purposes This research focuses on the following: - Providing us with an overview of the real situation of how teachers check vocabulary in English lessons in grade 10 at upper secondary schools in Hue - Exploring what techniques of vocabulary checking teachers apply to help students remember vocabulary and how teachers design the activities - Finding out the impacts of the activities on students - Discovering what activities are effective in vocabulary checking 1.4 Research questions The research makes an attempt to seek the answers to the following questions: What are teachers‟ techniques of vocabulary checking? What are students‟ attitudes towards teachers‟ techniques? What are the impacts of the vocabulary checking activities on the students? What techniques are effective in vocabulary checking? 1.5 Structure of the thesis Apart from the Table of Content, the References and Appendices, this thesis consists of five chapters: Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Literature Review Chapter 3: Methodology Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion Chapter 5: Conclusion and Implications Chapter presents the rationale of the study, research purposes, research questions, scope of the study and the organization of this thesis Chapter reviews theoretical background of this thesis From reviewing documents related to the topic of the research, some activities of vocabulary checking are summarized to be a basic for finding out how teachers design their 11 activities, what are similarities and differences between the activities in theory and those in reality Chapter reports the methodology of the research It mentions four parts such as research method, subjects of the study, data collection and data analysis Chapter presents the findings and discussion resulted from the questionnaires, class observations and interviews with the students in grade 10 and teachers at five upper secondary schools in Hue (Quoc Hoc School, Hai Ba Trung School, Nguyen Hue School, Gia Hoi School and Phan Dang Luu School) This chapter reveals the main content of the research – how teachers design and use vocabulary checking activities Then, the problems related to the topic are discussed from the data collected Chapter sumps up the results of the research Also, in this chapter some implications of the findings and suggestions for further studies are presented Before seeking for the data and drawing out the results of the research, the theoretical background of the thesis is needed to be reviewed so as to provide the basis from which the thesis could be developed in the right direction This would be done in Chapter - Literature Review 12 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Basic definitions of vocabulary So far, there has not been only one definition of vocabulary The concept of vocabulary has been understood differently based on different points of view of researchers: In the Random House Webster‟s Dictionary (1999), vocabulary was defined as “a list of collection of words and often phrases, usually arranged in alphabetical order and defined.” In this way of defining, we know vocabulary is words or phrases which have meanings Besides, the Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary [3:1447] considered vocabulary as “all the words in a particular language” which showed the relation between vocabulary and language Mc Carthy, M [4:3] had a similar idea, “when we speak of the vocabulary of a language, we are speaking primarily, but not exclusively, of the words of that language For our purpose here, it is most convenient to think of words as free standing items of language that have meanings.” That is to say, vocabulary is an important component to form a language On the other hand, Ur, P [16:60] regarded vocabulary as “the words we teach in the foreign language” to show another way to understand vocabulary in relation to teaching a foreign language In short, from the above definitions, firstly, vocabulary can be understood as words or phrases which form a language Secondly, vocabulary is a set of words or phrases which have meanings and are used to transmit information in communication It is the meanings of words and phrases that help us understand each other That is why in teaching and learning English, vocabulary gets a high position which needs much consideration and studying 2.2 The necessity of studying vocabulary In acquiring English language, the recent tendency focuses more on communication than linguistics competence It is explained by Robinson, P [12:160] that the essence of communicative language teaching is that it concerns 13 itself with learners‟ purposes in using language: purposes and uses of language are emphasized, rather than knowledge about language Especially, talking about English teaching in Vietnam, Noseworthy, E [8:27] emphasized “the teachers must see the goal of language learning as communication in the language, not knowledge about the language.” In other words, the purpose of studying English is to produce the language in communication, not just to store the language inside our minds In order to achieve this purpose, the students need to find out the means of language which support them to communicate effectively To clarify this idea, Nation, P [6:8] pointed out that “Rich vocabulary makes the skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing easier to perform.” That is to say, vocabulary helps to make it more convenient for the students to develop all the skills of communication In addition, in communication, without words to express the meanings, we cannot understand each other For example, if we were working with English counterparts and we kept silent all the time because we did not know their language then no information was exchanged and it would not be easy to be successful in our business To emphasize the importance of vocabulary, Harmer, J [2:153] wrote, “Grammatical knowledge allows us to generate sentences At the same time, though, we must have something to say; we must have meanings that we wish to express, and we need to have a store of words that we can select from when we wish to express these meanings If you want to describe how you feel at this very moment you have to be able to find a word which reflects the complexity of your feeling.” Accordingly, vocabulary helps us to show ourselves, open what is hidden inside our mind and facilitate interaction among us Besides this, Mc Carthy, M [4:3] expressed the same idea: “Vocabulary is the biggest components of any language course, no matter how well the students learn the grammar, no matter how successfully the sounds of the second language are master, without words to express a wide range of meanings, communication in a second language just cannot happen in any meaningful way.” This idea explains why vocabulary is always needed for communication For this necessity, 14 when the students learn English language, they are required to remember a lot of new words and know how to apply vocabulary in communication 2.3 The importance of vocabulary checking in English lessons Obviously, teaching vocabulary helps the students to obtain their goals of studying English However, the problem is that it is not easy for the students to establish a long-term memory of the words they have learnt In reality, when the teacher presents the words, the students are asked to listen and repeat mechanically after teacher‟s pronunciation or look at the words on the board then copy them into the notebooks They not have chance to think of the meanings of the words Therefore, a new word is still a new word when the students see it the second time The role of the teachers, therefore, is not just to present the new words More importantly, they have to help the students revise the words to remember them better Regarding this, Harmer, J [2:160] claimed, “Experiments on vocabulary seem to suggest that students remember best when they have actually something with the words they are learning There is a definite advantage in getting students to more than just repeat them Tasks such as changing them to mean their opposites, making a noun an adjective, putting words together, etc help to fix the words in the learners‟ mind.” In particular, to create students‟ long-term memory, the teachers have to know how to design vocabulary checking activities in which they make it clearer about the meanings and the use of new words as well as giving the students more time to practice with the words 2.4 Techniques for teachers to design activities of vocabulary checking In order to check students‟ memory after new words are presented, teachers have to design some activities so that the students have something to with the words they learnt The activities may be collected from many sources or created by the teachers In the textbook for students at Hue University - College of Foreign Languages [7:65-70] there are 12 techniques for teachers to design vocabulary checking activities These techniques are described in this section to show basic steps 15 teachers need to know about vocabulary checking activities They are considered as available source of techniques to discover whether the teachers investigated follow these techniques or create new ones, whether they follow the same steps or make any changes The steps and techniques to check vocabulary are described as followed: a Bingo * Teaching aim: To get the students to practice listening to new words to match sound with spelling * Procedure: a The teacher gets the class to brainstorm a list of ten or fifteen new words and puts them on the board b The students choose any five words and copy them into their books c The teacher reads out the words in any order d Each time the student has one of the words that the teacher reads, she/he puts a tick next to that word e The first student to tick all five words shouts “Bingo!” b Guess the picture * Teaching aim: To get a lot of students to practice saying the new words in a meaningful way * Procedure: a The teacher makes A4 pictures in a pie b Then get the students to come to the front and choose one of the pictures c Make sure nobody else can see which picture has been chosen d Get the rest of the class to guess which picture it is e Students ask, “Is it a …?” then the student answers „Yes‟ or „No‟ f The first student to guess the picture correctly comes up to the front, choose a new picture and the game continues 16 of the students (ages, abilities and preferences) Also, they help to achieve different aims of different lessons and they are suitable for different categories of the new words Moreover, the adapted activities provide a variety of work arrangements such as whole class, groupwork, pairwork and individual so all the students have chance to participate in the activities The techniques adapted by teachers are „Bingo‟, „Guess the picture‟, „Network‟ and „Noughts and crosses‟ Actually, these adapted activities were told by the teachers to be successful in vocabulary checking in their own classes It is suggested that these activities be used by other teachers in other classes Apart from the above suggestions, the teachers expressed an idea that all techniques of vocabulary checking could be adapted by considering and improving some limitations with the aim to make the activities more effective than the original techniques Finally, since vocabulary is always needed in all lessons, we see that all the techniques mentioned can be used in all lessons: listening, speaking, reading, writing, pronunciation and grammar However, we should notice that some techniques such as „Wordstorm‟ and „Networks‟ are suitable for vocabulary checking after from one to three Units because these techniques require the students to work with a large number of words taken from many lessons 67 4.5 Effective solutions for using vocabulary checking activities Before finding out effective solutions for using vocabulary checking activities, we need to find out difficulties that prevent the teachers from organizing the activities the most effectively Based on the difficulties and teachers‟ opinions, the research draws out solutions for using the activities This part also explores solutions to the students to review new words in vocabulary checking activities with best results 4.5.1 Teachers’ difficulties in using vocabulary checking activities Question (QA): What are your difficulties when you use vocabulary checking activities? Table 4.20: Teachers’ difficulties in using vocabulary checking activities Difficulties Teachers (No = 20) Percentage (%) a The levels of the students are different 13 65 b You not have much time to prepare 15 75 c You don‟t have many sources of materials 19 95 d It takes much money to make teaching tools 15 75 e No difficulty 0 for the activities Table 4.20 shows teachers‟ difficulties when they used vocabulary checking activities The data indicates that difficulties are not avoidable and the biggest difficulty of the teachers is to find out sources of materials to prepare for the activities 95% of the teachers agreed on this idea and they explained a variety of materials plays an important role to make the activities effective In particular, in many activities such as „Matching‟, „Ordering‟ and „Running context‟, the teachers needed the pictures, paragraphs or stories related to the new words In the interview, dealing with question „From what sources did you find out the materials for vocabulary checking activities?‟ the teachers replied that they had to search in the internet, go to the library, read many books or newspapers to find out suitable materials for the activities It is not easy for the teachers because they 68 not have enough time to prepare well everything they need That is why 75% of the teachers said that they did not have much time to prepare for the activities The same percentage of the teachers claimed another difficulty is the cost to prepare the materials For example, in activity „Matching‟ the teachers had to prepare the pictures which were used to match with the new words Especially, the pictures should be beautiful and colorful to attract the students Obviously, not only time but much money was spent on searching in the internet and buying markers, posters or pictures… What the schools provided for the activities was inconsiderable whereas the current salary of teachers was not high enough for them to afford such kinds of materials One more difficulty is that the levels of the students are quite different, which is supported by 65% of the teachers The teachers told that in most classes, students are different in English competence Some students are very good at English so they act quickly in the activities Others are not so good and they are unconfident to participate in the activities Therefore, it is difficult to design the activities which are suitable for the abilities of all students With a view to preparing and using vocabulary checking activities in class effectively, all the teachers wish to find out the ways to overcome their difficulties The next part of this Chapter will discuss more about this 4.5.2 How to solve teachers’ difficulties Question 10 (QA): What should the teachers to solve difficulties when using vocabulary checking activities? Table 4.21: How to solve teachers’ difficulties Solutions Teachers Percentage (No = 20) (%) a Design the activities with different levels of difficulty 16 80 b Make a collection of materials in free time 16 80 c Share the materials and experience with the 20 100 10 50 colleagues d Ask students to help you prepare the materials 69 Table 4.21 shows teachers‟ solutions to their difficulties when they used vocabulary checking activities As can be seen from the table, all of the teachers (100%) agreed to share the materials and experience with the colleagues Clearly, one benefit of sharing the materials is that the teachers save much time and money preparing for the activities In addition, sharing experience enables the teachers to learn from each other, that is, to apply the techniques of other teachers which were proved to be successful Besides this, 80% of the teachers thought that the teachers should design the activities with different levels of difficulty Regarding this, the teachers shared their experience, that is, to decide in each step of the activities which tasks are simple and which are more complicated Then the simple tasks are given to the weak students with much encouragement while the complicated tasks are given to the good students The same percentage of the teachers agreed on making a collection of materials in free time With the collection of materials prepared in advanced, the teachers have a rich reference to use when it is needed Some teachers also asked the students to help them look for the materials such as pictures, photos, or stories… This will help the teachers save much time preparing for the activities However, the teachers who agreed on this idea also added that we should not depend on the students very much due to the fact that they need time to study other subjects Moreover, the students may spend much time looking for the materials but what they find out is not appropriate for the activities As for the students, they should have great efforts in vocabulary checking activities Whenever the teachers organize the activities, the students should try to express themselves Although they may make mistakes, the important thing is that they can correct their mistakes in vocabulary checking activities The students are suggested to participate in vocabulary checking activities regularly They can also encourage and help each other so that all the students can learn from themselves Besides this, they should spend time at home preparing new words before studying in class and reviewing the words after studying them It is 70 hoped that great efforts would help the students study and remember a large number of new words for their use in reality In short, the findings and discussions analyzed and clarified the significant issues of the study The research discovered vocabulary checking activities are essential part in the stage of teaching new words In addition, they are all used by the teachers in their classes Besides this, most students showed positive attitudes towards teachers‟ techniques The research also examined and revealed some good impacts of the activities on the students Based on data analysis, the research found out effective techniques in checking vocabulary with the aim to help the students remember words better for their use of English in real life The contributions and the implications of this study are presented in the next conclusion chapter 71 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS Overview Chapter Five summarizes the major findings of the research as well as presenting some conclusion and implications It also concludes with the limitations of the research and some suggestions for further studies 5.1 Summary of the findings The research firstly found out teachers‟ techniques of vocabulary checking to emphasize the importance of vocabulary checking activities and to explore new techniques which can be applied to check vocabulary Next, the research explored students‟ attitudes towards teachers‟ techniques for the teachers to make proper adjustment in their techniques After that, the impacts of the activities on the students were examined to discover the benefits students get from vocabulary checking activities Finally, the research drew out the techniques to check vocabulary effectively The summary of the findings is presented as follows: 5.1.1 Teachers’ techniques of vocabulary checking Regarding the first question, the researcher investigated the situation of using techniques of vocabulary checking in English lessons The research showed that the teachers at upper secondary schools were aware of the importance of vocabulary checking activities in English lessons so all techniques were used by teachers In thirteen vocabulary checking activities, there are seven activities which were used more frequently than the others: „Matching‟, „Bingo‟, „Jumbled Words‟, „Rub Out and Remember‟, „Slap the Board‟, „Guess the Picture‟ and „Wordsquare‟ Besides this, the teachers designed and used three new techniques such as „Lucky Number‟, „Miming‟ and „Roleplays‟ The reason for using these activities was that they were easy to apply because the steps in each activity were simple for the students to follow Moreover, they were suitable for students‟ age, competence, preference and the class size In teaching English, presenting and checking vocabulary are important stages in all lessons (such as reading, writing, listening, speaking, grammar, etc.) because 72 there are so many new words to learn in each lesson However, the students cannot remember all the words without practicing and reviewing with them Hence, there was a great need among the teachers to use these activities after they presented new words to help the students remember the words better Nevertheless, the majority of the teachers in reality did not always carry out vocabulary checking activities It is because of some difficulties The teachers did not have enough time, money and sources of materials to prepare for vocabulary checking activities Also, the levels of students in one class were not equal These difficulties prevented the teachers from organizing the activities successfully The research has pointed out the ways to solve these difficulties which are shown in this Chapter (section 5.3 – Implications) When using vocabulary checking activities, the teachers agreed on the great benefits from the activities for the students including students‟ quick reaction, attractiveness of the lessons to create long-term memory for the students In order to know whether the students remember new words after vocabulary checking activities, the teachers could give them a short test about the meanings, use and pronunciation of the words they learnt after about two or three weeks Moreover, in a new lesson, the teachers should check the words that the students learnt in previous lessons From teachers‟ techniques of vocabulary checking, students showed different attitudes This affected much on the effectiveness of vocabulary checking activities Thus, the teachers are suggested to pay attention to analyzing students‟ attitudes towards their techniques 5.1.2 Students’ attitudes towards teachers’ techniques The second question was raised to consider students‟ attitudes towards vocabulary checking activities We see that the majority of the students like vocabulary checking activities This is a great motivation for the teachers to carry out the activities in class In detail, the students showed their preferences for many vocabulary checking activities such as „Matching‟, „Jumbled words‟, „Bingo‟, „Rub out and remember‟, „Slap the board‟, „Networks‟, „Guess the 73 picture‟, „Running context‟, „Wordsquare‟, „Lucky Number‟, „Miming‟ and „Roleplays‟ No wonder why most of the students often take part in these activities Moreover, the students revealed that they took part in these activities frequently because they were organized by the teachers more often than other activities Working with familiar activities, students felt confident and acted quickly because they understood the rules and the instructions Besides this, in „Guess the Picture‟, „Matching‟ and „Running Context‟ there were many tasks for the students to so they did not feel bored but tried as hard as they could to complete their tasks Examining students‟ attitudes towards vocabulary checking activities, the teachers also have to take into account all aspects which affect students‟ preference, attention and participation then make proper improvements to help the students remember new words better 5.1.3 The impacts of the activities on the students The third question referred to the impacts of vocabulary checking activities on the students The research proved vocabulary checking activities have some good impacts of on the students In particular, vocabulary checking activities create the feelings of fondness, happiness and eagerness among the students when they participate in the activities However, the lack of clear instruction and encouragement prevents them from participating enthusiastically in the activities Thirteen vocabulary checking activities were proved to have different impacts on the students and play different roles in helping the students remember new words In particular, „Guess the picture‟, „Matching‟ and „Running context‟ give the students chances to practice the words with many skills like listening, speaking, reading and writing in meaningful ways In addition, „Networks‟ and „Noughts and crosses‟ train the students to think logically and critically with the new words Other activities such as „Slap the board‟, „Bingo‟, „Jumbled words‟, „Ordering‟, „Rub out and remember‟, „What and where‟, „Wordsquare‟ and „Wordstorm‟ are easier and more simple for the students Thus, when the teachers use these activities, much encouragement is created for the lower competent students to participate in the activities The teachers also create three 74 more activities: „Lucky number‟ gives students chances to review the meanings of the words, pronunciation and know how to use the words in sentences „Miming‟ helps the students remember words through actions „Roleplays‟ train the students to use new words in communication The research also revealed that most students were ready to take part in vocabulary checking activities because these activities gave them time to review and remember new words Furthermore, the students could correct their mistakes in these activities Vocabulary checking activities also brought in an intersting atmosphere in which students could play and compete with each other Analyzing the techniques of vocabulary checking, students‟ attitudes towards teachers‟ techniques and the impacts of the activities on the students, the teachers could make some adjustment and adaptation from their techniques to make the activities more effective 5.1.4 Effective techniques in checking vocabulary The fourth question aims to find out effective techniques to check vocabulary Analyzing students‟ difficulties and expectation in vocabulary checking activities, the teachers had a base to design and use the activities in proper ways In some activities, the students could not answer quickly when they were asked to because the requirements were to hard for them to think Besides this, the activities such as „Noughts and Crosses‟, „Rub Out and Remember‟ and „Slap the Board‟ required just few students to work with the words Thus, most of the students, especially the weak students, did not have many chances to participate in the activities From these difficulties, the students expected their teachers to give much encouragement and support so that they could be confident in all activities They also needed the teachers to organize vocabulary checking activities frequently with various techniques This could encourage more students to participate in the activities and make the activities more effective in helping students remember new words From teachers‟ experience, some vocabulary checking activities are suggested to be adapted so that they are suitable for students‟ ages, abilities, preferences as 75 well as the aims of the lessons and the categories of the new words Moreover, the adapted activities provide a variety of work arrangements such as whole class, groupwork, pairwork and individual so all the students have chance to participate in From the interview and class observations, the research described clearly four techniques which are adapted and used successfully by the teachers: „Bingo‟, „Guess the picture‟, „Networks‟, „Noughts and crosses‟ It was also showed that some techniques such as „Wordstorm‟ and „Networks‟ are suitable for vocabulary checking after from one to three Units because these techniques require the students to work with a large number of words taken from many lessons In short, answering four research questions, it is hoped to help the teachers use vocabulary checking activities effectively so that the students get the best benefits in their learning new words 5.2 Contributions of the study The findings of this research have provided an overview of the real state of how teachers check vocabulary after presenting new words in English lessons in grade 10 at upper secondary schools in Hue We know that vocabulary checking activities are really necessary in each lesson so the teachers need to spend time designing and using them in their clases The research also explores the techniques of vocabulary checking teachers apply and how they design the activities to help the students remember vocabulary better The adapted techniques and their advantages have been described and analyzed clearly in the research It is hoped that the adapted techniques are valuable references for the teachers of English at upper secondary schools 5.3 Implications Based on the findings, the researcher would like to offer some implications as follows: 76 5.3.1 Importance factors to make vocabulary checking activities effective First of all, it is clear that the teachers at upper secondary schools were fully aware of the importance of vocabulary checking activities when teaching new words Much attention and careful preparation are needed for effective vocabulary checking activities with the aim to give students chances to practice with new words and remember them For the necessity of vocabulary checking activities, they should be used in English lessons; otherwise, the students will have nothing to with the new words and the words they have learnt just come out of their minds easily Vocabulary checking activities when designed and used based on the students‟ needs, ages, preference, abilities and psychology would bring about the feelings of comfortable and eagerness to the students as well as helping them overcome their difficulties to participate in the activities Apart from the available techniques of vocabulary checking, the teachers should develop their creativeness by thinking of new techniques which can be more suitable and effective in vocabulary checking It is also suggested that vocabulary checking activities be frequently used so that the students are familiar with the activities and the tasks without trying hard to understand the rules In the procedure of organizing vocabulary checking activities in class, the teachers can create motivations for the students in many ways In particular, the teachers introduce the aims and the importance of vocabulary checking activities, give clear instructions, check students‟ understanding, create competitiveness among them and give much encouragement, for example, using good marks and praising 5.3.2 The use of vocabulary checking activities in class The teachers are suggested to use a variety of activities to bring fresh feelings and eagerness to the students Apart from the techniques used for particular lessons, the techniques which require the students to work with a large number of words taken from many lessons such as „Wordstorm‟ and „Networks‟ are suitable for vocabulary checking after from one to three units Among vocabulary 77 checking activities, the activities containing many tasks for the students to work with the new words such as „Guess the picture‟, „Matching‟ and „Running context‟ help to enable the students to remember the words better than the activities with few tasks Simple tasks like pronouncing or identifying the words from seeing and listening to the words are suggested to be used when the new words are easy to understand or when the lesson is pronunciation Easy tasks should be given to low competent students to appeal their attention and participation as in „Slap the board‟, „Bingo‟, „Jumbled words‟, „Ordering‟, „Rub out and remember‟, „What and where‟, „Wordsquare‟ and „Wordstorm‟ However, if the tasks are too simple and easy, the activities will become boring and monotonous More difficult tasks should be included in the activities and given to better students It is better to design the tasks which require the students to think logically to create great challenge and efforts for the students as in „Networks‟ and „Noughts and crosses‟ In addition, the activities certainly become attractive with plenty of interesting materials such as colorful pictures, handouts, posters, flash cashes, etc 5.3.3 Adaptation of vocabulary checking activities In all vocabulary checking activities, some activities are needed to be adapted to satisfy the needs of the students, to achieve different aims of different lessons and to be suitable for different categories of the new words Besides this the adapted activities provide a variety of work arrangements (whole class, groupwork, pairwork and individual) to be suitable for different techniques In preparing for vocabulary checking activities, the teachers may encounter a lot of difficulties due to the lack of time, expense and sources of materials In addition, The levels of the students in one class are quite different Therefore, it is advisable that the teachers design the activities with different levels of difficulty, share the materials and experience with the colleagues and make a collection of materials in their free time Moreover, it would be more convenient for the teachers of English if the schools should spend some more amount of expense on preparing the materials for vocabulary checking activities 78 5.4 Limitations Due to time limit, other subjective and objective reasons, some limitations of this study are not avoidable The first limitation is the scale of the study Because of the lack of time and conditions, the informants investigated for the research are limited in 20 teachers and 300 students of grade 10 in five upper secondary schools in Hue City Thus, the data taken for the research are not fully informative If there were enough time and conditions, the informants investigated could be larger in numbers and certainly, the research is better in quality The second limitation is the lack of reference for the research During the progress studying, the researcher had to select all references related to the topic of the studies including reference books, textbooks, articles, etc However, the sources for reference are rather rare to get enough information Most of the references are selected from the library Others are from different sources such as the internet, newspapers… Therefore, the researcher warmly appreciates more supporting ideas from readers, teachers, colleagues and whom the research concerns to make the study more perfect It is hoped that the findings and suggestions of the research are of great value to the teachers and students in teaching and studying English at schools 5.5 Suggestions for further studies Using vocabulary checking activities after presenting new words plays an important part in the procedure of teaching English It needs further studies for more valuable results Therefore, the researcher suggests the following: - How teachers design techniques of vocabulary checking to help students remember new words as well as practicing language skills? This topic should aim at finding out which techniques are suitable to use for each of the language skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing - How to adapt the techniques of vocabulary checking in order to make the activities more effective? 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