A STUDY ON THE ROLE OF USING VIETNAMESE IN TEACHING ENGLISH VOCABULARY TO THE 10TH FORM ETHNIC MINORITY STUDENTS AT VUNG CAO VIET BAC HIGH SCHOOL -Nghiên cứu về vai trò của việc sử dụng Tiếng Việt trong dạy từ vựng Tiếng Anh cho học sinh dân

DECLARATION I, Nguyễn Thị Mai Liên, certify that the work presented in this study " A study on the role of using Vietnamese in teaching English vocabulary to the 10 th form ethnic minori

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*********************

NGUYỄN THỊ MAI LIÊN

A STUDY ON THE ROLE OF USING VIETNAMESE IN TEACHING

STUDENTS AT VUNG CAO VIET BAC HIGH SCHOOL

Nghiên cứu về vai trò của việc sử dụng tiếng Việt trong dạy từ vựng

tiếng Anh cho học sinh dân tộc thiểu số lớp 10 tại trường

PT Vùng Cao Việt Bắc

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111

Hanoi, 2014

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*********************

NGUYỄN THỊ MAI LIÊN

A STUDY ON THE ROLE OF USING VIETNAMESE IN TEACHING

STUDENTS AT VUNG CAO VIET BAC HIGH SCHOOL

Nghiên cứu về vai trò của việc sử dụng tiếng Việt trong dạy từ vựng

tiếng Anh cho học sinh dân tộc thiểu số lớp 10 tại trường

PT Vùng Cao Việt Bắc

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111

SUPERVISOR: DƯƠNG ĐỨC MINH, PhD

Hanoi, 2014

DECLARATION

I, Nguyễn Thị Mai Liên, certify that the work presented in this study " A study on the role of using Vietnamese in teaching English vocabulary to the 10 th form ethnic minority students at Vung Cao Viet Bac High School" is the result of

my own research and the material has not been submitted either in whole or in part for any degree to any other university or institution

Hanoi, August, 2014

Student‟s signature

Nguyễn Thị Mai Liên

In my capacity as supervisor of the candidate's thesis, I certify that the above statements are true to the best of my knowledge

Supervisor

Duong Duc Minh, Ph.D

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

On the completion of this thesis, I greatfully express my deepest gratitude to

my supervisor Dr Duong Duc Minh who gave me his precious comments, expert advice and most of his kind encouragement during my doing research

Also, I would like to acknowledge my gratitude to all of the lecturers and the staff of the Department of Post-Graduate Studies at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their valuable lectures and supports

I am greatly indebted to my colleagues and students at Vung Cao Viet Bac high school for their enthusiasm, helpfulness, care and patience towards my interviews which grant great contributions for my thesis

Finally, I would like to express my special thanks to my parents, my husband and other members in my family for their love, care, support and encouragement so that

I could accomplish my study

ABSTRACT

The use of the first language in foreign language teaching and learning has long been a controversial issue However, as a common phenomenon in English language learning, the influence of the first language can not be ignored especially with low proficiency learners This paper aims at providing the evidence to the role

of using the first language (Vietnamese) in vocabulary teaching and learning process For these purposes, nearly 200 students of four classes of grade 10th and 6 teachers of English Department at Vung Cao Viet Bac high school were participants

of the research Three research tools were used to gather the data: questionnaire, interview and observation The findings of the research were totally true to the research hypotheses First, Vietnamese is still widely used to teach and learn vocabulary by teachers and students of Vung Cao Viet Bac high school Frequent using of Vietnamese for words‟ explanation, habit of using bilingual dictionary to look up new words and doing translation exercises to practice new words are the evidences for the findings Most of participants found using Vietnamese effective to their teaching and learning vocabulary, therefore they often apply it to improve vocabulary acquisition

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1 19

Table 2 20

Table 3 21

Table 4 23

Table 5 27

Table 6 28

FIGURE 1 22

FIGURE 2 24

FIGURE 3 25

FIGURE 4 25

FIGURE 5 26

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES v

TABLE OF CONTENTS vi

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the Study 1

2 The Aims of the Study 2

3 Research Questions 2

4 The Scope of the Study 2

5 The Methods of the Study 2

6 Design of the Study 3

7 The Summary 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Vocabulary 4

1.1.1 What is Vocabulary? 4

1.1.2 The roles of Vocabulary in Second Language Acquisison 5

1.1.3 Approaches to Vocabulary Teaching 6

1.1.4 Explicit and Incidental Vocabulary Learning 7

1.2 L1 and Translation in Second Vocabulary Language Teaching 8

1.2.1 Translation Method in Language Teaching 8

1.2.2 The Roles of First Language on the Second Language 9

1.2.3 The Use of Translation to Facilitate Vocabulary Teaching 11

1.2.4 Empirical Studies of Translation Method in Vocabulary Teaching and Learning 12

1.3 Chapter Summary 14

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 15

2.1 Participants and Setting of the Study 15

2.2 Data Collection 15

2.2.1 Data Collection Instruments 15

2.2.2 Data Collection Procedures 18

2.2.3 Data Analysis Procedure 18

2.3 Chapter Summary 18

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 19

3.1 Findings 19

3.1.1 Findings and Discussion of Survey Questionnaires 19

3.1.1.1 Analysis of Teacher Questionnaires‟ Results: 19

3.1.1.2 Analysis of Student Questionnaires‟ Results: 23

3.1.2 Findings and Discussion of Class Observations 27

3.1.3 Findings and Discussion of Interviews 30

3.1.3.1 Summary of Teachers‟ Interviews 30

3.2 Discussion 33

3.3 Pedagogical Implications 34

3.4 Chapter Summary 34

PART C: CONCLUSIONS 35

1 Conclusions 35

2 Limitations of the Study 35

3 Suggestions for Further Study 36

REFERENCES 37 APPENDICES I

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the Study

Vocabulary forms the biggest part of the meaning of any language, and it is the biggest problem for most learners, as described by Mc Carthy (“Interview”, 2001:2, cited in Fan, 2003:222) Mc Carthy firmly believes that language is lexis-driven, and therefore, vocabulary learning is the real key to second language learning He claims that learners will be more successful if they can develop their own techniques and disciplines for vocabulary learning Therefore, an effective approach to vocabulary is always one of the great concerns of every language teacher

A recent study by Ramachandran and Rahim (2004) investigated the effectiveness of using the L1 translation in recalling the meaning and retention of the words with elementary level ESL Their results indicated that the translation method through using the first language was more effective than the non-translation method in enhancing ESL learners‟ vocabulary learning ability, and it could improve elementary ESL learner‟s ability to recall the meaning of the word learnt Auer Bach (1993) claims that the use of the learner‟s L1 in the L2 classroom will have a positive effect on learners‟ second language learning, especially in the area of vocabulary Personally, the researcher is interested in the findings of many researchers including Nation (2001) and Kroll and Curley (1988) that new second language words are stored more effectively in the brain when they are linked to their first language equivalents

At Vung cao Viet Bac High school, with more than 2,000 ethnic minority students coming from different minority groups, each ethnic group has its own language, but Vietnamese is nominated the national language As far as I can observe, these learners are much in favour of using Vietnamese when learning English vocabulary This has motivated me to carry out this study, which aims at

finding the answer for the question about the real situation of using Vietnamese and

its role in vocabulary teaching and learning

Hopefully, findings will reaffirm the use of L1 as a strategic teaching method within the field of vocabulary acquisition

Furthermore, it is to partially help English foreign language teachers have a reflection

on their teaching practice

2 The Aims of the Study

The research is aimed to investigate the role of using Vietnamese in teaching vocabulary to the 10th form students at Vung cao Viet Bac High School

The objectives of the study are:

- to investigate how frequently Vietnamese is used in vocabulary teaching and learning of teachers and students

- to explore the teachers and students‟ perceptions of the effectiveness of using Vietnamese in teaching and learning vocabulary

4 The Scope of the Study

The study limits itself to the role of using Vietnamese in teaching English Vocabulary The effectiveness of this technique would be explored from the perception of the students and teachers The study was carried out only with tenth form students and the teachers who are in charge of English teaching to those students at Vung cao Viet Bac High school in Thai Nguyen

5 The Methods of the Study

Both qualitative and quantitative research methods are used in this study, including Questionnaire, classroom observations and interviews

Interviews

Teacher interviews were conducted to obtain a better understanding of the teachers‟ perceptions towards the effectiveness of using Vietnamese in teaching English vocabulary The interviews were transcribed fully and analyzed qualitatively

6 Design of the Study

The author chose survey research to do this study because of many reasons First of all, the author could gather a great number of opinions from participants As the aim of this study was to investigate the application of using Vietnamese in teaching English vocabulary, the researcher needed a big number of participants to get the most reliable result The author could save a lot of time by getting the answers from delivering questionnaires in class and then interviewing some participants in person The research adopted a mixed methodology – both qualitative and quantitative approaches in data collection and data analysis

The study consisted of 5 chapters which covered the introduction of the research, the literature review, the methodology, findings and discussion and the conclusion chapter

There are three instruments which were used in this study, namely questionnaire, interview and observation Therefore the author could have very reliable findings at the end The questionnaires were delivered to all participants with both close questions and open questions so that they can specify their opinions The researcher did the observation on her own with the checklist at class The interviews consisted of semi-structured interviews and free interviews The researcher

interviewed three teachers who had just taught the observed periods

7 Summary

In this the first part, the author introduced the thesis with the aims that inspired her to conduct the study as well as the research questions The author also presented the scope of the study that the thesis‟s focus was the role of Vietnamese use in vocabulary teaching and learning so she did not pay attention equally to all lessons of the participants

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

Part B consists of three chapters: literature review; methodology and findings and discussion

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter focuses on providing an overview of the theoretical knowledge

relevant to the study including vocabulary and its roles in second language

acquisition, recent research about teaching and learning second language vocabulary, L1 and translation in second vocabulary language teaching and the summaries of previous researches on closely –related topics

1.1 Vocabulary

1.1.1 What is Vocabulary?

Vocabulary is a matter which many linguists and language teachers have been concerned for a long time Vocabulary is defined differently by different scholars Below some definitions of vocabulary that are relevant to the present study are introduced

In The American Heritage Dictionary, “vocabulary” is defined as:

1 All words of a language

2 The sum of words used by, understood by, or at the command of a particular person or a group

3 A list of words and often phrases, usually arranged alphabetically and defined

or translated; a lexicon or glossary

It‟s apparent that above definition show the relationship between vocabulary and words In other words vocabulary is defined as words However, it seems important to see clear definitions, a concise explanation as sited as follow:

"Vocabulary can be defined, roughly, as the words we teach in the foreign language However, a new item of vocabulary may be more than a single word: for example, post office, and mother-in- law, which are made up of two or three words but express a single idea A useful conversation is to cover all such cases

by talking about vocabulary “items” rather than “word” which is made up of two or three words but express a single idea.’‟ (Ur, 1996:60)

According to Ur, vocabulary should be recognized as words we teach in a foreign language Ur argues a vocabulary item can be either a single word or a multi-word phrase

In conclusion, there are many different definitions about vocabulary, but the idea that vocabulary is the total number of words existing in a language, including single words as well as multi-word items of which meaning cannot be deduced from the analysis of the component words but only understood in the sentences; or in contexts, is more favorable

1.1.2 The Roles of Vocabulary in Second Language Acquisison

It is known that, in learning a foreign language in general, and English in particular, the knowledge and mastery of vocabulary play an extremely important

role Mc Carthy (1990) stated that:

“No matter how well the students learn grammar, no matter how successfully the sounds of L2 are mastered, without words to express a wider range of meanings, communication in an L2 just cannot happen in any meaningful way” (Mc Carthy, 1990:viii)

Pyles and Algeo (1970:96) noted that: "When we first think about the language, we think about words It is words that we arrange together to make sentences, conversations and discourse of all kind" In fact, vocabulary is the element that links the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing all together In order to communicate well in a foreign language, students should acquire an adequate number of words and should know how to use them accurately Wilkins emphasized the importance of vocabulary learning:

"Without grammar very little can be conveyed; without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed." (Wilkins, 1972:111)

Cook‟s (1991) conclusion is also consistent with Wilkins in that “Grammar provides the overall patterns, vocabulary the material to put into those patterns” Or some authors, led by Lewis (1993) argue that vocabulary should be at the centre of language teaching, because „language consists of grammaticalised lexis, not lexicalised grammar‟ According to Meara (1995) central to learning to communicate

in the target language are vocabulary and lexical units No amount of grammatical or

other type of linguistics knowledge can be employed in communication or discourse without the mediation of vocabulary Folse (2004:3 ) claims that:

“The lack of grammar knowledge can limit conversation; lack of vocabulary knowledge can stop conversation” (Folse, 2004:3)

Learners can express themselves with poor grammar However, it is always a challenge to get the message across in a foreign language (Wallace, 1982), and because of this communication in foreign language is constrained considerably to those with limited vocabulary

Thus, the importance of vocabulary in language learning cannot be denied Vocabulary learning is obviously an essential part of language learning Learning words can considered to be the most important aspect of second language acquisition (Knight, 1994) Candlin (1988) stated that “The study of vocabulary is at the heart of language teaching in terms of organization of syllabuses, the evaluation of learner performances, and the provision of learning resources.”

1.1.3 Approaches to Vocabulary Teaching

There are many different methods, approaches, techniques as well as strategies

to vocabulary teaching In the early decades of the 20th century, vocabulary teaching became the focus of interest of many applied linguistic researchers and language teachers In order to fully understand this development it is certainly worth giving a brief discussion of some major approaches in teaching vocabulary It can be easily seen that several hundred years ago, bilingual teaching was favoured, with students learning through translation Howatt (1984) tells us that the idea of using L1 in the L2 classroom was a respected view during the era of The Grammar Translation

Method The Grammar Translation Method had dominated late 19th and early 20thcentury teaching The aim of The Grammar Translation Method was to provide the students with a detailed literary vocabulary which is learned through long lists of translated items and a bilingual dictionary and practiced through translation

excercises with little opportunity to try out pronunciation (Rivers, 1981: 28-30)

The second major foreign language teaching approach is the Direct Method The Direct Method stressed the ability to use rather than analyze a language as the

goal of language instruction or in other words, the main goal was to train students to communicate in the target language and to have an acceptable pronunciation

The Reading approach attracted more importance than grammatical skill The vocabulary used in the reading passages is controlled at beginning levels and is chosen according to their frequency and usefulness The acquisition of vocabulary is considered to be more important than grammatical skills and is expanded as fast as possible through intensive and extensive reading The translation of vocabulary items and sentences are permitted (Murcia and Prator, 1979:3)

The Audio-lingual Approach which was dominant in the United States during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s is known to be a major paradigm shift in foreign language teaching (Larsen-Freeman, 2000) In this method, the amount of vocabulary presented was kept low (Thornbury, 2002:14) and was chosen for its simplicity (Schmitt, 2000:13) It was assumed that when grammatical fluency was present, exposure to the foreign language itself lead to vocabulary development (Coady, 1993:4)

The Communicative Language Teaching Approach is a renowned British Approach to language teaching the emergence of which dates back to the mid-1960s Concepts like context, use, effective communication, communicative function, comprehensible pronunciation, etc were given importance in this approach Senel (2002: 243) emphasized that new words were not presented in isolation, but in the context of a complete sentence, and in a meaningful situation This way, the words acquired meaning when they appeared in a particular definition in a determined context Moreover, Thornbury (2002:14) stated that course books began to incorporate communicative activities specifically targeting vocabulary since the meaning-giving role of lexis was recognized in this approach

1.1.4 Explicit and Incidental Vocabulary Learning

Explicit vocabulary learning focuses on teaching vocabulary directly to learners in order to enhance the chance of new vocabulary acquisition Even though that explicit teaching strategy is time consuming, it is worth the time to teach second learners the most frequent words in a language and technical vocabulary that learners will need in order to succeed in their education field

On the other hand, incidental vocabulary learning can occur when learners focused on comprehending meaning rather than focusing on learning new vocabulary (Gass and Selinker, 2001) Incidental learning can occur from reading or from having conversations with others who speak the language Words that not explicitly taught can be learned incidentally from exposure It is necessary to increase the amount of exposure in order to enhance the incidental vocabulary learning because the lack of exposure is one of the problems facing the incidental approach (Schmitt, 2000) A learner can start learning vocabulary incidentally from conversation from the beginning, but when it comes to reading, a certain amount of explicit instruction is necessary

Written language usually uses more low frequency vocabulary than spoken language; thus, teaching these infrequent words explicitly for second language learners is necessary especially for learners at elementary levels Thus, explicit teaching is necessary for low proficiency learners until they reach a vocabulary size threshold that allows them to learn words incidentally from reading (Schmitt, 2000) Sokmen (1997) states that “the pendulum has swung from direct teaching of vocabulary (the grammar translation method) to incidental (the communicative approach) and now, (laudably, back to the middle: implicit and explicit learning” (as cited in Schmitt (2000: 120) These studies suggest that both explicit and incidental learning are necessary, and they should complement each other

In conclusion, both incidental and explicit learning are necessary and they should be used together to bring the highest effectiveness

1.2 L1 and Translation in Second Vocabulary Language Teaching

1.2.1 Translation Method in Language Teaching

Grammar Translation Method was the predominant teaching methodology from the beginning of the nineteenth century It was developed based on a procedure for teaching Latin and evolved out of the need to standardize foreign language teaching for children (Howatt, 1984, as cited in Schmitt, 2000) Students were given extensive grammatical explanation in their first language, lists of bilingual vocabulary, and some practice exercises to translate from the first language into the second language or vice versa In this method, the content focused more on reading

and writing skills Vocabulary was only used as a way of illustrating grammar rules (Zimmerman, 1997, as cited in Schmitt, 2000) Students were expected to learn new vocabulary themselves by using bilingual word lists; thus, the bilingual dictionaries became an important reference tool Steinberg and Sciarini (2006: 114) stated that the Grammar- Translation Method “has enjoyed and continues to enjoy acceptance in many countries around the world,” especially in countries where language teachers

are not fluent and the classes are very large

Although it has advantages, there are many problems associated with the Grammar-Translation Method One of the main problems with Grammar-Translation Method was that it focused on language analysis instead of language use It also focused on reading and writing skills which did not help to develop the ability to communicate orally in the target language (Schmitt, 2000) Therefore, this method aims at providing students with a detailed literary vocabulary which is learned through long lists of translated items and a bilingual dictionary and practiced through sentence translation with little opportunity to try out pronunciation (Rivers, 1981:28-30) Murcia and Prator (1979:3) listed major characteristics of Translation Method:

 Classes are taught in the mother tongue, with little active use of target language

 Much vocabulary is taught in the form of lists of isolated words

 Long elaborate explanations of the intricacies of grammar are given

 Grammar provides the rules for putting the words together and instruction often focuses on the form and inflections of words

 Reading of difficult classical texts is begun early

 Little attention is paid to the content of texts, which are treated as exercises in grammatical analysis

 Often the only drills are exercises in translating disconnected sentences from the target language into the mother tongue

 Little or no attention is given to pronunciation

1.2.2 The Roles of First Language in the Second Language

Many researchers have found out that the learners‟ first language has great influence on the learning and the use of second languages Second language learners use their L1 in learning the target language in many ways Many Vietnamese students

have ever said “What is the Vietnamese word for ?”, if they do not get the answer, immediately they will look up the bilingual dictionaries to find unknown vocabulary Even though when this does not happen, an immediate association with a mother – tongue word is likely to be set as soon as possible There are complaints about the influence of the first language on second language vocabulary learning because it takes time for students and teachers to think in the first language before they have the right word in second language However it even takes more time to explain a word without translating because the teacher has to spend several minutes to find other simple words or materials to make students understand According to Schmitt (Schmitt, 1997) many second language learners believe that translating helps them in

learning second language skills such as reading, writing, vocabulay

Atkinson (1987) not only acknowledges the positive role of the mother tongue in the classroom, but also identifies the following uses of it: eliciting language, checking comprehension, giving instructions, enhancing co-operation among learners, promoting discussions of classroom methodology, improving presentation and reinforcement of language, checking for sense testing, and development of useful learning strategies The following are several reasons why the first languages should

be used as a tool in the language classroom:

 It is more natural to use the first language with others who have the same first language

 It is easier and more communicatively effective to use the first language

 Using the second language can be a source of embarrassment particularly for shy learners and those who feel they are not very proficient in the second language

 The first language can help to move the task along by establishing a joint understanding of the text and to manage the task

 The first language allows learners to focus attention on vocabulary and grammatical items or providing information and explanation about grammatical rules and conventions

 The first language may facilitate classroom activities, particularly for low proficiency students and complex tasks

 The first language can provide a foundation for learners on which to build the second language structures, especially during collective activities in the classroom, and the first language provides a sense of security and validates the learners‟ live experiences, allowing them to express themselves

 The first language can make learners feel more confident of using the second language, especially when their level is low

 Using the first language to explain, teachers can save a lot of time

On the contrary, using the first language causes some interference errors in English because there is not always equivalence between the two languages Some languages like Swedish and English share some characteristics which led learners to think that a word or structure what works in Swedish will work in English Sokmen (1997) states that vocabulary teaching was based on a top – down, naturalistic, and communicative approach which emphasized implicit and incidental learning of vocabulary Inferring from the context and guessing are considered to be implicit teaching The implicit approach is commonly used in foreign language teaching classrooms Teachers often encourage students to guess the meaning of the word by looking at the context where the words are located They rarely use the first language

in the classroom because they are concerned that students may just rely on their first language Using the first language may lead students to the conclusion that learning a foreign language is just by translating it or foreign language is the first language in another form

In short, the first language may support learners to learn the second language, once they understand their first language they can apply it into their second language learning Sometimes it may not help, and it even causes difficulties for learners because of the two language differences

1.2.3 The Use of Translation to Facilitate Vocabulary Teaching

As it was discussed in the previous section, learners‟ first language has a great impact in the learning of the second language Thus, we come to the question: should translation be used in teaching and testing second language vocabulary? There may

be a belief that first language translation should not be used in the teaching of vocabulary However, translation is one of number of ways of conveying meaning

and it is not better or worse than other ways, such as the use of pictures, real objects, definitions, the second language synonyms and so on Actually, the use of learners‟

first language to test or convey vocabulary is quite sufficient (Nation, 2001)

One of the greatest advantages of using learners‟ first language in vocabulary teaching is that it provides an easier way to explain the meaning of second language vocabulary The use of the learners‟ first language meaning is like using a simple synonym, while a second language definition usually involves a definition that includes a relative clause or reduced relative clause, and reading such sentences require greater grammatical skills

The use of first language translation provides a useful mean of testing vocabulary, both receptively and productively, and in recall and recognition of meaning The difficulties that caused by no exact corresponding between meanings in both languages are less than the difficulties that caused by the lack of connection between the second language definitions and the meaning they are trying to convey

As a result, using learners‟ first language translation to establish the initial form - meaning of the new second language words‟ form with the corresponding the first language words which already exist in the memory is very useful (Barcroft, 2002) Moreover, new second language words are stored more effectively in the brain when they are linked to their first language equivalents (Kroll and Curely, 1988 , as cited in Barcroft, 2002) Thus, using first language translation is a good method to teach second language words as any other methods

1.2.4 Empirical Studies of Translation Method in Vocabulary Teaching and

Learning

There are numbers of researches on the effectiveness of Translation Method in second language teaching in general, and in vocabulary teaching and learning in particular

Haijti (1989) examined conditions in which oral translation was used as an exercise to build vocabulary knowledge He stated that this activity led to effective results

A year later, Shamash (1990) stated that the learners started by writing about their lives in their first language or a mixture of their first language and English

Then they translated the text into English with the help of bilingual tutors or learners

By this way, learners overcome the problems of vocabulary and language confidence The use of native language may attract those students who are at low level of English Such findings are in accordance with current theories of second language acquisition All of them emphasize that the use of the first language reduces anxiety and consequently makes effective environment appropriate for learning

In another study, Knight (1994) investigated the effects of using dictionary on the retention of unknown words during a reading activity In this experiment students who used computerized dictionary demonstrated more vocabulary knowledge than those without access to a dictionary

Furthermore, Saggara and Alba (2006) also conducted a research to investigate effectiveness of translation with elementary students and came to a conclusion that using key word method and direct first language translation of the second language words would lead to better second language vocabulary learning at the early stages of acquisition

Another study is by Majid and Hayati (2009) conducted a research to make comparison between task-based instruction and translation method in the effectiveness of learning vocabulary and found out that higher range of vocabulary had been learnt in the translation group Learning happened in the task group but not

as much as in the translation one Doing translation the learners had time to focus on every single word Added to that, when looking up words in bilingual dictionaries, learners paid attention to the meaning and the form of the words then considered semantic relation of each word with its surrounding words

According to Ellis and Beaton (1993:604) knowing a lexical item involves knowing various components such as its spelling, phonological representation, word class, syntactic features and delivered meaning Current trends in language education mostly consider no role of the mother tongue in language learning but many researches including study of Majid suggest that translation method is effective in improving learners‟ ability to recall meanings of words which are unknown to them

Pal Heltai (1988) did a research on conditions in which oral translation can be an exercise to build vocabulary and he came to a conclusion that translation is best used as a supplementary exercise to practice and build vocabulary at advanced level under some

conditions In countries where English is a foreign language, opportunities for naturalistic acquisition are few, students have less chances to practice real English, therefore some activities like translation can be beneficial for learners to reach motivation to learn new words He also stated that translation might, indirectly, through contributing to the learning

of vocabulary; help improve learners‟ communicative fluency

Another study is by Ramachandran and Abdul Rahim (2004) to investigate the effectiveness of the translation method in teaching vocabulary to elementary level English as second language (ESL) learners The authors sought answers to the following questions: Do Malaysian elementary level ESL learners who learn words through translation method recall the meaning of the words learnt more effectively and is the translation method effective for lasting word meaning recall? The results

of the study show two characteristics of the translation method that may have contributed to the outperformance in word meaning recall by the participants receiving it First, given that participants‟ second language lexical knowledge is limited, instruction in their first language may have made their learning of second language lexical items more effective Second, the subjects found learning the new lexical items using their first language less tedious than trying to understand different explanations in English The findings of the study show that elementary level ESL learners recall the meaning of the words learnt effectively by using the translation method The study also reveals that the effects of the translation method is more lasting for word meaning than recall among elementary level ESL learners At the end, translation method seems to have positive impact on ESL elementary learners‟ recall and retention of meaning of vocabulary learning

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

This chapter consists of the design of the study; the participants; the three instruments, namely questionnaire, interview; observation and finally the data collection

2.1 Participants and Setting of the Study

The participants of the research were 200 students from grade 10A5, 10A6, 10A7, 10A8 at Vung cao Viet Bac high school, Thai Nguyen The researcher is also

an English teacher of this school My school is a boarding school with more than 2,000 ethnic minority students Most of the students in the school come from farmer families in the remote mountainous villages in the northern provinces They are pure ethnic students, they have their own first language; they often use it to communicate with their parents and other friends of their communities They use Vietnamese at schools or at public places You are sure to imagine all sorts of difficulties those ethnic students have to overcome when they learn English Most of the participants are at the age of 16 and all these students are ethnic minorities, they belong to different ethnic minorities namely: Tày, Thái, Mường, Dao, Hmong, Nùng, Sán Dìu,

La Hủ, La Chí, Cao Lan, Hoa, Pu Péo, Giáy They have been learning English for four years in junior schools but their knowledge of English vocabulary is at a low level

In terms of 6 volunteer teachers participating in the study, three of them were quite young with no more than 5 year teaching experience; two of them had less than

10 year experience There was only 1 teacher who had been teaching for 14 years in this school They were English teachers of those 4 classes I chose They were helpful

to assist the author to deliver students the questionnaire and get their answers

answers to closed questions is straightforward; less pressure for an immediate response, respondents‟ anonymity; lack of interviewer bias, standardization of questions (but true

of structured interviews); can provide suggestive data for testing an hypothesis The questionnaires were designed in both close and open-ended questions

There are 6 different questions in questionnaire that the author delivered to six teachers and about 200 students in their break time The questionnaire for students was in Vietnamese so they could clearly understand each question and respond to them without any language barrier All the questions designed were to seek answers for the following research questions:

1 How is Vietnamese used in vocabulary teaching and learning at Vung Cao Viet Bac High School?

2 How effective do teachers and students find Vietnamese to their vocabulary teaching and learning?

Some questions are closed questions, and the participants responded by circling their choices, so they could save much time Some of the questions sought answers for frequency of actions which were typical characteristics of Translation Method such as using Vietnamese to explain the meaning and usage of the new words or using translation exercises to help students drill new words or using dictionary to look up new words, etc Other questions explored participants‟ opinions about the effectiveness of L1 to their new vocabulary learning and teaching and the reasons for their choices The researcher also spent 1 first questions to investigate the personal information of students and teachers such as their language proficiency, their teaching experience so that the author could see differences in their viewpoints about the use of Vietnamese if they had any

The last question was an open ended question which allowed participants to specify their ideas about the effectiveness of using translation exercises This question was also the key question that may facilitate the researcher to directly interview some teachers for more ideas (See appendix 3)

2.2.1.2 Class Observations

Besides using questionnaires and interviews to get deeper ideas from teachers the researcher came to some classes and observed by herself The author always asked the teachers in advanced then attended the classes randomly, so the lessons could go on as planned The author used an observation checklist with typical characteristics of Translation Method such as using Vietnamese to explain the meaning and the usage of the new words; asking students to use bilingual dictionary and giving translation tasks (See appendix 4) Besides the checklists, she did not forget to take note other things which happened in class The researcher believed that these notes could lead her to other issues The author observed the classes in all listening, speaking, reading, writing and language focus lessons

2.2.1.3 Interviews

Interviews are a research tool in which a researcher asks questions of participants; interviews are often audio or video-taped for later transcription and analysis The interviews may take one of several forms: open-ended, focused, structured or unstructured In an open-ended interview, the researcher could ask for the informant‟s opinion on events or facts In a focused interview, the respondent is interviewed for only a short time, and the questions asked could have come from the case study protocol The structured interview is particularly useful in studies of neighborhoods where a formal survey is required The unstructured interview was preferred because it is thought that it gives a wider freedom to the interviewees to express their views and beliefs (Shohamy and Seliger 1989; Wallace 1998) For this advantage, the researcher chose unstructured interview as an instrument to get data for her study

Unstructured interview questions were set to solicit pertinent data from the 3 different teachers whose classes were observed and noted These teachers have had a rather long time in teaching English and they also have good teaching methods, the researcher interviewed them in English and they were helpul to give the answers The purpose of the interview was to obtain a better understanding of the teachers‟ perceptions about the benefits of using Vietnamese in teaching new vocabulary The interviews were conducted after the lessons around 15minutes They were based on the following key questions:

1 Do you use Vietnamese to teach new vocabulary to your students? Why?

2 What effects does Vietnamese use have on your vocabulary teaching?

3 How motivated do you think your class is when you use Vietnamese to teach vocabulary to them?

4 Do you think that the exclusive use of Vietnamese in teaching English

vocabulary has problem(s)? If yes, what are they?

2.2.2 Data Collection Procedures

The required data were collected in the second term of 2014-2015 school year First, the questionnaires were given to students and teachers Next, 5 periods of five teachers were observed Finally, three teachers were interviewed right after they had taught around 15 minutes

2.2.3 Data Analysis Procedure

The procedures of collecting data took me nearly two months and about one month to analyze the data Data collected from the above different sources were categorized into: Findings and discussion of survey questionnaires, Findings and discussion of class observations and Findings and discussion of interviews

The data was categorized this way simply for seeking answers to research questions raised for this study The quantitative data from questionnaire and classroom observation were collected, analyzed and classified to synthesize in the table statistics The results were shown in the figures The qualitative data from the interview were presented by quoting relevant responses from the respondents

2.3 Chapter Summary

This chapter includes the design, description of participants, research instruments and the data collection of the study This study was a survey research which used the mixture of methodology: qualitative and quantitative approaches 200 students and 6 teachers of Vung Cao Viet Bac high school were the participants They not only answered the questionnaires but were interviewed to express their ideas about the use of L1 in vocabulary teaching and learning The author also observed their classes with checklist and written notes to get more reliable data for the study

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter looks at the data analysis, the discussion and the major findings

of the study

3.1 Findings

3.1.1 Findings and Discussion of Survey Questionnaires

3.1.1.1 Analysis of Teacher Questionnaires’ Results:

As it was stated before, the first questions were used to ask for teachers‟ background information Only 1 out of 6 teachers had more than 10 years teaching in this school, the rest of them are quite young with from 3 to less than 10 year experience

Question 2: Which technique do you use the most often to explain the meaning of the new words?

Below is the table which shows the teacher respondents‟ answers:

Table 1: Teachers’ responses to the most frequently used techniques to explain the meaning of new vocabulary

Techniques for explaining the meaning of new

vocabulary

Number of teacher

Percentage

%

Table 1 indicates that 5 out of 6 teachers often use Vietnamese to explain the meaning of new words The number 83% is much greater than that of teachers who apply other techniques to help students understand the meaning besides using Vietnamese The researcher found that the number of teachers who often used Vietnamese to present new vocabulary in these cases still outnumbers This method

is heplful for the students to recognize the new words in form of pronunciation and

spelling Therefore, it can be concluded that using Vietnamese to explain new words‟ meaning is still preferred by almost teachers

Question 3: Do you ask your students to use bilingual dictionaries to look up new words?

This question gives respondents two choices, either Yes or No, and it is surprising that 100% of the teachers ask their students to use bilingual dictionaries to look up new words‟ meaning Therefore, it is clear that bilingual dictionaries play an extremely important role in vocabulary teaching by teachers in Vung Cao Viet Bac High School Bilingual dictionaries are considered precious sources which can provide students word meaning quickly and conveniently

The below table which illustrates the percentage of teachers who ask their students to use bilingual dictionaries to look up new words

Table 2: Percentage of teachers asking students to use bilingual dictionary to look up new words

Do you ask your students to use bilingual

Question 4: Which aspects of vocabulary do you often pay the most attention to when you introduce new words to your students?

This question was asked to investigate the aspects of vocabulary that teachers often pay the most attention to when they introduce to their students Different methods have different focus on the aspects of vocabulary to teach As the authod stated before one of typical characteristics of Translation Method is that it has little focus on pronunciation What is more, this method spends much time teaching students semantic meaning of and instruction about the usage of new words

Teachers have 4 choices to select, and the table below is the result:

Table 3: Aspects of vocabulary teachers pay the most attention to

On the other hands, no teacher paid the most attention to word – form In short, from teachers‟ viewpoints about the aspect of word they paid the most attention to, the author can conclude that they are using L1 through translation method in their vocabulary teaching

Question 5: How do you think translation exercises help you teach new words to your students?

The two last questions in the questionnaire were used to investigate the teachers‟ ideas about the effectiveness of translation exercises to their vocabulary teaching

The figure below is the description of the result for question 5