Teaching vocabulary to the young learners through miming a study at Hi Language school center = Nghiên cứu dạy từ vựng cho trẻ em thông qua điệu bộ tại

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1 Reasons for using miming in teaching vocabulary to young learners Table 2 The benefits of using miming in teaching vocabulary for the teachers at Hi!.

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

TRƯƠNG HƯƠNG LAN

TEACHING VOCABULARY TO THE YOUNG LEARNERS

THROUGH MIMING:

A STUDY AT HI! LANGUAGE SCHOOL CENTER

(NGHIÊN CỨU DẠY TỪ VỰNG CHO TRẺ EM THÔNG QUA ĐIỆU

BỘ TẠI TRUNG TÂM TIẾNG ANH HI! LANGUAGE SCHOOL)

Minor M.A thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 601410

Hanoi - 2012

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

TRƯƠNG HƯƠNG LAN

TEACHING VOCABULARY TO THE YOUNG LEARNERS

THROUGH MIMING:

A STUDY AT HI! LANGUAGE SCHOOL CENTER

(NGHIÊN CỨU DẠY TỪ VỰNG CHO TRẺ EM THÔNG QUA ĐIỆU

BỘ TẠI TRUNG TÂM TIẾNG ANH HI! LANGUAGE SCHOOL)

Minor M.A thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 601410

Supervisor: Phạm Thị Thanh Thủy, M.A

Hanoi - 2012

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1 Reasons for using miming in teaching vocabulary to young learners Table 2 The benefits of using miming in teaching vocabulary for the teachers

at Hi! Language School Center Table 3 When do the teachers use miming to teach a word?

Table 4 The learners‟ understanding the word meaning through miming

Table 5 Difficulties in applying miming in teaching vocabulary

Figure 1 The teachers‟ keenness on miming in teaching vocabulary to the

young learners Figure 2 Usefulness of miming in teaching vocabulary to the young learners Figure 3 Importance of using miming in teaching vocabulary to the young

learners Figure 4 Necessity of using miming in teaching vocabulary to the young

learners Figure 5 The young learners‟ interest in miming in learning vocabulary

Figure 6 The young learners‟ attitudes towards usefulness of miming in

learning vocabulary Figure 7 The young learners‟ interest in miming in comparison with that of

some other techniques for teaching vocabulary Figure 8 The benefits of miming in the children‟s learning vocabulary

Figure 9 Situation of using miming in teaching

Figure 10 Situation of using miming in learning

Figure 11 Frequency of using miming in teaching vocabulary

Figure 12 Stages at which miming is often adopted

Figure 13 Time for using miming in teaching vocabulary

Figure 14 Word classes used in miming to teach vocabulary

Figure 15 Class organizations when vocabulary is taught via miming

Figure 16 Preparation for teaching vocabulary through miming

Figure 17 Ways of checking the young learners‟ understanding of the vocabulary

the teachers mime

Figure 18 The young learners‟ participation in the miming activities

Figure 19 The teachers‟ using the other teaching aids in miming

Figure 20 The teacher‟s combining miming with the other techniques

Figure 21 The teachers‟ feeling pleased with the results from using miming in

teaching vocabulary

LIST OF TERMS

TESOL teaching English as a second language

HLSC Hi! Language School Center

VNU Vietnam National University

ULIS University of Languages and International Studies

TABLE OF CONTENT PAGE

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF FIGURES TABLES AND FIGURES iv

LIST OF TERMS……….vi

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Research Title 1

2 Rationale for the Research 1

3 Aims of the Research 2

4 Research Questions 2

5 Scope of the Research 2

6 Signification of the Research 3

7 Design of the Research 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1 An Overview of Vocabulary 4

1.1 Definition of Vocabulary 4

1.2 The Roles of Vocabulary in Language Learning and Teaching 4

2 An Overview of Young Learners 5

2.1 Definition of Young Learners 5

2.2 Nature of Young Learners 6

3 An Overview of Teaching Vocabulary to Young Learners 8

3.1 Principles of Teaching Vocabulary to Young Learners 8

3.1.1 Criteria for selection of vocabulary 8

3.1.2 What to teach? 9

3.2 Techniques of Teaching Vocabulary to Young Learners 10

3.2.1 Techniques of presenting vocabulary 10

3.2.2 Techniques of checking and consolidating vocabulary 11

4 An overview of miming 12

4.1 Definition of Miming 12

4.2 The Roles of Miming in Teaching Vocabulary to Young Learners 13

4.3 Related Studies 14

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 1 Settings 16

2 Participants 16

3 Data collection methods 16

3.1 Questionnaires……… 16

3.2 Interview 17

3.3 Observation 18

4 Data collection procedure 18

5 Data analysis methods 19

CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 1 Research question 1 20

2 Research question 2 25

3 Research question 3 32

PART C: CONCLUSION 1 Summary of findings 34

2 Pedagogical Implications 34

3 Limitations of the study 36

4 Recommendations for further studies 37

REFERENCES 38 APPENDICES I

Appendix 1: Questionnaire for the teachers I Appendix 2: Questionnaire for the young learners VII Appendix 3: Interview questions for the teachers and the young learners V Appendix 4: Interview for the teachers XI Appendix 5: Interview for the young learners (Vietnamese version) XIII Appendix6: Interview for the young learners (English version) XIV Appendix 7: Data collected from the questionnaire for teachers XV Appendix 8: Data collected from the questionnaire for the young learners XXI Appendix9: Students‟ book XXI

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Research Title:

Teaching vocabulary to young learners through miming: A study at Hi! Language School Center

2 Rationale for the Research

In Vietnam, English has become more and more essential in every part of life so far The need of learning English comes from different purposes including communicating with foreigners, promoting to higher positions at work, exchanging cultures with the English speaking countries, or simply entertaining, and so on That the parents send their children of early age to the international schools or English centers is a popular trend currently The reason for this might be because they want their children to get a basis of English and chances of communicating with the foreigners when they are very young

At Hi! Language School Center (HLSC), this trend is seen clearly The children start learning English at the youngest age of six Unlike the classes for adults which often focus on many different aspects of language such as grammar, phonetics…, the classes for children put emphasis on providing them with vocabulary The fact is that vocabulary plays an important role in teaching and learning language, the basis for the language learners to move up the higher level of English However, for such young children, it is difficult to use verbal techniques to teach them the meaning of the words Moreover, their concentration on the teachers‟ speaking in the class is often interrupted easily Especially, all the teachers teaching the young learners here are native English speakers and know few Vietnamese words How can those teachers deal with the challenges above?

Of those techniques in classrooms such as role-play, miming, singing songs, storytelling, games… miming is the technique which the teachers use quite frequently Many researches show that it is easy and effective to introduce and consolidate the vocabulary and increase the children‟s motivation It is a help for the teachers to get the shy learners into the class activity Does miming affect teaching and learning vocabulary in the same way at HLSC? What do the teachers and learners there think about miming? What do they apply miming in teaching

vocabulary? How do they apply it? Do any difficulties exist? All the questions above urge the author to the study “Teaching vocabulary to the young learners through miming: A study at Hi! Language School Center.”

3 Aims of the Research

This study aims at:

- providing English language teachers a specific understanding about miming as well

as when and how miming can be applied in context

- investigating the Hi! Language School Center teachers and the young learners‟ attitudes towards miming in teaching and learning English vocabulary

- figuring out the current situation of teaching vocabulary through miming to young learners at Hi! Language School Center; and

- finding out the difficulties in teaching vocabulary to young learners through miming to young learners at Hi! Language School Center

4 Research Questions

The following questions were made to achieve the aims above:

Research question 1: What are the attitudes of the teachers and the young learners (aged from 6 to 8) at Hi! Language School Center towards miming in teaching and learning English vocabulary?

Research question 2: What is the current situation of teaching vocabulary to the young learners (aged from 6 to 8) at Hi! Language School Center?

Research question 3: What are the difficulties the teachers at Hi! Language School Center often cope with when teaching vocabulary through miming to the young learners (aged from 6 to 8)?

5 Scope of the Research

This study puts emphasis on using miming in teaching and learning vocabulary at HLSC The age range of young learners at Hi! Language School Center varies from five to twelve However, due to the limited time and small scale of the research, the author only investigated the participants‟ age range between six and eight Only thirty-eight children from three classes and six foreign teachers took part in the study

6 Signification of the Research

Many issues are looked into in this study: the attitude of the teachers and the young learners, the current situation of miming in teaching at HLSC as well as some difficulties when the teachers adopt it Therefore, the author hopes this research will

be able to improve the teaching and learning quality of the young learners in terms

of vocabulary at the center of Hi! Language School It could also be the recommendations for the enhancing primary English education in Vietnam and the other parts of the world

7 Design of the Research

There are three main parts in this study, namely Introduction, Development and Conclusion

The introduction begins with the rationale, aims, research questions, scopes, signification, and the design of the study In the part of Development, chapter I, Literature Review, presents the theory background on which the study based including overview of vocabulary, overview of young learners, overview of teaching vocabulary to young learners, and overview of miming The second chapter provides the methodology including settings, participants, data collection methods, data collection procedure, data analysis methods The findings and discussion is the next chapter which deals with three research questions The last part includes the summary of the findings, implications, limitations and recommendations for further studies

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 An overview of vocabulary

1.1 Definition of vocabulary

“Like so many other things that are basic and elemental in our lives, we take them for granted and we are apt to be surprised to find how hard it is to say what exactly a word is” (Quirk, 1974:128) Those words show the importance as well as the difficulty of linguists in giving the precise definitions for vocabulary

However, some different definitions of vocabulary have been found Some linguists define vocabulary as separate words According to Lyons, “a word may be defined

as the union of a particular grammatical employment” (1974:200) Moreover, Hunt and David Beglar in “Current Research and Practice in teaching Vocabulary” (2000) emphasized that a word includes the base form and its inflections and derivatives Nation (1990:3) stated that “Knowing a word involves not only knowing its meaning(s) but also its forms and its usage” These notions, though differ in expressions, share the same idea that a single word may consist of different aspects Besides, vocabulary is also defined as lexical chunks Vocabulary, from Ur‟s viewpoint (1996:60), is “the words we teach in the foreign language However, a new item of vocabulary may be more than a single word: a compound of two or three words or multiword idioms” Dowling (2003) mentioned words as Lexis Therefore, seeing words that come in phrases, groups or words that combine together, which then means looking at areas of vocabulary as fixed, and semi-phrases, idioms, and collocations

In brief, it can be concluded that vocabulary, whether it is an individual word or more than one word items, refers to all the words that a language possesses Not only form but other aspects such as meaning and usage should be taken into consideration in studying and teaching vocabulary

1.2 The Roles of Vocabulary in Language Learning and Teaching

Beside a wide range of grammar structures, knowledge of vocabulary is the essential part of language that learners need to obtain to communicate successfully This is all true in teaching and learning a foreign language Hence, vocabulary is more than

once proved to be significant in language learning and teaching Pyles and Algeo (1970:96) had an idea about its role They wrote “when most of us think about language we think first about words It is true that the vocabulary is the focus of language It is in words that sounds and meanings interlock to allow us to communicate with one another, and it is in words that we arrange together to make sentences, conversation and discourse of all kinds” Also, Troike (1976:87) emphasized that “vocabulary is the most important for understanding and knowing names of things, actions and concepts” Wilkins supported those statements through his saying That is, “without grammar, very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing conveyed” (1972:11) Dublin and Olshtain (1986:111, 112) referred to the fact that “possessing a good vocabulary stock is what enables many learners to use their knowledge effectively and in ways which fit their specific needs”

The role of vocabulary is indirectly affirmed through the problems lacking vocabulary brings in including learners‟ feeling of their difficulties in both receptive and productive language use (Nation, 1990) and “an obvious and serous obstacle” (Nagy, 1989:1)

It is clear that vocabulary plays a central role in helping people communicate as well

as creating lots of different kinds of discourse Teaching and learning a foreign language effectively or not depends a lot on knowledge of vocabulary Therefore, vocabulary should be a crucial aspect in foreign language teaching methodology

2 An Overview of Young Learners

2.1 Definition of Young Learners

The definitions of young learners are of general agreements and mainly based on the young learners‟ age as well as the years spent in the primary or elementary stages of formal education before the transition to secondary school However, the age range varies considerably from author to author and different categories were added to the definitions

Kasihani (2007:15) states that young learners are primary school students aged 6 to

12 years They can be divided into two groups, the first one is Younger Group (aged 6-8 years) and the second group is Older Group (aged 9-12 years) And according to their class level they are divided into two groups also Year 1, 2 and 3 is in the

category of Lower Classes Students and year 4, 5 and 6 is in the category of Upper Classes Students The same age range can be found in Vietnam while the years at primary school are from 1 to 5

Concerning young learners, Scott and Ytreberg (1990:1) referred to them as „an average children” and distinguished between two groups The children aged 5-7 years are called Level One, while those at the age of 8-10 belong to Level Two In addition, some “certain characteristics of young children” are used to define the average child

In comparison with the two definitions, Sarah Phillips mentioned young learners as

“children from the first year of formal schooling (five or six years old) to eleven or twelve years of age” (Phillips, 1993: 5) Also, she claims that it is not about the age

of children but their maturity need considering when we define who young learners are

The definition of Young Learners between the ages of about 5 years old to 12 years old was also given by Rixon (1999), while in Lynne Cameron‟s view, young learners are those under 14 years old

All in all, it is not easy to define precisely the age range for the young learners In this minor thesis, I am going to use the assumption of the children‟s age between 6 and 12 according to Vietnam‟ age range for primary schooling

2.2 Nature of Young Learners

In “The Practice of English language teaching” (2007), Harmer introduces a list of

generalizations of young learners in comparison with two other groups of language learners including adolescents and adults:

- They respond although they do not understand

- They learn from direct experience: they learn indirectly rather than directly

- They understand mostly when they see, hear, touch and interact rather than from explanations

- Abstract concepts are difficult to deal with

- They generally display a curiosity about the world and an enthusiasm for learning a language

- They like talking about themselves and respond to learning that uses their lives as the main topic

- They love discovering things, making or drawing things, using their imagination, moving from one place to another, solving puzzles

- They have a short attention span; they can easily get bored after 5-10 minutes Scott and Ytreberg (1990: 1-5) show not only general characteristics but also

language development of a young language learner based on their age groups Their lists of general characteristics share some same points as Harmer‟s (2007) to some extents Hence, five to seven year olds generally can:

- plan activities;

- talk about what they are doing, what they have done or heard;

- use logical reasoning;

- use their vivid imaginations;

- use a wide range of intonation patterns in their mother tongue;

- understand direct human interaction

In the area of language, the very young learners are aware of the fact that the world

is governed by rules They may not always understand them, but they know that they are to be obeyed Additionally, the rules nurture a feeling of security which they require Young learners also understand the situations more quickly than they understand the language used and can use language skills long before they are aware

of them Since their own understanding comes through the senses of hearing, touch and vision, their physical world is dominant at all times One of the prominent features is their short attention and concentration span What is more, they may have difficulty in distinguishing between fact and fiction Also, they cannot decide for themselves what to learn In general, young learners are enthusiastic and positive about learning

The group from eight to ten year olds is considered relatively mature children with

an adult side and a childish side Because of their developing adult side, their basic concepts are formed They can tell the difference between reality and the imaginary notions and make decisions about their own learning Personal feature is asking questions all the time and the fact that they have already formed definite views about what they like and do not like doing Their sense of fairness is developed and their ability to work with others and learn from others By the age of ten, the language

young learners are able to understand abstracts and symbols, generalise and systematise

Another list of major characteristics of young learners was also provided by Halliwell (1992:3) In this list, the author focuses on the nature of language young learners in stead of them in general Children, in terms of language learning:

- are already very good at interpreting meaning without necessarily

- understand the individual words;

- already have great skill in using limited language creatively;

- frequently learn indirectly rather than directly;

- take great pleasure in finding and creating fun in what they do;

- have a ready imagination;

- take great delight in talking

For those features of young learners above, it is the language teachers‟ awareness of taking both general and particular characteristics into their consideration when teaching them a second language

3 An Overview of Teaching Vocabulary to Young Learners

3.1 Principles of Teaching Vocabulary to Young Learners

3.1.1 Criteria for selection of vocabulary

Considerable attention should be paid in the selection of words teacher wants to teach Three main criteria for selecting words were offered by Gairns and Redman (1986) including “frequency, students‟ need and level, cultural factor and expediency” First of all, we can decide which words to teach on the basis of how often the words are used by the speaker of the language For young learners, those words that they are familiar with and they can stick to them should be chosen Hands-on, high frequency words are put into the textbook according to themes or topics, which makes it easier for teachers to go for them Secondly, whether the words match learners‟ needs and level or not is more important Very beginning young learners should be taught more simple words than older learners Normally, words that have quite specific meaning should be avoided with young learners Cultural factors and expediency should also be taken into consideration It is the fact that the way people from different parts of the world expressing ideas are not the

same Moreover, language usage in the class needs meet the requirement of appropriation with its certain types

Pinkley (2005) also gave an idea with some common points with Gairns and Redman (1986) about the most useful criteria for making decisions about vocabulary In her saying, teachers must first consider the types of vocabulary items

to target: single words, multi-word items in the form of collocations, fixed expressions, and semi-fixed expressions Second, the vocabulary should be selected according to usefulness She explains teaching situations are different; words relevant in one context may not be so in a different context Items may be targeted as receptive or productive Third, teachers should consider the frequency of an item, referring to some popular frequency lists Fourth, particularly with children, they should weigh factors such as learners‟ personal interest and relevance to content areas of the school curriculum Fifth, teachers need to be mindful of learners‟ ages and levels of cognitive development And sixth, they need to consider expediency to figure out if it will be helpful to teach common classroom language, the language of instruction, grammatical terminology, or phonological terminology

Based on word aspects, Harmer (2007) differs in his view on the criteria for selection of vocabulary He lists three criteria: concretion vs abstraction, coverage (general words should be taught before more specific terms), and students‟ rapport with words

3.1.2 What to teach?

Nation (1990) claims that “knowing a word involves not only knowing its meaning(s) but also knowing its forms and its usage” This statement is once again asserted through the research of Ur (1996) with more details Ur uses the linguistics components to point out what the learners need to be taught Thus, the first item should be the form of the word, then grammar, collocations, meaning and word formation Referring to the form, pronunciation and spelling are emphasized “The learner has to know what a word sounds like (its pronunciation) and what it looks like (its spelling)” (Ur, 1996:60) Next, the grammatical rules of a new item need introducing depending on the learners‟ level For example, when teaching verbs, generally we would like to present their present forms, especially the form of the third singular person In collocations, “The meaning of a word is primarily what it

refers to in the real world, its denotation” (Ur, 1996, p 61) I don‟t think this aspect

of word is important to teach young learners as they are quite small Notably, meaning of a word can be brought about carefully Context can be used to help young learners to find the right meaning Word formation – using prefixes and suffixes, using hyphenated words and so on is too difficult for young learners

3.2 Techniques of Teaching Vocabulary to Young Learners

3.2.1 Techniques of presenting vocabulary

In presenting the meaning of the new items to young learners, language teachers have a wide range of choices of techniques Depending on their techniques of preference, the types of words, their students‟ age, they may choose to use visual techniques or verbal ones or combine different techniques

Visual techniques consist of visuals and mime, action and gestures Visuals can be among the following things: pictures-flash cards, photographs and magazine pictures, wall charts, posters, blackboard drawings, word pictures, several regalia that teacher can hold up and point to What is more, mime, action and gestures can

be used especially for explaining actions, feelings, or status adjectives Learners can easily label pictures or objects or perform an action In general, visual techniques prove to be useful to draw young learners‟ attention to the lessons, especially for those of low level

Verbal techniques may fall into such ways as using illustrative situations, descriptions, synonyms and antonyms, collocations, scales, and using various forms

of definition: for example, definition by demonstration (visual definition), definition

by abstraction, contextual definitions, and definition by translation For the young learners of beginning levels, explanation can become extremely difficult Furthermore, translation can be a very effective way of conveying meaning of new words This technique is not used much recently, even though it saves time of the lesson as well as quickly disposes the low frequency items but can be very discouraging for young learners It is the fact the meaning is given beforehand, therefore the learners just wait for the teachers‟ explanation without having to concentrate on working out the meaning In other words, they hardly have chance to interact with the words

Context building is another useful technique in introducing vocabulary The goal of vocabulary teaching is more than simply covering a certain number of words on a word list, and learners have to be given opportunities to use the item effectively (Moras, 2001) Through this kind of technique, students can figure out the meaning

of the words on their own and how they can be used in speech When adopting this technique, the teachers had better take the socio-cultural factor in choosing context

so that learners can guess or understand the meaning of a word easily

Different techniques are also adopted by teachers often Teachers may use miming technique while making use of the real objects in the classroom The most obvious advantage of this way is that each technique can reinforce and support one another, thus make the presentation clearer and more effective (Doff, 1988:98)

To sum up, each technique has its own pros and cons In my opinion, teachers can use those techniques in combination with the others to introduce vocabulary as effectively as possible

3.2.2 Techniques of checking and consolidating vocabulary

The follow-up stage of checking and revising is necessary after the children have met with the new words This is to build up the children‟s long-term memory of those words and encourage their using of vocabulary more regularly Hence,

“students need at least three exercises on all new words to stand a chance of incorporating them into their store of active vocabulary, and that should be the ultimate goal”, Bermheden (2002:8)

Teachers can adopt particularly or simultaneously the different techniques as follows

to check their children‟s understanding According to Seal (1991, cited from

“Children learning English as a foreign language” by Pinkley (2005)), teachers may use the concept questions to help them know whether the children understand the vocabulary or not For instance, for the concept of “grocery store”, some questions can be “Can I buy shoes in a grocery store?” or “What can you buy in a grocery store?” Additionally, fill-in-the-blank, category sorts and matching pairs are the other effective techniques Notably, the author uses the technique of pictorial schemata like grids, word maps, Venn diagrams, stepped scales, clines, and other

graphic organizers I am particularly interested in the last techniques because it can

be used in both presenting and checking stages

To consolidate the vocabulary, Pinkley (2005) shows a list of techniques:

(1) tasks: the teacher assigns students tasks through problem solving, doing projects, or values clarification (ranking, for/ against, cause and effect)

(2) story or dialogue writing: students have to read their work in class, act out or make a class book

(3) discussion: students consolidate words by discussing the guided or free topic, playing board games and card games, making conversation cubes

(4) role plays “real life”: students are asked to play role in the daily situation like doctor and patient or grocer and shopper

(5) Role plays “creative life”: requires young learners to imagine an unreal situation such as talking dog or visitor from Mars

Also, in Vietnam, Nguyen Bang et all (2003) showed a list of techniques which are used in both checking and consolidating the vocabulary: ordering, rub out and remember, networks, bingo, word storm, slap the board, guess the picture, matching, noughts and crosses, what and where, word squares, jumble words Those popular techniques are mostly word games which are widely used by Vietnamese teachers When taking part in those games, students not only have opportunities to interact with words but also feel at ease, thus they acquire the target language without even realizing it

Undoubtedly, checking and consolidating vocabulary for young learners help much build the children knowledge of vocabulary In my opinion, each technique should

be taken in to account carefully when teacher apply it in teaching More importantly, the activities of consolidation should be conducted regularly to maximize young learners‟ using and practicing words

4 An overview of miming l

4.1 Definition of Miming

In the light of art, Paul Curtis, founder and director of the American Mime Theatre, uses the following definitions “Pantomime is the part of creating the illusion of

reality by dealing with imaginary objects or situations Its art rests on the ability to imply weight, texture, line, rhythm and force to the air around them Mime, on the other hand, is the art of acting silently through various kinds of theatrical movement” Mime, according to Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary (2011), is the use of movements of your hands or body and the expressions on your face to tell

a story or to act something without speaking; a performance using this method of acting” Likewise, John Dougill (1987) considers it as “a no-verbal representation of

an idea or story through gestures, bodily movement and expression” From the definitions mentioned, we can come to a conclusion that mime is a non-verbal means of conveying the language meaning

4.2 The Roles of Miming in Teaching Vocabulary to Young Learners

As a non-verbal means of communication, mime belongs to the groups of visual techniques in the light of techniques in teaching vocabulary It has proved to be one

of the effective techniques so far Zyoud (2011) highlights the role of mime in building up the confidence of learners by encouraging them to get up and doing things in front of one another Further, mime helps develop students‟ power of imagination and observation and can also be quite simply “a source of great enjoyment” with students tending „to be enthusiastic about this aspect of drama” (Hayes, 1984) He adds that it is also a supportive means for translating verbal words (both receptive and expressive) for children to make better sense of what has been said through the movement In teaching language, “when used as one simple single action per word, mimes can make linear sentences”, therefore, if we “label the mime with the word, so that the child can connect the experience of the movement with its verbal label” (Bogdashina, 2005) In addition, mime is a great way of reinforcing memory by means of visual association, and recall of language items is assisted whenever an associated image is presented (Rose, 1985, cited Zyoud (2011)) Mime can generate language use where explanation is required teacher‟s instructions and the discussion of the students – if the mime involves pair work or group work, learners normally find it easier and more motivating to produce language when they have to accomplish a task (Ur, 1981) This can be the most crucial role mime plays in the teaching vocabulary It shows its support for language teachers in conveying and helping children reinforce vocabulary

4.3 Related Studies

A handful of researches on mime have been carried out until now, however, very few of them are found in the field of language teaching in general and teaching vocabulary to young learners in particular Miming is mostly mentioned as a part of drama activities to improve teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in a research by Zyoud (2011) Based on the theoretical perspective, the author synthesizes words from many famous authors to prove the benefits mime and other activities can bring to learners and teachers, especially the change in the teachers‟ roles from the authority or source of knowledge to the facilitator in the classroom The other study that the researcher finds interesting and useful is that of Liliance Bois Simon The author writes about the use of dramatic techniques in the teaching

of English as EFL She considers the relationship between mime and language including mime for limited language and mime for unlimited language For the first purpose, an example of using miming in teaching verb tenses was given From the analysis of it, the author comes to a conclusion that mime helps students deal with drills in language structures and “a preparation stage for further linguistic work” (Simon, 2007) The later type is mime which teachers may apply it for teaching various meanings (an object, a feeling, a scene) It is the basis for a two-staged language: information and discussion Simon also refers mime as a creative exercise Its creativity falls in not only the mime itself but the follow-up activities as well Some more benefits of mime are added then

In Vietnam, no researches mention miming as a single technique in teaching vocabulary Miming is often referred to in the different techniques which are combined in teaching or a part of drama techniques The study “Techniques in teaching vocabulary to the young learners at ILA school” is an illustration for this The researcher named the most popular techniques employed frequently by the teachers and pointed out the common situation of the teachers‟ limited combination

of different techniques during their teaching vocabulary She added that the techniques in the specific classes are not the same

Another study by Nguyen Thi Bich Hien (2005) was given more space for miming

as a part of drama techniques In this case, different techniques including miming

were not familiar to many participants When the teacher mixed them with the other activities, they helped to draw students‟ attention and motivation However, in comparison with other techniques such as drama games, role-play and simulation, miming as well as improvisation did not work better

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY

2 Participants

This study was carried out with 38 children from three classes All of them are aged from six to eight, corresponding to the grade 1 and 2 at their primary school Most of the young learners live in the district of Ba Dinh, Ha Noi They have done the placement test, and at present, their English is of starter level for young learners They have been placed in the first course Some of them have learnt English at kindergarten or other English centers before, whereas some are new to English In general, their knowledge of English is very little

English courses for children are all run by foreign teachers Hence, there are six English teachers who involved in the research Each has worked part time for HLSC for at least six months Four of them have the TESOL Certificates while the two others have a Bachelor degree in English language All have gained at least two years of experience in teaching English to both young learners and adults

3 Data collection methods

3.1 Questionnaires

The instruments for gathering data in this study were questionnaire, interview, and class observation Of those instruments, questionnaire is the main one with two sets of questions: one for the English teachers and the other for the young learners

The teachers were asked to put a tick or write down the answers for 22 questions which were divided into four sections based on the research questions The following table details the content of those questions:

Q.2-Q.7, Q.22 The attitudes of the teachers towards using

miming in teaching vocabulary Q.1, Q8-Q.17 The current situation of teaching vocabulary

through miming Q.18, Q.19 The difficulties the teachers cope with during

using miming in teaching vocabulary

For the young learners, due to their very young age, it is impossible to elicit their ideas about difficulties and solutions to teaching vocabulary through miming As

a result, the author used 15 questions They are:

Questions for the young

learners

Purposes

Q.2 – Q.12, Q.14 Q.15 The attitudes of the young learners towards using

miming in teaching vocabulary Q.1, Q.6 – Q.13 The current situation of teaching vocabulary

through miming

3.2 Interview

After having done the survey questionnaire, there remained some parts that the researcher was not clear Therefore, the instrument of interview was conducted face-to-face with six foreign teachers, which was to search for further explanation of their own difficulties in teaching context The teachers were also

asked to give some examples they deal with those problems The questions for interviewing children were to get more information about why they like or don‟t like this technique as well as words they can mime Only 10 students among the questionnaire respondents were chosen for this follow-up interview

3.3 Observation

The last instrument was class observation Eight class observations were done in three classes JS5A1, JS4A1, JS3A1 during the research In the class JS5A1, the author observed 3 continual lessons in the same week All the lessons belonged

to Unit 3: This is my nose! (page 20-25) The second class, JS4, covered one lesson earlier than JS5A1 Therefore, its content belonged to both Unit 3 and the first lesson of Unit 4 Three observations were also done The last class, JS3A1, was run twice a week; hence, two observations were involved It was about Unit 3: Play time! (p14-17) The researcher has recorded a lot of data of classroom activities and pictures This instrument was adopted to support the data from the questionnaire about the real context of teaching vocabulary through miming together with the difficulties the foreign teachers might cope with

4 Data collection procedure

In the first place, the questionnaires were handed out to six foreign teachers when they had free time Short and clear explanations about its aims, requirements were provided beforehand Then, the author delivered the questionnaire to the young learners 20 minutes after each class finished To help the children understand and be able to decide what and how to respond in a relevant way to a certain question, the researcher had also taken time to give a clear instruction at the beginning of the survey session After that, they were instructed to complete the questionnaires The researcher would be willing to answer any more questions from the informants

While carrying out the survey questionnaire, the researcher did classroom observation It took seven weeks to do this part Any data from these observations could be used to check the validity of information about using miming in teaching vocabulary to young learners

Last but not least, the researcher interviewed six teachers and ten children for clarification The frequency of using miming in teaching vocabulary, the

difficulties and the solutions were included in the questions for the teachers Besides, the questions for children are about whether they like miming or not when learning vocabulary and their explanation Some of words were also given

to check their understanding of the words and how they mimed them

5 Data analysis methods

When data collection was accomplished, the data analysis was initiated The results of the survey questionnaire and interview were analyzed by means of descriptive statistics All these statistics were processed in Excel application and then presented in the forms of tables, charts, or diagrams Additionally, some pictures were used as illustrations with analysis to complement findings from questionnaires and interviews

CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

1 Research question 1: What are the attitudes of the teachers and the young learners (aged from 6 to 8) at Hi! Language School Center towards miming in teaching and learning vocabulary?

1.1 The teachers’ attitudes towards miming in teaching and learning vocabulary at HLSC

Figure 1: Teachers’ keenness on miming in teaching vocabulary to the young learners

When being polled about their keenness of miming in teaching vocabulary in Q.2, 100% of the teachers at HLSC showed their interest in it Specifically, 17% of them said that they like using miming in teaching vocabulary much, 50% liked it quite much, and 33% put a tick into the box of “not very much” Although no one gave the choice of dislike this technique, it is not their most favourite technique in their

class

Figure 2: Usefulness of miming in teaching vocabulary to the young learners

Regarding Q.3, Figure 2 indicates that using miming in teaching vocabulary to the

young learners gets all the surveyed teachers‟ positive attitude towards its usefulness That is, 17% of the teachers found miming in teaching vocabulary to the young learners very useful, 33% votes for “useful”, and 50% are for “quite useful” The choice of “not very useful” and “useless” were not given by any of the teachers

In the interview, all once again asserted that miming was useful to their teaching the young learners, especially the teaching vocabulary They added that in the classroom

when L1 is Vietnamese, mime made it easier for them to introduce the new words as well as let the children get involved in the activities of practicing vocabulary

Figure 3 and 4: Importance and Necessity of using miming in teaching vocabulary to the young learners

Figure 3 Figure 4

Looking at the Figure 3 which answers Q 4 and Q.5, it can be seen clearly that three

choices including “very important”, “important”, and “quite important” occupy their percentage equally Each of them gets about 33 % Both questions about the importance and necessity of miming received no responses of being unimportant or unnecessary However, the range of necessity is different to some extent (67 %

necessary and 33 % quite necessary) In general, the statistics from Figure 4 show

that all of the teachers who got involved in the survey highly appreciate the importance and necessity of miming in teaching the children the new words

Table 1: Reasons for using miming in teaching vocabulary to the young learners

Reasons for using miming in teaching vocabulary

Number

of teachers

%

1 to help your young learners and you feel relaxed while

3 to help your young learners remember the vocabulary

4 to make your young learners more active while learning

5 to check the children‟s understanding of the new words 3 50

Table 1 reveals the answer for Q 6 clearly that the first reason for using miming in

teaching vocabulary of teachers at HLSC is to introduce the vocabulary easily (100%) 83% of the teachers agreed with two main points that miming can help the young learners and them feel relaxed, and more importantly, the children can remember the vocabulary easily and longer Miming is thought to make the young learners more active while learning new words by 50% The same percentage is for checking the children‟s understanding of the new words Only two teachers (33%) were for the idea that miming helps to warm up the classroom atmosphere Some more ideas were also presented by two teachers (33%) The teachers chose to use miming while teaching vocabulary the young learners since it doesn‟t take much time to prepare One reason was added is that miming can be readily combined with the other techniques, especially the verbal ones After the teachers mime, they speak out the words In this case, miming makes the words more vivid and makes sure that the children obtain the exact word meaning

Table 2: The benefits of using miming in teaching vocabulary of the teachers at HLSC

Benefits of using miming in teaching vocabulary Number of

4 introduce and consolidate the vocabulary for the

7 help the young learners remember the vocabulary

The data for Q 7 in Table 2 illustrated in the questionnaire for the teachers conveys

that the most benefits of miming in teaching are “get the children involved easily” and “can be used at any time” Each of them occupies 100% My class observations

supported those benefits Students showed their interest in taking part in the class activities related to miming and the teachers employed this type of technique whenever they found it suitable to the context What is more, helping the children feel comfortable, introducing and consolidating the vocabulary easily, and helping the young learners remember the vocabulary longer rank the second by 83% of the respondents However, only two of the teachers (33%) found miming useful for building up the children‟s self-confidence In brief, miming benefits the teachers in teaching significantly

1.2 The young learners’ attitudes towards miming in learning vocabulary at HLSC

Figure 5 and 6: The young learners’ interest and their attitudes towards usefulness of miming in learning vocabulary

The result collected from Q 2 and Q 3 in Figure 5 shows that the children have a

great deal of interest in the technique of miming Half of the young learners are keen

on it for their learning new words, meanwhile 21.1% like miming very much The category “quite much” occupies a little less than the “very much” one by 18.4% Only 10% of the informants selected the answer of “not very much” No one dislikes miming In the class observation, the author kept an eye on those who were not interested in miming very much and figured out one thing That is, though some chose “not like very much”, they still took part in the miming activities excitedly

The percentages of the usefulness of miming in learning from Figure 6 show the

quite same patterns as the children‟s interest “Useful” category takes the most percentage of 44.7 % “very useful” and “quite useful” rank the second and the third

28.9%

44.7%

26.3%

0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

much quite much

not very much not at all

by 28.9% and 26.3% Only one difference lies in the fourth categories of both figures No teachers made the choice of “not very useful” or “useless”

Figure 7: The young learners’ interest in miming in comparison with that of some other techniques for teaching vocabulary

In comparison with other techniques, miming is among the most favourable ones the young learners like It ranks the third by 81.6% after games (100%) and flash cards (86.8%) Half of the children favour songs while 44.7% state that they are keen on story telling Only 26.3% say that they prefer other techniques such as role-playing, word games, etc when answering Q 4

Figure 8: The benefits of miming in the children’s learning vocabulary

When being asked about the benefits of miming in learning vocabulary (Q.5), many young learners at HLSC agree that miming gives them much more fun (92.1%) They also explain that not only the teachers but their classmates show their mimes in

a very funny way, which makes them laugh all the time 86.8 % state miming contributes to help them remember vocabulary longer

Furthermore, learning vocabulary more easily and better takes a great deal of percentage (73.7%) Also, the benefits of widening the children‟s knowledge of vocabulary and making them feel more self-confident, though ranked the last, were given the significant statistics including 65.8% and 57.9% Some other ideas about the benefits of miming often relates to the young learners‟ personal reasons For example, some of them explained in the questionnaire that they did miming because they did not have to write much or they could perform in front of their family at home

2 Research question 2: What is the current situation of teaching vocabulary through miming to the young learners (aged from 6 to 8) at Hi! Language School Center?

Figure 9 and 10: Situation of using miming in teaching and learning vocabulary

Figure 9: For teachers Figure 10: For the children

In general, all the teachers and the children have used miming in teaching and

learning vocabulary (100%) when answering Q.1

Figure 11: Frequency of using miming in teaching vocabulary

The statistics gathered for Q.8 in Figure 11 indicate that most of the teachers

recognize the benefits of miming, thus 50% employed miming in teaching vocabulary in some lessons and 33.3% used it in every lesson In the interview, they

stated that they used miming to teach not only vocabulary but grammar as well Only 16.7% of the informants applied miming in few lessons since they thought that they preferred to use the other techniques to deal with the vocabulary From the class observation, I found that the teachers used miming a lot in their teaching Notably, miming supports teaching vocabulary and grammar a lot Additionally, there comes

a similar pattern in the young learners‟ responses to the frequency of using miming

in the class (57.9% for some lessons, 26.3% for every lesson, and 13.2% for few lessons)

Figure 12: Stages at which miming is often adopted

For Q.9, Figure 12 conveys that 83.3% of the teachers adopt miming in the stage of

presentation since the mentioned benefit above, miming makes it easier for them to introduce new vocabulary More importantly, miming also brings vividness to the words In Practice stage, the teachers use it less (66.7%) as they apply many other techniques, especially games, beside miming The stage of Production takes the smallest number of percentage (33.3%) In the class observation and interview, there

is the fact that this stage mostly relates to speaking and writing activities, hence, it is hard to adapt miming in it

Figure 13: Time for using miming in teaching vocabulary

Two lines from the Figure 13 show the time the teachers spend on miming in the

classroom in Q.10 For the teachers, miming was used within five minutes by 66.7% It took the rest of the teachers (33.3%) from 6 to 10 minutes to conduct the activity of miming No teachers spent 11 or more minutes on miming At the same time, the result of the children‟s expectation towards time used for each miming activity is not much different The choice “1-5 minutes” received a quite lower number of the children (55.3%), meanwhile 39.5% said that their teachers use 6 to

10 minutes and only 5.3% chose the time from 11 to 15 minutes When the researcher interviewed and observed the classroom, she found one characteristic of the young learners by Harmer that the children have a short attention span; they can easily get bored after 5-10 minutes (Harmer, 2007) Hence, it is within 5 minutes that each miming should be used to avoid the young learners‟ feeling bored and not concentrating on the lesson

Figure 14: Word classes used in miming to teach vocabulary

Looking at the Figure 14, the result for Q.11 was collected from the teachers

ranking their preference of word classes that can be mimed to teach Verbs rank the first by 100% because of the fact that the verbs in the book Family and Friends 1 are mostly the very simple actions; therefore the teachers can mime all Following verbs

is nouns with 83.3% The reason for this lower number lies in some abstract nouns appearing in the book Notably, prepositions (50%) rank the thirds The teachers explained that most of the prepositions listed in the book were prepositions of places

or movement; as a result, they could make use of miming to teach such vocabulary Adjectives and adverbs received the smallest percentages by 33.3% and 16.7% In the interview, many teachers said that they only applied miming in teaching some adjectives of feelings, as other types of adjectives in the books they are using to teach the children were abstract ones which were often presented via visual

techniques During the interview with 10 young learners in which they were asked to mime five words (book, look, happy, fast, under), the author found that most of them (80%) tend to mime well the verb (look), the noun (book), the adjective (happy) and the preposition (under) Only the adverb „fast‟ was mimed the least

Figure 15: Class organization when vocabulary is taught via miming

Q.12 is to find out how teachers organized class Most of the teachers preferred to use the whole class (83.3%) and two team organizations (66.7%) Sometimes, pair work might be used by 50% of the teachers They did not often arrange the class in group work (16.7%) and individuals (33.3%) The information from the children shows the similar pattern with some slight differences figures in the organizations of group work (23.7%), pair work (57.9%), whole class (86.8%), and individuals (42.1%)

Teachers Students

Only one surprising point lies in dividing the class into two teams The teachers used

it quite often by 66.7%, whereas the students‟ choice was much lower by 39.5% The class observation was also used to check this situation The fact is that, the teachers divided the class into two teams, but called on each member from each team to mime the words in turn, which made the children thought that they worked

in pairs

Figure 16: Preparation for teaching vocabulary through miming

About Q.13, the chart below proves a point that most of the teachers spend no time

on preparing the mime Only one teacher (16.7%) did this carefully by thinking of and learning how to mime ahead of the class time During the class observations, the researcher saw the habit of applying miming to teach vocabulary whenever the teachers found it suitable In the questionnaire for children, this fact is once asserted

through the fact that all the informants choose the choice of “at any time” (See Table

3)

Figure 16

Table 3: When do the teachers use miming to teach a word?

16.7%

16.7%

0.0%

66.7% 0.0%

0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0% 60.0% 70.0%

think o f ho w to mime carefully

learn ho w to mime o n the Internet o r fro m a bo o k practice miming at ho me

Ask them to say the word in English

Ask them to say the word in Vietnamese

Ask them to match the mime with the correct picture/

f lash card

Ask them to make a sentence using the word you mime

others