Using visual aids and physical actions in teaching english vocabulary for the students at the elementary level at enci english center

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ****************** CHUNG THỊ HUYỀN USING VISUAL AIDS AND PHYSICAL ACTIONS IN TEACHING ENGLISH VOCABULARY FOR THE ELEMENTARY STUDENTS AT ENCI ENGLISH CENTER (Sử dụng giáo cụ trực quan động tác hình thể việc dạy từ vựng tiếng Anh cho học viên trình độ trung tâm Anh ngữ Enci) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI - 2016 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ******************* CHUNG THỊ HUYỀN USING VISUAL AIDS AND PHYSICAL ACTIONS IN TEACHING ENGLISH VOCABULARY FOR THE ELEMENTARY STUDENTS AT ENCI ENGLISH CENTER (Sử dụng giáo cụ trực quan động tác hình thể việc dạy từ vựng tiếng Anh cho học viên trình độ trung tâm Anh ngữ Enci) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Lê Hùng Tiến HANOI - 2016 DECLARATION I hereby declare that the minor thesis entitled “Using visual aids and physical actions in teaching English vocabulary for the elementary students at Enci English Center” is the achievement of my own efforts and a long time on research without being tired in order for the fulfillment of the prerequisite for the Degree of Master of Arts at College of Foreign Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi This study involves no material that has been written by any other researchers and accepted for any other degrees in any other universities except due reference that has been acknowledged at the end of the thesis paper Hanoi,2016 Chung Thị Huyền i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support from a number of people First and foremost, I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr Lê Hùng Tiến, who has patiently and constantly supported me through the stages of the study, and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic researcher A special word of thanks goes to all the teachers of the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their useful lectures, assistance and enthusiasm during my course Without their support and encouragement, it would never have been possible for me to have this thesis accomplished Additionally, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my beloved students of GPL 100 and GPL 106 at Enci English center with their participation in and dedication to the research Without their support, the thesis would not have taken shaped Finally, I want to show my appreciation to all the members in my family because of their help during the time I conducted my study as well as in my whole life ii ABSTRACTS This study presents an attempt to investigate visual-based techniques in vocabulary teaching and the lexical learning gains of the elementary EFL learners at Enci English Center after the course with the application of these aids The data from a range of sources including observations, questionnaires, and written tests were collected from thirty language learners at the elementary level at an English center over the period of nine weeks The analysis of data using both qualitative and quantitative techniques indicated that the participants had a significantly better performance at the end of the period of study The results offer a wealth of pedagogical implications towards vocabulary learning classrooms Key words: visual aids, physical actions, ESL classroom, learning English vocabulary, students at the elementary level, Enci English center iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACTS iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS viii LISTS OF TABLES AND CHARTS Error! Bookmark not defined PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale and significance of the study The purpose of the study……………………………………………………………… Scope of the study Methods of the study The design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW The importance of vocabulary in second language teaching and learning: .5 1.1 Definition of vocabulary .5 1.2 Definition of vocabulary teaching 1.3 The changing trends of vocabulary importance in second language teaching and learning Principles of vocabulary teaching to elementary learners Different teaching techniques and their effects on vocabulary teaching and learning .8 3.1 Translation method .8 3.2 Using synonyms and antonyms 3.3 Teaching words using contexts 3.4 Using morphological analysis in vocabulary teaching 3.5 Using collocation in vocabulary instruction 10 3.6 Topic-based vocabulary instruction 10 iv Visual aids and physical actions (mime) as a motivator for second language vocabulary learning 11 Definition of visual aids 11 4.2 Types of visual techniques 12 Chalkboards 12 2 Pictures 12 Real objects 13 4 Mime (Gesture and facial expressions) 13 The existing views on using visual aids and physical actions (mime) in teaching a foreign language vocabulary 13 CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY 16 Research site 16 The participants 16 A brief description of the course book 17 The syllabus 17 Research method- Classroom action research 19 5.1 General description of individual action research 19 5.2 Action research model .19 Research procedures 20 1 Identifying the problem 20 Research hypothesis 21 Identifying research questions 21 Research plan 21 Classroom observation 22 1 The reason of choosing observation in data collection .22 2 The criteria of observation 22 2 Questionnaire 22 2 The reason of choosing questionnaire in data collection 22 6 2 Description of the questionnaire 23 v Written tests 23 Data analysis of classroom observation 23 Data analysis of the questionnaire 24 Students’ demographic information 24 2 Data analysis of students’ questionnaire 24 2 The students' views toward the use of visual aids and physical actions in vocabulary teaching and the effectiveness of visual-based lexical instruction .24 2 The amount of vocabulary remembered by the learners after the course with visually-supported lexical instruction .25 2 The learners‟ views on the purpose of visual techniques employed in vocabulary instruction 26 2 The students‟ views toward the effects of visual techniques on their vocabulary learning 26 2 The students‟ views toward the difficulties in learning vocabulary through visual techniques 27 3 Data analysis of mid-term tests…………………………………………28 The description of lessons to illustrate the changes that were made: 29 Data analysis of the questionnaire and post-tests 29 The difference in the students' attitude toward the use of visual aids and physical actions in vocabulary teaching before and after the lessons being modified 30 2 The difference in the amount of vocabulary remembered by the learners before and after the lessons being modified 30 The difference in the test results of the participants before and after the lessons being modified 31 4 The difference in the students‟ views toward their problems in vocabulary learning with visual-based techniques before and after lessons being modified .32 vi CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS AND DICUSSION 33 Research question 1: What are the learners’ attitudes towards learning vocabulary through visual aids and physical movements? 33 Research question 2: To what extend visual techniques affect the students’ vocabulary learning? How have students improved after the experience of visual techniques? 34 Research question 3: What difficulties students have in learning vocabulary with visual-based instruction? .36 PART C: CONCLUSION .38 I Summary of the study 38 II Suggestions and recommendations 38 III Limitations and suggestions for further studies .41 REFERENCES 42 APPENDIX I I APPENDIX II…………………………………………………………………… II APPENDIX III…………………………………………………………………….V APPENDIX IV……………………………………………………………………IX APPENDIX V……………………………………………………………………XII APPENDIX VI………………………………………………………………….XVI vii ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS EFL: English as Foreign Language MA: Master of Arts L2: Second language ESL: English as Second Language GPL: Grammar, Pronunciation Low viii Appendix III: MID-TERM VOCABULARY TEST Full name: …………………………………………………… Class: ………………………………………………………… Time allowance: 30‟ Teacher’s comments Total mark I PHRASAL VERBS Fill in the following blanks with a suitable verb: make/take/go/come/ do/ bring/have/get/ turn/ say/ ask/put and tell: 1 She often …………….out for a walk every evening I always …………….my best to finish my work before the deadline My father will call me when he ………… to Hanoi We ……….from Thanh Hoa They have……………….this film for two months I have bought a new bike Do you want to …………… a go? Don‟t call her now because she is ………………an appointment with her boss on the phone I am going to…………… my computer repaired by him tomorrow Don‟t ……………any noise! Please ……… me a favor 10 I always …………on well with my sister 11 Please …………….off the light before going to bed 12 I often ………….the bus to work 13 Please ……………me the truth V 14 She always ………… me for perfectness while she always ………… a mistake 15 My sister always ……… ” Thank you” when I give her something 16 You can … my book, but remember to………….it back next week 17 ……………off your shoes when you come into the room and ………….on them when going out 18 I always ……….my best to……………over all my difficulties 19 How can we …………”library” in French? 20 Thank you for …………me the way to the train station! II Find the suitable conjunction in the following blanks Harry doesn't usually like blue cheese he loves Roquefort on toast it was after midnight, we did not feel tired We had to wait fifteen minutes for the shop to open we had arrived early Did you go out stay at home last night? it was snowing, we played cards I wanted to study; I was too tired Joan and Elliot chatted about everything the fact that they had just met that afternoon They sold their house in Miami for $375,000 travelled all over the word for a year The ski slopes were busy, 10 Lynda likes Tom the cold, freezing weather he is in love with Annette VI III Find the right word for each of the things in the following pictures: The body The ears 1 The face VII Some clothes VIII Appendix IV: END-TERM VOCABULARY TEST IX X XI Appendix V Field note Description Comments On the first day of the course, the students were In the same lesson, two offered to the first lesson including four units- Unit different visual aids were used 1, 2, and in the course book The first and in two different stages (the second units were simply taught with translation introduction stage and the method to present students the theories of practice stage); therefore, learners could be taken from a vocabulary Two first lexical classes were mainly used to teach boring classroom with the verbs and phrasal verbs (From Unit to Unit 11); same work of sitting in one therefore, the teacher used pictures in the handouts place and following their and physical actions (mime) as the main source of teacher‟s directions every teaching aids In fact, pictures in the handouts were time In addition, a variety of often given as a tool of lexical instruction while aids helped students not to mime was used to recall all the words and phrases work in the same way during in the practice session or in the next vocabulary a long period However, in the class Especially, these lessons were to make a first class, most of students distinction between some pairs of verbs with close tended not to be eager to take meanings, so two units could be combined to teach part in classroom activities together For example, Unit (Have) and Unit 10 because they were not (Get) were taught at the same time, Unit and Unit acquainted to each other and 7, Unit and Unit 6, Unit and Unit were the teacher It was the reason why some appeared to be shy combined to present to the students At first, the teacher instructed students to the content of lessons and wrote the title on the board After that, for each lesson, the learners were XII when making physical actions in front of other members in the class Besides, a variety of phrases were shown at the provided with a handout, in which there were a same time causing vagueness number of tasks and each task was designed for which made them difficult to each pair of verbs with a variety of pictures to be guessed illustrate phrasal verbs The instructor asked students to guess what each of the pictures meant and wrote down phrasal verbs suitably next to each picture Afterwards, the teacher provided the correct answers and asked the students to take notes in their notebook After all the words had been explained meaningfully, vocabulary check was done by using mime In fact, the teacher called each of the students to the board and asked them to use their physical actions to describe two or three words they had been instructed while other learners guessed which words their classmates were describing On the third class, the teacher taught two lessons: Unit 15 and 21 In this lesson, the teaching aids studied such as visuals and physical movements were not preferably used because they were not helpful to teach these items On the third class, without words visualized by teaching aids, the classroom came back to a quieter atmosphere In these lessons, hard-working students tried to work with a variety of words traditionally taught by the instructor while lazy members tended to be bored and sometimes distracted from the teacher‟s instructions At the beginning of the On the fourth class, the units 22 and 23 on common lesson, students had more adjectives were firstly instructed through the energy and concentration on transition method by using the board and chalks what they were taught than at After that, in the practice session, the teacher asked the end of the class Therefore, transition method XIII learners to go to the board and choose one of the was employed to present word cards of adjectives they had learnt and then words while actions were describe them clearly enough for their classmates to used to practice However, understand and guess the right word in each card adjectives are harder to be described than verbs As a result, some students refused to illustrate their adjectives The fifth class was the most interesting one thank to the use of various real objects around the classroom; therefore, most learners were motivated to participate in all classroom activities In the fifth class, words referring familiar items tended to motivate students to learn and retain in the practice stage At the beginning of the lesson, the teacher told because learners thought that learners about the units they were supposed to learn it was necessary to remember in the lesson Afterwards, she wrote the title of the English words of everyday first unit- Unit 30, which was to teach parts of things Clothes was an body interesting topic for students Firstly, the instructor asked all the students to look to work on because all of at the pictures in page 64 in the course book to them were curious about learn the new items, which were then revised by the something to wear in English learners‟ physical description In fact, the teacher language told some of the learners in the class to go to the started Therefore, the lesson they with board and gave each of them two word flash cards eagerness The addition of of body part items she had prepared before After pictures of clothes shown on that, the students were asked to take turns to attach the screen in practice session helped all the items recalled to their word cards to their partner‟s body In the next stage of the lesson, the teacher wrote the title of the second unit- Unit 31 about clothes Like the first unit, the instructor asked all the students to XIV the learners‟ consequently, students to work on mind; motivated look at the pictures in page 66 in the course book to learn the new words However, the teacher did not go to the practice session right then, but instructed the last unit in the lesson- Unit 32: Describing a person For the last one, the teacher provided all the students with a handout in which all the words were arranged in different parts such as a person‟s height, weight, face and head and age In each part, there were a set of pictures of a person‟s appearance and a set of words related to the part The instructor asked her students to match these pictures with suitable words to describe the person‟s appearance in each photo After the task had been completed, the teacher gave students correct answers and explained the target words‟ meaning basing what was described in each picture In the next stage, the teacher commenced to combine two units- Unit 31 and Unit 32 in a practice session She called some class members to five lessons of the board and asked others to describe them by After vocabulary taught with visual using the structures: techniques, it‟s time for the He/ She is …(thin/ tall) teacher to testify the She/ He has …(long black hair) effectiveness He/ She is wearing a/ an …(white T- shirt)… teaching method and make a of the new At the end of the lesson, thirty minutes were spent decision to continue using on testing the students‟ lexical competence after a these aids in teaching lexical lessons or not half of the term XV Appendix VI Field note Description Comments In the second half supplied with visual- Although the effectiveness of visualbased lexical instruction, some based vocabulary instruction was proved classroom activities and teaching aids in the first half of the course; however, were adjusted in order for all the some drawbacks were also found as a troubles of the first trial period to be limitation of the method‟s success reduced Therefore, in the second half, some The next four classes were mainly taught adaption should be done with a variety of visual teaching aids The sixth class was about the familiar because almost all the units were on the topics to real-life situations; items familiar with our life and easy to nevertheless, in the first cycle, some be visualized troubles of visual-based word The sixth class was mainly instructed description were found to make students with pictures in the book, which unable to describe words by acting For presented something easy to be found in example, it was difficult to visualize a our everyday life such as weather, train, thunder, tea, or an eggplant by animals, travelling and food and drinks moving our body Therefore, in the However, after each unit had been second cycle, the teacher modified this instructed in this way, the teacher lesson by using online pictures, which invited students to a fun game of made all students motivated and guessing words basing on a variety of interested in working on because they pictures on the screen All the pictures were colorful and clearly visualized were arranged into topics with a words In addition, by adding questions beginning question for each topic and suggestions for answers in the practice stage, the instructor helped all XVI the students practice words in the real- For example: - How is the weather like today? -> It life conversation In this communicative structures is…(rainy) way, were accidently introduced in the lesson of - Which animal is this? -> It is a/ an vocabulary - How you go to…? -> By … - What would you like to eat/ drink? -> I would like to eat/ drink… The seventh class was also scheduled on In the first cycle, the use of physical the familiar items in the students‟ house, actions in practicing words did not school and university At first, the enable all the words to be retained teacher asked the learners to look at a because some of them were not handout, where all the words were illustrated by the learners Therefore, divided into five parts: the living room, some modification was done with the the kitchen, the bedroom, the bathroom, teacher‟s careful preparation and the last one about things at school Additionally, like in the previous lesson, and university Each of these words was beside lexical items, there was a illustrated by one picture above it structure added to the practice stage in Afterwards, the students were told to order to develop look at the screen with five sets of communicative pictures (related to five parts answer beginning of the questions each set at using competence students‟ In the of lesson, most of the class members were vocabulary they had been taught before) excited and the to respond the beginning the question and to find what there were in the each set of pictures structures suggested For example: What are there in the living room/ in the classroom…? There are/ is XVII The next class was on jobs and types of entertainment such as shopping, playing sports and watching films Each unit was taught separately accompanied with a practice session at the end Firstly, for each topic, the handouts given to the students contained a variety of pictures and words below each of these pictures For the themes jobs and sports, the teacher invited learners to the board to The next class attracted many members to the lesson because all the lexical items were familiar with their daily life In fact, the learners were quite curious to know how their daily objects were said in English Therefore, they appeared to be eager to take part in classroom activities illustrate the lexical items by physical movements (e.g show what a teacher Students were also motivated to does or how to play badminton) For the participate in this lesson because these topics shops and shopping and cinema, were topics related to their interests such the instructor offered a number of photos as films, sports and going shopping on the computer‟s screen and asked the Consequently, all the students were learners to guess which lexical item was eager to go to the board and illustrate presented in each photo (e.g which type what they had been taught of shop or which type of film) Half of the time of the last class was spent instructing students to the words about social and global problems such as crime and other issues The teacher firstly told the learners to look at the words presented with the pictures in the textbook After that, the students were called to the board and to describe the types of crime given in the book For the In the last lesson, the themes were related to global and social issues and could attract the learners‟ concerns as a result Especially, they were very interested in showing words of crime because they could make jokes with their classmates other topic, the teacher asked each of the The post-test was necessarily used for XVIII students to see the photos in the internet evaluating changes in the learners‟ and guess which global issue was behind vocabulary competence each of these photos The rest of the lesson was spent on the post-test which evaluated the learners‟ lexical competence XIX ... difference in the students' attitude toward the use of visual aids and physical actions in vocabulary teaching before and after the lessons being modified 30 2 The difference in the amount of vocabulary. .. of using visual aids and physical actions in vocabulary teaching for non-major students including their attitudes towards learning vocabulary with visual techniques and some drawbacks of applying... thesis entitled ? ?Using visual aids and physical actions in teaching English vocabulary for the elementary students at Enci English Center? ?? is the achievement of my own efforts and a long time on