skkn tiếng anh thpt MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY

MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY PART A: INTRODUCTION I Why was the research paper written? Nowadays English has become an international language, so learning English becomes more and more important English helps us not to be out of date and erase the big hole of being far from many countries all over the world If we have English, we have a key to open the door of the world and go ahead without hesitation Like any other languages, vocabulary is the basic core for learners to master It is the most important factor for all people to speak and write It is the basic element for people to communicate Without using words we can not understand what opposite people want to deliver and of course not know how to send messages to them In teaching any languages, vocabulary becomes a very necessary part that all teachers should pay attention to In this seminar on methodology, I specially and straightly focus on motivational ways of teaching vocabulary in teaching English Wilkin ( 1972) wrote that: “ …while without grammar, very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed…” (p 111- 112) This means even we not master grammar, or just hold a poor grammatical point, we can communicate; but if we not have vocabulary, we cannot express anything in many situations Thus, we all agree that vocabulary is very necessary in the process of learning and teaching English MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY However, most of students not like to learn English One of their reasons is that they can not remember the words Of course there are some lazy students who never review their lessons or learn the words after classes so they can not hold them or even there are some not want to learn English because they think it is too hard for them We, English teachers, also have to ask ourselves the questions why they are lazy or why they not want to learn All students admit that if they like the subject they will try their best to achieve good results In contrast, they will ignore it or even hate it if they feel it is a boring and odd thing to pay the attention As an English teacher in a remote and mountainous area, I really hope that the result of this subject will be higher and higher I have tried to apply many ways to help my students love English by showing them how important English is and learning English is very interesting The first thing of all is helping them learn vocabulary with motivational ways in order that they can master the most important factor of English and also the base to approach skills like reading, speaking, listening and writing II What is the actual situation of teaching and learning English?, and who is the study for? Most students know that English plays an important role in life and also in their study because they have to take the tests which all school to estimate their quantification to let them move higher or not Of course there are many students want to achieve English but that is not very easy for them because they not realize the interest in learning They think English is a huge pile and complex chain of knowledge and sometimes, a boring subject MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY Besides, many teachers not access the new ways of teaching They follow the traditional teaching methods and hold students in a hole which is called “ passive” They just take all from the text books and have no ideas to make their lessons more interesting and help students understand the lessons easily What students should is that just sitting, listening, doing some exercises in the textbook and may be having a valuable chance to be invited to stand up and say some comments That is one of the reasons why students consider English so boring, complex and too difficult to learn Therefore, they fail from the first step: learning vocabulary So, in my opinion, this research will help me as well as other teachers have some new interesting ways of teaching which motivate the students to learn vocabulary III How is the research paper organized? This research paper has four parts: Part A: Introduction Part B: Development of motivating students to learn vocabulary by using songs and writing journals Part C: Demonstration of some typical examples teaching vocabulary by using songs and writing journals Part D: The results and the effect of the study application Part E: Conclusion MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY Although I gave a lot of effort as well as much time to write this research paper, I really know that there are something wrong and I can hardly find them myself I will frankly appreciate criticisms and suggestions from the respectable professors, the fellow-teachers, the readers to whom I will be much grateful if they take the troubles to correct me constructively and help me have a better research paper for the next time MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY PART B: DEVELOPMENT OF MOTIVATIONAL WAYS TO TEACH VOCABULARY I Theoretical background motivational ways of teaching vocabulary Definition of vocabulary MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY In this research, I am going to focus on motivational ways of teaching vocabulary, so first of all, I want to define what vocabulary is You may think that vocabulary is the words of a language, which is how most people define vocabulary, and that is correct because vocabulary does deal with words Yet vocabulary is much more than just a single words Recent vocabulary studies draw on an understanding of lexis, which in English, refer to all the words in language, the entire vocabulary of a language “ (Barcroft, Sunderman, & Schmitt, 2001, p 571) So it will probably not surprise to say that vocabulary also includes lexical chunks, phrases of two or more words, such as Good morning and Nice to meet you, which research suggests children and adults learn as single lexical units Phrases like these involve more than one word but have clear, formulaic usage and make up a significant portion of spoken or written English language usage Also called formulaic sequences ( Alali & Schimitt, 2012), they are central to English vocabulary learning and therefore worth teachers’ attention as we teach vocabulary So vocabulary can be defined as the words of a language, including single items and phrases or chunks of several words which convey a particular meaning, the way individual words Vocabulary addresses single lexical items- words with special meanings- but it also includes lexical phrases or chunks The importance of vocabulary MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY In order to progress in a foreign language, students need to be able to understand what they are hearing and reading That is, the input must be comprehensible in order for it to be useful and meaningful to the students and help with acquisition (Krashen, 1982), but if students not understand a sizable portion of the vocabulary in the language that they are reading or hearing, then this language is not comprehensible and therefore cannot be useful for acquisition Many argue that vocabulary is one of the most important-if not the most important components in learning a foreign language, and foreign language curricula must reflect this In general, without vocabulary, people can hardly communicate with each other Much more than grammar, vocabulary is the key for students to receive and send messages in communication And , it is also the best friend for students to get high marks in their tests and examinations So we can see clearly that vocabulary is very important in the process of teaching and learning English What we should is to help students have best ways which are suitable to them to learn vocabulary and besides, teach them vocabulary in interesting methods Definition of motivation MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY Motivation has been defined in various ways and by different authors Gareth Jones, Jennifer George and Charles Hill (2000: 427) define motivation as “psychological forces that determine the direction of a person’s behaviour [ ], a person’s level of effort, and a person’s level of persistence in the face of obstacles” David Myers (1996: 297) defines motivation as “a need or desire that serves to energize behaviour and to direct it towards a goal.” Frank Hawkins (1993: 132-133) defines it as “what drives or induces a person to behave in a particular fashion [ ] the internal force which initiates, directs, sustains and terminates all important activities It influences the level of performance, the efficiency achieved and the time spent on an activity.” All of the definitions refer to stimuli that trigger the motivational process Hawkins identifies also the properties of motivation such as it being an internal process with different roles in influencing behaviours (such as directing, initiating, sustaining or terminating it), and with different degrees of expression at the level of intensity, quality and speed in which the behaviour is carried out All of the above definitions are true, one could even summarize and create a general definition saying that motivation is what drives us to perform an action MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY However, in this thesis one should also distinguish one more definition, concerning the foreign language learning process Kyösti Julkunen (in 2001: 29) claims that “in the classroom context, motivation can be seen as a continuous interaction process between the learner and the environment [ ] Its main role is in controlling and directing an activity [ ], coordinating various operations towards an object or goal, motivation transforms a number of separate reactions into significant action Learners build object-directed means-end structures [ ].” Motivation is vital in language learning process because it determines whether the action of foreign language acquisition is undertaken by the learner and to what extent he is ready to continue this intelectual effort This is the reason why so many scientists and researchers have devoted such a great deal of attention to motivation Moreover, there are many ways that we can use to motivate the students to learn vocabulary but here, I just mention to the most effective ones: using songs and writing journals II Using songs and writing journal in teaching vocabulary Using songs to motivate the students to learn vocabulary 1.1 Why songs are used as a motivational way of teaching vocabulary? MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY Jeremy Harmer (2001: 242-45) names music “a powerful stimulus” for language learning He classifies the song as one of the tools for teaching vocabulary It is a versatile technique, as it enables the teacher to present the words graphically (printed song lyrics), verbally (listening to the song) and contextually (song lyrics) at the same time The song can change the students’ mood and it can positively influence their motivation for vocabulary learning As Harmer (2001:242) states, “it can make a satisfactory connection between the world of leisure and the world of learning.” Students memorize vocabulary more willingly that is linked to real life situations, their own experience and interests, so they remember it for a longer period of time if not for a lifetime Of course, the song can also be used for practicing correct pronunciation, accent and intonation, as well as the grammar structures Some scientists, like Dee Dickinson (1993) or Robert Zatorre (in Jensen 1998: 35-36), support the thesis that the influence of music on both hemispheres of the brain is undeniable, thus the text combined with music has probably better effect on the students’ minds and their language acquisition process than the text alone Some experiments have been taken in the field of vocabulary acquisition through the song Suzanne Medina (1993: 1-8) conducted an experiment on elementary school There were four experimental groups The first one listened to the spoken version of the story with the pictures used to illustrate the main ideas of the story, the second group also listened to the spoken version of the story but without illustrations The third group listened to the sung version of the story with the illustrations shown and the fourth group listened to the sung version of the story without pictures 10 MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY 33 MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY 34 MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY 35 MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY 36 MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY PART D: THE RESULTS AND THE EFFECT OF THE STUDY APPLICATION After using these techniques of English teaching, I collected considerable results from the two surveys which I fulfilled in the classes as follows: I Collecting students’ opinions about being taught by using songs: A short interview was conducted to find out the attitude and opinions of students towards the use of songs to teach vocabulary The interview was carried out among all the students of all levels I collected some responses to the questions below: Question 1: What are the effects songs on you in learning vocabulary? Question 2: What are the difficulties in learning vocabulary with songs? Question 3: Do you want to learn vocabulary with songs? Here are the students’ responses to the three questions: Question 1: With this question, there were different answers But most of students said that they loved this way of learning vocabulary Many of them agreed that they could remember the words in a long period of time and also knew how to pronounce them correctly It was one of very interesting ways for them to learn vocabulary- thing that had seemed too boring to them before Question 2: For the next question, some students just said “ no” But, still, some answered frankly that sometimes that they did not really like the songs Some added, they were not very eager with the songs because they did not know some words’ meaning 37 MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY Question 3: The last question was to check if students wanted to learn vocabulary with songs and if I could maintain the way I have taught And the answer was very pleasing Most of my students said that they liked this way a lot And they also wanted to learn more vocabulary with this way What the teacher need is just to find out the suitable songs to help students learn vocabulary more effectively From the interview, I knew that my method of using songs to teach had the full support of many students I taught at a remote and mountainous school II Collecting students’ opinions about learning vocabulary with journal writing: In this part, I use a questionnaire to find out my students’ opinions and that if they want to write journals or not The aim is to find if this kind of writing has any effect on developing my students’ vocabulary I deliver the questionnaire to my students and ask them to answer simply by circle the answer they choose Moreover, they not have to write down their names if they not like to make sure that their responses would be anonymous * The content of the questionnaire: Please read the question carefully and circle your answers: Question 1: According to you, writing journals is……………? A Very interesting B Interesting C Just like other tasks D Boring 38 MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY Question 2: From your point of view, what are the purposes of journal writing ? (You can choose more than one) A To consolidate what you have learned in class B To have a close relationship with your teacher C To try expressing yourself directly in English without translation D To have a variety of ideas for other activities E To see how fast and easily you can write (to explore your ability) F To help improve other skills, especially speaking Question 3: How much time you often spend writing journals everyday? A About 10-15 minutes B About 15-30 minutes C About 30-60 minutes D More than 60 minutes Question 4: How many words you use to write your journals ? A About 100 words B About 150 words C About 200 words D More than 200 words Question 5: What are the topics that you usually write about in your journals ? A Memories B Difficulties in learning C Family D Daily activities Question 6: Who you want your journals to be read ? A Friends B Teacher 39 MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY Question 7: Do you want your teacher to correct your mistakes when reading your journals ? A Yes B No And the answer I collect shows the result as followed: Question 1: According to you, writing journals is……………? For the first question, 70 out of 145 students choose that witting journals is very interesting 24 of them agree that it is an interesting task 51 of them circle the answer: just like other tasks Question 2: From your point of view, what are the purposes of journal writing ? (You can choose more than one) 82 students choose that they write journals to consolidate what they have just learnt from the class And they also add that they want to have a good relationship with their teacher They want her/ him to understand them more, what they are weak and what they are strong then help them to get the better result 16 students want to confirm their ability by writing They want to get the gift from teacher for the good journals every week That is one of their motivation to try to write Question 3: How much time you often spend writing journals everyday ? 98 students answer that they spend about 10- 15 minutes each day for each entry The rest circle the answer about 15- 30 minutes Question 4: How many words you use to write journals ? 40 MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY For this question, most of my students choose the option A ( 128 out of 145) and the left choose option B Question 5: What are the topics that you usually write about in your journals? For the fifth question, 62 students choose option A: memories 57 students write about their daily activities 33 students want to express about their difficulty in learning while just students like to talk about their families Question 6: Who you want your journals to be read ? 143 students choose they ant their teacher to read their works students want to give their writing to their friends Question 7: Do you want your teacher to correct your mistakes when reading your journals ? 41 MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY Most of my students’ answer is: no but there are some want to be given where they need to improve by teacher In short, through the two parts of getting students’ opinions – asking questions directly and delivering the questionnaire - I believe that students love to learn vocabulary with those ways: using songs and writing journals III Using statistics of students’ studying result I met some difficulties in approaching those new things for teaching students Most of the students know almost nothing about English because most of them come from the schools very far from the centre, many including ethnic minority ones come from remote villages, they have no condition to learn Their knowledge gradually disappears without the teacher’s enthusiastic help Moreover, many students graduating from secondary school to high school have the wrong pronunciation and even wrong main knowledge about basic tenses… because of many different reasons We were put in a very difficult problem because we need to help them both to gain the basic knowledge and get lessons from the textbook Finding out that vocabulary is one of the most important factor, I have applied those ways of teaching and hope that they will help my students better in their learning For many years applying those methods, I got very happy results even my students just got a little higher than what they had got before In this research, I just mention to the result in this year, from the first 45 minute test to the third one The first 45 minute test: Grade Class Students (Total) Poor Weak Average Good Excellent Over average 42 MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY A2 A3 A7 A11 10 34 32 38 35 10 15 17 24 22 14 10 0 0 0 16 11 And for a period of time applying those methods: Grade 10 Class Students A2 A3 A7 A11 (Total) 34 32 38 35 Poor Weak 14 21 20 Average 23 13 12 Good Excellent 0 0 0 Above is the comparison of students’ learning result in the first 45 minute test done at the beginning of the academic year and the third one in the second-term test Obviously there is a noticeable difference between the results of before and after using songs and journal writing in teaching vocabulary Based on the above statistics and explanations, the achievement in the experimental class indicated that teaching English using songs and journal writing was effective Nevertheless, there were still many students who get low marks I think that they are really not interested in English and it is difficult for them to learn Sometimes, I had a chat with them to discuss about how to learn effectively at home Besides, I think that their family has a very large responsibility for their children’ studying So teachers need to inform students’ parents about their results if necessary and ask them to join hands with us to help their children, our students, better and better 43 Over average 28 16 12 MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY PART E: CONCLUSION As English becomes more and more important those days, especially when Vietnam joined the World Trade Organization, English should be known and used effectively in our country, as a second language As teachers at high schools, we should help students realize the importance of English in both their learning and their life after graduating from their schools As mentioned above, vocabulary is one of the factor that we need to focus And, using songs, journal writing are good ways if we know how to use them effectively They are the new methods for us- teachers- to apply, to make an interesting atmosphere for our beloved students to learn better We should remember not to use the old methods of teaching in our lessons days by days, maybe they make our students feel boring and hate learning English- a very interesting subject Contributions of the study As expected, the study did bring a review on the application of using songs and journal writing to motivate students to learn vocabulary better It is certain that the study is also a reference for those who want to research on using songs, journal writing to teach vocabulary for students interestingly Suggestions Based on the study, I can put forward some suggestions below: First, to teach vocabulary effectively, teachers need to have a good knowledge about it It means, teachers themselves need to learn more and more to get a wide knowledge to teach students Second, with using songs, teachers should choose the songs carefully to suit to students and make them eager to learn of course, teachers should check 44 MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY the vocabulary at next lesson because some students who are lazy will not review what they have just learnt in class Third, with journal writing, teachers should give students gifts if they have the most interesting diary at the end of the week Maybe they just receive a pencil or a notebook or an eraser, they are very happy and feel proud of their study Besides, teachers should give feedback to every students, if not, they think that they are ignored and not want to try to continue writing The last but not the least, all the teachers themselves should be equipped with advanced training courses in teaching language in the country and outside the country if possible This research paper is what I have tried in order that students can have better result in learning English, especially in the remote and mountainous schools as mine I hope that my little knowledge can be helpful and these methods will be used by a large number of English teachers not only at high schools but also at secondary schools The follow- up school years, I will try to search for many new techniques to motive students to learn English more effectively and interestingly 45 MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY REFERENCES Harmer J (1998), How to teach English, Mateu Cromo, S A PINTO, Spain Michael Lessard – Clouston ( 2013), Teaching vocabulary, TESOL international Association, USA Peyton, J K and L Reed (1990), Dialogue journal writing with non- native English speakers, Alexandria VA Motivation- raising role of song in teaching vocabulary in a teenage classroom from http: // www.motivation.com The underestimated of vocabulary in the foreign language classroom from http: // www.seasite.niu.edu 46 MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY TABLE OF CONTENT PART A: INTRODUCTION PART B: DEVELOPMENT OF MOTIVATIONAL WAYS TO TEACH VOCABULARY PART C: DEMONSTRATION 20 PART D: THE RESULTS AND THE EFFECT OF THE STUDY APPLICATION 37 REFERENCES 46 47 ... MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY PART B: DEVELOPMENT OF MOTIVATIONAL WAYS TO TEACH VOCABULARY I Theoretical background motivational ways of teaching vocabulary Definition of vocabulary MOTIVATIONAL. .. the ways teachers give feedback and the way students write their journals everyday 27 MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY 28 MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY 29 MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF. .. journal in teaching vocabulary Using songs to motivate the students to learn vocabulary 1.1 Why songs are used as a motivational way of teaching vocabulary? MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY