An application of semantic mapping in teaching English vocabulary for students of food processing at Nghe An trading and tourism vocational college

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY NGUYEN THI LAN PHUONG AN APPLICATION OF SEMANTIC MAPPING IN TEACHING ENGLISH VOCABULARY FOR STUDENTS OF FOOD PROCESSING AT NGHE AN TRADING AND TOURISM VOCATIONAL COLLEGE MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION Nghệ An, năm 2014 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY NGUYEN THI LAN PHUONG AN APPLICATION OF SEMANTIC MAPPING IN TEACHING ENGLISH VOCABULARY FOR STUDENTS OF FOOD PROCESSING AT NGHE AN TRADING AND TOURISM VOCATIONAL COLLEGE Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Code: 60140111 MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION SUPERVISOR:: TRAN BA TIEN, Ph.D Nghệ An- 2014 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I certify that the thesis entitled “An application of semantic mapping in teaching English vocabulary for students of Food Processing at Nghe An Trading and Tourism vocational college" is the result of my own work, and that the minor thesis or any part of the same has not been submitted to any university or institution. Vinh, August 2014 Author’s signature Nguyen Thi Lan Phuong i ACKNOWLDGEMENTS The thesis could not have been completed without the help of many people to whom I am indebted. I would like to thank Dr. Tran Ba Tien, who commented on my work, for his kind help and valuable advice he provides me. I am also grateful to the head of Foreign Language Department at Nghe An Tourism-Trading Vocational College, my colleagues and students of K18B5 and K18B6 who helped me much to finish the methodology of the research. I wish to thank my parents and my loved family who love, care, support and encourage me a lot in the production of this study. Finally, I am too aware that despite all the advice and assistance, I feel that the thesis is far from perfect, it is therefore, my sole responsibilities for any inadequacies that it may be considered to have. ii ABSTRACT At Nghe An Trading and Tourism vocational college, when students learn English, they usually face with many difficulties not only in specific language skills but also in vocabulary. Semantic mapping is considered as a good strategy be applied in teaching of vocabulary. Based on literature review, it is found that semantic mapping has had good effects on vocabulary learning; especially it improves the retention and retrieval of word meanings. This study was conducted to explore the students’ vocabulary performance under the treatment of semantic mapping and their reflections on the teacher’s application of this method. This experimental study followed a two-group pre-test and post-test design. The participants were 87 freshmen of Food processing students at At Nghe An Trading and Tourism vocational college. Three instruments: (1) the tests on vocabulary knowledge, (2) the questionnaire on the students’ perceptions towards semantic mapping, and (3) the interview on the students’ reflections towards semantic mapping were employed to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i Vinh, August 2014 i Author’s signature i ACKNOWLDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 LIST OF ABBRIVIATIONS 5 LIST OF TABLES 5 LIST OF FIGURES 8 LIST OF CHARTS 9 Chapter 1 10 INTRODUCTION 10 1.1. Rationale 10 1.2. Aims of the study 12 1.3. Research questions 13 1.4. Significance of the study 13 1.5. Organization of the study 13 Chapter 2 15 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 15 2.1. What is vocabulary? 15 2.2. The importance of vocabulary 16 2.3. Approaches to teaching vocabulary 17 2.3.1. General traditional methods 17 2.3.1.1. The grammar-translation method 17 2.3.1.2. The direct method 17 2.3.1.3. The audio-lingual method 18 2.3.2. Communicative approach to teaching vocabulary 18 1 2.4. Semantic mapping 22 2.4.1. Definitions of semantic mapping 22 2.4.2. A typology of semantic mapping 24 2.4.2.2. Story mapping 26 2.4.2.3. Concept mapping 28 2.4.3. The use of semantic mapping in empirical research 30 2.4.3.2. Stage to use 33 2.4.3.3. Way to use 34 2.5. The roles of semantic mapping in EFL classrooms 36 2.5.1. Improvement in success and rate of foreign language acquisition 36 2.5.2. Improvement in attitudes towards foreign language acquisition 37 2.6. Implications for English vocabulary teaching practices 38 2.6.1. Stage 1: Introduction 39 2.6.2. Stage 2: Brainstorm 39 2.6.3. Stage 3: Categorization 39 2.6.4. Stage 4: Synthesis 40 2.7. Summary 40 Chapter 3 41 METHODOLOGY 41 3.1. Study setting 41 3.2. Participants 41 3.2.1. The Control Group 42 3.2.2. The Experimental Group 42 3.2.3. Resemblance 42 3.3. Data types of methods of data collection 43 3.3.1. Experiment 43 3.3.1.1. Pre-test 44 2 3.3.1.2. Experimental teaching process 44 3.3.1.3. Post-test 46 3.3.2. Interview 46 3.3.3. Questionnaire 47 3.4. Analytical framework 48 3.4.1. Quantitative analysis of pre- and post-tests 48 3.4.2. Qualitative analysis of interview 49 3.4.3. Quantitative analysis of questionnaire 49 Chapter 4 49 DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 49 4.1. Results from the experiment 50 4.1.1. Pre-test results 50 4.1.1.1. The Control Group 50 4.1.1.2. The Experimental Group 50 4.1.1.3. Pre-test similarities 51 4.1.2. Post-test results 52 4.1.2.1. The Control Group 52 4.1.2.2. The Experimental Group 52 4.1.2.3. Post-test differences 53 4.1.3. A comparison of pre- and post-test results for each group 54 4.1.3.1. Means 54 4.1.3.2. Distribution of score types 55 4.2. Results from interviews and questionnaires 56 4.2.1. About the role of vocabulary and the application of semantic mapping in its teaching 57 4.2.1.1. The students’ preference for the approach to teach vocabulary.57 4.2.1.2. The students’ impression on semantic mapping 58 3 4.2.1.3. The students’ reflections on the teacher’s application of semantic mapping 59 Promoting group-work competence 64 The constraints of semantic mapping 65 4.2.1.4. The students’ opinions for the frequency of using semantic mapping 66 4.3. Discussion 67 4.4. Overall summary 68 Chapter 5 69 CONCLUSION 69 5.1. Conclusions 69 5.2. Recommendations for English language practitioners 71 5.2.1. For teachers 71 5.2.2. For students 72 5.3. Suggestions for further research 72 5.4. Summary 73 REFERENCES 74 APPENDIX A 79 APPENDIX B 83 APPENDIX C 86 APPENDIX D 88 APPENDIX E 88 APPENDIX F 93 4 LIST OF ABBRIVIATIONS EFL: English as a foreign language P: Participant Q: Question S.M.: Semantic mapping W.L: word list %: Percent LIST OF TABLES 5 Table 3.1: The Control Group’s background information 42 Table 3.2: The Experimental Group’s background information 42 Table 4.1: Pre-test score analysis for Control Group 50 Table 4.2: Pre-test score analysis for Experimental Group 51 Table 4.3: Post-test score analysis for Control Group 52 Table 4.4: Post-test score analysis for Experimental Group 53 Table 4.5: Approaches to teach vocabulary that the students’ former teachers used 57 Table 4.6: How the students found semantic mapping 58 Table 4.7: Students’ responses to the effect of S.M. on creating motivation 59 Table 4.8: Students’ responses to the effect of S.M. on stimulating the vocabulary learning process 61 Table 4.9: Students’ responses to the effect of S.M. on facilitating the vocabulary learning process 62 Table 4.10: Various strengths realized by the students 63 Table 4.11 shows the Students’ responses to the effect of S.M on promoting group- work competence. 64 Table 4.11: Students’ responses to the effect of S.M. on promoting group-work competence 65 Table 4.12: Students’ responses to the constraints of S.M 65 The report findings of Omar’s study indicate that utilizing semantic mapping in vocabulary instruction enhances word learning and vocabulary retention for the students and it it is more effective than employing the traditional vocabulary teaching. 69 The report findings of Ngoc Thuy’s study show that the students had positive attitudes towards this method. The semantic mapping can improve high school students’ vocabulary retention and is promising to vocabulary teaching and learning 69 6 [...]... the unanimity in confirming the original ability of semantic mapping to create the association in knowledge Semantic mapping, as a strategy, is a creative capitalization of mentalist viewpoint in which “language is a specific behavior and certain modes of perceptions, categorizing, and language-related mechanisms are biologically determined” (Brown, 1980, p 22) Accordingly, it can link and integrate... names, including notional-functional, teaching for proficiency, proficiency-based instruction, and communicative language teaching Communicative Approach is aimed at training students' listening and speaking, so it relatively ignores the training of reading and writing The ability of writing and reading is quite important for an intellectual to enter universities, study abroad, read plenty of original books,... the most suitable method in each case 21 Semantic mapping is one of technique of teaching vocabulary in communicative method The teaching and learning of vocabulary have not been effective up till now in Vietnam due to the limitative application of strategies Therefore, an exploration of one of them – semantic mapping – is necessary 2.4 Semantic mapping To know how to apply it into practice effectively... significance, and structure Chapter 2 reviews relevant theories of vocabulary and semantic mapping which are organized along five main categories: definition, typology, use in empirical research, roles in language pedagogy, and implications for language teaching practices Chapter 3 justifies the design and methods of investigation by taking the four features of setting, participants, data types of methods... knowledge of words and word meanings (Lehr et al., 2004) According to Lehr and his colleagues, vocabulary is more complex than this definition suggests First, words come not only in oral forms including those words that can be recognized and used in listening and speaking but also in print forms to be recognized and used in reading and writing 15 Second, word knowledge also comes in two forms: receptive and. .. communication as stating that “one cannot speak, understand, read or write a foreign language without knowing a lot of words Vocabulary learning is at the heart of mastering a foreign language” Nguyen and Khuat (2003) also accepted that vocabulary knowledge plays an important role in learning a foreign language Vocabulary is one element that links the four skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing all... the treatment of semantic mapping? 2 What are their reflections on the teacher’s application of this strategy into their learning of vocabulary? 1.4 Significance of the study The study pays its contributions to both theoretical and practical aspects Theoretically, by exploring semantic mapping, the study adds to the growing demand of strategies for learning and memorizing words for English language... appearance of studies which suggest some interesting and efficient strategies for teaching and retrieving vocabulary, such as the investigation of teaching vocabulary through games (Nguyen & Khuat, 2003; Nguyen, 2006) and the exploration of creative approaches to build vocabulary (Hoang & Wright, 2005), none have exploited the strategies which can create mental linkages to reinforce the memorization of. .. models of real objects are very effective and meaningful in hawing meanings but in handling of real objects, a teacher must be practical and should not be superfluous • Using pictures and drawings Pictures of many types and colors can be used successfully to show the meaning of words and sentence Handmade pictures can also be used as there is no need to be very artistic 19 Drawings can be used to explain... the form Thus an understanding of semantic mapping needs to include these two aspects 2.4.2 A typology of semantic mapping According to Buis (2004), semantic mapping “can take a number of different forms – chart, boxes, outlines, webs, mappings, clusters, networks, graphic organizers – depending on the key words and genre of the text study” Also for this researcher, even the types for each form are indefinite . MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY NGUYEN THI LAN PHUONG AN APPLICATION OF SEMANTIC MAPPING IN TEACHING ENGLISH VOCABULARY FOR STUDENTS OF FOOD PROCESSING AT NGHE AN TRADING. TRADING AND TOURISM VOCATIONAL COLLEGE MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION Nghệ An, năm 2014 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY NGUYEN THI LAN PHUONG AN APPLICATION OF SEMANTIC MAPPING IN TEACHING. SEMANTIC MAPPING IN TEACHING ENGLISH VOCABULARY FOR STUDENTS OF FOOD PROCESSING AT NGHE AN TRADING AND TOURISM VOCATIONAL COLLEGE Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Code: