The methods of teaching and learning english vocabulary

As a teacher of English at Quang Xuong 4 high school in recent years, I fully understand and sympathize with the difficulties my students often encounter in the learning of English vocab

TABLE CONTENT

A INTRODUCTION

I Resons for choosing the topic

II Aims of the study

III Scope and research methodology

B MAIN CONTENT

I Theoretical backgroud

II Practical background

III Methods for implementation

C RESULT AFTER APPLYING THE STUDY

D CONCLUSION

E REFERENCE BOOKS

A INTRODUCTION:

I REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE TOPIC

English is widely used as an international language and it is considered the second language of all countries in the world Thanks to the English that people around the world know and understand each other English is one of the languages that have rich vocabulary, so students and people who use it do not encounter difficulties Vocabulary is one of the most important parts of language learning, in any case: listening, speaking, reading or writing we also need a relatively large vocabulary Unlike the learning of grammar, which is essentially a rule based system, vocabulary knowledge is largely a question of accumulating individual items In fact, students are "afraid" to learn new words, the use of words is limited: misspelling, using the word incorrect, inconsistent with context Most of the students have a habit of memorizing the meaning of words

All the above is because the students do not find themselves appropriate methods

to learn vocabulary As a teacher of English at Quang Xuong 4 high school in recent years, I fully understand and sympathize with the difficulties my students often encounter in the learning of English vocabulary Somehow I want to help them overcome these difficulties That is the reason for which I choose this topic

I have applied these methods in teaching and learning English at Quang Xuong 4 high school, especially for 11th grade students in school year 2017-2018 and got satisfactory results I, therefore, would like to share my own experience in this study

II AIMS OF THE STUDY.

In the suggestion of some methods of teaching and learning English vocabulary

III SCOPE AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.

- Scope: Researching in the process of teaching English at Quang Xuong 4 high

school

- Research methodology: making survey, reading reference books, applying in

teaching, observing and drawing out experiences

B MAIN CONTENT.

I THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Principles of learning and teaching vocabulary:

However many theories about vocabulary learning process were written , it still remains the matter of memory Thus, there are several general principles for successful teaching , which are valid for any method According to Wallace, 1988 the principles are:

+ Aim – what is to be taught, which words, how many

+ Need – target vocabulary should respond students’ real needs and interests

+ Frequent exposure and repetition

+ Meaningful presentation – clear and unambiguous denotation or reference should

be assured

Learning vocabulary is a complex process The students’ aim to be reached in learning vocabulary process is primarily their ability to recall the word at will and

to recognize it in its spoken and written form Generally, knowing a word involves knowing its form and its meaning at the basic level In deeper aspects it means the abilities to know its (Harmer 1993):

1-Meaning, i.e relate the word to an appropriate object or context

2-Usage, i.e knowledge of its collocations, metaphors and idioms, as well as style and register (the appropriate level of formality), to be aware of any connotations and associations the word might have

3-Word formation, i.e ability to spell and pronounce the word correctly, to know any derivations (acceptable prefixes and suffixes)

4-Grammar, i.e to use it in the appropriate grammatical form

II PRACTICAL BACKGROUND

1 The views of teachers and students.

Teachers:

Most teachers are subjective and less attentive to explore how students learn the vocabulary, the majority of teachers only briefly examine students through their reading or writing the words This leads to a remain problem, students only learn the vocabulary to cope with the situations

Students :

The majority of students when are asked whether they enjoy learning English or not? The answer is yes, however, the big problem that they often meet is how to learn vocabulary effectively Because they find that learning English vocabulary is difficult and takes more time to remember, so most students are lazy and afraid to learn

III METHODS FOR IMPLEMENTATION

1 Learning word families:

A word family is the base form of a word plus its inflected forms and derived forms made from affixes In the English language, inflectional affixes include third person -s, -ed, -ing, plural -s, possessive -s, comparative -er and superlative -est Derivational affixes include able, er, ish, less, ly, ness, th, y, non, un, al, -ation, -ess, -ful, -ism, -ist, -ity, -ize, -ment, in- The idea is that a base word and its inflected forms support the same core meaning, and can be considered learned words if a learner knows both the base word and the affix

Learning word families helps beginning learners to analyze and decode words As learners know some of the basic word building patterns of English, particularly plural, past tense, present tense, stem+ing, stem+ed, possessive, it is more sensible

to count word families than to count word types

For example:

Employ Happy Success

UNIT 4: VOLUNTEER WORK, PART A: READING (English 11)

Task 1 The word volunteer appears in the passage in different parts of speech Use

an appopriate form of the word volunteer to complete ech of the following

sentences

+Teacher elicits different parts of speech of the word “volunteer” and writes these

words on the board

+Instructs students to read through the sentences provided in the task to identify the part of speech of the word to fill in each blank

+Reminds students to pay attention to the word preceding and following the blank

to fill in the right form of the word

1-When she retired, she did a lot of ……… service for the Red Cross

2-She was not fired She left the company ………

3-She needs some ……… to cleen up the kitchen

4-Last month the company ……… to donate fifty trucks to help the flooded areas

Answer keys:

1 voluntary 2 voluntarily

3 volunteers 4 volunteered

Furthermore, an understanding of word families allows either the form or the meaning of unfamiliar words to be guessed with some confidence For example,

students can guess that someone using a skate-board is a skate-boarder It is easy

to remember

2 Using synonyms and antonyms.

Students can explore and recall the words they have learned before by giving the synonyms and antonyms of the words

In the class, the teacher or one student of each group gives a word or phrases and asks the other students to give their synonyms or antonyms This activity can be conducted as a game with two groups of students The winner should be awarded prizes, which certainly encourages students

At home, students will rewrite the words they have learnt in the class on their vocabulary notebooks This method is the useful way to inculcate the words For example:

UNIT 1: FRIENDSHIP, English 11.

- Teacher asks students to work in pairs and do the Task.

Match each word with the best synonyms

1 affair a honest

2 constancy b busines

3 pursuit c whisper

4 rumour d hobby, pastime

5 sincere e.fidelity

3 Learning collocations:

Collocations are combinations of words that are commonly used together like

absolutely fantastic, educational development, object to, give up, the rich and famous, at once, in a minute, the United States of America.

Collocation forms:

+ Adj + noun

+ Verb + noun

+ Noun + verb

+ Adv + adj

+ Verb + adverb/ prepositional phrase

+ Noun + noun

+ Phrasal verbs

The best way to learn English collocations is to find the most frequently used words in the English language, write these collocations (they should be devided into topics so that it is easy to remember) on notebooks and study the most frequently used collocations with those words

Learning collocations helps students use the language fluently, and they are easy to identify and understand the exact meaning of the word in different concrete context

For example:

UNIT 10: NATURE IN DANGER, PART A: READING (English 11)

Read the passage and complete the following table

The human race is only once small species in the living world Many other species exist on this planet However, human beings have a great influence on the rest of the world They are changing the environment by building cities and villages where forests once stood They are affecting the water supply by using water for industry and agriculture They are changing weather conditions by cutting down trees in the forests And they are destroying the air by adding pollutants to it.

It can be said that human beings are changing the invironment in all respects through their actions and by their habits This has resulted in two serious consequences The first is that many kinds of rare animals are killed The second is that the environment where these animals are living is badly destroyed As a result, the number of rare animals is decreasing so rapidly that they are in danger of becoming extinct.

Topic: Nature In Danger

only once small species in the living world

4 Miming:

Especially for actions, we can act out a word to demonstrate its meaning For

example, when teaching the words blow, laugh, smile, cough, pain, have a

headache/ toothache, kick or shoot, jump, etc

To check that students understand the words correctly, teacher writes the words on cards and asks some students to act out in front of the class, the other students have

to say the word This engages students in their learning

5 Giving examples.

After learning the words in class teachers guide students to make simple sentences with those words at home From which students can remember words and phrases

in a simple way and they can use the words correctly

For example:

floppy glance embrace Students can give examples as follows:

I like this floppy hat

He glances at his watch

She embraced her son warmly

6 Using pictures.

Using appropriate photographs, prints, pictures or paintings to introduce the new words is one of the meaningful way that helps students understand and remember the words quickly

For example:

A floppy cotton hat (Unit 2: PERSONAL EXPERIENCES _ Reading, English 11)

A wad of dollar notes (Unit 2: PERSONAL EXPERIENCES _ Reading, English 11)

A roast turkey (Unit 8: CELEBRATIONS _ Speaking, English 11)

A sailboat (Unit 11: SOURCES OF ENERGY _ Reading, English 11)

7.Using drawing to visualize, understand and picture vocabulary:

Drawing pictures is a brain compatible aid to learning new vocabulary In foreign language classes, the picture can represent both the meaning and the pronunciation

Teacher guides students to draw what comes to their mind about the given word Students can create their own set of pictorial vocabulary words or create one and

present that word to the class This method is easy to study Students can either

drawing or learning, which helps them understand and inculcate the words in their mind

For example:

Body parts such as Animals such as

 eye

Emotions such as Things such as

 happy  a bike

Caution:  dangerous

8 Learning logically, beginning with the last letter of the previous word

In the class, students are guided to make circles (6 - 8 members each) Students will play three or four minutes per round The teacher will give the key word and the members of each group in turns will give the word that begins with the last letter of the previous word The students who cannot give the answer in their turn will have to leave the circle The group with most members left wins

(Students can do this activity in 15- Minute Class Meeting everyday It is really exciting)

At home, students are advised to write the list of the words again on their notebooks, and teacher will collect the books at weekends for checking This method helps students systematize the words they have learned, so they would remember the words easily

For example:

scream – memorable – enthusiasm – mutual – lift - tension – network…

9 Learning through topics:

With this method, students can systematize the words they have learned, consolidate and remember the words deeper and longer

Examples:

PARTY( Unit 3, English 11) HOBBIES (Unit 13, English 11)

10 Improving vocabulary by reading:

This method helps learners practise and expand their vocabulary, because “practice makes perfect” and the more learners read, the more words they will see, and the more they will understand and remember

After a year applying methods of teaching and learning English vocabulary at Quang Xuong 4 high school, I have got some satisfactory results Most of my students have become more interested in learning English vocabulary and of course their ability to use English in communication has been improved step by step Moreover, their learning results in English subject has got better ( as detailed in the following tables)

- At the beginning of the school year:

- At the end of the school year:

D CONCLUSION

Vocabulary teaching and learning is a large and continuing task Although teachers can provide useful input and support to help learners deal with this, it is ultimately the learners who have to learn and carry on learning

Vocabulary learning cannot be left to itself It needs to be strengthened by careful planning and well-directed teaching The methods I have given in this study can be applied in avariety of ways and in a variety of types of courses What is most important is that a principled approach is taken to vocabulary development so that learners get the best return for their learning effort

Surely, this study can not avoid having limitations and making mistakes Yet I hope

it will be helpful for teaching and learning English vocabulary at high school

I sincerely thank you!

XÁC NHẬN CỦA THỦ TRƯỞNG

ĐƠN VỊ

Thanh Hoa, May 20, 2018

This is my own work!

Nguyễn Văn Tâm

E REFERENCES:

1 English vocabulary in use (Michael McCarthy/ Felicity O’Dell, Cambridge University Press)

2 Harmer, Jeremy: The Practise of English Language teaching, Longman, 1993 3.Wallace Michael: Practical Language Teaching, Teaching Vocabulary, Heinemann, 1988

4 Methodology handbook for English teachers in Vietnam (Ron and Carol Forseth,

Ta Tien Hung, Nguyen Van Do)

5 Hirsh, D.; Nation, P (1992), "What Vocabulary Size Is Needed to Read Unsimplified Texts for Pleasure?"

6 Bauer, L; Nation, P (1993), "Word Families"