THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING PICTURES IN TEACHING VOCABULARY AT SMART-KIDS SCHOOL IN BAC NINH PROVINCE

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING PICTURES IN TEACHING VOCABULARY AT SMART-KIDS SCHOOL IN BAC NINH PROVINCETHE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING PICTURES IN TEACHING VOCABULARY AT SMART-KIDS SCHOOL IN BAC NINH PROVINCETHE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING PICTURES IN TEACHING VOCABULARY AT SMART-KIDS SCHOOL IN BAC NINH PROVINCETHE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING PICTURES IN TEACHING VOCABULARY AT SMART-KIDS SCHOOL IN BAC NINH PROVINCETHE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING PICTURES IN TEACHING VOCABULARY AT SMART-KIDS SCHOOL IN BAC NINH PROVINCETHE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING PICTURES IN TEACHING VOCABULARY AT SMART-KIDS SCHOOL IN BAC NINH PROVINCE

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

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



-NGUYỄN THỊ HOA

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING PICTURES IN TEACHING VOCABULARY AT SMART-KIDS SCHOOL

IN BAC NINH PROVINCE

(Hiệu quả của việc sử dụng tranh ảnh trong việc dạy từ vựng

tại trường Smart-Kids, tỉnh Bắc Ninh)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

HANOI - 2014

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

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



-NGUYỄN THỊ HOA

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING PICTURES IN TEACHING VOCABULARY AT SMART-KIDS SCHOOL

IN BAC NINH PROVINCE

(Hiệu quả của việc sử dụng tranh ảnh trong việc dạy từ vựng

tại trường Smart-Kids, tỉnh Bắc Ninh)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Vocabulary is one of the important elements in teaching English In acquiring a foreign language, learning vocabulary is considered as one of important tasks At Smart-kids school, learning and teaching vocabulary is a major concern, too In an attempt to investigate the effect of pictures in teaching vocabulary the study has been conducted in the form of an action research The participation of the study comprised 30 kindergarten students They were randomly assigned into two homogeneous groups each consisting of 15 learners The experimental group used pictures in teaching vocabulary but the control group didn’t use The classroom observation and tests were the main instruments employed for the data collection The result showed that the students in the experimental group outperformed the students in the control group in their vocabulary knowledge It means that the contribution of pictures in teaching vocabulary to students led to higher level of vocabulary improvement Therefore, using pictures in teaching vocabulary seems to

be more effective than not using

PART A: INTRODUCTION

Part A – Introduction- provides the background to the study and statement of the problem, the aims, the research question, the scope of the study as well as the research methodology It also outlines the organization of the thesis

1 Rationale of the study

English teaching involves four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing One of the main tasks assigned to foreign language teaching at school

is that of training students to be communicatively competent Speaking is "the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts" (Chaney, 1998: 13) In any second language teaching and learning, speaking is always believed to be the most vital skill and in teaching speaking, vocabulary is the most important thing “If language structures make up the skeleton of language, then it is vocabulary that provides the vital organs and the flesh.”(Harmer 1993: 153) Cook’s (2000) conclusion is also consistent with Wilkins in that “Grammar provides the overall patterns, vocabulary the material to put into those patterns” Or some authors, led by Lewis (1993) argue that vocabulary should be at the center of language teaching, because ‘language consists of grammaticalised lexis, not lexicalised grammar’ From the statement, it can be seen that vocabulary functions as a cornerstone without which any language could not exist Speaking would be meaningless and perhaps impossible having only structure without vocabulary Therefore, the English teacher has to be able to organize teaching and learning activities; they have to give materials by using a suitable technique and master the lesson effectively Especially in learning vocabulary, teachers must make the students able to memorize such words in English language and group of new words Celce Maria stated that research in first and second language acquisition suggest that initial teaching priorities for language areas should be vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation Therefore, the English teacher has to be able to organize teaching and learning activities and they have to give materials by using a suitable technique and master the lesson effectively

Especially in learning vocabulary, teachers must make the students able to memorize such words in English language and group of new words The statements above mean, vocabulary is important to teach and teachers must try to find the most effective way to help learners retain new words in long term memory

As a teacher at Smart-kids schools, I realize that teaching vocabulary is major concern because at the age of five, students cannot write or read and the effective way to teach is through pictures Therefore, I choose this topic to understand more about the effectiveness of using picture in teaching vocabulary

2 Aims and significance of the study

This study is aimed at finding out the effectiveness of using picture in teaching vocabulary at Smart-kids school based on the understanding of vocabulary and pictures in linguistic notion and the situation of teaching and learning there Through this, some implications to solve these problems will be suggested

The result of the research will be helpful for many English teachers in many schools especially Smart-kids school in Bac Ninh province From this, the teachers will find an effective ways and apply many activities in class to attract students attention in learning new words Basing on suggestions in this research, teachers can have their own way to teach their students

3 Scope of the study

I cannot go into details of all parts of language theory and practice because

of the limited time, the shortage of reference books, and the students’ language ability This is also a wide topic so I mainly focus on the effect of using picture in teaching vocabulary in the field of memory, interest and interaction

4 Research methodology

This methodology used in the study is those of an action research Thus, it applied both qualitative and quantitative approaches with two methods of data collection The qualitative data were collected from observation and the quantitative data were collected from tests including two progress tests and one final test

5 Organization of the study

This minor thesis is composed of three parts as follow:

Part A - Introduction: The first part presents rationale, aims and

significance as well as scope of the study, research methodology and organization

of the study

Part B - Development: The second part consists of three chapters Chapter 1

is for literature review, which provides the theoretical background of the study Chapter 2 is methodology which represents the research question, describes informants and the design of the study Chapter 3 presents the data analysis of classroom observation and test then discussion

Part C – Conclusion: The final part summarizes the major findings of the

experiment, voicing some implications for language teachers in teaching vocabulary and suggesting some recommendations for further studies

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, relevant literature is reviewed, underlying the necessity and the relevance of the study In other words, background knowledge on vocabulary teaching in general and vocabulary teaching through pictures in particular is looked

at critically to set up the theoretical framework for further investigation

The first section of this chapter is devoted to theoretical aspects of vocabulary teaching and the second section of this chapter is about pictures in language teaching

1.1 VOCABULARY TEACHING

1.1.1 Stages in vocabulary teaching

1.1.1.1 Presentation

The title of this stage indicates clearly its function is introducing new lexical items to learners As suggested by Thornbury (2002: 75-76) learners need to learn both the meaning and the form of a new word He also emphasizes some major

factors subject to the number of word to be presented such as: the learner’s level (beginner, intermediate or advanced), learner’s likely familiarity with the words

1.1.1.2 Practice

When the teacher presents the meaning of new words, they can only become student’s passive vocabulary, and students may easily forget them and do not know how to use properly Students’ vocabulary can only be activated effectively if the teacher gives the learners opportunities to practise them through vocabulary exercises or activities

1.1.1.3 Production

In this stage, students are advised to complete high-level tasks namely production tasks (Thornbury, 2002: 100) He recommends that learners should produce something as a product of their own In this way, learners will turn words from receptive to productive and put them into long-term memory

1.1.1.4 Review

This process aims at helping students acquire active, productive vocabularies In the reviewing stage, students have more chance to use language and receive feedback It can be seen that games and communicative activities are the best way to help students to review words Besides, visual aids can make vocabulary revision more interesting and effective

1.1.2 Techniques in vocabulary teaching

Various techniques and activities are aimed directly at learning vocabulary, which is usually put into sets of somehow related words, often by topic or meaning

As McCarthy (1992) suggests, before presenting new language, pre-teaching activities might be beneficial “to activate existing knowledge to make the encounter with new words more meaningful” (McCarthy 1992: 108) Pre-teaching activities often arouse students’ attention and desire to explore a particular topic or subject in greater detail

1.1.3 Factors affecting vocabulary retention

1.1.3.1 Memory

It can be seen that memory is important in learning new words According to Thornbury, 2002, there are two major types of memory: short term memory, long term memory Short term memory is the brain capacity to hold a limited number of items of information for periods of time up to a few seconds Long-term memory can be seen as kind of filling system This kind of memory has an enormous capacity and its contents are durable over time

1.1.3.2 Motivation

Theory on motivation can be seen from Littlewood’s perspective (1998: 53)

that “in second language learning as in every other field of human learning,

motivation is the crucial force which determines whether a learner embarks on a task at all, how much energy he devotes to it, and how long he perseveres It is a complex phenomenon and includes many components: the individual’s drive, need for achievement and success, curiosity, desire for stimulation and new experience, and so on” Keller (1984) (quoted in Ellis, 1994) sees 'interest' as one of the major

components of motivation, defining it as “a positive response to a stimuli based on

existing cognitive structures in such a way that learners’ curiosity is aroused and sustained”.

1.1.3.3 Person-dependent factors

According to Lightbown and Spada (1999), person-dependent factors include age, language aptitude, intelligence, attitude and personality Rubin and Thomson (1994) also consider the factors including age, aptitude, attitude, personality, learning style and past experiences In this thesis, these factors are considered in a logical way to understand how they affect vocabulary acquisition in second language acquisition

1.2 PICTURES IN TEACHING VOCABULARY

1.2.1 The meaning of pictures

According to Cobuild (1987: 1320), a picture can be defined as “a visual representation of image painted, drawn, photographed or otherwise rendered on a flat surface.” Meanwhile, according to Andrew Wright (1989: 29), “Picture is not

just an aspect of method but through its representation of place, object, and people,

it is essential part of the overall experiences.”

1.2.2 The types of pictures

According to Brazyna Szyke (1981), pictures are divided into two main types The first type is that pictures of individual persons or thing may be used mainly at the elementary level to introduce or test vocabulary items For example, a house, a dog, a man, a girl The second type is that pictures of situations in which person and object are “in action” between objects and people can be perfect teaching aid for introducing or reviewing grammatical or structures For example: football, meeting, market

1.2.3 Issues of using pictures in teaching vocabulary

In this part, many advantages and disadvantages of using pictures in teaching vocabulary are considered The use of pictures gives teachers a number of benefits

It can be said that pictures are one of these valuable aids They bring “images of reality into the unnatural world of the language classroom” (Hill, 1990:1) Pictures bring not only images of reality, but can also function as a fun element in the class However, using pictures in teaching language has their own limitation That is, in teaching vocabulary, pictures are not suitable or sufficient for demonstrating the meaning of all words (Thornbury, 2004: 81)

1.2.4 Activities using pictures in teaching vocabulary

The benefit of using games in language teaching is absolutely clear There are many ways applying pictures in teaching vocabulary in classroom so it requires careful considerations from language researchers and teachers Also teachers need

to look deep into their class situations as well as their students’ background knowledge and what items will be taught, too

1.2.5 Review of previous studies on using pictures in teaching vocabulary

There are many studies which have been conducted on teaching vocabulary through pictures Firstly, a M.A minor thesis named “using pictures in teaching vocabulary of English to the second year students of Mechanical department at Hai

Phong Industrial Vocational College” by Nguyen Thi Thu Hoa in 2010 Secondly, the thesis by Khuong Ha Linh, in 2011 named “the exploitation of pictures in teaching vocabulary according to communicative approach for first year students at Vietnam National University, Hanoi University of Economics and Business”

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

This chapter discusses in detail the research methodology of the research as well as the design of the research This research was conducted in the form of an action research basing on the following model by Kemmis and Mc Taggart (in Burns, 1999: 32) with four steps In this chapter, the research question is raised and then informants are shown in detail After that, the design of the study is shown with four steps of action research including planning, acting, observing and reflecting

2.1 Research question

This study attempts to examine the effectiveness of using pictures in terms of students’ English learning The research question is:

Is using pictures in teaching vocabulary more effective than not using pictures?

2.2 Informants

In the study, 30 kindergarten students dividing into 2 groups: the control group and the experimental group at Smart-kids school in Bac ninh province were employed as the participants of the research The research time is two months in 8 periods The researcher taught two classes the same content but in two different ways for the vocabulary teaching With the experimental group, the researcher taught vocabulary using pictures but the control group received traditional treatment In each period, the researcher had to observe children and after 8 periods, children took a test to check vocabulary they had learnt

2.3 Planning

In this thesis, basing on Kemmis’s model, two classes were assigned to an experimental group and a control group The researcher taught the two classes the