Luận văn thạc sĩ: Improving students’ vocabulary use through using word lists. An action research project with 7th grade students at Gia Vuong secondary school

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIESFACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

TRAN THI TRANG NHUNG

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY USE THROUGH USING

WORD LISTS AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT WITH 7" GRADESTUDENTS AT GIA VUONG SECONDARY SCHOOL

(CAI THIEN KHA NANG SU DUNG TU VUNG CUA HOC SINH

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology I

Code: 60140111

Hanoi — 2016

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIESFACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

TRAN THI TRANG NHUNG

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY USE THROUGH USING

WORD LISTS AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT WITH 7" GRADESTUDENTS AT GIA VUONG SECONDARY SCHOOL

(CAI THIEN KHA NANG SU DUNG TU VUNG CUA HOC SINH

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESISField: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Dương Thu Mai, Ph.D

Hanoi - 2016

I certify that this minor thesis entitled “Improving students’ vocabulary use

through using word lists An action research project with 7th grade students at

Gia Vuong secondary school” is the study of my own research and the substanceof this research has not been submitted for a degree to any other university orinstitution.

Ninh Binh, November, 2016Signature

Tran Thi Trang Nhung

Without her guidance and help, this work would not have been accomplished.

Secondly, my sincere thanks also go to all lecturers and staff of thedepartment of Post- Graduate studies for their valuable lessons and precious helps.Thanks to their lessons as well as needed helps, I could overcome enormousobstacles when doing the study.

I also wish to acknowledge the cooperation of my colleagues and the 7”

students at Gia Vuong secondary school in contributing to the data collectionpresented in this study.

Last but not least, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my dearfamily and friends for their encouragement and great support during my time offulfilling this thesis.

il

their English vocabulary.

1H

TABLE OF CONTENTS

5 08.).90.00(9))015 d5 1.\90.9)I9À.402906)5)/00)11S10107177 ilF.)›1šY›Ÿ.\ Đìdúú d3^ỔẢ.Ẩ 1HIV.):)05/9)0699)0050001177 'Ý IVLIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 11 vilLIST OF FIGURE, TABLES AND CHARTS - SG + sireirerke Vili

II.) 90.0) 60.40))109 00/90) 1

2 Aims tuu a 3 2SN cv 1 1 34 Scope of the an 35 Methods of the SfUdy - -.- 2c 21 1221121111111 112 1191111111 11111111111 HH HH nh Hy 36 Design 003 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 0157557 5CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW SH HH 5

1 1 Definition of Vocabulary and Vocabulary use - + c++cssssssxserses 51 2 Classification Of voi ae 5IY vi s0 0ii i00 Ả 51.2.2 According to frequency Of US€ - + 3.11211111111111 1111111111111 E1 rry 61.2.3 According to language teaching methodologies .-‹ -s+++<sx+++s++sss2 61 3 The role of vocabulary in language teaching and learning ‹- - 71.4 Aspects of word knowledge included in vocabulary teaching - - 81 5 Principles of vocabulary teach1ng - + + vs ng nrhg 111.6 Approaches to vocabulary Instruction cccccccccceseeseessceseeeteeeseesseeseeeseeeseenes 131 7 Teaching with word lists ccccccccceescesseesseesseeseeseeeeceseesseceeesecsseenseseeeeeeeseeees 141.7.1 Definition of Word lists 1 141.7.2 Selection of vocabulary items 1n Word Lists 5 5525 s+svcssseeses 15

iv

1.7.3 Related Studies to word ÏIS{S - 2223333311111 11kg 16

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY Q nnn SH HH ng Hit 18

2.1 Research design: Action Research - + t3 1211111111111 11111111111 ke 182.2 Background of the Study - G2 1221121112111 1111 118111111211 011 015 111g 1kg rườt 202.2.1 Context of the nh 202.2.2 PaT{ICIDATIES Q0 120111 1112 1110111111111 1110111111 1H TH TH TH KH kh 212.3 Data Collection 80/130vìïiï n 212.3.1 Pretest and POSTf€S - LH TH HT HH ng TH TT TH TH TH Hàng Hư Hệ 212.3.2 9) 0i 8n aaa.a 222.3.3 Class observation checKÏIS{S - - 5c tt St **tE*E +2 11 11x HH giết 232.3.4 (v00 ni nh ố 232.4 Data Collection Procedure - - s1 Hh HnnngnHn ng Hnrtghn 24

2.5 Data amalySis nh -45A- 25

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION cccccecceeeree 27

3.1 Research question 1: What is students’ vocabulary use proficiency before theimplementation of the research? ec ecccesceeneeeseeceseeeeseeeseeceseeenseeeeseeeseeeneeeeseees 273.2 Research question 2: What is students’ vocabulary use proficiency after theimplementation of the researCH1? 5c +2 1331131135112 1111111111111 111 1E rrke 283.3 Research question 3 What is the difference in students’ vocabulary use beforeand after teaching with word ÏIS(S” - c1 32113 112 1111111111111 11 kg rrkg 293.3.1 The overall descriptive data of the pre-test and the post-test scores 293.3.2 Descriptive statistics of sections 1n the tests 0.0 cecceesceescceeseceeseeeeeeeteeeeseees 303.3.3 One Sample T-test Results: 1n 323.4 Research question 4 What are students’ attitudes toward using word lists in thelanguage ClaSSTOOM? - - c1 11 112111911111 1111 111111111111 111111111 E11 TT TH HH rệt 323.4.1 Findings from Students’ quesfIOnTIAIT€S - -.- 5 22+ 3221 EE+vteererrresrrsee 323.4.2 Findings from class Observation c3 3221121111111 ExeE 393.5 Discussion of all findings - - c1 3211132311111 11111 11 11181111011 811 g1 ng rry 41PART C: CONCLUSION 0 43

1 Summary of the findings and đISCuSSIOII 5 2532222 *+EEsrrrersrrrrrerree 432 Gained research experience; research evaluatIOn - -s+++sx++ssersserses 433.1 For other English teachers ccccccccccsccsssesseesseesseeeceeeeeeeseeseesseeeseensecseeeteeeseenes 453.2 For other researcher cccecsecesscceseceeeeseessecesecceeseessecesececeseeeseceaeceeeeeesseeeaeees 453.3 For Students 464 Limitations Toà 0 sa 465 Suggestion for further SfU1S 1kg ng HH Hàng 47

)djd5)090890.0011n18 |.)dd5))09089.0:101177 IV

LIST OF FIGURE, TABLES AND CHARTS

Figure 2.1 Action Research CycleFigure 3.1 Result of the Pretest

Figure 3.2 Result of the Posttest

Figure 3.3 The appropriateness the number of words.Table 2 The study procedures

Table 3 The reliability of the tests

Table 4 The overall descriptive data of the tests

Table 5 The overall descriptive data of collocations

Table 6 The overall descriptive data of Uncommon lexical itemsTable 7 The overall descriptive data of Word formation

Table 8 The overall descriptive data of part of speechTable 9 One sample T- test

Chart 3.1 Contents of word listsChart 3.2 Skills of word lists

Chart 3.3 The WL introduction and teaching activitiesChart 3.4 The WL practice activities

Chart 3.5 Time among parts and teacher’s feedbacks

vill

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale.

Nowadays, learning English is more and more essential because it is considered as avital tool in communication No one can deny its important roles in every field ofthe modern world such as culture, economy, society, science - technology or eventhe expansion of education In Vietnam, English is known as a compulsory subjectin all levels There is a rapidly growing tendency for English to be adopted as themedium of communication, even when a majority of the population speaks a local

knowledge of vocabulary enables language use and, conversely, language use leadsto an increase in vocabulary knowledge British linguist Wilkins (1972: 111) once

said, “Without grammar, little can be conveyed; without vocabulary, nothing can beconveyed” Truly thanks to vocabulary, sentences, texts and language can be madeand become richer.

Today, there are research-based data on how best to provide students with effectivevocabulary instruction And using word lists in class is considered as a new methodwhich offer a systematic, teacher-directed approach to improving students’vocabulary use For teachers, using word lists offers research-based instructionalresources that require minimal time Teachers also have benefits from the program’sflexible instructional model, which allows them to customize instruction to fit theirclassroom schedules and meet individual student needs Besides, other benefits ofword lists are: (1) Word lists are written in a very simple form, one word — with the

single, most frequent meaning (2) Word lists are portable so students can look atthem anytime and anywhere they want (3) Word lists reduce students’ stress from

learning pages of words from the textbook That 1s the reason why teaching wordlists is being researched and conducted widely now.

In Vietnam, the government has made some efforts to train human resources whoare able to understand and master English well Therefore, English is not onlytaught for junior and senior high school students but also to the elementary school

students so as to get students to be familiar with English as soon as possible and touse English fluently.

In the context of Gia Vuong secondary school, Ninh Binh Province, vocabulary hasbeen taught for students for a long time basing on textbooks From the researcher’sobservation and professional experience as a teacher of English, teaching andlearning vocabulary has still faced some difficulties and the students’ ability to useEnglish has not improved significantly Many students cannot make sentences ordialogues; over 90 % among them even cannot communicate basically in Englishbecause of insufficient vocabulary Students even do not know how to use thevocabulary they have learned They only understand a text and do exercises easilywhen they know what most of the important words mean In a word, this lack of

adequate vocabulary knowledge is an obvious and serious obstacle for manystudents in learning English and improving their skills.

All the conditions above have offered me a chance to conduct a study on:“Improving students’ vocabulary use through using word lists An actionresearch project with 7th grade students at Gia Vuong secondary school” Thestudy is conducted to test the continuing applicability of this method in the certaincontext of Vietnamese rural areas where there are not enough facilities for theleaners to learn a foreign language.

2 Aims of study

Surveying the 7” grade students, who are directly involved in the program, the

research firstly aimed at investigating their improvement in vocabulary use throughteaching with prepared word lists and find out the effectiveness of this method.

Secondly, the researcher explores students’ attitude towards using word lists in

teaching vocabulary Based on the findings, recommendations are made to promotestudent’s proficiency and improve the implementation of this method.

5 Methods of the study

To achieve the aims of the study, a mixed method was applied Eight lesson planswere designed and taught at one class in grade 7 at Gia Vuong secondary school sothat the researcher can investigate the effectiveness of teaching vocabulary withword lists Then, a quantitative method technique was applied as a surveyquestionnaire was administered for 40 students there in order to get a more detailedand comprehensive picture about what is investigated for the research Other

research instruments were also designed and applied.

A pretest and a posttest were given in order to evaluate the vocabulary useproficiency improvement The students’ scores in the post- test will be comparedwith the scores of students in the pre-test to determine the effectiveness of the use ofword lists in teaching vocabulary.

The qualitative research method is involved in conducting and analyzing the classobservation which is needed to find out how effective this method is.

Then, the data were collected, sorted and analyzed quantitatively and qualitativelyto obtain the results.

6 Design of the study

This study is composed of five following parts:

Part A :“INTRODUCTION” presents the background, aims, research question,the significance, the scope and the design of the study.

Part B : DEVELOPMENT is organized in three main chapters:

Chapter I is “Literature review” which conceptualizes the framework of the studythrough the discussion of issues and ideas on theories of teaching vocabulary in the

implementation of word lists.

Chapter IT is “Methodology” which presents the context, the methodology used inthis study including the context, the subject, the data collection instruments, data

collection procedure and data analysis.

Chapter Ill is “Findings and Discussions” which consists of a comprehensiveanalysis of the data and a discussion on the findings of this study.

Part C “CONCLUSION” offers a summary of the findings, gained researchexperience, recommendations, limitations and future directions for further study.

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter discusses some definitions of vocabulary, vocabulary use, its classification,its role in EFL teaching and learning, approaches in vocabulary instruction, word lists,using word lists and the related literature review of the research.

1 1 Definition of Vocabulary and Vocabulary use

There are many definitions of vocabulary proposed by some experts It is veryimportant for one to know what vocabulary is before discussing vocabulary use Inthe field of linguistics, Nash and Snowling (2006) describe vocabulary as “theknowledge of words and their meanings (p.336) Another definition came from

Sheehan (2002), who states “vocabulary is the ability to understand and use wordsto acquire and convey meaning” (vocabulary, Para 1) Meanwhile, as Bromley(2007) reported, “Vocabulary is a principle contributor to comprehension, fluencyand achievement” Without an extensive vocabulary, most language learners willnot be able to use the structures and functions they may have learnt forcomprehensible communication In sum vocabulary can be understood as the wordsof language, including single items and phrases or chunks of several words whichconvey a particular meaning, the way individual words do.

Vocabulary use, Nation (2001) noted, involves the grammatical function of theword or phrase, collocations that normally often go with it, and finally anyconstrains on its use, in terms of frequency, level, and so forth Therefore, using alarge vocabulary accurately is very important for foreign language learners Withoutmastering it, of course, foreign language learners will get some difficulties indeveloping the four language skills.

1 2 Classification of vocabulary.1.2.1 According to meaning

Semantically, vocabulary is divided into notional words and functional words.Notional words are words with clear lexical meaning They are indefinitely

extendable, open classes- new items can be added to them The main notional words

are nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs Members of these four classes are oftenconnected by derivational relations.

Functional words, in contrast, are closed system, including a limited number ofmembers They cannot be extended by creating new items Prepositions,

conjunctions, and articles as well as auxiliaries and words classified as “particles”are function words.

1.2.2 According to frequence of use.

It is possible to distinguish two kinds of vocabulary: high- frequency words and

low - frequency words.

High- frequency words are the words that appear most often in oralcommunication and printed materials of different fields of life Learning torecognize high- frequency words by sight is critical to developing fluency inreading Considerable researchers been done to generate lists of the 1,000, 2,000 or3,000 most frequently- used word in English Recognizing these words givesstudents a basic context figuring out other word.

Low- frequency words are of a very large group of words that occurs veryinfrequency and cover only a small proportion of any text The younger the learner,the fewer words they are likely to have in their low- frequency bank.

For a teacher, it is very important to distinguish between high and low — frequencyvocabulary in order to decide which words to teach and how much class time shouldbe spent on them.

1.2.3 According to language teaching methodologies.

Methodologically, a foreign language learners’ vocabulary is divided into activevocabulary and passive vocabulary Active vocabulary is the words which studentscan understand and use effectively in speaking and writing, whereas passivevocabulary is the words which the student can recognize and understand when they

occur in a context, but he cannot remember or use in their own speaking and writing( Nguyen Bang & Nguyen Ba Ngoc 2002: 36) However, the active and passivevocabulary of language learners changes constantly They start using words, try new

meanings, forget words, and abandon words that have no use or revise words, etc.Lewis and Hill (1885, p 100) suggested that it was helpful to guide studentstowards the words which it would help them to add to their active vocabulary.

In this study, the researcher classified the vocabulary according to meaning andfrequency of use Both of them are useful for choosing wordlists and implementingthem in class.

1 3 The role of vocabulary in language teaching and learning

Vocabulary is an important aspect of EFL teaching and learning, the one that hascalled for a great attention from researcher, teachers and students Traditionally,second language instruction has focused on teaching grammatical knowledge.However, vocabulary is very crucial in language teaching and learning becausepeople cannot understand others and express their own ideas without sufficientvocabulary Some authors, led by Lewis (1993, p 51) argue that vocabulary shouldbe the center of language teaching since “language consists of grammaticalisedlexis, not lexicalised grammar” Hunt & Beglar (2005) go on to say that effectivesecond language vocabulary acquisition is particularly important for EFL students,who frequently have impoverished lexicons despite years of formal study.

Learners seem to recognize the importance of vocabulary for their learning asSchmitt (2010, p 4) notes, “learners carry around dictionaries and not grammarbooks” This is also echoed by Laufer who stated: “solid vocabulary is necessary inevery stage of language learning, as is now being openly stated by second languageacquisition researchers” (1997, p.147) Besides, many other researchers conductedplenty of studies and pointed out that improving vocabulary makes student’s abilityto use foreign language better and more fluently The bigger vocabulary size

language learners get, the better they understand and use Vocabulary learning is,therefore, one of the specific goals in a language classroom and the acquisition of an

adequate vocabulary is essential for successful second language use In conclusion,vocabulary plays a key role in any EFL course, for any language students.

1.4 Aspects of word knowledge included in vocabulary teaching

One of the greatest concerns of a language teacher is selecting what aspects ofvocabulary to be taught in a language classroom In general, when teaching a newEnglish word, a teacher should by all means provide students with its meaning,

form and use simultaneously Selecting what to teach, based on frequency andusefulness to the needs of the particular students is therefore essential In the book“A course in Language Teaching” (1999, p 23), Ur suggested the four aspects ofvocabulary as Form: Pronunciation and spelling, Grammar, Collocation, Aspects ofmeaning (1): denotation, connotation, appropriateness, (2): meaning relationship,Word formation need to be taught about vocabulary According to Nation (2001, p.

27), to know everything about a word, one needs to know the word’s:

Form: spoken form, written form, and word parts (e.g., prefix/ root/ suffix )Meaning: meaning(s), concepts/referents, and associations (positive )

Use: grammatical functions, collocations, constraints (register, frequency )Word form: Pronunciation ad spelling

In learning and teaching vocabulary process, it is commonly observed that studentsmust know how to write the words and how to pronounce it correctly As Ur (1996,p 60) said, there are some important points that should be considered whenteaching vocabulary that is form (pronunciation and spelling) in whichpronunciation of a language is the main components of speech which combinetogether (Hewings, 2004, p.3) It is defined as the way in which a word ispronounced Rules of pronunciation vary widely from language to language.

Spelling is the writing of a word or words with letters and diacritics Spelling is thearrangement of letters or putting letters together Spelling is important because itaids in reading and writing It helps cement the connection that is shared betweensounds and letters.

There is a relationship between spelling and pronunciation According to O’neil(1969), the spelling does not directly reflect the way in which a word is pronounced,but “the pronunciations of words are quite generally predictable in their spelling.

This relationship often causes trouble for students, so a teacher needs to make surethat both these aspects are accurately presented and learned According to Davies(2000, p 61), it is usually best to present new items orally first and in written formlater, especially at lower level As a result, students can avoid getting the habit ofusing “spelling pronunciation”.

Language teachers need to introduce the grammar of a new vocabulary if this is notobviously covered by general grammatical rules Specially, it is important toprovide students information in case the item has an unpredictable change of form

in certain grammatical contexts or may have some unusual ways of connecting withother words in sentences For instance, when teaching a noun, we may wish topresent its plural form if irregular (man, men) or draw students’ attention to the factthat it has no plural at all (beauty, knowledge).

According to Nation (2001, p.1), teachers are able to direct students’ attentions tothe use of words with several techniques such as quickly showing the grammaticalpattern the word fits into (countable/uncountable, transitive/intransitive, etc), givinga few similar collocates, mentioning any restrictions on the use of the word (formal,informal, impolite, only used with children, etc), and giving a well- known oppositeor a well- known word describing the group or lexical set it fits into.

A collocation is a combination of two or more words together in a language Theycan be nouns and nouns, nouns and verbs, adjectives and nouns, adverbs and verbs,verbs and prepositions etc According to Firth (1957, p.181), “collocations of a

given word are statements of the habitual or customary places of that word” It doesnot mean every word can be used together In other words, the combination ofwords must follow certain rules, peculiar to each language For example, we have

collocations “do homework” or “make a bed”, and we cannot put “make homework’or “do a bed”’.

Word meaning

The meaning can be classified according to the form they attach to It can beclassified into three forms: lexical meaning, morphological meaning, and syntacticmeaning Lexical meaning is the meaning of a word considered in isolation from thesentence containing it, and regardless of its grammatical context For example, thelexical meaning of learn in or as represented by learns, learned, learning, etc.

Morphological meaning is the meaning that attaches to morphemes In linguistics, amorpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of a language.

Grammatical meaning is the meaning that is conveyed by word order and othergrammatical signals For example question attaches to the word arrangement in thesentence is he a student (Lado, 1964, p 209-212,).

Word meaning has four components, two of which are denotation and connotation.Denotation is conceptual meaning and dictionary meaning (Tarigan, 1985,p 58) and

she states that connotation is feeling and emotion that occurs within a word Howthe meaning of one item relates to the meaning of others is important in teaching.

There are different relationships Some of the main ones are synonyms, antonyms,hyponyms, co- hyponyms and superordinnates.

> Synonyms: are actually words of the same parts of speech that have similaror identical denotation, speech but differ in shades of meaning, connotationor combinability with other words.

> Antonyms: words of the same part of speech that are opposite in meaning arecalled antonyms Usually adjectives denoting quality, verb denoting actionsor states and abstract nouns have antonyms.

> Hyponyms: is a word or phrase whose semantic field is included within thatof another word They are decided based on the viewpoint of intension andextension.

> Co- hyponym or co-ordinates: other items that are the “ same kind of thing”> Superordinates: general concepts that “cover” specific items.

10

Word formation

According Bauer (1983,p 1), word formation is of central interest to theoreticallinguistics of all persuasions because of light it throws on other aspects of language.We may consider word formation the creation of a new word.

When talking about word formation, affixation is the first sector that is mentionedabout Affixation is, thus, the linguistic process speakers use to form new words byadding morphemes (affixes) at the beginning (prefixation), the middle ( infixation) orthe end (suffixation) of words, for example: redo, sickness New combinations usingaffixes are usual and the reader or hearer would be expected to gather their meaningfrom understanding of their components Besides, there are various other ways offorming new words such as compounding ( house+ work -> housework, etc).

All in all, words can be formed in different ways Students should know well aboutword formation and the way to use words in appropriate grammatical contexts.

Therefore, this study focused on all aspects mentioned above.1 5 Principles of vocabulary teaching.

According to Armbruster, Lehr, & Osborn (2001), vocabulary can be learned in thefollowing ways:

Directly: Students can learn vocabulary directly when they are explicitly taughtboth individual words and word-learning strategies.

Indirectly: Students can learn the meanings of most words indirectly, throughevery day experiences with oral and written language, through conversations withadults, through being to read and through reading extensively on their own.However, this kind of learning is difficult and not very sufficient.

Rubin & Thompson (1994) also characterize two general approaches as follows:with direct vocabulary learning, students focus their attention on learning words in

lists or completing various vocabulary exercises; whereas, with indirect vocabularylearning, learner’s attention is focused on conveying or understanding a spoken orwritten message, in the process of which they are likely to learn new vocabulary.

The two approaches vie for superiority and have created much controversy So

11

while criticisms of the direct approach abound, many studies do support thedecontextualized style of the direct approach as an effective way of learningvocabulary.

To help students learn vocabulary, Nation (2008) suggests using four strands forteaching: 1) meaning-focused input for listening and reading practice, particularly withgraded readers, 2) meaning-focused output for speaking and writing, 3) language-focused learning through deliberate vocabulary teaching, using rich vocabularyinstruction, raising students’ word consciousness, and teaching vocabulary learningstrategies, and 4) developing fluency with vocabulary across language skills (practice,making connections with vocabulary) Besides, Nation( 2005), Hubbard et al ( 1989) (cited in Bui Thi Kim Cuc, 2012 , p 12) proposed general principles that are significantfor anyone who concerned teaching English vocabulary:

Firstly, teachers quickly give the meaning of the word by ( a) using an LItranslation, ( 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 simplepicture or diagram, ( f) breaking the word into parts and giving the meaning of theparts and the whole word ( g) giving several examples with the word in context, ( h)commenting on the underlying word meaning and other referents Then, teacherscan direct students’ attention to the form of the word by (a) showing how thespelling of the word is like the spelling of unknown words, ( B) giving the stresspattern of the word and its pronunciation, (c) showing the prefix stem and suffixthat make up the word, (d) getting students to repeat the word pronunciation, (e)writing the word on the board, ( f) pointing out any spelling irregularity in the word.Finally, teachers can explain the use of the word by ( a) quickly showing thegrammatical pattern the word fits into ( countable/ uncountable, transitive/intransitive, etc), (b) giving a few similar collocates, (c) mentioning any restrictionson the use of States, only use with children, old fashioned, technical, infrequent),(d) giving a well-known opposite, or a well-known word describing the group orlexical set it fits into.

12

To sum up, students had better be taught with various learning strategies foreffective self- study In this study, direct vocabulary learning has been chosen tohelp students get their improvement best in learning vocabulary.

1.6 Approaches to vocabulary InstructionDefinitional Approaches

Traditionally, much vocabulary instruction has involved some variety of a definitionalapproach: students learn definitions or synonyms for instructed words In other word, itrequires students to find word meanings independently There are obviously betterversions of this approach Although it helps the teacher save time and enable them toprogress to content matter, definitions alone can lead to only a relatively superficiallevel of word knowledge However, using the definitional approach should not beavoided Rather, learning definitions of words can be effective when students alreadyhave an understanding of the underlying concept of the term.

Contextual Approaches: Another common approach to teaching vocabulary is theuse of context When determining the meaning of an unfamiliar word, it is oftenhelpful to see the word used in a sentence and to find clues within the sentence thatsuggest the word's meaning There is no question that learning from context is animportant avenue of vocabulary growth and that it deserves attention and practice inthe classroom But context, used as an instructional method by itself, is ineffectiveas a means of teaching new meanings, at least when compared with other forms ofvocabulary instruction.

Combining Definitional and Contextual Approaches

A combination of definitional and contextual approaches is more effective than eitherapproach in isolation; such mixed methods do, in general, increase readingcomprehension (Stahl and Fairbanks, 1986) Indeed, it would be hard to justify acontextual approach in which the teacher did not finally provide an adequate definitionof the word or help the class arrive at one Likewise, a good definitional approachincludes sentences that illustrate the meaning and use of the words defined Therefore,both definitional and contextual approaches have chosen in this study.

13

1 7 Teaching with word lists1.7.1 Definition of word lists

A word list is a list of words, for example words that someone has to learn or wordsexplained in a dictionary According to Hatch and Brown (1995, p 1), the termvocabulary refers to a list or set of words for a particular language or a list or set ofwords that individual speaker of a language might use Nation(2001) mentioned

four different lists of vocabulary categorized by high-frequency words, academicwords, technical words, and low-frequency words These wordlists provide studentswith a useful solution to a problem in the naturalistic acquisition of the vocabularyneeded for academic studies Besides, Millington and Siegel (2010) states, “the

creation of vocabulary lists should be taken as an important duty that can haveprofound implications, assuming that students will invest time and effort attemptingto acquire these lexical items, in addition to being evaluated on vocabulary tests”

and they will probably acquire more knowledge about the target words since theyspend considerable time engaged with new vocabulary Therefore, teaching specificwords before doing tasks may help both learning vocabulary and practicing other

Coxhead ( 1998, 2000) at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand alsostudied academic word lists ( AWL) as a list of words which appear with highfrequency in English - language academic texts The list was compiled following ananalysis of over 3,500,000 words of text which come from academic journals,textbooks, course workbooks, lab manuals, and course notes and occur frequently in arange of academic subjects, including the Arts (including history, psychology,sociology, etc.), Commerce (including economics, marketing, management, etc.), Lawand the Sciences (including biology, computer science, mathematics, etc.) This meansthat the AWL is helpful and necessary to all second-language learners who wish to

study in an English-speaking institution no matter what their field of study.

The difficulties that students have in mastering the vocabulary necessary for writtentest are obvious In order to read and write successfully, students need to be able to

14

recognize as many words as possible in the textbooks and use as many as possiblein their assignments Teaching vocabulary through word lists is useful because mostof the words in lists are quite common and students can frequently see innewspapers, magazines, and novels, and hear on television, movies or inconversation As a result, they can improve vocabulary size by themselves Forbeginners, the basic wordlists are great guides to master essential words for generalEnglish use For students with academic needs, the academic word list is anexcellent source of words which will be useful in a wide range of academic fieldsand topics There is, however, a need for a new word list, catering to the needs ofadvanced students, who require additional words for daily use in English-speakingcontexts In this study, word lists are defined as lists of words related to specifictopics for the purpose of daily life use.

1.7.2 Selection of vocabulary items in word lists

One guideline for effective vocabulary teaching is careful selection of words to learn orto teach and frequency has been the most common principled way of selection ofvocabulary in second or foreign language learning For middle school a key website isWord Generation, based on a large research project: http://wg.serpmedia.org Hiebertand Lubliner (2008) discuss academic vocabulary in schools (including Hiebert’s CoreAcademic Word List), as does Marzano (2010) See also Harmon, Wood, and Hedrick(2008) for middle and secondary content vocabulary and its instruction Kinsella’s(2013) text is also geared toward middle school students Teachers who teach Englishas a foreign language need to help students build up a large vocabulary of useful wordsduring the course However using word lists for rural students is not easy Beforesetting a criteria for deciding which vocabulary items should be chosen, teachers haveto be clear about their aim to decide on what is involved in word lists They also haveto know what kind of words and how many words that students should master in acourse The reasonable quantity of new words which teacher decides to use in a lessonis also important because if there are too many words, the students may be confused orstressed They feel difficult to remember all.

15

In this study, word lists which were drawn up include target words chosen from thechapters of the course books Research recommends that students learn fewer words(about 8 to 10 lexical items/a word list) and the English language work so that theycan infer the meanings of new words The teacher designed these word lists in termof topics The target words will be presented in such a way that their meanings areperfectly clear and unambiguous Then, the students will be practiced using thosewords through different types of exercises and there are frequent opportunities forstudents to interact with the words in meaningful contexts Interacting with words inmultiple ways and in varied contexts result in durable word learning.

1.7.3 Related Studies to word lists

The effectiveness of vocabulary lists has been given importance and has beenadvocated by so many linguistics (Millington and Siegel, 2010; Sokmen, 1997;Schmitt and Schmitt, 2012) The studies below have been mentioned to the use ofvocabulary lists.

In EFL classroom research at a university in Japan, Hoshino (2010) worked with 46students who were to learn 20 pairs of words for each of five types, namelysynonym, antonym, categorical, thematic, and unrelated, divided into lists of 5 or 10word items Students received the various lists of English words and their Japanesetranslations and could study them for several days In class, they went through thevarious lists before they were tested on them using an English-to Japanesetranslation task Hoshino’s findings were clear, with statistically significant results:these EFL students learned the words on the lists quite well, and although student

learning style did not appear to determine which type of list participants learnedbest, the test scores and further analyses indicated that the categorical words were

apparently “a more effective type of list for L2 vocabulary learning than other lists”(p 310) Hoshino (2010,p 310) thus concluded, “Presenting new vocabulary incategorical lists promotes vocabulary learning” in the classroom, and “learning fromrelated word lists should be encouraged”

TakahashiSo (2009,2010) introduced vocabulary instruction through using original16

word lists The Participants are 55 Bunkyo Gakuin University students in oriented class, all sophomores from 19 to 21 years of age During spring semester,no special instruction was given to the control group except the pronunciationpractice No word lists were provided to these students They were required to learnvoluntary and prepare for the vocabulary chapter test on their own During fallsemester, experimental group students were given 10 minutes to work onvocabulary in each class period, followed by a feedback test The primary objectiveof this instruction was to establish students’ study habits and help them get higherscores on the chapter tests The instruction involved the following four procedures:(1)10-minute classroom learning using original word lists, (2) 5-minute Feedbacktesting followed by 10-minutes of study, (3) Clarifying objectives, (4) Emphasizingthe importance of repeated study the outside classroom He asked students to revieweach word list 10 times before the test He made a check box on the top right cornerof each word list and had them to mark every time they finished 10-minutevocabulary learning As a result, most individual students improved their testscores This study show that word lists worked well for the students And after theproof, the efficiency of using word lists should be further investigated.

grammar-In brief, this chapter introduces an informative and theoretical understanding ofvocabulary and their relevant aspects This part also presents how to teach word

lists in teaching vocabulary All of them were considered the basic background forthe current study The next chapter gives a fully detailed description of themethodology to carry out the present study.

17

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

2.1 Research design: Action Research

This study was carried out as an action research project The aim of action researchis to improve the current state of affairs within the educational context in which theresearch is being carried out To put in another word, action research is a “small-scale intervention in the functioning of the real world and a close examination of theeffects of such intervention.” (Cohen & Manion, 1994).

The reason why the researcher chose this approach is that the aim of the study wasto improve the current situation - students’ vocabulary use and in order toinvestigate how well the students and teachers judge the teaching word listsdesigned and draw the pedagogical implementation for both teachers and students intheir teaching and learning Taking everything into consideration, it was believedthat action research was the most appropriate approach to this thesis.

It is significant to recognize action research’s procedure which needs to be followedfrom one step to another In order to carry out an action research, Ferrance ( 2000,p.18) suggested an action research cycle as follows:

IDENTIFYTHE PROBLEM

ACT ON

Figure 2.1: Action Research Cycle

As can be observed from this cycle, to carry out an action research, in the firststep, the researcher must identify the problem Then the data is collected for a more

18

detailed diagnosis After that, the researcher has to design a plan of action to makechange and to study that change Data on the results of the intervention are collectedand analyzed, and the findings are interpreted in light of how successful the actionhas been At this point, the problem is re-assessed and the process begins another

cycle This process continues until the problem is resolved.

However, when applying the action research approach, this study follows the general ofan action research cycle suggested by Nunan (1992) because it is more specific.

Step 1: Identifying the problem.

Before conducting this action research, the researcher basing on her experience as anEnglish teacher at a secondary school and talking to students gained understanding oftheir problem in vocabulary learning Some students said that they tended to forgetwords quickly after class; some know words but do not know the pronunciation andothers still remember words, yet they do not know how to use them appropriately Itwas proved from their English scores which were still low On the other hand, theteacher did not try to improve the situation by applying or using other methods ortechniques in order to gain students curiosity, participation and activeness relating topresent and practice new vocabulary The teacher liked to have less noisy students, sothat there would be less disturbance in teaching-learning activity.

Step 2: Preliminary investigation- the researcher based on data which are collectedto help understand the nature of the problem: students lack of vocabulary items andthey are bad at using vocabulary.

Step 3: Hypothesis- A hypothesis is formulated after reviewing the initial data.

After having the information from informal chat with students, the researcherdeveloped the following hypothesis for this action research: Using word lists toteach vocabulary is effective It helps students learn, retain and use vocabularybetter Besides, this approach provides the teacher an effective way in order tomotivate their students in vocabulary learning.

Step 4: Intervention- A number of strategies are devised and applied.

The researcher designed word list activities and exercises which were believed to be

19

appropriate to the students’ proficiency These activities and exercises wereemployed in the classroom with the students after that.

Step 5: Evaluation- An assessment is carried out to evaluate the intervention Somesteps may be repeated.

The research assessment instruments used in this study were a pretest, a posttest, thelesson plans, survey questionnaire, one class observation checklist in which surveyquestionnaires concluded 19 questions involving the contents of the lesson andteaching method and class observation was carried out to find whether students are

interested in the lesson or not.

Step6: Dissemination- A report of the research is published Ideas emerged from theresearch are shared The results of this action research are clearly reported in this thesis.

Step7: Follow — up: Alternative solutions for the problem are continuallyinvestigated.

Having completed the first cycle of this research, the advantages and the limitationsof “Using word lists to teach vocabulary” were realized This understanding will bethe foundation for the next cycle of the action research, which will be shown in thenext chapter.

In conclusion, considering that action research is the best choice for the purpose ofimproving students’ vocabulary acquisition, and that the action research design isthe most practical and feasible for the researcher, the author made decision toconduct an action research which followed the seven- step model suggested byNunan ( 1992).

2.2 Background of the study2.2.1 Context of the study

The study investigates the implementation of using word lists In teachingvocabulary to improve students’ vocabulary use and it was conducted at Gia Vuongsecondary school which is located in Gia Vien district, Ninh Binh province There isonly one class in grade 7 including 40 students learning there They started learningEFL in the third grade in public elementary schools The researcher chooses this

20

secondary school because she gets easy to do research at there Moreover, thisschool does not have permanent English teacher, the researcher can explore usingword lists in teaching vocabulary by various methods with the head master’spermission.

2.2.2 Participants

The study involves 40 students in grade 7 They were chosen from the same class toparticipate in a 10- week research study to access to learning vocabulary with wordlists Those students (both males and females aged twelve) are studying at GiaVuong secondary school in Ninh Binh province Most of the students come fromthe poor families in rural area where their living conditions are low and teaching aswell as learning conditions in English are limited Although most of them havelearnt English for four years, their English knowledge is not good, especially aboutvocabulary Nearly no students has any kind of English reference at home, except “

Dé học tốt tiếng anh 7” which gives the translation of the new word items and the

answers to any exercises in the textbook The lazy ones do nothing just copy andwrite down in the textbook In addition, most of them are not interested in learning

English, and they are not motivated in learning this kind of language I found thatnecessary to apply a different method to help them have more interesting and get abetter result.

2.3 Data Collection Instruments

In order to collect data for the study, the following instruments were employed:pretest, posttest, questionnaire, class observation and lesson plans.

2.3.1 Pretest and Posttest

A pretest and a posttest are the instruments given in order to evaluate thevocabulary use proficiency The students’ scores on post- test will be comparedwith the scores of students on pre-test with the same level to determine the

effectiveness of the use of word lists in teaching vocabulary The pretest and theposttest in this study were designed equivalently and checked by the experts who

are known to have deep understanding about testing Most of the vocabulary items

21

in the tests were selected from the new lexical items in the text book and related tothe contents of the topics that students learned before The pretest was conductedbefore the treatment, which was at the beginning of the term No special technique andlanguage practice were applied in teaching vocabulary before In the pretest, studentsassigned to answer 40 questions to evaluate their competence in English vocabularyand students’ understanding on collocation, part of speech especially noun, verb,adjective and adverb, word formation as well as realizing uncommon lexical items Allof questions were designed like multiple choice questions which are composed of onequestion (stem) with multiple possible answers (choices), including one correct answerand several incorrect answers (distractors) 40 questions are divided into four parts:collocation ( 10 questions), uncommon lexical items (15 question), word family(10questions) and part of speech (5 sentences) Students select the correct answer bycircling the associated number or letter on the response sheet Each correct answer wasgiven 0,25 point and the maximum score is therefore 10 The test duration was 30minutes The post test was conducted 8 weeks later with the same design as thepretest, lasting 30 minutes This test involved the lexical items from unit 1 to unit 8.

The aims of this test was to assess students vocabulary size and their level ofvocabulary use after 8 weeks of the study as well as to make a precise evaluation to seehow much they acquired after the process.

2.3.2 Questionnaires

The questionnaires have become the world of experience for both researcher andprofessionals They are also common instruments to collect data in educationalresearches With the purpose to seek the answer to the fourth research question ofthe study, the researcher designed a survey questionnaire for the students to

investigate their evaluation on the vocabulary teaching activities which weredesigned based on word lists and their attitudes to learning vocabulary through thismethod It contains 19 questions in Liker scale (ranging from “strongly disagree” to“strongly agree” The questionnaire was conducted after the posttest and deliveredto students It consists of three main sections:

22

- Section one is to collect the student’s response about the contents of the word lists.This part concludes 6 questions.

- Section two is the student’s response about skills of word lists It encompasses4questions.

- Section three is the students’ response about teacher’s activities This partconcludes 9 questions.

2.3.3 Class observation checklists

The aim of the classroom observation is to evaluate the effectiveness of this method

in teaching vocabulary for the 7 graders from the teacher and students’ view in

comparison between what they said and what they performed In order to meet thataim, the class observation was conducted basing on three primary criteria (Theform of class observation can be found in Appendix F)

2.3.4 Research Lesson Plan

Lesson plans were also chosen as a useful intervention instrument to find out the

effectiveness of using word lists on vocabulary use development for the 7" graders.

The other purpose of lesson plans is to realize the student’s perception about theteaching activities using that method In order to meet this aims, eight lesson planswere designed by researcher The researcher planned the teaching techniques thatwould be implemented in teaching vocabulary Eight lesson plans were taught

23

during 8 weeks In each lesson, a word list related to a topic (At school, Food andDrink, Jobs, Health, Music and Art, Film, Travelling and Festival, Traffic) wasintroduced Each word was presented individually by using different techniques such asusing an LI translation, using a known L2 synonym or a simple definition in the L2,

showing an object or picture, giving several examples with the word in context,commenting on the underlying word meaning and other referents Then, the word,definition, word formations, parts of speech, synonyms/antonyms and an examplesentence were provided Lastly, sentence production tasks were taught and assigned.After teaching the words, the instructors made the students practice words in the

2.4 Data Collection Procedure

The following section presents the data collection procedure of the study.

The study was conducted in 10 weeks beginning in August of 2016 In the firstweek, the pretest was administered to the students After all the test papers were

finished, they were collected by the teacher From the 2TM to 9" week, prepared

lesson plans were used in class for the students who received the word listsinstruction In each lesson, the teacher provided a word list including from 8 to 10target words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and phrases) related to a topicchosen from the chapters of the textbooks or reference book Further, in order toimprove students’ vocabulary use, they were asked to do different activities and

exercises through those word lists In the 10” week, the post -test which is used to

measure students’ understanding of the concepts that they were taught and after allthe test papers were finished and collected, the subjects were asked to fill in theattitude questionnaire To ensure that the students have obtained adequateunderstanding of the questions, the researcher translated the questions intoVietnamese After each question was translated, students were instructed tocomplete the questionnaire The researcher was willing to answer any questions ofthe respondents All the study procedures are shown in Table 2.

24

Week 10 Subjects were administered the Post Test.

Subjects were asked to fill in the questionnaire.After week 10 | Data were collected, scored and analyzed

Conclusions, implications and suggestions were developedTable 2: The study procedures

2.5 Data analysis

It took 10 weeks to collect all the data for the research before they were analyzedboth quantitatively and qualitatively To analyze the teaching and learning process,the writer based on the scores of tests which were conducted at the beginning and atthe end of the course The data were entered into the SPSS statistics software,

version 20 which addresses the entire analytical process to see the changes in thestudent’s result Descriptive statistics were analyzed to answer the research question1, 2 and 3 in this current study The writer compared the student’s vocabularyachievement in the pre- test and the post- test to know whether there isimprovement of students’ vocabulary use or not The mean of scores from the pretest was compared to the mean of the post test scores to know how far the progress

of students in this research is.

In terms of the answer for the research question 4, the researcher drew from the datacollected from the questionnaires to the students After all the questionnaires were

25

returned, they were consolidated, analyzed and presented in Excel program informs of bars, charts and figures Besides, the classroom observation notes werewritten down and summarized qualitatively to provide the findings in comparisonwith the data collected from the students’ questionnaires so that the researcher couldelicit accurate answers to four research questions Finally, the analyses of theclassroom observation data were shown to provide empirical information of howwell the students evaluate the vocabulary teaching activities in this method.

In summary, this chapter has presented in detail the context, the subject, the instruments,and the procedure of collecting data and analyzing data of the whole study In the nextchapter, chapter three, the findings and discussions will be presented.

26

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

The previous chapter, Methodology, has described and justified the context, theparticipants, the data collection instruments and the procedures of the data

collection and analysis of the study This chapter presents and discusses the findingsdrawn from the data which were collected to reveal the answers to the researchquestions of the application of using word lists in teaching vocabulary The datacollected from scores of the pretest, the posttest, questionnaires as well as classobservations will be analyzed to give answers for the four research questions.

3.1 Research question 1: What is students’ vocabulary use proficiency before

the implementation of the research?

The result of the pretest of 40 students was shown as followed:

Figure 3.1: Result of the Pretest

The pie chart illustrates five types of scores of students in the pretest: Bad ( below5 mark); average ( from 5 to 6.4); quite good ( from 6.5 to 7.9); good ( from 8 to9.9) and excellent ( 10) As can be seen from the figure 3.1 above, 35% for theaverage group while half of the students ( 50%) fell below mark 5 and only 10 %for the quite good group A small percentage of students who have good marks

27

accounted for 5 % and no students got excellent mark In addition, based on theresult of the pretest, the data showed that the mean score of pretest is 4.7/10 Fromthat analyzing, it could be seen that almost of the first grade of students’ vocabularywas still very low It means that they had small vocabulary size and lowunderstanding on using those vocabulary.

3.2 Research question 2: What is students’ vocabulary use proficiency after

the implementation of the research?

28

3.3 Research question 3 What is the difference in students’ vocabulary usebefore and after teaching with word lists?

3.3.1 The overall descriptive data of the pre-test and the post-test scores

The researcher used the results of the pretest and posttest to determine theirvocabulary improvement after taking part in the study Descriptive data were

collected from student’s tests to determine if there was noted student improvementin this research First, before the main analysis, the internal reliability of the pretestand the posttest was calculated to see whether the items in the tests were reliable forstudents and they were acceptable instruments in the study or not.

The reliability of the tests can be seen in Table 3 :

The pre-test: The post-test

Reliability Statistics Reliability Statistics

Cronbach's Alpha N of Items Cronbach's Alpha N of Items

688 4 662 4

Table 3: The reliability of the test

As can be seen from the tables, the reliability statistics obtain two Cronbach’sAlpha values of 0 688 for the pretest and 0.662 for the post test Based on thisreliability test, it can be concluded that these research instruments are of acceptable

internal reliability.

Table 4: The overall descriptive data of the tests

29

It can be seen from Table 4, the mean of the pretest for this group is 4.7 and themean of the posttest for this group is 5.9 For the pretest, the minimum score is 1

and the maximum is 8, whereas for the posttest, the minimum score is 3.25 and themaximum score is 10.

Also according to frequency analysis, the number of the participants with the scoresbelow 5 in the pretest was nearly 50 %, whereas in the posttest, this accounted for

20 % Also the percentage of the participants with really impressive scores (rangingfrom 8 to 10) in the pretest was only 5 %, but in the posttest, the number was nearly10 % in total That showed a difference in the results from the two tests in whichthe later ones are higher.

3.3.2 Descriptive statistics of sections in the tests.

Table 5: The overall descriptive data of collocations

As can be seen from this table, for the first section of the pretest and the posttest aboutcollocations, the mean for the first part of the pre test is 1.20 while that of the post test is1.64 The minimum score of this part in the pretest is 0.25 and the maximum is 2.25whereas the minimum score of that for the posttest is 0.75 and the maximum score is 2.50.As a result, there is a small increase in student’s collocation use ability.

Uncommon lexical items : Pretest analysis: | Uncommon lexical items: Posttest analysis:

Mean 1.70 | Mean

Minimum 0.25 | MinimumMaximum 3.5 | Maximum

Table 6: The overall descriptive data of Uncommon lexical items

30