AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EFFECT OF MATCHING EXERCISES ON THE 10TH FORM STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY IMPROVEMENTS AT DINH TIEN HOANG HIGH SCHOOL IN NINH BINH CITY

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES  LÊ THỊ VIỆT HÀ AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EFFECT OF MATCHING EXERCISES ON THE 10TH FORM STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY IMPROVEMENTS AT DINH TIEN HOANG HIGH SCHOOL IN NINH BINH CITY Nghiên cứu Hiệu dạng tập nối cải thiện từ vựng học sinh lớp 10, trường THPT Đinh Tiên Hồng, Tp Ninh Bình M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI - 2015 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES  LÊ THỊ VIỆT HÀ AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EFFECT OF MATCHING EXERCISES ON THE 10TH FORM STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY IMPROVEMENTS AT DINH TIEN HOANG HIGH SCHOOL IN NINH BINH CITY Nghiên cứu Hiệu dạng tập nối cải thiện từ vựng học sinh lớp 10, trường THPT Đinh Tiên Hoàng, Tp Ninh Bình M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Dr Dương Thị Nụ HANOI - 2015 DECLARATION Title: An Investigation into the Effect of Matching Exercises on the 10 th form students’ Vocabulary Improvements at Dinh Tien Hoang High School in Ninh Binh City I certify that the thesis is the result of my own research for the Degree of Master of Arts at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, and that this thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other university or tertiary institution Date submitted: Hanoi, 30 / 10 / 2015 Student Lê Thị Việt Hà i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research has been accomplished with the help and encouragement of many people to whom I would like hereafter to express my deep appreciation First and foremost, I would like to express my great attitude to my supervisor, Dr Dương Thị Nụ for her invaluable inspiration, assistance and guidance during the time I tried to complete this paper I am thankful to all lecturers and staff of the Post-Graduate Department of University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University for their scientific knowledge, guidance and enthusiasm during my course My sincere thanks go to my teachers and grade 10 students at Dinh Tien Hoang high school, Ninh Binh City for their support and participation in my research And my heartfelt thanks are due to my dear family members who are always beside me to support and encourage me to fulfill my study ii ABSTRACT This research was conducted to investigate the effect of matching exercises on grade 10 students’ vocabulary improvements Two grade 10 th classes majoring in natural sciences were selected and divided into control and experimental groups This is a quasi-experimental study which aimed at establishing the positive impacts of matching exercises on students’ vocabulary improvements in comparison with the conventional teaching and learning of vocabulary at most high schools in Ninh Binh at present In this experimental study, 43 grade 10 students applied matching exercises for a period of months in school year 2014-2015 while 43 other students belonging to the control group followed the conventional teaching and learning The subjects’ vocabulary gains were measured by a vocabulary test on lexical aspects such as word meaning, vocabulary recognition and production in different contexts Both pretest and posttest were administered in chronologic order, before and after the experimental program T-test which was employed to make a comparison between pretest and posttest scores gained by two groups demonstrated that the experimental group had made more improvements in the English vocabulary than the control group Moreover, the participants’ responses to the questionnaire also showed that most students who used matching exercises regularly found them very effective This result supported the empirical findings mentioned above and reemphasized the outstanding benefits of matching exercises to the learning and teaching L2 vocabulary at high schools in the future iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration Acknowledgements Abstract Tables of contents Lists of Abbreviations Lists of Tables, Figures i ii iii iv vii viii PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale Aims and Objectives of the Study Research Questions Scope of the Study Method of the Study 2 Significance of the Study 3 Design of the Study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER : LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 What is vocabulary? 1.2 The role of vocabulary in second language learning 5 1.3 1.5 The vocabulary techniques 1.4 Vocabulary activities and exercises 1.5 Criteria of a good vocabulary exercise 1.6 Matching exercises and the improvements of vocabulary 10 11 1.7 Summary 16 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Data collection 17 2.1.1 Pretest and posttest 2.3 17 18 2.5 2.6 Rationale for using a Quasi-experimental method 2.4 Designing and applying matching exercises 2.5 Procedures iv 19 19 20 21 2.6 Summary 23 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 Findings 23 3.1.1 The Effect of matching exercises on students’ English vocabulary 23 24 3.2 Discussions 28 3.2.1 Vocabulary gains as resulted from the application of matching exercises 28 28 3.2.2 Students’ opinions on matching exercises 28 3.3 Real problems 30 3.4 Summary 30 CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR STUDENTS’ ENGLISH VOCABULARY IMPROVEMENTS 4.1 Suggestions to improve students’ English vocabulary learning 31 4.1.1 Present new vocabulary for the first time 31 4.1.2 Establish previously learned vocabulary 31 4.1.3 Enrich previously learned vocabulary 31 4.1.4 Develop strategies of learning vocabulary 32 4.1.5 Develop fluency with known vocabulary 32 4.1.6 Guide students’ home revision 33 4.2 Recommendations for the application of matching exercises 33 4.3 Summary 35 PART C: CONCLUSION Summary of main findings Limitations of the study Suggestions for further study 37 38 38 v REFERENCES APPENDICES Appendix I: Test Scores Appendix II: Vocabulary pretest & key Appendix III: Vocabulary posttest &key Appendix IV: The Questionnaire vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS df DTH EFL ESL L1 L2 M N p SD SPSS t tcrit Degree of Freedom Dinh Tien Hoang English as Foreign Language English as Second Language First Language Second Language Means Number of Cases or Subjects of the study Probability of chance (indicator of significance) Standard Deviation Statistic Package for Social Science Obtained Value Critic Value vii PART C: CONCLUSION Summary of the main findings As a means of expressing meaning and an important tool in supporting the success of communication, vocabulary is forever a vital component that needs to be carefully taught, especially for high school learners who are only at beginning level 36 to build up background for developing their communicative competence to higher levels This thesis was aimed at investigating the effect of matching exercises on grade 10 students’ English vocabulary improvements The experiment was carried out on a group of 43 grade 10 students who were learning English as a foreign language at Dinh Tien Hoang high school, Ninh Binh City The design of the study took a pretest and posttest design as the main measure to explore the first research question set out before the experiment Also, the student’ questionnaire at the end of the experiment was to answer the second research question In this design, the control group took the conventional teaching and learning of English vocabulary as the other classes did with their textbooks at school while the experimental group applied various kinds of matching exercises to reinforce their vocabulary During this time, both groups’ vocabulary improvements were assessed by the means of tests: a pretest was given before the experiment to examine learners’ vocabulary knowledge and a posttest was given at the end of experiment to see whether matching exercises took effect on students’ vocabulary improvements In fact, the pretest and the posttest had the same content, but the pretest results were briefly compared in terms of means to make sure that both groups were at the same level Meanwhile, the posttest was carefully analyzed and necessary statistics were made to make comparison between the two groups After the experiment, the data were analyzed and the answer to the first research question was found: the means gain for the experimental class was significantly higher than that of the control class This indicated that applying matching exercises was really an effective way to help grade 10 students at DTH high school acquire vocabulary Moreover, the experimental subjects’ feedback to the questionnaire was an affirmative answer to the second research question, i.e, most experimental students had positive attitudes towards matching exercises To put it in another way, they acknowledged that they were capable of acquiring a lot of English vocabulary through matching exercises and that this type of vocabulary exercises became an effective way to fortify their vocabulary In the context of this study, it should be remembered that only words chosen by the researcher were tested It was possible that there were other acquired words were not accounted for 37 Limitations of the Study In this thesis, the results of the experiment might be tentative due to some following factors: Firstly, the research was carried out in a comparatively short period of time Actually, the study was conducted in only weeks because it was feared that if the study had taken longer time, it might have affected the syllabus Secondly, the number of the participants was only 86 and the subjects were not randomly assigned because the number of students in a class was fixed at the beginning of the school year so it was impossible to set up control group and experimental group randomly Therefore, the results found out from the research could not be highly generated Lastly, there may be some other factors influencing the subjects of the study which is out of my control such as the students’ learning motivation, learning habit, physical setting, etc Suggestions for Further Studies Since this study was just conducted on a small sample size with the experimental period of four months, it was impossible for the researcher to exploit all the effects of matching exercises on English improvements Thus, it would have been better if further researches with the effect of matching had been done on a larger sample size for a longer time Also, more studies should be carried out to consider more impacts of matching exercises on grammar or language skills Further researches should be conducted on the students at other educational establishments so that teachers would be able to employ matching exercises as an alternative way for teaching and learning English vocabulary effectively Finally, in order to bring the present study to higher reliability and validity, it should be carried out under true experimental conditions in the future REFERENCES Allen, E & Valette, R (1972) Modern Language Classroom Techniques: A Handbook, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc 38 Ben Clay (2001) A Short Guide to Writing Effective Test Questions Kansas Curriculum Center Borbás Tibor, Simon Péter (2011) International Business Communication: Background Knowledge and Practice Brown, J.D (1983) “A closer look at the cloze: Validity and Reliability” In J.W Oller, Jr (Ed.) Issues in Language Testing Research (237-250) Rowley, MA: Newbury House Decarrico, J.S (2001) Vocabulary Learning and Teaching In M.Celce-Murca (ed.), Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language (285 – 300), New York: Heinle & Heinle Folse, K S (2004) Myths about Teaching and Learning Second Language Vocabulary What recent research says, TESL Reporter, 37, 1-13 Gairns, R & Redman, S (1986) Working with words: A Guide to Teaching and Learning Vocabulary Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Haycraft, J (1978) An Introduction to English Language Teaching Harlow: Longman Learning Express (2007) Test-taking power strategies: Improve your test scores NY: Learning Express 10 Mackey, W.F (1971) Language Teaching Analysis London: Longman 11 McDonough, J & McDonough, S (1997) Research Methods for English Language Teachers London: Arnold 12 Michael McCarthy Felicity O’Dell (1999) Vocabulary in Use Cambridge: CUP 13 Mundsack, A., Deese, J., & Deese, E.K (2003) How to study and other skills for success in college (5th ed.) NY: McGraw-Hill 14 Nasr, R.T (1981) Teaching and Learning English Essex: Longman 15 Nation, I S P (1990) Teaching and Learning Vocabulary Heinle and Heinle Publishers 16 Nation, P (2001) Learning Vocabulary in Another Language New York: CUP 39 17 Nigel Mathers, Nick Fox, Amanda Hunn Surveys and Questionnaires The NIHR RDS for the East Midlands / Yorkshire & the Humber 2009 18 Nunan, D (1992), Research Methods in Language Learning Cambridge: CUP 19 Pearson (1995 – 2010) Educational Assessment of Students 20 Peter W Airasian McGraw-Hill (1996), Assessment in the Classroom 21 Rivers W.M (1981) Teaching Foreign Language Skills Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 22 Schouten-van Parreren, C (1995) Action psychology as applied to foreign language acquisition Computer Assisted Language Learning, 8, 181-204 23 Selinger, H W & Shohamy, E (1989) Second Language Research Methods Oxford: Oxford University Press 24 Thornbury, S (2004) How to Teach Vocabulary Harlow: Longman 25 Ur P (1996) A Course in Language Teaching Cambridge: CUP 26 Wallace, M (1982) Teaching Vocabulary London: Heinamann Educational Books 27 Watcyn-Jones, P (1995) Test Your Vocabulary – Book 1, 2, 3, London: Penguin Books 40 APPENDIX I TEST SCORES Control Group Case 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 Pretest 15 16 16 16 18 18 18 18 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 21 21 21 21 21 21 21 21 21 21 21 21 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 23 23 23 24 24 Posttest 16 18 18 19 19 19 21 21 21 21 21 21 21 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 24 24 24 24 24 24 24 25 26 Experimental Group Gain 2 1 3 1 1 2 2 2 1 1 1 2 2 2 1 2 2 1 1 Case 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 I Pretest 15 16 17 17 17 17 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 21 21 21 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 23 23 23 24 Posttest 19 20 21 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 24 24 24 24 24 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 26 26 26 26 27 27 28 Gain 4 6 4 4 4 4 4 5 4 5 5 5 5 4 3 3 4 4 4 APPENDIX II VOCABULARY PRE-TEST (Time allowance: 30 minutes) Part I: On the line to next to the words/ phrases in column A, place the letter of the definitions in column B Answers in Column B can be used only once A 11 chore 12 homemaker 13 breadwinner 14 groceries 15 split 16 laundry 17 heavy lifting 18 washing-up 19 equally shared parenting 20 nurture k l m n o p q r s t B the member of a family who earns the money that the family needs divide the act of washing the dishes after a meal an action that requires physical strength a person who manages the home and often raises a routine task, especially a household one clothes washing food and other goods sold at a shop or a supermarket to care for and protect somebody / something while they are growing and developing sharing housework and childcare evenly Part II: On the line next to the causes in column A, place the letter of the effects in column B Answers in column B can be used only once A 11 Nancy loved to read 12 Jim took the lid off of the hot pan 13 Sarah picked up broken glass 14 A stranger came to the door 15 Shirley forgot to fill up with gas 16 Maria ran outside without wearing shoes 17 Electricity went out k l m n o p q r 18 The fire alarm sounded 19 Kyle mowed and raked the grass s t 20 Mom made lemonade B She joined the book club He burned his hand She cut her finger The dog started barking loudly She ran out of gas She cut her foot The house was dark Every one walked out of the classroom in a quiet line The yard looked nice The kids could have something to drink Part III: On the line next to the pictures in column A, place the letter of the name of subjects in column B Answers in column B can be used only once II d History e Geography f Mathematics g Chemistry h English i Physics III j Biology k Informatics l Literature m Physical Education 10 Part IV: On the line next to each verb in Column A, place the letter of phrases in Column B to make new phrases Answers in Column B can be used only once A 11 12 take out 13 kick 14 make 15 pay B k l m n o a hand up of a visit household chores rubbish IV 16 give 17 pay 18 take 19 piece 20 lose p q r s t touch with of cake attention to a habit it easy THE END V APPENDIX III VOCABULARY POST-TEST (Time allowance: 30 minutes) Part I: On the line to next to the words/ phrases in column A, place the letter of the definitions in column B Answers in Column B can be used only once A proposal engagement wedding reception bride ceremony pursue loneliness groom 10 generous a b c d e f g h i j B a woman who is getting married or about to get married a formal party to celebrate something a man who is getting married or about to get married a ceremony at which two people are married to each other kind and ready to give more (of something) than expected a plan or suggestion; an offer of marriage a formal social or religious occasion performed in accordance with customs follow a course or activity in an effort to gain something the state of feeling sad or alone a formal agreement or promise to get married Part II: On the line next to the causes in Column A, place the letter of effects in Column B Answers in Column B can be used only once A It was raining outside The phone rang The butterfly is pretty Billy ate too many cookies All the clothes were dirty Tom was hungry It snowed outside Someone came to the door The baby began to cry 10 It is a windy day a b c d e f g h i j B The dog began to bark He got a stomach ache Sue flew her kite He ate dinner He had nothing to wear Mom gave it a bottle She answered it The girl chased it We went in the house I shoved the driveway Part III: On the line next to the pictures in column A, place the letter of the household chores in column B Answers in column B can be used only once VI a water flowers b clean the toilet c take out the rubbish d wash clothes e wash the dishes f feeding the cat VII g cooking h sweep the house i iron j shop for groceries 10 Part IV: On the line next to each verb in Column A, place the letter of phrases in Column B to make new phrases Each phrase in Column B can be used only once A be hit dress up miss / meet take sell catch a b c d e f g B a call during class late / on time for a lesson for a ceremony the roof the deadline with fire a line VIII play drop 10 cup h of tea i sight of j like hot cakes THE END IX APPENDIX IV SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE This questionnaire is designed to collect the 10th form students’ opinions on Effect of Matching Exercises on Students’ English Vocabulary Improvements The information collected from this survey will be of great value to my study In order to assure the objectiveness and information security, your names and addresses are not revealed, and the information given will be kept in confidentiality I am grateful for your goodwill and cooperation in truthfully completing the survey questionnaire Thank you very much! No Items Agree Disagree No idea Matching exercises helped me quickly enlarge my vocabulary 40 2 I preferred the exercises of matching pictures since they were easy and interesting 93% 40 4.7% 2.3% 93% 2.3% 4.7% 42 97.7% 0% 2.3% 41 2.3% 95.4% 2.3% 39 2 90.6% 40 4.7% 4.7% 93% 41 2.3% 4.7% 95.4% 0% 41 4.7% 2.3% 95.4% 2.3% 40 93% 0% 7% 40 93% 2.3% 4.7% Doing matching exercises helped me get the better retention of English vocabulary in comparison with doing other types of vocabulary exercises Doing matching exercises was really helpless and time-consuming as I did not make any progress in vocabulary learning Matching exercises made me more interested in learning English Matching phrase with phrase to make a new phrase is difficult for me Matching exercises helped me both widen my vocabulary and know how to put it into practice I found matching exercises very restricted since I had just learned little from them 10 I like doing matching exercises since they help me extend vocabulary and reinforce grammar knowledge If matching exercises were frequently maintained, my competence in using English would be much improved X ... NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES  LÊ THỊ VIỆT HÀ AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EFFECT OF MATCHING EXERCISES ON THE 10TH. .. the 10 th form students’ Vocabulary Improvements at Dinh Tien Hoang High School in Ninh Binh City I certify that the thesis is the result of my own research for the Degree of Master of Arts at. .. Effect of Matching Exercises on the 10 th form students’ Vocabulary Improvements at Dinh Tien Hoang High School in Ninh Binh City. ” Aims and Objectives of the Study The main aim of this study