Teaching English Vocabulary to Primary School Children through Application of Total Physcal Response. M.A Thesis Linguistics: 60 140 111

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES BÙI THỊ NGỌC DINH TEACHING ENGLISH VOCABULARY TO PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN THROUGH APPLICATION OF TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE ACTIVITIES (DẠY TỪ VỰNG TIẾNG ANH CHO HỌC SINH TIỂU HỌC QUA VIỆC ỨNG DỤNG CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG THỂ CHẤT TỔNG THỂ) M.A MINOR THESIS Major : English teaching Methodology Code : 60140111 HANOI- 2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES BÙI THỊ NGỌC DINH TEACHING ENGLISH VOCABULARY TO PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN THROUGH APPLICATION OF TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE ACTIVITIES (DẠY TỪ VỰNG TIẾNG ANH CHO HỌC SINH TIỂU HỌC QUA VIỆC ỨNG DỤNG CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG THỂ CHẤT TỔNG THỂ) M.A MINOR THESIS Major : English teaching Methodology Code : 60140111 Supervisor: Prof Dr Hoàng Văn Vân HANOI- 2014 DECLARATION I hereby, certify the thesis entitled “ Teaching English Vocabulary to PrimarySchool Children through Application of Total Physical Response Activities” is the result of my own research for the Degree of Master of Arts at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi The thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other universities or institutions I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library can be accessible for the purposes of study Hanoi, 2014 Bùi Thị Ngọc Dinh i ABSTRACT It has been known that all babies can speak their mother tongue well as their listening comprehension skill develops before speaking skill In other word, they will be able to speak when they are willing Basing on the way a baby learns his first language, James Asher, a teacher of psychology of the State University of San Joe developed a teaching method that motivates children to learn a foreign language well The objectives of this study are to describe the procedure of teaching English Vocabulary to primary school children through application of Total Physical Response activities (TPR) and to justify the importance and effectiveness of using TPR activities in teaching foreign language vocabulary To achieve the objectives of the study, the writer conducted the study at Hoa Binh II Primary School in Thuy Nguyen District, Hai Phong city Students of grade I were the subject of the study There were 50 students; 20 girls and 30 boys In carrying out this study, the researcher believes this study is a reliable and useful source of reference for language classes in general and for any Vietnamese EFL learners and teachers who share the same concern ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to praise and express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Hoàng Văn Vân for his valuable advice, constructive comments, enthusiastic support and encouragement, leading me to reach the completion of this M.A Thesis I would like to send my sincere thanks to my informants in this study, whom I selected as the target subjects of this research Without their enthusiastic contribution and cooperation, this study would certainly not have been completed In this thesis, that the ideas of many other writers in this field are reflected and developed is inevitable Their ideas have stimulated my thinking on doing this paper My debt to the authors listed in the references is equally great To all these scholars, I offer my sincere thanks And finally yet importantly, I am greatly thankful to my family and friends, who are forever a great source of support and encouragement iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION……………………………………………………………………… i ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………… ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………… iii TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………………… PART A: INTRODUCTION…………………………………… ……………….… 1 Rationale of the Research …………………………………………………… … Objectives of the Research …………………………………………………… … 3 Scope of the Research………………………………………………………… ….… Research Questions…………………………………………………………… ….… Significance of the Study…………………………………………………… …… PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE……………….………… 1.1 Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language in the Primary School … 1.1.1 English Teaching and Learning…………………………………………… … 1.1.2 Characteristics of Primary School Students and the First Grade Students…… 1.1.3 The Primary English School Teachers ……………………………………… 1.2 Teaching English Vocabulary to Primary Students … 1.2.1 Definition of Vocabulary……………………………………….…… 1.2.2 The Importance of Vocabulary…………………………………….…………… 1.2.3 Teaching English Vocabulary to the First Graders………………….………… 1.3 Total Physical Response (TPR)…………………………………… …………… 10 1.3.1 The Definition of Total Physical Response…………………………………… 10 1.3.2 The Goals of TPR……………… …………………………… ……………… 12 1.3.3 The Teacher and learner Role in TPR………………………… ……………… 13 1.3.3.1 The Teacher Role…………………………………………………………… 13 1.3.3.2 The Learner Role…………………………………………… ……………… 13 1.3.4 The Principles of TPR ………………………………………………………… 14 1.3.5 Typical Activities in English Lessons Using TPR……………….……… …… 15 CHAPTER II METHODOLOGY………………………………………………… 17 iv 2.1 Type of Study………………………………………………….………………… 17 2.2 Context of Study………………………………………………………………… 18 2.3 Participants………………………………………………… …………………… 18 2.4 Material Used in TPR Learning…………………………………………….…… 18 2.5 Instruments of Study…………………………………………………….……… 20 2.5.1 Observation/ Field-notes……………………………………………….…… 20 2.5.2 Video-Recordings…………………………………………………….………… 20 2.5.3 Questionnaire ………………………………………………………………… 21 2.6 Data Analysis Procedures………………………………………… …………… 21 2.6.1 Observing and Recording……………………………………………………… 21 2.6.2 Evaluation……………………………………………………………………… 21 2.7 Data Analysis Procedures………………………………………… …………… 22 CHAPTER III THE STUDY………………………………………….…………… 23 3.1 Introduction into Practical Part……………………………………………….…… 23 Learning Vocabulary Through TPR ………… ………………………….……… 23 th 3.2.1 Lesson: Letter C September 17 , 2013 at 7: 30………………….…………… 23 rd 3.2.2 Lesson: Letter D September 23 , 2013 at 7:30……………… … ……….… 23 3.2.3 Lesson: Revision of Letters A, B, C, D September 30th , 2013 at 7:30 28 3.3 Findings………………………………………………………………….……… 31 3.3.1 Findings from Observation and Recordings…………………………………… 31 3.3.1.1 The TPR Promotes a Free-stress Class Environment Among Students, Catches Students’ Attention During Lessons, and Improves Active Attitude and Motivation……………………………………………………………………………… 3.3.1.2 Listening is the Main Skill Developed Through the TPR Method………… 31 35 3.3.1.3 Flashcards, Games, Songs, and Chants Benefit Vocabulary Teaching and Learning Through Application of TPR Method…………………………… ………… 37 3.3.1.4 TPR Activities Promote Co-operative Learning and Self-confidence Among Students………………………………………………………………………… …… 37 3.3.2 Findings from Questionnaire………………………………………… …….… 38 3.4 Discussion……………………………….…………………………………….… 40 v PART C: CONCLUSION……………………………………….……….… …… 41 1.1 Conclusions…………………………………………….….…… ….…… 41 1.2 Limitations………………………………… ……………………………….…… 43 1.3 Some suggestions for further recommendations…… ……………….…………… 43 REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………… 44 APPENDICES vi PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the Research Language as a means of communication plays an important role in social relationship among human beings English is one of the international languages which has been taught in many parts of the world In Vietnam, English is one of the compulsory subjects which is taught from junior high schools to senior high schools and to universities In recent years English has become so popular in Vietnam that it has been taught in many primary schools and some kindergartens as well The aim of teaching English in primary schools is to motivate them to be ready and have self-confidence in learning English so that they can study the language further at higher level of education The students of primary schools just learn English in the simple patterns (vocabulary, grammar, etc.) since they learn it for the first time Teaching English to primary children should be different from teaching English to adolescents and adults as they easily get bored or lose interest after ten minutes or so Teaching English to the first graders means teaching children between the age of six and seven years old With children of this age group, the teacher should understand certain characteristics that she would be aware of and take into account when teaching her pupils In teaching English to children, the teacher plays an important role since she has to be able to arouse students’ interest and motivation in learning English Teachers of this level need to plan a range of activities for a given time period, and be flexible enough to move on to the next activity when they see the students get bored In order to make English teaching to be successful in primary schools, some factors should be considered such as the qualifications of the teachers, the students’ interest, motivation, etc in the teaching and learning process Besides, there are other important factors; they are teaching techniques and the use of teaching media which play no less important roles However, the fact that in Vietnam many primary English teachers, including the writer, are not adequately trained to teach English to such special group of learners with special characteristics as primary students Most primary teachers of English are uncreative, inflexible to apply various techniques and methods to their real teaching contexts, which is a big quality gap in the current English teaching and learning Furthermore, most primary teachers of English follow traditional approaches to English language teaching and testing which make it difficult for students use English as a means of communication and which make them bored or even scared of learning foreign English while there are more pleasant, practical and useful ways to teach English Total Physical Response (TPR) is a method of teaching English developed by James J Asher, a teacher of psychology of the State University of San Jose It is is one of methods of foreign language teaching that has attracted much attention from both foreign language methodologists and foreign language teachers This method can also be presented by using a game that is appropriate to the learners’ characters James Asher (http:/ tpr-world.com,1) states that “use TPR method for new vocabulary and grammar, to help students immediately understand the target language in chunks rather than word-by-word This instant success is absolutely thrilling for students” This shows that using TPR is considered an effective method to help students to learn the target language because they can practice directly using the vocabulary in real context By doing so, students can develop the storage of the vocabulary in a short time Besides that TPR method also helps the children to understand and memorize linguistic input because they use body movement as media in the process of learning It is mentioned by Richards and Rodgers (1986: 92) that “The movement of the body seems to be powerful mediator for the understanding, organization and storage of macro details of linguistic input” In this study the writer will focus on how to teach English vocabulary to primary students of English, using TPR considering that vocabulary constitutes the knowledge of meaning which is one of the components of language Studying a language cannot be separated from studying vocabulary It is very essential to REFERENCES Asher, J (1977) Learning Another Language through Actions The Complete Teacher‟s Guide Book (6th ed) Los Gatos: Sky Oaks Productions, Inc Asher, J (1983) Motivating Children and Adults to Acquire a Second Language (In) Methods that Work: A Smorgasbords of Ideas for Language Teachers John W, Oller, Jr and Patricia A Richard-Amato (Eds.) W., Rowley, London, Tokyo: Newbury House Publishers Asher, J James Organizing Your Classroom for Successful Second Language Acquisition www.tprsource com/asher.htm(Accessed on 20 August 2006) Asher, J James The Total Physical Response Approach to Learning Language www.tprsource.com/organizing.htm (Accessed on 20 August 2006) Brown, H D (2000) Principles in Language Learning and Teaching Longman: A Pearson Education Company Cameron, L (2011) Teaching Languages to Young Learners Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Dufon, M A (2002) Video recording in ethnographic SLA research : Some issues of validity in data collection Retrieved November nd, 2010, from http://llt.msu.edu/vol6num1/pdf/dufon.pdf Finocchiaro (1974) English as a Second Language: From Theory to Practice New York: Regent Publishing Company Garcia, Ramiro (2002) Instructors Notebook: How to apply TPR for Best Result Sky Oaks Productions Larsen, Diane and Freeman (2000) Technique and Principles in Language Teaching Second Edition New York : Oxford University Press Mohambest (2009) Mohambest blog Retrieved January 15th,2010, from http://mohambest.wordpress.com/2009/04/03/thesis Octaviany, Y ( 2007) The application of Total Physical Response in teaching English Vocabulary to the fourth graders Retrieved April 14th, 2009, from http://digilib.unnes.ac.id/gsdl/collect/skripsi/archives/HASHef75.dir/doc.pdf 43 Ramelan (1994) English Phonetics Fourth Edition Semarang: IKIP Semarang Press Richard, J C & T S Rodgers (1986) Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching: A description and analysis Cambridge: University Press Richard, J.C & T.S Rodgers (1999) Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching Cambridge University Press Retrieved August 30 th, 2009, from http://www Filestube.com/c7c145c9737b28da03ea,g/Approaches-and-Methods-in-LanguageTeaching-pdf-0521312558.html Rivers, W M (1981) Teaching Foreign Language Skills Second Edition Chicago: University of Chicago Press Scott, W A & Ytreberg, L H (1990) Teaching English to Children Longman: Education Texts Retrieved December nd, 2009, from http://avaxhome.ws/ebooks/eLearning_book/Languages/Wendy42Children.html Slattery, Marry and Willis (2001) English for Primary Teachers New York: Oxford University Press Van, J E (2000) Qualitative methods and analysis in organizational research Retrieved February 10th, 2010, from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4339/is_6_21/ai_71969775/ Webster Dictionary (1983) 44 APPENDICES Appendix 1: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS ( Vietnamese) Câu hỏi 1: Con thấy hoạt động Simon says: a Quá khó b Quá dễ c Thú vị d Bình thường e Chán Câu hỏi 2: Hoạt động sau thích suốt học: a Các trò chơi b Các hát c Các hát nhị p điệu d Thẻ tranh Câu hỏi 3: Con có thích dạy nhiều hát, nhiều trò chơi, nhiều thẻ tranh, hoạt động thể tiết học lần tới tiết học khơng ? a Khơng thích b Khơng thích c Thích d Rất thích e Con khơng biết I Appendix 2: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS ( English) Question 1: Do you think activities of the game “ Simon says” are… ? a Too difficult b Too easy c Interesting and challenging d So so e Boring Question 2: Which of the following activities you like best during lesson? a Games b Songs c Chants d Flashcards e All of a,b,c,d Question 3: Do you like the teacher to teach you more songs, games, flashcards and physical movements in next lessons as in these lessons? a Extremely dislike b Dislike c Like d Strongly like e I don’t know II Appendix 3.1 3.2.1 Lesson: Letter C September 17th, 2013 at 7:30 a.m LEVEL: beginners LENGTH: 35 minutes TOTAL NUMBER OF STUDENTS: 50 (2 CLASSES) TEXT-BOOK : PHONICS LEARNING BOX UK STARTER VOCABULARY: Nouns: cow, grass Verb: chew Counting numbers from to 10 AIMS: to memorize new vocabulary, motivate pupils to know how to count numbers in English SKILLS: Listening and speaking skills TOOLS: flashcards, pictures CLASS ORGANIZATION: Follow the instructions of teaching vocabulary through application of TPR method, the teacher organizes the classroom space up to each lesson content and the teacher’s teaching ideas reasonably as following: Prepare the space for students by pushing desks back to the corners and arrange the chairs into half a circle round or into a semicircle in the classroom in order for all students to be able to watch and perform activities easily and conveniently The more space the teacher can make the better Additionally, with such arrangement the teacher will be able to observe and control all students’ performance Put the teacher’s chair in the middle of the semi-circle Stabilize all seats by asking students to sit on their chairs and keep silence III NOTE: The teaching technique for the first segment “learn to sound” is similar to all letters as the first segment of all letters is programmed the same TECHING PROCEDURES: Warm up - In order to warm up the atmosphere before the lesson, the teacher plays the recording and asks students to sing the alphabet song Pre-teach - The teacher sticks the flashcard of the letter C on the board While-teach Learn to sound The segment “learn to sound” of letters is taught the same Like previous lessons, the teacher makes a distinction between sound c and letter C: - In the first step, the teacher raises the flashcard, points to the letter C and repeats three times, then she makes it similarly to the sound c She reduplicates C and c several times - The teacher helps students identify the letter C and the sound c by performing action of clapping hands once for the letter C and twice for the sound c She repeats three times in front of the class - The teacher asks students to look, listen and the action together with the teacher for several times - Next, the teacher asks students to clap their hands and speak out the letter C and the sound c.The teacher also impresses students the letter C and the sound c by teaching them how to write them: - She turns towards the board, raises her right index finger and draws into the air the letter C and the sound c slowly while speaking out - In the next step, the teacher asks all students to follow by commanding “draw C and c” The teacher repeats the command again and performs it in company of the whole class IV - This time the teacher repeats the command and observes all students to perform it - The teacher points at her ears then her mouth “listen, action, and repeat” All students perform action of drawing C and c into the air while repeating The whole process is repeated again and again - Then the teacher calls on some students to perform in front of the class Learn new words and learn more Activity 1: The teacher teaches the words “cow, grass” - The teacher draws an animal on the board and asks students to guess what it is (a cow) - She puts her arm at her backside and does an action of a cow shaking its tail while making the sounds of a cow “moo, moo, moo” and asks students to follow - She raises the flashcard of a cow and says, “cow, cow, a cow”, then she asks students to repeat in the whole many times - The teacher holds the flashcard of a cow in one hand and the flashcard of grass in the other while saying, “cow, grass, cow, grass, cow…” Then she pushes two flashcards close together and says, “a cow eats grass” She pretends to be a cow shaking its tail, then stops and says, “a cow eats grass, chop, chop, chop” and does an action of chewing grass as the first model and asks students to follow and then speak V - The teacher calls on some students to perform in front of the class Activity 2: The teacher teaches students to count numbers from to 10 - The simplest way as parents teach their children how to count numbers from to 10 is to count fingers on two hands The teacher raises two hands and counts slowly Then, she asks students to follow and repeat - Next, the teacher and students count hand clapping sounds - The teacher teaches students to count things around classroom such as windows, pictures on walls, fans, or school things such as books, pens, pencils, ect - The teacher asks students to stand in three queues, two queues of ten and one queue of five The first students of the three queues turn heads, saying, “one” and the second ones say, “two” and the thirds say, “three” until the tenth students say, “ten” The process is repeated several times, then the teacher changes the positions of students so that they have chance to count different numbers VI Game: Response to commands - Students stand in three queues, listen to the teacher’s commands If the teacher says, “one”, three students who stand in the first position of three queues sit down while others keep standing up Song: Let’s count 1-10 - The teacher plays recordings while students keep standing in three queues When the music goes, students sing and actions: One, two, three, four, five-jump Six, seven, eight, nine, ten-jump Chant: Here we go One, two, three Step forward One, two, three Step back One, two, three Spin around Yeah, yeah, yeah (clapping hand) One, two, three, four, five-jump Six, seven, eight, night, ten-jump I did it Post-teach - The teacher gives each student a picture consisting of ten cows and asks students to point at the picture to chant, “one cow, two cows, three cows…” Assignment VII Appendix 3.2: PHOTOS FROM RECORDINGS VIII IX X XI XII XIII