SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM Activities for Reviewing and Enriching Vocabulary Knowledge

CURRICULUM VITAE I.PERSONAL INFORMATION: 1. Full name: Trinh Thi Loan 2. Date of birth: July 2nd, 1985 3. Sex: Female 4. Address: 29A6 Nguyen Ai Quoc Street, Tan Phong, Bien Hoa, Dong Nai 5. Telephone number: 01636991371 6. Email address: tungpvbhxhyahoo.com 7. Major: Teacher of English 8. Work Place: Nam ha high school II. EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND Diploma: Bachelor in 2007 Major in: English teaching III. SCIENTIFIC EXPERIENCE The length of service: 8 years The initiative experience: 1. Using English song to teach pronunciation (20122013) The two following works have conducted since joining the post graduate diploma course. 2. Positive and negative learning experiences in working in groups in speaking lessons among grade 10th students at Nam Ha high school (20142015) 3. English textbook evaluation (20142015) The table of content Chapter 1: Introduction 1. Back ground of the study………………………. 4 2. The significant of the study…………………….. 4 3. The study questions……………………………… 4 Chapter 2: Review of Relevant Literature 1. What is vocabulary?................................................ 5 2. Some guidelines for communicative treatment of vocabulary instruction. ………………………………………... 56 3. Useful principles for vocabulary review and consolidation. 6 Chapter 3: Recommend the vocabulary activities for grade eleventh students. 1. Word search puzzles…………………………………. 79 2. Word definition ……………………………………… 10 3. Word collocation…………………………………….. 11 4. Word form…………………………………………… 12 5. Matching…………………………………………….. 13 6. Crossword…………………………………………… 1415 7. Scrambled letters…………………………………… 16 8. Spelling bee…………………………………………. 17 Chapter 4: Conclusion and suggestion …………… 18 Reference …………………………………………………… 19 Chapter 1: Introduction Vocabulary is considered an important tool to help students interpret their ideas and express their feelings effectively. Students’ knowing lots of lexical items ultimately lead to successes in language skills such as speaking, listening, writing and listening. It is also vocabulary that partly facilitates the movement of “passive” knowledge into “active” language use. Roughly speaking, students are getting more competent and confident in using language since they own the rich storehouse of vocabulary knowledge. In reality, those roles of knowing vocabulary seem to be marginalized in teaching and learning situations. More dangerously, the translation method becomes dominant, which navigates to the situation of L1 overuse. The textbook makes the problems worsen when presenting no room for purely teaching and learning vocabulary. As a result, teachers tend to spend very limited time on introducing the new lexical items and do not linger on vocabulary practice. In some special cases, a few teachers are more awareness of the possible potentials of vocabulary in the language family. The evidence is that they deliberately check students’ memorization on the words they have learnt. However, they do not vary the task types except for dictation technique, which is considered to be at the expense of communicative purposes. The same problems happen in my school, which urges me to do something to address the mentioned dilemmas in the domain of my school. I also hope that my work will be useful in many other educational institutes. The study is in attempt to answer the following questions: 1. What is vocabulary? 2. What are some useful techniques in introducing vocabulary? 3. When is the most suitable time for reviewing and consolidating activities? 4. What are specific vocabulary activities for particular units for grade eleventh students in the first semester? The next chapter refers to some literature reviews that are relevant to my mentioned concerns. By doing so, the study area becomes more clarity and convincing.

DONG NAI EDUCATION AND TRAINING DEPARTMENT NAM HA HIGH SCHOOL Code:  THE INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE Topic: Activities for Reviewing and Enriching Vocabulary Knowledge Teacher: TRỊNH THỊ LOAN Research field: Education management:  Teaching methodology: English Other field:  Attachments: Object:  Software:  Film:  Other things:  School year: 2014-2015 Page 1 BM 01-Bia SKKN CURRICULUM VITAE I.PERSONAL INFORMATION: 1. Full name: Trinh Thi Loan 2. Date of birth: July 2 nd , 1985 3. Sex: Female 4. Address: 29A/6 Nguyen Ai Quoc Street, Tan Phong, Bien Hoa, Dong Nai 5. Telephone number: 01636991371 6. Email address: tungpvbhxh@yahoo.com 7. Major: Teacher of English 8. Work Place: Nam ha high school II. EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND -Diploma: Bachelor in 2007 -Major in: English teaching III. SCIENTIFIC EXPERIENCE -The length of service: 8 years - The initiative experience: 1. Using English song to teach pronunciation (2012-2013) -The two following works have conducted since joining the post graduate diploma course. 2. Positive and negative learning experiences in working in groups in speaking lessons among grade 10 th students at Nam Ha high school (2014- 2015) 3. English textbook evaluation (2014-2015) Page 2 BM02-LLKHSKKN The table of content Chapter 1: Introduction 1. Back ground of the study………………………. 4 2. The significant of the study…………………… 4 3. The study questions……………………………… 4 Chapter 2: Review of Relevant Literature 1. What is vocabulary? 5 2. Some guidelines for communicative treatment of vocabulary instruction. ……………………………………… 5-6 3. Useful principles for vocabulary review and consolidation. 6 Chapter 3: Recommend the vocabulary activities for grade eleventh students. 1. Word search puzzles…………………………………. 7-9 2. Word definition ……………………………………… 10 3. Word collocation…………………………………… 11 4. Word form…………………………………………… 12 5. Matching…………………………………………… 13 6. Crossword…………………………………………… 14-15 7. Scrambled letters…………………………………… 16 8. Spelling bee…………………………………………. 17 Chapter 4: Conclusion and suggestion …………… 18 Reference …………………………………………………… 19 Page 3 Chapter 1: Introduction Vocabulary is considered an important tool to help students interpret their ideas and express their feelings effectively. Students’ knowing lots of lexical items ultimately lead to successes in language skills such as speaking, listening, writing and listening. It is also vocabulary that partly facilitates the movement of “passive” knowledge into “active” language use. Roughly speaking, students are getting more competent and confident in using language since they own the rich storehouse of vocabulary knowledge. In reality, those roles of knowing vocabulary seem to be marginalized in teaching and learning situations. More dangerously, the translation method becomes dominant, which navigates to the situation of L1 overuse. The textbook makes the problems worsen when presenting no room for purely teaching and learning vocabulary. As a result, teachers tend to spend very limited time on introducing the new lexical items and do not linger on vocabulary practice. In some special cases, a few teachers are more awareness of the possible potentials of vocabulary in the language family. The evidence is that they deliberately check students’ memorization on the words they have learnt. However, they do not vary the task types except for dictation technique, which is considered to be at the expense of communicative purposes. The same problems happen in my school, which urges me to do something to address the mentioned dilemmas in the domain of my school. I also hope that my work will be useful in many other educational institutes. The study is in attempt to answer the following questions: 1. What is vocabulary? 2. What are some useful techniques in introducing vocabulary? 3. When is the most suitable time for reviewing and consolidating activities? 4. What are specific vocabulary activities for particular units for grade eleventh students in the first semester? The next chapter refers to some literature reviews that are relevant to my mentioned concerns. By doing so, the study area becomes more clarity and convincing. Page 4 Chapter 2: Literature review What is vocabulary? According Ur. P (2012), vocabulary is referred as the lexical items of the language including some aspects; such as, form (pronunciation and spelling) meaning (denotation), grammar (certain grammar context), collocation, connotation and appropriateness. So vocabulary is not just the words in the language. It is much broader than what is familiarly attributed. In real classroom, it is important for students to internalize all the possible domains of vocabulary so that they can avoid wrongly using words and ruining their harbored meanings. Some guidelines for communicative treatment of vocabulary instruction. Obviously, students will remember the words longer once they are taught effectively, so the stage of introducing vocabulary to students strengthen the effects of the subsequent consolidation. Traditionally, teachers of English tend to directly introduce the needed vocabulary to their students, by doing so they can save time for the macro skills which are widely considered to be more important than the language elements. As a result, students are to face with lots of obstacles stemming from insufficient knowledge of vocabulary. Spontaneously, their work on other skills no longer runs smoothly. Unfortunately, such frequent interruption may damages students’ learning motivation. In my opinion, practicing and reviewing vocabulary deserves to be paid more attention and dedication from teachers and teachers should lend the most effective teaching techniques as well as appropriate pedagogic approaches to enhance students’ willingness to exposure to lexical items. As suggested by Brown. H. D (2007), vocabulary items should not be viewed as a long, boring list of words to be learned, they should be put in their centre role in meaningful language. He also lists some practical principles for using communicative teaching method to treat vocabulary instruction as follow. - Allocate specific class time to vocabulary learning. Words are believed the first priority to make communication work, and the basic base of language building blocks. Page 5 -Help students to learn vocabulary in context. The words should appear in the context of discourse or real communication rather than isolating words. By doing so, students can articulate the new words in meaningful contexts that they may encounter in real life. - Play down the role of bilingual dictionary. This help student skip from overusing bilingual dictionary, which makes students overtly depend on it for word quick translation. - Encourage students to develop strategies for determining the meanings of words. - Engage in “unplanned” vocabulary teaching. Teachers should be conscious that the “unplanned” vocabulary teaching can be encouraged since it relates to the ongoing activities. These principles urge teachers to carefully design vocabulary activities to benefits their learners and make the lessons more engaging to them. Obviously, students can easily forget all about the words if they can see it no other times. So to make sure their revisiting chance to the vocabulary they have just learnt, students should be supplemented with some kinds of reviewing and consolidating activities. This is regarded as the key point deciding on the living span of words in someone’s minds. The sequence presents some vital principles for more effective vocabulary review and consolidation. Useful principles for vocabulary review and consolidation As mentioned by Ur. P (2012) “a learner needs to re-encounter a new item several times in order to remember it permanently”. And he suggests that every lesson should stick to provide students with several vocabulary review work. His voice especially appeals the involvers when stating that the most optimum principle is to make student memorize the words when they are not totally dead in their minds. It may be done in the next lesson and some later lessons as long as it naturally permanently lives in individuals. Another essential principle focuses on the types of review tasks. In this sense, Ur drives the attention to the purpose of review tasks by saying that “tasks that review vocabulary aims to consolidate and deepen students’ basic knowledge”. In this sense, students are supposed to engage successfully, meaningfully and accurately with the target items, while teachers step back to make more rooms for students’ self- orientation, self check, and correct themselves. Page 6 Chapter 3: Recommend the vocabulary activities for grade eleventh students. I introduce the number of vocabulary tasks for students to revisit the words they have internalized from each unit in their text book. Each activity wastes about five minutes, and it should happen at the beginning of the class. Samples of activity Sample 1: Unit 1: Friendship Target vocabulary: Friendship Activity: word search puzzles Procedure: -The teacher can create a paper-puzzle which is big enough to hang on the board, or she can also design it on the PowerPoint. - Students are assigned into different groups of about three or four students. - The teacher instructs students the rules and the ways to do this puzzle. - The winner is the one who is able to search the most correct words in the shortest possible time. - The teacher then shows the correct answer and gets individual group to make as many sentences as possible using the words they have just found out. - For the last two minutes, students are encouraged to utilize dictionaries. Instruction: Find and circle all of the words that are hidden in the grid and the remaining letters spell an additional word related to friendship. Page 7 ACQUAINTANCE AFFECTION AFFINITY ALLY AMIGO AMITY BOYFRIEND BUDDY CHUM CLOSENESS COMPANION COMRADE CONFIDE EMPATHY FAVOR FONDNESS FRIENDLINESS FUN GIRLFRIEND GOOD TIMES HONESTY KINSHIP LEND LOYALTY PAL ROOMMATE SHARE SUPPORTIVE SYMPATHY TRUST Page 8 The solution Page 9 Sample 2: Unit 2: Personal experiences Target vocabulary: embarrassing experiences Activity: word definition Procedure: - T brings to class a list of uncompleted words of the topic of the unit. - Students are put into pairs or groups to discover the entire word based on the equivalent definition in the opposite column. Instruction: Add two letters to any place of each word to form another word with its definition given. 1. eat large in amount, size or degree  2. cool a place where children go to be educated  3. ink believe something or have an opinion or idea  4. stunt a person who is learning at a college or university, or sometimes at school  5. art begin doing something  6. lit the brightness that comes from the sun, fire, electrical devices, etc. that allows thing to be seen  7. change give something to someone and receive something from them  8. all limited in size or amount when compared with what is typical or average  9. sit go to a place in order to look at it, or to a person in order to spend time with them  10. ring The season of the year between winter and summer  The answer: 1. Great 2. School 3. Think 4. Students 5. Start 6. Light 7. Exchange 8. Small 9. Visit 10. Spring Sample 3 : Unit 3: A party Target vocabulary: celebrations Activity: word collocation Procedure: -The teacher has students form groups. Give each groups one worksheet. - The teacher explains the activity: students work together to find the words. Page 10 [...]... CỘNG HOÀ XÃ HỘI CHỦ NGHĨA VIỆT NAM Độc lập - Tự do - Hạnh phúc  Biên hòa, ngày 09 tháng 05 năm 2015 PHIẾU NHẬN XÉT, ĐÁNH GIÁ SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM Năm học: 2014 - 2015 ––––––––––––––––– TÊN SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM Activities for Reviewing and Enriching Vocabulary Knowledge - Họ và tên tác giả: Trịnh Thị Loan - Chức vụ: Giáo viên - Đơn vị: Trường THPT Nam Hà Lĩnh vực: (Đánh dấu X vào các ô tương ứng,... GD&ĐT  Trong ngành  Xếp loại chung: Xuất sắc  Khá  Đạt  Không xếp loại  Cá nhân viết sáng kiến kinh nghiệm cam kết và chịu trách nhiệm không sao chép tài liệu của người khác hoặc sao chép lại nội dung sáng kiến kinh nghiệm cũ của mình Tổ trưởng và Thủ trưởng đơn vị xác nhận đã kiểm tra và ghi nhận sáng kiến kinh nghiệm này đã được tổ chức thực hiện tại đơn vị, được Hội đồng chuyên môn trường xem xét,... students claims their interests in English before applying these vocabulary activities The number of students claims their interests in English after applying these vocabulary activities 15 23 33 39 The suggested activities are really practical to enhance students’ vocabulary knowledge, develop their English skill abilities as well as boost their motivation and interest in learning English To some certain... suggested that the allowed time for reviewing activities should be limited in about five or six minutes I also recommend that students should be distributed vocabulary tests, which measures their vocabulary knowledge At that time, lexical consolidation is more focused by both teachers and students Due to the limitation of my teaching experience, every contribution to the vocabulary activities is highly welcomed... certain degrees, they bridge the gap between the “up there” knowledge and language in use In my observation, my students are able to remember the words longer and flexibly adapt them into their spoken speech and written form In this sense, their English ability is getting better and better in a short time Teachers’ deliberated preparations for the activities remind students about the integral part of lexical... xem xét, đánh giá; tác giả không sao chép tài liệu của người khác hoặc sao chép lại nội dung sáng kiến kinh nghiệm cũ của chính tác giả Page 20 Phiếu này được đánh dấu X đầy đủ các ô tương ứng, có ký tên xác nhận của tác giả và người có thẩm quyền, đóng dấu của đơn vị và đóng kèm vào cuối mỗi bản sáng kiến kinh nghiệm NGƯỜI THỰC HIỆN SKKN (Ký tên và ghi rõ họ tên) XÁC NHẬN CỦA TỔ CHUYÊN MÔN (Ký tên và... items, ultimately, they seriously intake those chunks of language elements However, reviewing and enriching should be done regularly and systematically, otherwise, the results may be ruined It is advisable for the teacher to clearly state the instruction before letting students do the tasks because they may get confused and maybe time passes dully Sometimes, teachers find that they cannot stay on this... Wear 5 Get 10 Say Unit 4: Volunteer work Target vocabulary: voluntary Activity: word form Procedure: -The teacher has students form pairs Give each pairs one worksheet - The teacher explains the activity, students work in pairs to find the right word form for each gap Page 11 - Students should use pencils, if possible, as answers may need to be erased and changed -The first pair to finish the task becomes... Minute Activities (8th ed.).Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Ur, P (2012) A Course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory (2nd ed.).Cambridge: CUP Website: http://www.puzzles.ca/wordsearch/friendship.html Page 18 BM04-NXĐGSKKN Sở GD&ĐT Đồng Nai Trường THPT Nam Hà CỘNG HOÀ XÃ HỘI CHỦ NGHĨA VIỆT NAM Độc lập - Tự do - Hạnh phúc  Biên hòa, ngày 09 tháng 05 năm 2015 PHIẾU NHẬN XÉT, ĐÁNH GIÁ SÁNG KIẾN... 8 Opportunity 9 Activity 10 Score 11 Attention 12 Enthusiasm Sample 7: Unit 7: World population Target vocabulary: population Activity: scrambled letters Procedure: -T prepares handouts of a jumbled letters in advance - T gets students to work in groups of three or four - T delivers the handouts and explains the rules: students have to reorder the letters to make up the right words - The winner will . Longman. Đặng Kim Anh và Đỗ Bích Hà, 2007. Rèn luyện từ vựng Tiếng anh 11. Nhà xuất bản Giáo dục. Hà Nội. Nguyễn Thùy Trang và Lương Quỳnh Trang, 2007. Thiết kế bài giảng Tiếng anh 11. Nhà xuất. ghi rõ tên bộ môn hoặc lĩnh vực khác) - Quản lý giáo dục  - Phương pháp dạy học bộ môn: Tiếng Anh - Phương pháp giáo dục  - Lĩnh vực khác: …… Sáng kiến kinh nghiệm đã được triển khai áp dụng: