An investigation into teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards the use of visual aids in teaching and learning vocabulary at le quy don gifted high school, dien bien

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN HẠNH TUYẾT AN INVESTIGATION INTO TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE USE OF VISUAL AIDS IN TEACHING AND LEARNING VOCABULARY AT LE QUY DON GIFTED HIGH SCHOOL, DIEN BIEN NGHIÊN CỨU THÁI ĐỘ CỦA GIÁO VIÊN VÀ HỌC SINH ĐỐI VỚI VIỆC SỬ DỤNG GIÁO CỤ TRỰC QUAN ĐỂ DẠY VÀ HỌC TỪ VỰNG Ở TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN LÊ QUÝ ĐÔN – ĐIỆN BIÊN M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Hanoi, 2011 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN HẠNH TUYẾT AN INVESTIGATION INTO TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE USE OF VISUAL AIDS IN TEACHING AND LEARNING VOCABULARY AT LE QUY DON GIFTED HIGH SCHOOL, DIEN BIEN NGHIÊN CỨU THÁI ĐỘ CỦA GIÁO VIÊN VÀ HỌC SINH ĐỐI VỚI VIỆC SỬ DỤNG GIÁO CỤ TRỰC QUAN ĐỂ DẠY VÀ HỌC TỪ VỰNG Ở TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN LÊ QUÝ ĐÔN – ĐIỆN BIÊN M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Vượng, M.A Hanoi, 2011 iii ABSTRACT This study aims at finding out the attitudes of the teachers and students at Le Quy Don gifted high school in Dien Dien towards the use of visual aids in teaching and leaning English vocabulary In the study, the quantitative and qualitative methods are employed The instruments to collect data for the study are survey questionnaires and interview After gathering and analyzing the collected data, some major findings have been revealed The first finding is that most of the teachers and students at LQD gifted high school in Dien Bien have positive attitudes towards the use of visual aids in teaching and learning vocabulary The second finding shows that most of the teachers tend to use different types of visual aids in teaching vocabulary Nevertheless, they still restrict themselves to some visual types only Moreover, their ways of exploiting visual aids to teach vocabulary is limited They just mainly focus on using visual aids to present new words This means that the teachers have not made use of visual aids to their fullest potential to aid their students or arouse their interest in leaning vocabulary The third finding is that both the teachers and students still encounter certain challenges when using visual aids in teaching and learning vocabulary It is hopeful that this study can be of some help to the teachers at LQD gifted high school and the school itself about their teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards the use of visual aid in teaching vocabulary or other teachers and schools interested in the subject matter iv LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS LQD Le Quy Don (gifted high school) No Number of informants RO Real objects v LIS List of figures Figure 1: Data collected fro Figure 2: Teachers’ interest Figure 3: Teachers’ evaluati Figure 4: Data collected fro Figure 5: Data collected fro Figure 6: Data collected fro Figure 7: Students’ interest Figure 8: Students’ evaluation Figure 9: Data collected fro Figure 10: Students’ preferen Figure 11: Students’ preferen Figure 12: Data collected fro Figure 13: Teachers’ attitudes to Figure 14: Data collected fro List of tables Table 1: The teachers’ evaluation of th Table 2: The teachers’ frequency of vis Table 3: The teachers’ ways of using o frequency of the teachers using t Table 4: The types of visual aids and th Table 5: The teachers’ frequent sources Table 6: The teachers’ reasons for usin Table 7: The challenges faced by teachers Table 8: The students’ evaluation of visua Table 9: The students’ evaluation on their vi teach vocabulary Table 10: The reasons for the students Table 11: The reasons for the st through visual aids Table 12: The problems faced by the s Table 13: Teachers’ favorite ways vii TABLES OF CONTENT Page number DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii ABSTRACT iii LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS iv LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES v TABLE OF CONTENT vii PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study Aims of the study Research questions Scope of the study Methods of the study Design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Vocabulary 1.1.1 What is vocabulary? 1.1.2 Classification of vocabulary 1.1.2.1 Vocabulary classified according to the concept of morpheme 1.1.2.2 Vocabulary classified according to the meaning 1.1.2.3 Vocabulary classified according to the functions 1.1.2.4 Vocabulary classified according to the frequency of use 1.2 Vocabulary and its significant role in language teaching and learning 1.3 Visual aids 1.3.1 Definitions of visual aids 1.3.2 Types of visual aids 1.3.2.1 Chalkboards 1.3.2.2 Real objects and presentational objects 1.3.2.3 Mime (Gesture and Facial expressions) viii 1.3.2.4 Pictures 10 1.3.2.4.1 Wall pictures and wall charts 11 1.3.2.4.2 Flash cards 12 1.3.2.4.2.1 Word flash cards 12 1.3.2.4.2.2 Picture flash cards 12 1.4 Benefits of using visual aids to teach vocabulary 14 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 16 2.1 Research question 16 2.2 Subjects of the study 16 2.2.1 The students 16 2.2.2 The teachers 16 2.3 The instruments 17 2.3.1 The questionnaires 17 2.3.1.1 The teachers’ questionnaire 17 2.3.1.2 The students’ questionnaire 17 2.3.2 The interview for the teachers 18 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 19 3.1 Data analysis 19 3.1.1 Results from the survey questionnaires 19 3.1.1.1 Results from the teachers’ survey questionnaire 19 3.1.1.2 Results from the students’ survey questionnaire 28 3.1.2 Results from the interviews for the teachers 33 3.2 Findings and discussion 36 PART C: CONCLUSION 38 4.1 Summary of the study 38 4.2 Recommendations 38 4.3 Limitations and suggestions for further study 40 REFERENCES 41 APPENDIX I APPENDIX IV APPENDIX VIII PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study Wilkin (1972: 110) states that “Without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed” This means that to be a competent English communicator, one must acquire a good knowledge of English grammar and have a rich amount of English vocabulary as well Vocabulary is an essential element of language Whether in speaking or writing, learners need vocabulary to communicate and understand others However, for many students at Le Quy Don gifted high school in Dien Bien, learning vocabulary is really a hard job As a result, many students often ask their teachers the same question about how they can learn vocabulary effectively As a matter of fact, what students are wondering is also a big question that always bare in the teachers’ mind which urges them try to find a suitable solution to better facilitate both the teachers’ and students’ vocabulary teaching and learning process The idea of using visual aids to better aid students learn vocabulary has been conducted at LQD gifted school by many teachers including the researcher and all agree that visual aids are of great use to aid both the teachers and their students in teaching and learning vocabulary Many students admit that they can remember new words more easily by both listening to their teachers and looking at the visuals They also get involved to the lesson more actively by guessing the words’ meaning through the visuals, describing the visuals, asking and answering questions related to the visuals, etc Therefore, students gradually retain more words and can better communicate in the target language For teachers, many agree that they can reduce their talking time of explaining new words in stead of introducing words directly through different types of visual aids From what the teachers and students have mentioned about some of benefits of visual aids, the researcher can partly know about their attitudes towards the use of visual aids in teaching and learning vocabulary This inspires the researcher to conduct the study entitled “An Investigation into Teachers’ and Students’ Attitudes towards the Use of Visual Aids in Teaching and Learning Vocabulary at Le Quy Don Gifted High School, Dien Bien.” with hope of understanding more about not only the teachers’ and students’ attitude towards the use of visual aids but also the overall problems faced by them in teaching and learning vocabulary through visual aids Hopefully, this study will be of some values to those who want to improve their vocabulary teaching, especially by means of visual aids 2 Aims of the study: The study aims at: - Investigating the teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards the use of visual aids in teaching and learning vocabulary - Exploring the extent to which visual aids have been used in vocabulary teaching and learning - Finding out the possible problems faced by the teachers and students in teaching and learning vocabulary through visual aids Research questions: In order to achieve the above-stated goals, the study was carried out to seek answers to the following questions: What are the teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards the use of visual aids in teaching and learning vocabulary? To what extent have visual aids been used in teaching and learning vocabulary? What are the problems faced by the teachers and students when teaching and learning vocabulary through visual aids? Scope of the study In fact, there are many different types of visuals that can be used to help the students better learn vocabulary However, due to the minor scope of this thesis, the research only aims at several types of visual aids such as pictures, chalkboards, real objects, mime-facial expressions which are available in class or can be easily made and applied by the teachers The study has not dealt with students of all levels but just 11 th form students who have been familiar with their teachers’ method of teaching vocabulary through visual aids since they were in grade ten Methods of the study In the study, data was collected by two methods: survey and interview The survey consists of two questionnaires, one for the teachers and the other for the students Besides, the researcher conducted informal interviews with the teachers in order to supplement the survey questionnaires Design of the study: This study is divided into three main parts: Part A: INTRODUCTION: In this part the rationale, the aims, the research questions, the scope, the methods and the design of the study are presented Part B: DEVELPOMENT: This part consists of three chapters: the “Literature Review”, “Methodology” and “Data Analysis and Discussion” Part C: CONCLUSION: This part offers a summary of the study and some suggestions for further study CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 Results from the teachers’ survey questionnaire The teachers’ attitudes towards the use of visual aids in vocabulary teaching Teachers' interest in using visual aids to teach vocabulary Figure As can be seen from figure 2, when being asked how interested they are in using visual aids to teach vocabulary, 100% of the teachers supported the use of visual aids in teaching vocabulary Of the teachers, most of them (62.5%) said that they were very interested in using visual aids to teach vocabulary 37% felt interested Teachers' evaluation of the visual aids in general Very useful 25% Very useful Useful Useful 75% Figure Figure shows the teachers’ evaluation on the role of visual aids in vocabulary teaching in general Three quarters of the teachers (75%) thought that visual aids were useful and a fourth of the teachers (25%) highly appreciated visual aids very useful in teaching vocabulary None of the teachers thought that visual aids were not useful at all The extent to which visual aids have been used in teaching vocabulary present new vocabulary help students practise and retain the new words Table 3: The teachers’ ways of using of visual aids to teach vocabulary and the frequency of the teachers using these ways to teach vocabulary Table illustrates the teachers’ ways of using visual aids to teach vocabulary and the frequency of their using these ways to teach vocabulary As can be seen from the table, visual aids were mostly used for presenting vocabulary by the teachers On contrary, half of the teacher rarely used visual aids as cues or prompts for the students to practise and retain the new words This fact reveals a problem that visual aids have not been exploited to their fullest potential to aid the students in their vocabulary learning Challenges faced by the teachers when using visual aids to teach vocabulary No 12.5% Yes No Yes 87.5% Figure 6: Data collected from question 12 (Have you encountered any problems when using visual aids to teach vocabulary?) When being asked “Have you encountered any problems when using visual aids to teach vocabulary?” most of the teachers (87.5%) admitted they have faced problems This is not surprising because teaching vocabulary through visual aids is a very complicated process that acquires the teachers’ much time, efforts and creativeness as well Therefore, it is inescapable that the teachers might face certain problems in using visual aids to teach vocabulary Options Time-consuming to prepare Money consuming Difficulties to prepare The lack of time when using Difficulties in finding suitable visual materials Difficulties in class management Table 7: The challenges faced by teachers when using visual aids to teach vocabulary As shown in table the possible problems faced by the teachers when using visual aids to teach vocabulary In fact, the teachers found some challenges that hindered them from using visual aids in teaching vocabulary Remarkably, 87.5% of the teachers claimed that it was timeconsuming to prepare visual aids Also, 62.5% of the teachers said that they met difficulties in finding suitable visual materials Half of the teachers found the preparation of visual aids money consuming 3.2 Results from the students’ survey questionnaire The students’ attitudes towards the use of visual aids in teaching vocabulary The following figures and tables reflect the students’ attitudes towards the use of visual aids in learning vocabulary 60.0% 50.0% 40.0% 20.7% 30.0% 20.0% 10.0% 0.0% Figure Figure As can be seen from figure 7, the percentage of the students who felt interested and very interested in learning vocabulary through visual aids is much higher than that of those who had neutral and uninterested attitudes (74.1% as compared to 25.9%) This fact once again confirms that visual aids really interest the students Accordingly, all of the students highly appreciated the usefulness of visual aids in helping them learn vocabulary 65% and 35% respectively evaluated visual aids useful and very useful (Figure 8) As a result, most of the students (97.4%) said they can learn vocabulary easier and faster thanks to visual aids (Figure 9) The extent to which visual aids have been used in vocabulary learning Types of visual aids 01 Pictures in the textbooks 02 Pictures on power-point slides 03 Chalkboard drawings 04 Wall pictures 05 Posters 06 Wall charts 07 Word flash cards 08 Picture flash cards 09.Real objects & presentational objects 10 Mime-facial expressions 10 Table 9: The students’ evaluation on their teachers’ frequency of using visual aids to teach vocabulary The data shown in table are quite consistent with what collected from the teachers’ survey questionnaire The students also found that pictures in the textbooks and ones on powerpoint slides were mostly used by their teachers Mime-facial expressions and chalkboard drawings ranked in the middle Picture and word flash cards were frequently used by more than half of their teachers Real and presentational objects, wall pictures, wall charts and posters tended to be rarely used by their teachers The students’ problems in learning vocabulary through visual aids Learning vocabulary through visual aids is boring Learning vocabulary through visual aids is difficult to understand Learning vocabulary through visual aids is distracting Learning vocabulary through visual aids is confusing Table 12: The problems faced by the students when learning vocabulary through visual aids Considering the problems faced by the students when learning vocabulary through visual aids (Table 12), 22.4% of the students said that learning vocabulary through visual aids was confusing 18.1% stated that it was distracting and 6% admitted it was difficult to understand Surprisingly, no one felt bored when the teachers used the visual aids These percentages are not very high, they are still worth considering by the teachers in order to make visual aids really something that aids the students’ vocabulary learning process 3.3 Results from the interviews for the teachers Ways of teaching vocabulary Verbal technique (illustrative situations (oral/written), definition, synonym/antonym, gradable items, examples of type, etc.) Visual aids Translation Table 13: Teachers’ favorite ways of teaching vocabulary Table 13 illustrates the teachers’ favorite ways of teaching vocabulary As can be seen from the table, 87.5% of the teachers felt interested in teaching vocabulary through visual aids When being asked the question (Question 4: “What type(s) of visual aids you like most in teaching vocabulary?”, most of the teachers instantly told me that among many different types of visual aids they enjoyed using pictures most, both pictures in the textbooks and collected ones because pictures are not only available but also attractive to students Question 5: What typical problem(s) you meet when teaching vocabulary through visual aids? 11 Most of the teacher admitted that their typical problem in applying visual aids to teach vocabulary was their lack of time to find suitable visual material and prepare for the necessary visual aids before each lesson Moreover, many said that they lack time to use visual aids in class “We have no separate vocabulary lessons to spend much time to vocabulary teaching instead of having to teach vocabulary together with other skills,” said Trang Question 6: Generally your students have positive attitudes towards learning vocabulary through visual aids Is it true? When being asked to support for this statement, all of the teachers agreed that most of their students have quite positive attitudes towards their teachers’ applying of visual aids in vocabulary teaching 3.4 Findings and discussion Basing on the data collected from the survey questionnaire for both of the teachers and students and the informal interviews with the teachers, the results show that: Both of the teachers and students at LQD gifted high school have positive attitudes towards the use of visual aids in teaching and learning English vocabulary The teachers at LQD gifted high school tend to use different types of visual aids that are tested However, they still restrict themselves to some types of visual aids only Another finding is that the ways the teachers exploit visual aids in teaching vocabulary are rather limited As mentioned previously, the teachers mainly employ visual aids to present new words during their vocabulary teaching, whereas they rarely use visual materials to help their students practise and retain the new words Regarding the last question aiming at finding out the possible problems faced by both the teachers and the students while teaching and learning vocabulary though visual aids It can be concluded that despite their numerous benefits brought to the teachers’ and the students’, visual aids still bring their users some challenges For the teachers, they faced such problem as the lack of time to prepare, the lack of time when using, difficulties in finding suitable visual materials, money consuming and difficulties in preparing as well For the students, a number of the students still find learning vocabulary though visual aids confusing, distracting or difficult to understand, which require the teachers to re-examine if they exploit visual aids properly or not 12 PART C: CONCLUSION 4.1 Summary of the study To gain reliable and valuable data and information for the study, survey questionnaires and interview were employed as the methods of the study The data collected from the questionnaires and interview for the teachers reveal that both of the teachers and students have positive attitudes towards the use of visual aids in vocabulary teaching and learning The use of visual aids in vocabulary teaching and learning is highly appreciated by most of the teachers and students at the school However, they have not been used to their fullest potential as the teachers are rather limited in the types of visual aids and the ways they employ them Additionally, the teachers and students face certain challenges when teaching and learning vocabulary through visual aids It is hopeful that these problems can be solved if the teachers keep improving themselves and consults the solutions or suggestions in the recommendations of the research 4.2 Recommendations According to the results of the survey questionnaires and the interview, visual aids are th actually exploited in teaching vocabulary for the 11 form students at LQD gifted high school, but they are not exploited to their fullest potentials It is recommended that the teachers should vary the types of visual aids when teaching vocabulary and also increase their frequency of using visual aids, collect visual aids from different sources and vary their ways of using visual aids as well Moreover, owing to the data collected from the questionnaires and interview, both the teachers and the students still faced certain difficulties For the teachers, the lack of time to prepare and use in class and difficulties in finding suitable visual materials seem to be the most prominent problems How to tackle these problems really involves in the teachers’ preparation To save time for preparing visual aids, the teachers should know how to choose and make visual aids quickly and economically The best way is to collect visual aids from available sources such as real or presentational objects and pictures from the internet, textbooks, magazines, newspapers, etc Moreover, it must be time-economical if the teachers can create visual aids themselves To use visual aids effectively with rather limited time in class, the teachers should try to prepare all visual aids carefully in advance and schedual time for using the pre-prepared visuals appropriately It is much better if the teachers have good techniques and experience in applying visual aids In order to find suitable visual materials, it is advisable that the teachers should specify the aim of using visual aids and what types of visuals they are going to use then 13 try to collect the most suitable ones from different sources or some mentioned above However, all these above recommendations for solving the teachers’ difficulties in using visual aids just come from the teachers’ own efforts It would be better if the teachers should be financed to take part in more training programs to enhance their ability of exploiting visual aids by the managing board of the school or they should be given more budgets to make more effective visual aids For the students, many still feel confused, distract and difficult when their teachers employ visual aids in class to teach vocabulary, This problem, probably, is owing to the low effectiveness of the teachers’ using visual aids, their unvaried types of visual aids applied In order to solve these problems, the teachers should keep improving their visual aids to become more attractive, creative and varied in types They should always keep in mind two key words: creativity and imagination because “the teacher must be creative and imaginative in order to develop techniques for exploiting aids” (Chamberlain: 1980: 9) 4.3 Limitations and suggestions for further study Firstly, the author's practical experience of using visual aids in teaching vocabulary is limited Therefore, the recommendations in the last part are likely to be subjective Secondly, the researcher did not have access to all 11 th form students at LQD gifted high school Therefore, the conclusion on the students’ attitudes towards the use of visual aids in learning vocabulary may not be well generalized for the rest of the 11 th form students at the school In conclusion, despite some inevitable limitations, the researcher has, to a certain extent, succeeded in answering the research questioned stated at the beginning Hopefully, in further studies, the teacher’s and students’ attitudes towards the use of visual aids will be focused on not only vocabulary teaching and learning process but also grammar or other language kill teaching and learning processes such as writing, reading, listening or speaking 14 REFERENCES Allen, V.F (1983) Techniques in Teaching Vocabulary Oxford University Press Billow, F.L (1961) The Techniques of Language Teaching Longman, London Bowen, B.M (1982) Look here! Visual Aids in Language Teaching Macmillan, London Carter, R.& M McCarthy (Eds.) 1988 Vocabulary and Language Teaching Longman, London Dobbs, J (2001) Using the Board in the Language Classroom Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Dornyei, Z (2003) Questionnaires in Second Language Research London: New Jersey Gairns, R and S, Redman (1999) Working with Words: A Guide to Teaching and Learning Vocabulary Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Gillham, B (2000) Developing a Questionnaire New York: Continuum Gillham, B (2000) The Research Interview New York: Continuum 10 Hammer, J (1993) The Practice of English Language Teaching New York: Longman 11 Hoang, V (2006) Tieng Anh 11 Hanoi: Nha Xuat Ban Giao Duc 12 Mc Cathay, M (1990) Vocabulary New York: Oxford University Press 13 Nation, P (1994) New Ways in Teaching Vocabulary Pantagraph Printing Bloomington: Illinois USA 14 Nunan, D (1992) Research Methods in Language Learning Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 15 Read, J (2000) Assessing vocabulary New York 16 Richards, J.C & Rodgers, T.S (1986), Approaches and Methods In Language Teaching Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 17 Schmitt, N and M, McCarthy (Eds.) (1997) Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition and Pedagogy Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 18 Stahl, S.A (2005) Four Problems with Teaching Word Meaning (and what to to make vocabulary an integral part of instruction) In E.H Hiebert and M.L Kamil (eds.) Teaching and learning vocabulary: Bringing research to practice Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum 19 Ur, P (1996) A Course in Language Teaching: Practice & Theory (pp 184-187) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 15 20 Wilkins, D.A (1972) Linguistics in Language Teaching London Oxford: Oxford University Press 21 Wright, A (1989) Pictures for Language Learning Cambridge University Press 22 Wright, A (1987) Principles of Teaching Cambridge University Press 23 Wright, A & Haleem, S (1991) Visual for the Language Classroom Longman Keys to Language Teaching Longman 24 http://www.slideshare.net/jaanrod/tutorial-draw-and-teach-with stick-figures 25 http://www.mes-english.com/flashcards/dailyroutines.php Thank you for evaluating AnyBizSoft PDF Merger! To remove this page, please register your program! Go to Purchase Now>> AnyBizSoft PDF Merger  Merge multiple PDF files into one  Select page range of PDF to merge  Select specific page(s) to merge  Extract page(s) from different PDF files and merge into one ... attitudes towards the use of visual aids in vocabulary teaching and learning The use of visual aids in vocabulary teaching and learning is highly appreciated by most of the teachers and students at the. .. means of visual aids 2 Aims of the study: The study aims at: - Investigating the teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards the use of visual aids in teaching and learning vocabulary - Exploring... students at Le Quy Don gifted high school in Dien Dien towards the use of visual aids in teaching and leaning English vocabulary In the study, the quantitative and qualitative methods are employed The