An effective way of learning english vocabulary

I HO CHI MINH CIT UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES IN ORMATION TECHNOLOGY De artment of Foreign Languages GRADUATION PAP R • 11/~IIi~il ~;llllmi 101000 74 Supervisor : Mr PRAM TAN QUYEN,M.A Student : DINH QUANG TO THY Class : SA0201 Student number: 0271351 - Ho Chi Minh City, July 2006 - I HO CHI MINH CI Y UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES I }'ORlVIATION TECHN OI.•OGY D partmellt o/Foreigll Languages GRADUATION PAI.'R Supervisor : lVIr PHAlVI TAN QUYEN,JVLA Student : DINH QUANG TO THY Cluss : SI\0201 Student number: 0271351 I AC(NOWLEDGEMENTS During the airly hard period of conducting this research eived valuable advice, timely encouragement as well as spirit al support from my beloved family members , especially my sis r, my teachers and friends First of all, I would like to send my gratitude to Mr Pham Tan respectable Quyen, advisor, for his precious suggestions and enthusiastic guidance Also, my eartfelt thanks send to the whole staff of Foreign Langua es Department, especially Ms Bui Thi Thanh Truc for creatijg favorable conditions that helped me in carrying out my xperiment I can not t: 1to mention the invaluable contribution made n in UUFLlT(AV0501.02.03.04) for filling in my questionnaire uld like to express my high appreciation and t to A.Duy, Tuyen, experimenting 11 students of AV050 (Dung, Tuan, at, Trang, Thanh, NIta, T.Duy, Vui, Oanh) for y suggested learning methods Last but Ii from least, I am indebted to dear members of my class SAO 1, for giving me all good things during my student time DINOQUANG TOTIIY :' I In recent years, the English language appears so popular that English learning has virtua y received the most consideration from public in general and foreign language students at HUFLIT in particular Most of them desire to ap roach an effective learning strategy to be capable of using their stocks of vocabulary correctly and appropriately This research aime at (1) presenting different aspects of words which is necessary for ocabulary meaning, pronunci collocation • learning tion, classification, ; (2) f nding out freshers' , focusing on word family, style, antonym/ synonym and attitude towards vocabulary learning and then s ggesting an effective way of vocabulary learning To carry out this r search, a questionnaire was completed by 41 first-year 03-04 of HUFLIT students Besides, was designed and used It students from classes: AV0501-02- an experiment was conducted on 11 of the cl ss AV0501 in weeks to assess the effect of 12 suggested methods From the question aire, it was found that most students not pay full attention ocabulary have to their not Additionally, them helpe due self-learning remember and Moreover, use their methods words correctly 12 given methods, a positive result on improving students' stocks of vocabulary was proved through the experiment The findings imp y that students their vocabulary by applying should take interest suggested strategies in improving Also, a further research on other strategies is necessary and encouraged TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ACKNOWLEDGE ENTS CHAPTER : I TRODUCION •.•.•.•.•.•.•.• •.• •.• •.•.•.• 1 Backgro d •.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.• •.•.• • .•.•.•.•.•.•.• •.•.• Literatur review •.•.• •.•.• • •.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.• Purpose .•.•.•.•.•.•.•.• •.•.•.•.•.•.• • •.•.• •.• •.•.• Organizat on •.•.• •.• •.•.•.•.•.• .•.•.•.• •.• •.•.•.•.•.• CHAPTER 2: ORD KNOWLEDGE 2.1 :Defmiti n of Word • .•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.• •.• • • 2.2 :Word F rmation •.•.•.•.•.• •.• •.•.•.•.• •.•.• •.•.•.• 2.3 :Word C assification •.•.•.•.• • .•.• •.• •.•.•.•.• •.•.• 2.3.1 I C ntent words 2.3.1.1 2.3.1.2 2.3.1.3 3.1.4 2.3.2 IF :Noun •.•.•.• •.• •.•.•.•.• •.•.•.•.•.• •.•.•.• :Ver b • •.•.• .•.•.•.•.•.•.•.• •.•.•.• •.• • :Adjective •.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.• •.•.•.• 12 :Adverb •.•.• • • •.• .•.•.•.•.•.•.• 13 ction words 2.3.2.1 :Pronoun • .•.•.• •.•.•.•.•.•.•.• • • 14 2.3.2 :Determiner • .•.• •.• .•.•.•.•.•.• .• 14 2.3.2.3 :Preposition •.•.•.•.•.•.•.• .• •.•.• •.•.•.•.•.• 15 2.3.2 :Conjunction •.• .•.•.•.•.•.• •.•.•.• .• 15 2.4 : Word ronunciation • •.• •.•.•.•.•.• • •.•.• 15 2.5 : Word tyle •.•.• • •.• •.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.• .•.•.•.• •.•.• • 16 2.5.1 F rmal and informal style •.•.•.•.•.•.• •.• • •.•.•.• 17 2.5.2 Sl ng •.• •.• •.•.•.•.•.•.•.• •.• • .• 19 2.5.3 T boo •.•.•.•.• • .•.•.•.•.•.• •.•.•.•.•.•.•.• 20 2.6 : Word eaning •.• •.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.• • •.• •.• .• •.•.• .21 2.6.1 D notative meaning •.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.• •.•.•.•.•.•.•.• • 21 2.6.2 C nnotative meaning •.•.•.•.• • •.•.•.•.•.•.•.• • 24 2.7 ': Word ollocation •.• •.•.•.• •.• • •.•.• •.•.•.•.• 24 2.8 : Concl sion • •.•.•.•.•.•.•.• .• •.• •.•.•.• • .• .26 ' CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Nowadays, learnin modern English has become an indispensable society T erefore, always holds public concerns learning vocabulari finding out effective learning Among them, methods or strategies in in English As far as the research knows , many En lish learners approached methods s are being discussed more fully by linguists and people with real i terest students majoring i need of a - in general doer and foreign language English at HUFLIT - in particular have not yet an effe tive vocabulary learning method Meanwhile, the traditionallearnin style, simple translation into the learners' native language - here is ietnamese- According to them learning a word is learning the meaning and the is still being used by a lot of students way to pronounce i as Lewis (1995:85) suggests The most succes ful methods concentrate on meaning If we try and store words in our mi ds simply by sound and not by meaning, we are doing the same thing as w when we try to remember nonsense words that have no meaning for us However, Brown ( 994:365) supposes that finding out the meaning of words to learn is not sufficient, learners should know the contexts those words can be applied The best of (comprehension surrounding and di course vocabulary production) Rather than with words isolating comes from within words the and/or encounters context of focusing on - 1Student: DINH QUA G TO THY Advisor: Mr PHAM TAN QUYEN .• dioLion.,y defini~on" aUcnd 10 ,ocabnl.,y within a eommnnicaLi,c framework in wh ch items appear students will then associate new words with a meaningful ontext to which they apply Marilyn Lewis (1995 84) seems to agree with Brown's viewpoint: Knowing a word eans being able to recognize and use it in speech and writing It also mans knowing the contexts the word is used in and it's most common collocati ns (the words that usually go with it) What is more, learning, on considering the role Yu (199 :96) also brings of context In vocabulary out his OpInIOn that deriving meaning from cont xtual clues is an effective way to increase the I - i I I _ students'vocabular He also states 11 types of contextual clues They are: ntonyms, • synonyms, alternatives , expl nation or restatement, cause and effect, characteristic In addition to a c rrect hyponyms, metonymy, example definitions, or illustration, or quality, comparison and contrast approach to effective vocabulary methods, being aw re of some difficulties learners learning may encounter will help them look for the best ways to deal with As Carter and Carthy (1988:97) says: Vocabulary diffi ulty is estimated in various ways, the most usual are word frequency andlo familiarity and word length That is, sentences are more readable if they contain words that are of high frequency in occurrence and that are shorter rather than longer - 2Student: DINH QUA G TO THY Advisor: Mr PHAM TAN QUYEN In the process of studying English at HUFLIT , I have witnessed many "half laughing and half crying" situations in which students can not express their ideas, opinions or attitude in English in chatting with their friends at English speaking clubs or in Speaking Exams because of their shortage of vocabulary Consequently, they have to use \ nonverbal languages or translate them into their mother tongue Additionally, several students take a lot of time to retrieve words while speaking or writing Nevertheless, when being able to recover words, they use them in wrong styles, collocations or/and contexts There are many reasons leading to these poor situations However, in the writer's opinion, most students have not been acutely aware of practising vocabulary self-learning frequently Besides, an ineffective learning strategy is likely to demoralize them Thus I determine HUFLIT freshmen's to carry out this research, firstly to investigate attitude towards vocabulary learning as well as their strategies and then to suggest some more effective solutions for their vocabulary learning methods I strongly believe that once these methods are applied, students are likely to use words accurately and retain words for a long time The report opens with an introduction about vocabulary learning real situations together with some concepts proposed by some linguists It then goes on to present word knowledge in chapter chapter is devoted to method Chapter four presents the results It is expanded two The next and interprets with some suggested vocabulary learning methods in chapter five Finally, a conclusion of the research is shown -3Student: DINH QUANG TO THY Advisor: Mr PHAM TAN QUYEN CHAPTER TWO WORD KNOWLEDGE 2.1 Defmition of Word Most language learners know what a word is but they can not give a full definition However, people seldom raise such a silly question because as Stageberg (1981:114) demonstrates: That the word is a genuine linguistic unit is scarcely questioned, everyone seems to know what it is Teachers have no difficulty in making up spelling lists, which consist of words Le xicographers produce dictionaries whose entries are mainly words Definitions of word, however seem to vary from dictionaries to dictionaries because words are notoriously difficult entities to define in either universal or language specific terms (Delahunty and J Garvey, 1994:97) According to Oxford Advanced Learner's all the words that a person Dictionary (2000), word is knows or uses Meanwhile, Mc Milan English Dictionary (2002) supposes word is a single unit of written or spoken language Another definition of word is drawn from Webster's New World College Dictionary (1999) Vocabulary is a list of words, and often phrases, abbreviations, inflectional forms , etc usually arranged in alphabet order and defined or otherwise identified, as in a dictionary or glossary Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2003) regards word as the smallest unit of language that people can understand if it is said or written on its own -4Student: DINH QUANG TO THY Advisor: Mr PHAM TAN QUYEN " [bIDfJl color crimson the Jace usually because you are embarrassed: ml\it ° Ex: Joan blushed at the unexpected compliment sweat (v)[swet] = blush : blush at /with ° Ex: He blushed gLthe mention of her name ° Ex: She blushed crimson with embarrassment blush (n) ° Ex :She bent her head to hide her blushes blushing(a) ° Ex : The blushing bride blushin2ly (adv) +have drops oj [pa'spaia(r)] salty liquid n9i d9n9 tU' coming out rna hoi, through your taat rna hoi skin because you are hot, ill, frightened, or doing exercise perspire :d6 m6 hoi,tocit rna hOi °Ex:lwas sweating a lot despite the airconditioning .:.freely /heavily / slight sweat :.begin to sweatt make so sweat ° Ex: The heat was making us sweat .:.sweat from /with ° Ex: We were sweating heavily from moving the furniture :.sweat like a pig :d6 nhi~u ma hoi sweat(n):ma hoi ° Ex :Sweat poured ,-" down his face break (v) [breik] [breakbrokebroken/ breaking I +if you break something, you make it separate into two or more pieces,Jor example by hitting it, dropping it, or bending it : break easily/in half • Ex: She easily broke the chocolate bar in half :.break into • Ex: The glass broke into hundreds of pieces [T,I] :-Cully /mainly / entirely concentrate : to concentrate on/upon something • Ex: Having failed my French exams, I decided to concentrate on science subjects : concentrate your efforts/ attention/ energy / mind etc on something [I] • Ex : I had to break a window to get into the house concentrat e (v) ('kDnsntrei tl +think very carejUlly about something that you are doing :t~p trung • Ex: Now please concentrate L I ~ " • Ex :I'm concentrating my efforts on writing my autobiography •:.high/low concentration concentration (n) (,kDnsn'treif nl • Ex: Stress and tiredness often result in lack of concentration q concentrated (a) ['kDnsentreitidl:t~p trung , tang ctiong q ordinary (a) ['D: rdanri] Common (a) ['kDman] #Outsta nding, impres sive, extraor dinary, signific ant, notewo rthy # rare =common, usual:thtion g • Ex: lt is good because it is written in friendly, ordinary language +happening often and to many people or in many places: ordinariness (n) ['D:dnrinisl q ordinarily (adv) (,D:rdn'erali) • Ex: behave quite ordinarily q : concentrated study/hate/effort • Ex :He made a concentrated effort to improve his work .: perfectly/terribly / very/pretty ordinary • Ex: It was a perfectly ordinary day (D6 Iiim(Jtngiiyhtt suc blnh thuong) : Common among • Ex: Bad dreamsare fairly commonamongchildren [only bf.NI [UI " ph6 bie'n • Ex: Heart disease is one of the commonest causes of death +soworriedand tired that you can not relax • Ex: I always eat when I am feeling stressed Stressed (a) [stres] : It is common for SO to sth (Do not say It's common that ) • Ex: It is common for children to be afraid of the dark (NOT It's common that children are afraid of the dark informal ~Stress (n) • Ex: Your headaches are due to stress =worry =violent, cruel ['krual] vicious (a) ['viSas) tense (a) #calrn, +unpleasantly strong or severe: da dQi , khae nghi~t • Ex: a vicious headache +Jeeling ~Stressful (a) • Ex: Moving to a new house is a very stressful experience ~viciously (adv) • Ex: He twisted her arm viciously ~ viciousness (n) [not bf N) :.Under stress • Ex: Janet has been under a lot of stress since her mother's illness :.Reduce/relieve stress • Ex: Yoga is excellent for relieving stress .: a vicious circle : a situation in which one problem causes another problem, that then causes the first problem again so that the whole process continues to be repeated(vonl!, lmin qmin ) : tense situation/ [C,U] [U] " [tens) cool, relaxed , easy wonied, and unable to relax :cdng thdng atmosphere/moment etc :.tense about :.extremely / increasingly / a little tense : tense up • Ex: Relax , and try not to tense up so much • Ex: Is anything wrong? You look a little tense ~ tense(v) [I] :tr6 nen cang th:lng [T]:lam cho cang th:lng ~ Tenseness (n) ~ Tensely (adv) Selfconscious (a) [,selfkDnJ as #easyg oing, selfconfide nt nervous, anxious, uncomforta ble, embarrasse d, shy, uneasy, = +e de, ngu