Teaching text-based vocabulary to the first year non-English major students at Hoa Binh University Dạy từ vựng dựa trên văn bản cho sinh viên không chuyên tiếng

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES VŨ THỊ TUYẾT TEACHING TEXT-BASED VOCABULARY TO THE FIRST YEAR NON- ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HOA BINH UNIVERSITY: CURRENT TEACHING SITUATION AND PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS DẠY TỪ VỰNG DỰA TRÊN VĂN BẢN CHO SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH NĂM THỨ NHẤT TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC HÒA BÌNH: THỰC TRẠNG VÀ ỨNG DỤNG TRONG GIẢNG DẠY MA MINOR THESIS Major: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10 HANOI, 2011 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES VŨ THỊ TUYẾT TEACHING TEXT-BASED VOCABULARY TO THE FIRST YEAR NON- ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HOA BINH UNIVERSITY: CURRENT TEACHING SITUATION AND PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS DẠY TỪ VỰNG DỰA TRÊN VĂN BẢN CHO SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH NĂM THỨ NHẤT TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC HÒA BÌNH: THỰC TRẠNG VÀ ỨNG DỤNG TRONG GIẢNG DẠY MA MINOR THESIS Major: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10 Supervisor: Vũ Thúy Quỳnh, M.A HANOI, 2011 v TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration p i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii List of charts and tables iv Table of contents v Part A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Aims of the study Significance of the study Scope of the study Research questions Methods of the study Design of the thesis Part B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Vocabulary 1.1.1 Definitions of vocabulary 1.1.2 The roles of vocabulary in language teaching and learning 1.1.3 Classification of vocabulary 1.1.4 Criteria for selection of vocabulary to teach 1.2 Teaching vocabulary through texts 1.2.1 Definitions of texts 1.2.2 Roles of texts in enriching students’ vocabulary 1.2.3 Techniques to teach vocabulary through texts 1.2.3.1 Pre-stage 1.2.3.2 While-stage 11 1.2.3.3 Post-stage 13 1.3 Summary 14 Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY 15 2.1 The participants 15 vi 2.2 The instruments 16 2.2.1 The teachers’ survey questionnaires 16 2.2.2 The students’ survey questionnaires 17 2.2.3 Class observation 17 2.3 Procedure of data collection 17 2.4 Procedure of data analysis 18 2.4.1 Data analysis methods 18 2.4.2 Data analysis procedures 18 2.5 Summary 18 Chapter 3: DATA PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION 20 3.1 Data presentation 20 3.1.1 The current situation of teaching text-based vocabulary to first year non-English major students at Hoa Binh university 20 3.1.2 The effectiveness of using texts to teach vocabulary to first year non-English major students at Hoa Binh university 30 3.2 Discussion and findings 33 3.3 Pedagogical implications 34 3.4 Summary 39 Part C: CONCLUSION 41 Conclusions 41 Limitations of the study 41 Suggestions for further study 41 REFERENCES 42 APPENDICES iv LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES Chart 1: The frequency of teachers’ using texts to teach vocabulary (p.21) Chart 2: Kinds of vocabulary chosen to teach by teachers (p.22) Chart 3: Text-based vocabulary techniques used by teachers in the pre-stage (p.23) Chart 4: Text-based vocabulary techniques used by teachers in the while-stage (p.24) Chart 5: Text-based vocabulary techniques used by teachers in the post-stage (p.26) Chart 6: Difficulties that teachers and students have in teaching and learning vocabulary through texts (p.30) Chart 7: Necessity of using texts to teach vocabulary (p.31) Chart 8: Teachers’ idea about the benefit of texts (p.31) Chart 9: Ideas from students about the effects of texts in vocabulary teaching (p.32) Chart 10: Ideas from teachers about the effects of texts in vocabulary teaching (p.32) Table 1: Text-based vocabulary techniques preferred by students with reasons (p.27) Table 2: Teachers’ help for students’ difficulties (p.30) Part A: INTRODUCTION Rationale The recent years have witnessed a shift in focus in foreign language learning and teaching in general and in English in particular from the linguistic competence to the communicative one This trend has clearly led to the increasingly important role of teaching and learning vocabulary Generally, vocabulary is considered to be one of the main tasks in acquiring a foreign language as one cannot make himself/ herself well-understood with his/ her poor vocabulary Wilkins (1972) emphasized the importance of vocabulary when saying: “without grammar very little can be conveyed; without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed” (p.111) However, in Vietnam in general and at Hoa Binh university in particular, vocabulary teaching has not been paid due attention as it deserves Traditionally, vocabulary has not been a particular subject for students to learn but has been taught within the lessons of listening, speaking, reading and writing For most teachers, the common way of teaching vocabulary is to give explanations and definitions of the word-list Then many learners use rote strategies like writing words on papers, trying to learn by heart as their major ways of vocabulary learning As a result, they rarely remember the meanings of vocabulary items and not know how to use these words appropriately in the context Whereas, texts are considered to be a rich source of vocabulary and they provide contexts in which new items are used Therefore, the study on how vocabulary is taught through texts to first year nonEnglish major students at Hoa Binh university and how effective this method is is carried out Aims of the study The aims of the study are: - To investigate the current situation of teaching vocabulary through texts to first year non-English major students at Hoa Binh university - To investigate the effectiveness of using texts to teach vocabulary to first year nonEnglish major students at Hoa Binh university - To suggest some pedagogical implications to English teachers at Hoa Binh university Significance of the study The study was carried out with the hope that it can be a good source of reference to teachers, learners and those who concern about vocabulary teaching and learning It is also hoped to provide an insight into the current teaching situation of using texts to teach vocabulary to first year students at Hoa Binh university Therefore, it is believed that this study will raise the teachers’ awareness of the situation and then they can have proper adjustment to their teaching methods in order to help their students to learn English, especially its vocabulary effectively Students are also exposed to a new way of learning vocabulary through this study Scope of the study The study is limited to the area of teaching English vocabulary at Hoa Binh university Specifically, this minor thesis deals with the current situation of using texts to teach vocabulary to first-year non-English major students at Hoa Binh university and suggests some pedagogical implications to teachers Research questions The research aims at answering the following questions: What is the current situation of teaching text-based vocabulary to first year nonEnglish major students at Hoa Binh university? How effective is the teaching text-based vocabulary to first year non-English major students at Hoa Binh university? Methods of the study The study uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative research approaches, which include observation and survey questionnaires The quantitative data were collected from two questionnaires and were analyzed statistically, while the qualitative data were obtained from the class observation Survey questionnaires were used to collect information and evidence for the study with the hope that the research would be reliable and the processing of data would be manageable within the limited time budget Class observation was carried out to supplement the survey questionnaires It is hoped that the combination of the two methods would make the data more valid and reliable Design of the thesis The thesis was presented in three main parts as follows: Part A: Introduction provides a general introduction of the study with the specific reference to the rationale, the aims, the significance, the scope, the methods and the design of the thesis Part B: Development consists of three chapters: Chapter 1: “Literature Review” gives a brief view on the theoretical background of English vocabulary, texts and the benefits of using texts in teaching vocabulary Chapter 2: “Methodology”, shows an insight into the research methods to find out the answers to the research questions This chapter also gives a brief view on the subjects, the procedures and the instruments to collect data employed to reach the aims of the research Chapter 3: “Data presentation and discussion” presents the data collected from the survey questionnaires and class observation and the discussion of these data Part C: Pedagogical Implications and Conclusions suggests implications for teaching and learning vocabulary through texts and concludes the report of the study with the suggestions for further research Part B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter deals with some of the important issues in the theories of vocabulary and the use of texts in vocabulary teaching It consists of the definitions of vocabulary, the roles of vocabulary in language teaching and learning, classification of vocabulary, criteria for selection of vocabulary to teach, definitions of texts, roles of texts in enriching students’ vocabulary and techniques to teach vocabulary through texts 1.1 Vocabulary 1.1.1 Definitions of vocabulary Vocabulary is considered to be one of the three most crucial components of language (vocabulary, grammar and phonology) It has been paid great attention by researchers, linguists, teachers and learners However, it is difficult to give an exact definition about vocabulary According to Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary Third Edition (2008), vocabulary is defined as “all the words which exist in a particular language or subject” (p.1624) This definition covers vocabulary’s meaning on the whole Nevertheless, it does not show vocabulary in a deep understanding because vocabulary is more complex than this definition suggests Ur (1996) gives clearer explanation of vocabulary as follows: “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 There are also multi-word idioms such as call it a day, where the meaning of the phrase cannot be deduced from an analysis of the component words A useful convention is to cover all such cases by talking “items” rather than “words””(Ur, 1996, p 60) In this sense, the definition by Ur is favorably satisfying because his definition indicates that vocabulary is bigger than just the meaning of words It covers a huge aspect of language and is the medium to express ideas In conclusion, there are different ways to define the concept “vocabulary” However, the idea that vocabulary is the total number of words existing in a language, including single words as well as multi-word items is the most favorable 1.1.2 The role of vocabulary in language teaching and learning Vocabulary plays a significant role in language teaching and learning as Shafaei and Nejati (2009) said “vocabulary is one of the most important objectives in teaching of foreign languages” (p 32) Wilkins (1972) also stated that “vocabulary is one of the three dimensions of a language (phonetics, grammar, vocabulary)” (p.111) By saying that, he emphasizes the special importance of vocabulary in teaching and learning a language Gower (2005) came to the point that “vocabulary is important to students – it is more important than grammar for communication purposes, particularly in the early stages when students are motivated to learn the basic words they need to get by in the language” (p.142) This reflects the truth that even when students have already “done” all the rules in grammar, the lexical system is still “open” for them to gain more vocabulary Furthermore, this conclusion emphasized the communicative purpose in learning vocabulary as an ultimate goal for learning a new language Similarly, Laufer (1997) asserts that learners “tend to regard words as main landmarks of meaning” (p 21) She adds that no comprehension would be possible without understanding the vocabulary in the text According to Nation (1990), many language learners believe that the lack of an adequate vocabulary is a serious obstacle directly related to their language learning frustration Nagy (1997) also points out that for many students, their insufficient vocabulary knowledge is a serious barrier in learning a language In summary, it is clear that without adequate vocabulary, learning can be difficult and frustrating, and very little can be learned Therefore, helping learners to acquire adequate vocabulary should be a central issue in language teaching The importance of learning vocabulary is furthered stressed on two course books which are commonly used in Vietnam such as Cutting Edge Intermediate (Cunningham & Moor, 2002) or New Headway English Course (Soars, 2006) On the back cover of these textbooks, readers can be briefly provided with information about focused points of the book, which includes: “Strong emphasis on vocabulary, with a particular focus on high frequency, useful words and phrases” (Cunningham & Moor, 2002) Or “Well-defined vocabulary syllabus plus dictionary training and pronunciation practice, including the use of phonetics” (Soars, 2006) Furthermore, vocabulary plays a role in all four language skills: listening, speaking, ... vocabulary to first year non-English major students at Hoa Binh university 20 3.1.2 The effectiveness of using texts to teach vocabulary to first year non-English major students at Hoa Binh university. .. texts to first year non-English major students at Hoa Binh university - To investigate the effectiveness of using texts to teach vocabulary to first year nonEnglish major students at Hoa Binh university. .. situation of teaching text-based vocabulary to first year nonEnglish major students at Hoa Binh university? How effective is the teaching text-based vocabulary to first year non-English major students