Problems and solutions in teaching and learning medical vocabulary at Thanhhoa Medical College = Thực trạng và giải pháp trong việc dạy và học từ vựng chuyên ng

LIST OF FIGURES & TABLES Table 1: Students’ length of English learning Figure 1: Ways of learning vocabulary Figure 2: Students’ management when they meet a new word Figure 3: Problems i

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ THU THUỶ

PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS IN TEACHING AND LEARNING MEDICAL VOCABULARY

AT THANHHOA MEDICAL COLLEGE

(Thực trạng và giải pháp trong việc dạy và học

từ vựng chuyên ngành y tại trường

Cao Đẳng Y tế Thanh Hoá)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Methodology

Code: 60 14 10

Course: K17

Supervisor: Kim Văn Tất

Hanoi, 2010

TABLE OF CONTENT

Declaration………

Acknowledgement………

Abstract………

List of abbreviations………

List of figures and tables………

Table of content………

PART A: INTRODUCTION………

1 Rationale………

2 Aims of the study………

3 Research questions………

4 Scope of the study………

5 Method of the study………

6 Design of the study………

PART B: DEVELOPMENT………

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW………

1.1 General knowledge of English for Medical Purposes (EMP)………

1.1.1 ESP vs EMP………

1.1.2 Medical English………

1.1.3 Medical English courses………

1.1.4 Subject knowledge………

1.2 Vocabulary teaching and learning in EMP………

1.2.1 Vocabulary and its role in language teaching and learning………

1.2.2 Techniques in presenting new vocabulary………

1.2.3 Vocabulary practice………

1.2.4 Vocabulary Consolidation………

1.2.5 EMP vocabulary practice and consolidation………

1.2.6 Difficulties in teaching and learning vocabulary………

CHAPTER 2: CONTEXT OF THE STUDY………

2.1 The general review of the teaching and learning EMP at TMC………

2.1.1 Teachers………

2.1.2 Students………

2.1.3 Facilities………

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2.2 Research Methodology………

2.2.1 Respondents………

2.2.2 Research Instrument………

2.2.3 Data collection………

2.2.4 Data analysis………

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION………

3.1 Results………

3.1.1 Questionnaire for students………

3.1.2 Interview for teachers………

3.2 Discussion………

3.2.1 Contextual problems………

3.2.1.1 Large and heterogeneous class………

3.2.1.2 Poor facilities………

3.2.2 Students’ problems………

3.2.3 Teachers’ problems………

CHAPTER 4: SOLUTIONS………

4.1 Towards the contextual problems………

4.1.1 Poor facilities………

4.1.2 Large and heterogeneous class………

4.2 Towards the students………

4.3 Towards the teachers………

4.3.1 Teaching vocabulary in context………

4.3.2 Making use of visual aids………

4.3.2.1 Pictures………

4.3.2.2 Objects………

4.3.3 Teaching word parts………

4.3.4 Consolidating vocabulary………

PART C: CONCLUSION………

1 Summary of the study………

2 Limitations of the study………

3 Suggestions for further studies………

Reference

Appendix

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EGP: English for General Purpose

ESP: English for Specific Purposes

EMP: English for Medical Purpose

TMC: Thanhhoa Medical College

LIST OF FIGURES & TABLES

Table 1: Students’ length of English learning

Figure 1: Ways of learning vocabulary

Figure 2: Students’ management when they meet a new word

Figure 3: Problems influenced on students’ motivation and interest Figure 4: Student’s problems when learning vocabulary

Table 2: Ways of presenting new words

Figure 5: Student’s interest in ways of presenting new words

Figure 6: Ways of practicing new words

Figure 7: Students’ interest in ways of practicing new words

Figure 8: students’ interest in ways of consolidating new words

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

One of the main concerns for those of us working in an ESP context is how to help our students deal with (i.e understand, extract information, assimilate, evaluate, summarize) authentic academic texts which by their nature require a fairly advanced level of proficiency in order to be understood By ‗advanced level of proficiency‘ it is meant, in fact, a good vocabulary size, because although it‘s possible to find examples in texts (especially scientific or technical texts) where grammatical structure is crucial to understanding the subtle nuances of meaning, what seems more important for comprehension is knowing what the words mean (Coady, 1993; Grabe and Stoller ,1997)

As Vermeer (1992: 147) puts it: ―Knowing words is the key to understanding and being understood‖

Vocabulary is like the base of a high building Without it, nothing can be built Teachers who have been teaching English in general and English for Specific Purposes in particular must know that at the beginning or in the end, vocabulary is always one of the biggest problems The English for Medical purposes (EMP) field is no exception Medical language is a special language It is made up of vast pool of words and terms that is employed by doctors and nurses in writing medical records and communicating with each other Questions are increasingly being asked about the role played by the specialized vocabulary needed for academic study

At ThanhHoa Medical College, teaching and learning medical vocabulary are a really challenging job Medical vocabulary has long been considered a difficult and boring subject by many ESP students at the college It takes much time and energy to make progress in this field For ESP teachers, correspondingly, it is difficult task to get students involved in vocabulary explanation even they devoted much time to vocabulary teaching, the results have been disappointing The question posed for ESP teachers now is how to meet the needs of learners of ESP, especially the needs of improving their vocabulary acquisition for communication

Facing this situation, the teachers of English of ThanhHoa Medical College want to do something new to help students develop vocabulary acquisition Being one of the teachers there, I would like to do a study to find out an effective way to claim a more satisfactory standing for medical vocabulary for the second-year students at ThanhHoa Medical College, as a result, the minor thesis title goes as:

“Problems and solutions in teaching and learning medial vocabulary at Thanhhoa Medical College”

2 Aims of the study

Medical Vocabulary consists of so many new words and terms that medical students often have difficult time learning and understanding them The main purpose of the study was to probe problems in teaching and learning medical vocabulary among the teaching staff and the second-year students at ThanhHoa Medical College Within this purpose the three central objectives were:

i) To give a brief overview about teaching and learning medical vocabulary at ThanhHoa Medical College

ii) To describe the difficulties perceived by the ESP teachers and second-year students when learning and teaching medical vocabulary

iii) To suggest some solutions to stimulate students and give recommendation for the teachers to improve the teaching of ESP vocabulary at ThanhHoa Medical College

3 Research questions

To achieve these above aims, the following questions were proposed:

1 What are the difficulties perceived by the ESP teachers and second-year students when learning and teaching medical vocabulary?

2 What solutions should be offered to stimulate students and give recommendation for the teachers to improve the teaching of ESP vocabulary at Thanhhoa Medical College?

4 Scope of the study

This minor thesis is conducted at Thanhhoa Medical College in order to perceive difficulties in teaching and learning medical vocabulary of both teachers and second-year students The study focuses on describing the problems and factors causing such challenges as, large-size class, facilities, materials, and students‘ vocabulary acquisition The researcher would like to offer some appropriate suggestions to better the current context

5 Method of the study

The study was designed to use a combination of various methods to achieve its aims and objectives To begin with, an extensive review of literature was conducted, critically examining vocabulary‘s role in ESP teaching and learning

Various sources of data were used, involving second-year students and teachers of ESP at ThanhHoa Medical College in order to achieve the aims of the study:

 Conducting a survey questionnaire to investigate students‘ evaluative comments

on and attitudes towards teaching and learning medical vocabulary at Thanhhoa Medical College

 Interviewing ESP teachers to get better insight into the research questions

6 Design of the study

The thesis consists of three main parts The first part introduces the rationale for the study carried out by the researcher, the aims of the study, the research questions, the scope of the study, and the method by which the study was conducted The second part developed in four chapters The first chapter reviews relevant literature concerning the general knowledge of English for Medical Purposes and the vocabulary teaching and learning The second chapter discusses the context and methodology of the study The results and discussion of the survey are presented in the third chapter, followed by the solutions in the fourth, which are expected to improve the second year students‘ medical vocabulary learning and the teachers‘ medical vocabulary teaching in TMC context The conclusion serves as a summary of the major issues involved and discusses the implications of the study, limitations of the study and suggestion for further research

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 General knowledge of English for Medical Purposes (EMP)

1.1.1 ESP vs EMP

To talk about Problems in teaching and learning medical vocabulary (EMP vocabulary),

we need to begin with the definition of ESP or EMP Pauline Robinson (1980) states that the term of ESP itself has changed its signification during the past years Formerly standing for English for special purposes, the term now used by ―an increasing number of scholars, practitioners and institutions‖ is English for specific purposes English for special purposes is thought to suggest special languages, i.e restricted languages, which for many people is only a small part of ESP whereas English for specific purpose focuses on the purpose of the learner and refers to the whole range of language resources

Ronald Mackay (1976) states that ESP is generally used to refer to the teaching/learning of

a foreign language for a clearly utilitarian purpose of which there is no doubt

Brumfit (1979) says, ―First, it is clear that an ESP course is directly concerned with purposes for which learners need English, purposes which are usually expressed in functional terms‖ ―ESP thus fits firmly within the general movement towards

―communicative‖ teaching of the last decades or so

Krashen (1982) identified what he calls a ―transition problem,‖ which he refers to a perceived gap in the English language and study of learners who have passed through traditional language classes, and those required for study purposes within universities He agues that subject content-based courses can impart both subject knowledge and language competence at the same time What he identified was actually what ESP is concerned with According to Perren (1974), an ESP course is purposeful and aims at the successful performance of occupational or educational roles It is based on a rigorous analysis of students‘ needs and should be ―tailor-made.‖ Any ESP course may differ from another in its selection of skills, topics, situations and functions, and also language It is likely to be limited duration Students are more often adults but not necessarily so, and may be at any level of competence in the language: beginner, post-beginner, intermediate, ect…Student, may take part in their ESP course before embarking on their occupational or educational role, or they may combine their study of English with performance of their role in English

as well as in their first language According to this definition, EMP is a kind of ESP

We notice that attention to learners‘ needs is a key element in any definitions of ESP Therefore, EMP is intended to help the medical student who is planning to study medicine

in English It is assumed that he will have some knowledge of general English but limited experience of studying works in medical English

1.1.2 Medical English

English for Medical Purposes (EMP) is one of the genres in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) Class subjects in ESP have been getting widespread among Vietnamese university ESP has been trying to attain its popularity since the 1990s among Vietnamese university in the growing necessities in ESP genres such as English for economics, business, English for law, and English for Science and Technology (EST) However, class subjects in EMP are still small in number in Vietnam compared to other ESP genres despite the strong need of EMP

Medical language is a special language It is made up of vast pool of words and terms that

is employed by doctors and nurses in writing medical records and communicating with each other In fact medical students and nursing students have various reasons for learning medical English (Kawagoe, 2009) Doctors need to learn to read and write medical terminology in L2 to complete hospital admission notes, diagnosis, and orders, which, later on, nurses must read, follow in order to carry out nursing interventions and take care of their patients For these medical and nursing professionals, their first step to access medical language is to learn medical words Besides, They also need to read journals and books in medical genres to speak to colleagues on professional visits, to make use of the expanding and increasingly important database available through the Internet, to participate in international conferences, to write up research for journal publication, to take postgraduate courses in the U.S or in U.K to work in hospitals where English is the first language or the lingua franca

1.1.3 Medical English courses

According to Higuchi Akihiko (2009) EMP is different from English for General

Purposes (EGP) in the selection of language that is to be taught There is an overlap with EGP course content (a common core), especially in grammar EGP teachers who start teaching EMP have to learn how to deal with the new are not included in the common core – most noticeably vocabulary They also have to get to know the classis ―genre‖ or text types so that language work can be appropriately contextualized

However, depending on the type of learner, EMP courses also differ from EGP courses in that they may focus on specific skills: e.g interviewing patients, or reading for

information (as opposed to extensive reading of stories) Typically, grammar is taught remedially, as arising from other work, rather than being an organizing focus

1.1.4 Subject knowledge

How much knowledge and what kind of knowledge do EMP teachers need to know about medical science, the work patterns of doctors and nurses, or the study modes of medical and nursing students? This is one of the oldest and maybe traditional questions

in EMP It is relevant to our choice of text, task and course design (Higuchi Akihido, 2009)

There are varied answers, and we cannot choose only one as its best answer At the one end of the spectrum is the view that no specialist knowledge is required or desirable EMP teaching roles, materials and techniques are not significantly different from EGP Moreover, EMP teachers should not put themselves in the false position of seeming to teach medical subjects

At the other end is the view that EMP teachers should have at least a lay knowledge of medicine and an interest in the way in which doctors and nurses work or study; and that they should ideally know as much as possible about the register of medical English For example, these are typical ‗genres‘ or text types, typical collocations and their use, and the pronunciation of basic medical terminology etc

Then to what extent do we take into account in our teaching the specialist knowledge the learner brings to the EMP classroom? In most EMP classrooms, the medical knowledge of the learners is the most important resource in the EMP classroom In order to best exploit this resource, EMP teachers need some understanding of basic medical concepts and work patterns in medicine

1.2 Vocabulary teaching and learning

1.2.1 Vocabulary and Its role in language teaching and learning

Words are the building blocks in a language By learning the lexical items, we start to develop knowledge of the target language Based on our experience of being a language learner, we seem to have no hesitation in recognizing the importance of vocabulary in L2 learning Meare (1980) points out that language learners admit that they encounter considerable difficulty with vocabulary even when the upgrade from an initial stage of acquiring a second language to a much more advanced level Language practitioners also have reached a high degree of consensus regarding the important of vocabulary The findings in Macaro‘s survey (2003) indicate that secondary language teachers view vocabulary as a topic they most need research to shed light on to enhance the teaching and

learning in their classrooms Therefore, it may be claimed that the role of vocabulary in L2 learning is immediately recognized and implications for teaching from substantial research

are in great demand

1.2.2 Techniques in presenting new vocabulary

According to Ur 1996:63, there are different ways of presenting new vocabulary In the following, different techniques of presenting the meaning of new vocabulary are shown:

 Concise definition

 Detailed description (of appearance, qualities…)

 Examples (hyponyms)

 Illustration (picture, object)

 Demonstration (acting, mime)

 Context (story or sentence in which the item occurs)

 Synonym

 Opposite(s) (antonyms)

 Translation

 Associated ideas, collocations

Mucia 1991:301-302 lists different techniques used in presenting new vocabulary as follows:

 Visual aids (Pictures, Objects)

 Word Relations (Synonyms, Antonyms)

 Pictorial Schemata (Venn diagrams, grids, tree diagrams, or stepped scales)

 Definition, Explanation, Examples, and Anecdotes

groups: receptive and productive

Receptive practice (the learner does not really produce the target words) includes these

types (Thornbury 94-99):

1) Identifying – means finding words in a text or listening, e.g underline specific

words or expressions in the text, or tick, put in the correct column or list items that you hear

2) Selecting – means recognizing words and making choices among them, e.g circle the odd word in the line

3) Matching – includes recognizing words and than pairing them with their synonym, antonym, definition, pictures to words etc It can be intended to matching

parts of lexical items to create collocations (there is a very popular memory game

based on matching called Pelmanism)

4) Sorting – putting the lexical items into different categories, e.g put these

adjectives in two groups – positive and negative

5) Ranking and sequencing – putting the lexical items in some kind of order, e.g

ordering items chronologically, ranking items according to personal preference etc

Productive practice (the productive skills – writing or speaking – are incorporated in the vocabulary teaching,) includes these types (Thornbury 100): completion and creation

- Completion tasks (context is given), often called gap-fills, are widely used not only in

practice but also in revision stages They include open gap-fills or closed gap-fills

(multiple choice activities), crosswords,

- Creation tasks: the learner use the word in a sentence or a story, in writing, speaking or

both forms, use affixes to build new naming units from given words

Generally speaking, vocabulary practice is divided into controlled and free Controlled practice has to come first, because controlled activities require the student to produce a

certain structure, they practice accuracy and fix the pattern The second phase, which

demands productive use of vocabulary, is free practice The specialists point out the

usage of free practice in the class, because according to Lewis (151-152) ―to know a word means how to use it in the real life to be able to communicate.‖ This is a typical example

of the lexical approach where is a primary role of words which determine grammar Free practice is aimed at fluency and is productive However, Gairns and Redman warn against

―a certain degree of stress involved in productive practice‖ (137) According to them, practice should be challenging, but not frustrating or stressful for the learner They give several arguments in favor of productive practice of vocabulary in the classroom (137), above all, it promotes fluency and improves pronunciation, it helps the memory to store words, and retrieve them later, conversation in English is very motivating and it builds learner‘s confidence, learners expect to get the opportunity to practice new language

Another division includes spoken and written practice Many vocabulary activities used

in the class are based on discussions, dialogues, descriptions, role-play activities, or different written tasks It has become a part of communicative classes, e.g in the form of

an activity well-known as ´Find someone who…`, memory games and funny games (hot seat) etc

1.2.4 Vocabulary consolidation

As Thornbury (23) states, ―in fact, learning is remembering Unlike the learning of grammar, which is essentially a rule-based system, vocabulary knowledge is largely a question of accumulating individual items.‖ He distinguishes three basic types of memory (23):

 Short-term store – some information is held in memory for a very short time (a few

seconds) Students are able to repeat a word that they have just heard from their

teacher

 Working memory – it is a space, where a student first places information for later

usage to recall a word repeatedly It lasts about 20 seconds

 Long-term memory – to compare working memory, where the capacity is limited with

long-term memory, where the capacity is wide and its contents are lasted over time

The great challenge for learners is to transform vocabulary from the quickly forgotten (short-term store) to the never forgotten (long-term store), and to turn passive knowledge

of vocabulary into an active form Research into memory suggests that, in order to ensure that information moves into permanent long-term memory, a number of principles must to

be followed One of them is use ―Putting words to use, preferably in some interesting way,

is the best way of ensuring they are added to long-term memory It is the principle

well-known as Use it or lose it (Thornbury 24) For this reason, words must be presented in

their usual contexts, so that learners can get a sense for their meaning, their register and collocations In separated vocabulary activities, words are often presented in the form of lexical sets It is highly recognized that it is easier to learn the words that are thematically arranged but have looser relation than lexical sets The system of practical exercises should

be thoroughly organized so that the amount of new words does not discourage the student

1.2.5 EMP vocabulary practice and consolidation

The students should be encouraged to think about the importance of the word, therefore the examples in context are highly useful Moreover, this approach must be focused

predominantly on learners, each unit has to have clear aims, motivating topics and challenging practical activities The appropriate issues must be presented in the context of the real life, in this case, of the present vocational school, where ―young people are given numerous opportunities to follow purposeful learning‖ (Buchanan 6) As Maehr points out,

in this way, teachers can support the naturalness of learning vocabulary, and in such an enriched atmosphere, learners find ideal authentic reasons for learning a foreign language ESP vocabulary can be presented, practiced and consolidated by similar methods and techniques used for practicing and consolidation of general vocabulary Writing tasks can include reports and different instructions for medicine, making summaries from technical journals, describing processes and techniques, labeling diagrams and pictures, describing graphs and comments on charts etc

1.2.6 Difficulties in teaching and learning vocabulary

Outside the classroom our students (and they are probably typical) do not engage in extensive reading It‘s very unlikely; in fact, they will do any reading at all: one reason is a self-perceived lack of proficiency in reading which results in feelings of frustration, demotivation and a strong desire to avoid such effort Another is that they have very little time free for extra reading In any case, reading a word once is not usually enough for a learner to retain it Estimations in the literature of how many times we need to see a new word before we learn it range from 5-17, averaging out at around 10 (cf Saragi, Nation and Meister 1978), so extensive reading is unlikely to result in large increases in vocabulary knowledge unless students read the enormous amount necessary for new words

to be repeated in context a sufficient number of times for them to be noticed and acquired Time is also a factor within the classroom Our medical students, for example can only look forward to (!) a total of 60 hours of English or other L2 during the whole academic year As Sinclair and Renouf (1988: 143) point out, "it is exceptionally difficult to teach an organized syllabus of both grammar and lexis at the same time" And we do need to teach them grammar, for although it would make our task easier if we could assume our students come from the same language learning background, unfortunately there are huge differences in the linguistic and world knowledge they bring to the L2 class Not all of them have a complete grasp of the more complex syntactic structures (such as conditionals, passives, embedding), precisely the range of structures which are more common in academic texts

Then there is the size of the class and a range of factors which affect students‘ attendance Both large classes and irregular attendance make it extremely difficult to monitor a particular student‘s development or provide adequate individual feedback

There are other difficulties when we do decide to give time to specific vocabulary in class

To the question: how many lexical items should be taught in a lesson? Gairns and Redman (1986), for example, suggest 8-12 items But, as Laufer (1997b) points out, this figure does not take into account the level of difficulty of the target item Laufer discusses several what she calls ‗intralexical factors‘ of a word which may either facilitate or make more difficult a word‘s learnability These intralexical factors refer to a set of properties such as the word‘s pronunciation (or rather its pronounceability), its orthography, the degree of correspondence between how the word is written and how it is said (i.e script and sound)

A new word in English may offer no clues to its pronunciation or, perhaps worse,

misleading clues (compare, for example, crow and cow; thrown and down; but then

crown) Other intralexical factors include: word length, number of syllables, morphology,

part of speech and semantic features such as abstractness, appropriateness, idiomaticity, multiple meanings The latter are a particulary rich area for confusion Many learners fix

on one meaning they know and find it very difficult to use another – even if the one they know has no sense in that new context

Other factors affecting learnability may involve the target word‘s relationships to other words (interlexical factors‘) and crosslinguistic influences or transfer from the learner‘s L1 To give an example of the first, there could be dangers in teaching associated words, such as synonyms or opposites, at the same time For example, teaching ‗right‘ and ‗left‘ together could result in students confusing form and meaning and being unsure afterwards

whether left means ‗left‘ or whether it means ‗right‘ A similar confusion occurs with

words that share a number of semantic features (cf Higa 1963; Nation and Newton 1997); for example rigid, stiff, unbending, inflexible, stubborn

A quite important contributor to difficulty is what Laufer (1991) termed ‗synformy‘ This

is the visual or acoustic similarity of lexical forms which may cause learners to confuse similar words We will return to some of these points later with examples, but first we‘d like to move on to the question of what it means to know a word

CHAPTER 2: CONTEXT OF THE STUDY 2.1 The general review of teaching and learning EMP at TMC

English for Medical Purposes (EMP) course is designed for EFL medical students (sophomores) at Thanhhoa Medical college EMP serves many purposes: to enhance the medical entrants' reading comprehension skills as well as to provide them with the basic vocabulary they need in the very beginning of their medical study; to develop the medical students' basic academic and scientific writing skills; and to give the medical students an introduction to the English medical terminology of medicine The course consists

of seventeen modules organized around the reading and writing sub-skills and their associated secondary skills such as vocabulary The readings of this course are all about medical topics to go with the medical students' major and to be appealing to them The topics will provide the students' with general knowledge about some of the important health conditions, diseases and their treatment making it a survey of the opportunities and problems inherent in the medical arena The writing tasks presented in each module will be linked to the reading topics in a complementary way The writing sub-skills will help the medical students' improve their academic and scientific writing skills At the very end of the course, the students will be given a glossary of specific medical terms appropriate for students requiring a working knowledge of specialized medical terminology

2.1.1 Teachers

A majority of English teachers at TMC are young and novice teachers In general, these teachers are well-qualified in terms of their proficiency in English and knowledge However, as I observed, traditional approaches including grammar-translation are the major existing EFL approaches at TMC, aiming at language use Most of the spoken interaction in English classes is conducted in Vietnamese Students read, listen, speak, and

write in English solely for the sake of learning English as a linguistic ‗code‘

Furthermore, most of the teachers still adopted the more traditional teachers-centered and lecture-type approach in their classroom practices whereas they held positive beliefs toward CLT They have never made teaching vocabulary interactive New words or structures are always written down on the blackboard and the meaning of every word is provided right away without requirement for students‘ prediction or guessing from the context Actually, in all stages of the lesson, teachers remain the center of the class As the matter of fact, teachers did not have any creativeness or make a choice of using appropriate activities that motivate students‘ attention and listening improvement

It was observed by the researcher that some of the ESP teacher at TMC used techniques of presenting new vocabulary in the following ways:

 Asking students to read new words after them, and then explain the words in their Vietnamese one by one

 Or asking students to copy words for many times without teaching how to use the words in the real communicative situations

 Or dealing with all words equally

As mentioned above, the context of TMC reveals a situation whereby students are required

to learn English, but the English they have learned in traditional language classes may not

be used effectively in real life It is apparent that student-centered approach has not been widely used in teaching English at TMC The teachers still take the key role in classroom activities and corner the students to be active learners Therefore, we should apply more appropriate teaching techniques to improve the situation of teaching vocabulary at TMC

2.1.2 Students

My students are non-English majors coming from different parts of the country All have developed English language skills during the first years of college study under formal instruction In the second year, students are expected to learn English for Medical purposes and prepare for weekly tests and final examination essentially by themselves

During the teaching, I heard from time to time students complain in puzzlement: ―I„ve

studied English for more than ten years but I don‟t seem to have noticeable progress in English I can only use more or less than the same words as I used before in speaking and writing.‖, ― I know all the reading skills and grammar but still I can‟t understand the exact meaning of this passage.‖ ―I recite fifteen words a day It does help in reading comprehension But I always forget words I recited a week ago.‖ ―How can I remember words and their meanings quickly and for a long time?", "How can I use words properly in different contexts?", "Can you tell me an easy and simple way to retain the vocabulary that

I have learnt?‖ The above complaint is not a problem to one or two students but to the

majority of them-the problem of vocabulary

The major problem in reading during the ESP course is vocabulary as ―word meaning knowledge influence reading comprehension‖ (Harris & Sipay, 1990)

Poor vocabulary knowledge and lack of vocabulary learning strategies of the students are the matter of serious concern among those in and around education, and their quest for finding suitable remedies is getting more and more intense

Having worked with the ESP courses for three years, the researcher realized from her observation and experience for years that there are some factors account for the vocabulary problem For many years vocabulary was the poor relation of language teaching Its neglect has been in part due to a specialization in linguistic research on syntax and phonology which may have fostered a climate in which vocabulary was felt to be a less important element in learning a foreign language In learning a foreign language, you will find that vocabulary is comparatively easy, in spite of the fact that it is vocabulary that students fear most The harder part is mastering new structures in both content and expression

I once did a small survey on students‘ feeling on vocabulary learning to the second-year students at my college Two thirds of them said they were not taught enough words in class, words they needed when communicating people, watching TV, and reading They felt their teachers were very keen on teaching grammar and improving their pronunciation, but that learning words came a poor third

Encountering and understanding a word are seldom enough: as with meeting people, there needs to be depth and interaction for the encounter to be memorable Some teachers do not recognize or neglect such a need They take it for granted that students should be able to develop their own learning system, and thus put vocabulary at the disposal of students‘ memory capacity Some teachers suggest that students should go home every evening and learn a list of fifty words ‗by heart‘ Such a practice may have beneficial result, of course, but it avoids one of the central features of vocabulary use, namely that words occur in context

In the syllabus, words are listed alphabetically with the correspondent Vietnamese meaning Students are required to master all these words that teachers teach them The main purpose of learning words in the syllabus is to pass the examination Many words recited appear only in the examination after which they will not be used again by students Therefore, many words are only stored in students‘ short-term memory as passive; words and will never become active ones The kind of vocabulary learning does not have much long-term effect

When being asked about the way of learning English vocabulary, most second-year students in our classes said they just copied new words provided by teachers or looked up words in the dictionary Many of them marked or underlined words they did not know in their textbooks and noted the meaning in Vietnamese Some students noted the time they had to copy lines and lines of new words in their notebooks which were forgotten soon "It

was so boring I hated learning new words that way!" Sometimes, students asked many questions regarding learning vocabulary like "Teacher, how can I remember words and their meanings quickly and for a long time?", "How can I use words properly in different contexts?", "Can you tell me an easy and simple way to retain the vocabulary that I have learnt?" etc All of the learners expressed their wish to learn vocabulary effectively in more interesting ways than the traditional ways that they knew

Although the important of vocabulary is typically recognized in vocabulary teaching and learning, the actual acquisition of vocabulary presents significant challenges to the language learners and teachers, especially in the earliest stages of the learning process Even though researchers have presented various ideas that provide insights into the processes of improving language learning outcomes, a need to develop a more cohesive picture of effective instruction and learning of vocabulary remains More research is

essential if the profession is to increase its understanding of appropriate techniques for effective vocabulary acquisition instruction and learning

2.2 Research Methodology

2.2.1 Respondents

The respondents of the study were the second- y e a r students of The Faculty of Nursing taking ESP subject in the academic year of 2009-2010, Thanhhoa Medical College, Vietnam The study is conducted 140 students from two randomly-chosen classes, who take English for Medical Purposes class related for their own field Students‘ age ranged from 18 to 21 years with an average age 18 The number of female students was higher than that of male The students in of Nursing Faculty get an ESP course for 1 semester (75 hours), 10 meetings, and twice a week

Besides the medical college students, the respondents of the study were 3 English lecturers who are experts in teaching English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and teaching those classes

2.2.2 Research Instruments

Questionnaire and interview are mainly instruments to collect the data:

 The questionnaire was designed for students because it is a good way to access the learner‘s point of view (Brace 2004:7) It is convenient and easy to conduct

It contains of 10 items pertaining a) student‘s attitude toward vocabulary learning and teaching, b) vocabulary learning strategies while studying their academic texts, c) problems encountering in learning vocabulary The instrument required 15 minutes to complete and was administered in the students‘ ESP class

 The interview for teachers was intended to collect almost the same information

as the questionnaire In other word, administration of theses type of interview would enable the respondent to give their objective opinion about problems that their students and they encounter in teaching and learning medical vocabulary Because only three teachers (including the teacher-researcher) are responsible for teaching ESP course at TMC so it was just interviewed with two ESP teachers Despite that, useful comments were received and take into consideration The interview was conducted in the form of computer-accessed personal interviewing It is an interviewing technique that the interviewer and the respondents sit in front of computer and communicative through chatting

software Then interview of 8-10 minutes were conducted in English with those teachers in a relaxing, friendly setting

2.2.3 Data Collection

To collect the data of the study, the researcher used informal interview and questionnaire to collect the data on their views, opinions, and perceptions of ESP vocabulary as presented in ESP course The two types were administered to them under the consideration that they gave their responses more seriously and objectively

2.2.4 Data Analysis

Before the data of the study was analyzed, the researcher tabulated the frequency of responses to each option of every item given by the respondents After tabulating the frequency of responses to each option of every item, the percentages of responses were counted by dividing the number of responses to each option in every item by the total number of respondents who responded the item The next task was classifying a group

of items that belong to a certain category The data of the present study was analyzed

by means of both quantitative and qualitative statistics to reduce potential limitations

of relying on a single approach and enhance confidence in the data

All the data collected from the instruments were grouped under two main areas: students‘ perception towards their problems in learning EMP vocabulary and the teachers‘ perceptions towards their problems for their second-year students in teaching EMP vocabulary, which served to answer the research questions

CHAPTER THREE: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Results

3.1.1 Questionnaire for students

Question 1: How long have you been learning English?

Length of English learning Total

Table 1: Students’ length of English learning

Most ESP classes, as from the table, can be defined as heterogeneous, formed by students with mixed capacities in English The Table 1 demonstrated that 14.2 % of the students didn‘t study English While 35.7% of the students studied English for 3-6 years and 42.8 %

of the students studied English for 6-10 years There were 14.3% of students who studied English for ten years This means that it is very urgent for the students who didn‘t study English to enlarge vocabulary and master a certain number of English words as quickly as possible so as to catch up with the others As for teachers, who have been teaching for two years have always faced additional difficulties including in vocabulary teaching, mainly based on the number of students without previous considerable experience in English

Question 2: Which ways of learning English vocabulary do you usually use?

review new words often

write/say new words several times

connect new word to its synonyms and antonyms to remember it

make sentences with them

make a list of new words

write the words and Vitenamese equivalents

Figure 1: Ways of learning vocabulary

Figure 1 gives a summary of the subjects‘ opinion on vocabulary learning strategies This revealed that the major strategies for leaning vocabulary did not differ in general among ESP students, that is, the most commonly used learning strategy was writing the words and

Vietnamese equivalents covering 100% and next is oral/written repetition (85%) The word

list was also widely used approach to vocabulary development (66%), followed by item

‗made sentence with new words‘ (22%) However, students seemed to have problems in

connecting new words to other words they knew with similar or opposite meanings (85%)

and students also encountered difficulties in analyzing words by breaking them into parts

(90%) In term of reviewing strategy, the figure indicates that fewer students knew the

importance of revision and reviewed the newly learned words actively, only 9 % of the

students reviewed new words often The least preferred strategy are item ‗connected word

with pictures‘ (5%) This may be significant because the studies showed that higher

students tended to use memory strategies and cognitive strategies Even they recognized

the value of the rest strategies, their action did not reflect their beliefs All of the learners

expressed their wish to learn vocabulary effectively in more interesting ways than the

traditional ways that they knew With regards to vocabulary learning strategies instruction,

therefore it might be anticipated that students should receptive to a program that included

ask classmates for meaning ignore it

ask the teacher for Vietnamese explanation

try to guess the meaning from the context

look it up in the bilingual dictionary

Figure 2: Students’ reaction when they meet a new word

Students in this study usually (90%) did not use their background knowledge such as

experiences and common sense in guessing meaning of the words They often proceed to

ask the teachers to explain it (68%) 27% of the students often asked their classmates for

explanation Although the ESP teacher spoke English in the classroom and expected the

students to find the English meaning of the new words in monolingual dictionaries, a

number of students (20%) might share the same experience of looking up words in a

bilingual dictionary to find their meanings and definitions when they encounter new words

There seemed to be some (32%) who did not concern when they encountered a new word

5% of the students employed their knowledge of the word formation in deciphering the

meanings of the words It meant that students were not confident of using analyzing the word affixes and roots strategy in learning vocabulary

The ways students often did when they meet a new word could be implied that many students learned vocabulary passively, they just waited for teachers to provide new forms

of words then they wrote those words in their notebooks or complete exercises Many students did not think learning vocabulary in context was very useful, may be because their poor background knowledge couldn‘t contribute much to guessing word meaning Working those ways, after a short period of time, many learners may find out that learning vocabulary didn‘t satisfy them, and they thought the cause for it was just their bad memorization

Question 4: Which problems have influenced your motivation and interest in leaning vocabulary at class?

Teachers' teaching methods and techniques

Students' low background knowledge

Time-management (lack of time for further practice)

Big size-class and poor facilities

Figure 3: Problems influenced on students’ motivation and interest

From the above chart, we found that things turned out to be encouraging and our efforts did bring about some results

Being asked about the factors have influenced their motivation and interest in learning English vocabulary, most students (98%) in our classes at TMC said teachers‘ method and techniques which provided them vocabulary instructions or presentations greatly influenced on successful learning of vocabulary It meant that while students mostly relied

on teachers‘ performance in the classroom, teachers‘ vocabulary teaching methods and techniques did not satisfy students much Many of them (85%) considered class-size and poor facilities as their big obstacles in their learning process The knowledge and usage of English that students possessed gave rise concern (30%) Students found it very hard to cope with learning ESP vocabulary basically because of the lack of the general English which directly affected their confidence and activeness during classroom lessons It was also discovered that 20% responded one of their difficulties involved in requirement of

examinations This finding could imply that students were still very influenced by

examinations Some students (18%) noted time-management was one of their difficult in

practice and consolidation stages

Question 5: What problems do you have when learning vocabulary?

I forget words I've learnt

I cannot remember words and their meanings

Figure 4: Student’s problems when learning vocabulary

From the figure 4 we learned that the biggest problem for students (64%) in learning

vocabulary was they were easy to forget the words they‘ve learnt Students could not

remember words hold 53% This may indicate that there should be more impressive

method of vocabulary teaching and more consolidating strategies from their teachers, and

their effective self learning ways of vocabulary to solve this problem as well In term of

word usage and use, 40% of the students get in trouble with using words properly in

different contexts Students who could not handle multiple meanings of words covered

24%

Question 6: How often does your teacher use these following ways to present new

words?

always usually sometimes rarely never

Saying the words clearly one by one and writing

Introducing new words in context and giving

Table 2: Ways of presenting new words