Những khó khăn và giải pháp gợi ý trong việc dạy từ vựng chuyên ngành cơ khí cho sinh viên năm thứ hai trường Cao đẳng nghề Bắc Ninh

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES    CAO THỊ TÚ TEACHING VOCABULARY IN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING TO THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS AT BACNINH VOCATIONAL COLLEGE: CHALLENGES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR SOLUTIONS (NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN VÀ GIẢI PHÁP GỢI Ý TRONG VIỆC DẠY TỪ VỰNG CHUYÊN NGÀNH CƠ KHÍ CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẲNG NGHỀ BẮC NINH) M.A Minor Programme Thesis FIELD: CODE: SUPERVISOR: TEACHING METHODOLOGY 60 14 10 ASSOC PROF DR NGUYỄN VĂN ĐỘ Hanoi, July-2010 iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS BVC: Bacninh Vocational College M.E: Mechanical Engineering GE: General English ESP: English for Specific Purposes v LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS Tables: Table 1: Teachers’ difficulties in teaching vocabulary in Mechanical Engineering Table : The learners' purposes of learning vocabulary in Mechanical Engineering Table 3: Students' ways of learning vocabulary Table 4: Ways of learning English vocabulary for Mechanical Engineering Table 5: Ways of vocabulary presentation students interested in Charts: Chart 1: The teachers' attitude towards the importance of vocabulary in language teaching Chart 2: Students' attitude towards vocabulary learning Chart 3: Way of practising new words students like most Chart 4: The students' attitudes towards the present course book Chart 5: Parts students find most trouble when dealing with an English word vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Candidate's statement i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii List of abbreviations iv List of tables and charts v Table of contents vi PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Aims of the study Scope of the study Research questions Method of the study Design of the study Part 2: Development CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Definition of vocabulary 1.2 Classification of vocabulary 1.3 The importance of vocabulary in language teaching and learning 1.4 How teaching vocabulary differs from teaching other skills 1.5 What should be taught in teaching vocabulary? 1.5.1 Word form 1.5.2 Grammar 1.5.3 Collocation 1.5.4 Aspects of meaning 1.5.5 Word-formation 10 1.6 Techniques in vocabulary teaching currently used 10 1.6.1 Techniques in presenting vocabulary 10 vii 1.6.1.1 Visual techniques 10 1.6.1.2 Verbal techniques 10 1.6.1.3 Translation 11 1.6.2 Techniques in practising new words 11 1.7 Vocabulary in ESP teaching and learning 11 1.7.1 What is ESP? 11 1.7.2 The roles of ESP teachers 12 1.7.3 ESP and EGP 13 CHAPTER 2: AN INTRODUCTION ON THE CONTEXT OF LEARNING AND TEACHING VOCABULARY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING AT BVC 2.1 Teaching staff and teaching methods 15 2.2 Students and their background 15 2.3 The teaching materials 16 2.3.1 The textbook 16 2.3.2 The course content 16 2.4 Teaching facilities 16 CHAPTER 3: THE STUDY 18 Context of the study 18 The subject 18 3 Instruments for collecting data 18 3.3.1 Questionnaires 18 3.3.2 Interviews with ESP teachers 19 Data collection procedure 19 Data analysis results 19 The teachers' interviews 19 The students' questionnaires 22 3.6.Problems in teaching and learning vocabulary in Mechanical Engineering at BVC 3.6.1 Teachers' problems 28 3.6.1.1 Methods of teaching vocabulary 28 3.6.1.2 Knowledge of Mechanical Engineering 29 3.6.2 Students' problems 29 3.6.2.1 Ways of learning vocabulary 29 viii 3.6.2.2 Level of English 29 3.6.3 Materials and equipment … 30 CHAPTER 4: SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE THE TEACHING OF VOCABULARY IN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING AT BVC 4.1 Students 31 4.1.1 Guiding students with different vocabulary learning strategies 31 4.1.2 Assigning and checking students' fulfillment of homework 36 4.2 Teachers 37 4.2.1 Improving teachers' classroom techniques for teaching vocabulary in particular and teaching methodology in general 37 4.2.2 Improving specialized knowledge for ESP teachers 38 4.2.3 Equipping teaching facilities ………………………………………………… 39 PART 3: CONCLUSION 40 Summary of the study 40 Limitations and suggestions for further study 41 References 42 Appendices I PART 1: INTRODUCTION Rationale In recent years, there has been a global increase in the number of language teachers who have greater and wider responsibility thrust upon them by training institutions They are required to teach English to students from various fields such as engineering, information science, medicine, accountancy, etc to enable them to cope with their academic work This type of education is called English for Specific Purpose (ESP) Since ESP was introduced, it has attracted the attention of language instructors Furthermore, the idea of English for Specific Purpose has been welcomed by staffs of universities who have seen the great benefits from teaching ESP Also it is to meet the learners‘ needs for better reading of specialized books in English and for more successful job performance in the future ESP courses are now offered not only by universities and colleges of language but also by departments of technical universities and colleges Bacninh Vocational College (BVC) is a typical example of the training centre where ESP involved within an English language teaching situation in response to the demand for specific language skills However, up to now, teaching and learning ESP, particularly teaching and learning vocabulary items has still been far from satisfactory Being a teacher of English at BVC, the author does realize a number of problems that the teachers and students encounter in teaching and learning vocabulary in Mechanical Engineering That is the reason why the author would like to carry out this research entitled, ―Teaching vocabulary in Mechanical Engineering to the second year students at Bacninh Vocational College: Challenges and suggestions for solutions” Aims of the study The study is aimed at: a) Better understanding the notions, types, roles and techniques in teaching vocabulary currently used and vocabulary in ESP teaching and learning b) Identifying some problems in teaching vocabulary in Mechanical Engineering at BVC c) Offering some suggestions for solutions on teaching vocabulary in Mechanical Engineering at BVC Hopefully, the study will make some contributions to the improvement of teaching ESP in general and teaching vocabulary in Mechanical Engineering in particular at BVC 3) Scope of the study It is impossible to cover every aspect of language theory and practice in this study Therefore the study focuses on problems in teaching vocabulary in Mechanical Engineering to the second year students at BVC It is not proposed to deal with other language elements: pronunciation and grammar or with language skills The other subjects of the study are the second year students at BVC Also, the ―Specific Purpose‖ of the course are confined to ―English in Mechanical Engineering ― 4) Research questions The research is carried out with an attempt to find out the answer to the following research questions: - What are the main difficulties experienced by teachers teaching vocabulary to students of ME at BVC? - What suggestions for solutions should be offered to help teachers to find out the effective ways to teach vocabulary to students of ME at BVC? 5) Methodology The theoretical background of the study mainly relies on many published books written by different authors on language teaching, English for Specific Purpose, approaches to ESP teaching, etc The major method used in the study is the quantitative one That is all comments, consideration, suggestions given in the thesis are based on the analysis of the statistics from the survey questionnaires conducted with the teachers and students at BVC Besides, the study is also carried out through course book assessment, informal interviews, and discussions with the teachers and students at BVC 6) Design of the study The study is organized into introduction, the main part and conclusion The introduction includes the rationale, aims of the study as well as scope and methods of the study The main part comprises chapters Chapter deals with the theoretical background of the research It is concerned with the issues relevant to the topic of the research: vocabulary (definition, classification and roles), techniques in vocabulary teaching and vocabulary in ESP teaching and learning Chapter is an overview of English teaching and learning context at BVC Chapter The study explores problems of teaching and learning vocabulary in Mechanical Engineering experienced by the teachers and students at BVC Chapter offers some suggestions for solutions to improve the teaching of vocabulary in Mechanical Engineering The conclusion summarizes the issues addressed and presents recommendations for further improvements and some suggestions for further research PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Definition of vocabulary There are different definitions of vocabulary Each linguist gives his own definition of vocabulary depending on the criteria that he considers the most important in terms of linguistics, semantics, lexicology, etc In her book, "A course in language teaching", Penny Ur defined vocabulary roughly as "the words we teach in the foreign language" However, she also accepted, "a new item of vocabulary may be more than a single word, a compound of two or three words and multi-word idioms" Pyles and Algeo (1970) said, "it is true that vocabulary is the focus of language with its sound and meaning, which interlock to allow us to communicate with one another, and it is words that we arrange together to make sentences, conversation and discourse of all kinds " (p.96) This statement indicates that vocabulary is essential for learning a language The American Heritage Dictionary defines vocabulary as "the sum of words used by, or at the command of a particular person of group " According to Michael Lewis (1993:89), vocabulary " may be individual words or full sentences - institutionalized utterances - that convey for social or pragmatic meaning within a given community " In short, it can be concluded that vocabulary is the total number of all the words that a language possesses, including a single words, two or three words items expressing a single idea and multiword idioms of which meaning cannot be deduced from the analysis of the component words but only understood in the sentences, or in contexts, etc 1.2 Classification of vocabulary Vocabulary can be classified differently according to different criteria basing on morpheme, meaning, function, frequency or the use of word, etc - Vocabulary classified according to the concept of morpheme Word can be divided into three kinds: simple, derived, and compound Simple word A simple word consists of one morpheme only and cannot be broken down into smaller meaningful unit like heat, port, oil, gas… Derived word ... fog, thick smoke and dense smoke with the same meaning However, we cannot say dense hair instead of thick hair 1.5.4 Aspects of meaning Aspect of meaning include denotation, connotation, appropriateness... universities and colleges of language but also by departments of technical universities and colleges Bacninh Vocational College (BVC) is a typical example of the training centre where ESP involved within... research entitled, ―Teaching vocabulary in Mechanical Engineering to the second year students at Bacninh Vocational College: Challenges and suggestions for solutions” Aims of the study The study is