An investigation into classroom vocabulary learning activities at dong son i secondary school in thanh hoa m a thesis linguistics 60 14 10

Vietnam national university, Hanoi UNIVERSITY OF foreign languages AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES POST-graduate studies *** -*** BÙI THỊ THẢO AN INVESTIGATION INTO CLASSROOM VOCABULARY LEARNING ACTIVITIES AT DONG SON I SECONDARY SCHOOL IN THANH HOA NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG HỌC TỪ VỰNG TRÊN LỚP TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT ĐÔNG SƠN I, THANH HÓA M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10 Ha Noi, 2010 Vietnam national university, Hanoi UNIVERSITY OF foreign languages AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES POST-graduate studies *** -*** BÙI THỊ THẢO AN INVESTIGATION INTO CLASSROOM VOCABULARY LEARNING ACTIVITIES AT DONG SON I SECONDARY SCHOOL IN THANH HOA NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG HỌC TỪ VỰNG TRÊN LỚP TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT ĐƠNG SƠN I, THANH HĨA M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10 Supervisor: Phan Thị Vân Quyên, M.A Ha Noi, 2010 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale Aims of the study Research questions Scope of the study Method of the study Design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter I: Literature review Definition of vocabulary Classification of vocabulary 2.1 According to the concept of morpheme 2.2 According to the meaning 2.3 According to the function of vocabulary items in a sentence 2.4 According to the sequence of use 2.5 According to the use of word: Active and Passive vocabulary The importance of vocabulary in language teaching and learning Aspects of word knowledge to be included in vocabulary teaching 4.1 Pronunciation 4.2 Word – formation 4.3 Collocation The most commonly used techniques in vocabulary teaching 5.1 Techniques in presenting vocabulary 5.2 Techniques in practicing new words Factors that affect vocabulary acquisition Classroom vocabulary learning activities Chapter II: Research methodology Research questions The context of the study 2.1 The text book 2.2 The teachers of English v th 2.3 The 10 form students 17 Instruments of data collection 17 3.1 Survey questionnaire 17 3.2 Interview 26 Data collection and analysis 27 Chapter III: Data analysis and discussion 28 Data analysis from students’ questionnaires 28 Data analysis from teachers’ questionnaires 31 PART C: CONCLUSION 36 Summary of findings 36 Implications 38 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study 43 REFERENCES 44 APPENDICES I Appendix I Appendix III PART A INTRODUCTION Rationale Vocabulary plays an important role in learning a foreign language It is one element that links the four skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing all together In order to communicate well in a foreign language, students should acquire an adequate number of words and should know how to use them accurately Even though students realize the importance of vocabulary when learning a language, most Vietnamese students learn vocabulary passively due to several reasons First, they find the teacher's explanation for the new words‘ meaning, pronunciation, spelling or grammatical functions boring In processing learning English in the class, language learners have nothing to in a vocabulary learning section but to listen to their teacher Second, students only think of vocabulary learning as learning the primary meaning of new words Therefore, they ignore all other functions of the words Third, students usually only learn new words in their textbooks or those given by teachers during classroom lessons For example, learners find many new words in a text and then ask the teacher to explain their meanings and usages Forth, many Vietnamese learners not want to take risks in applying what they have learnt Students may recognize a word in a written or spoken form and think that they already "know the word", but they may not be able to use that word properly in different contexts or pronounce it correctly As the result, the class is often quiet and inactive and the lessons appear to be uninteresting Students just seat in silence, the exercises, and wait for the correct answers from the teachers They seem to get bored of having the same ways of learning every day Therefore, classroom vocabulary learning activities help learners develop and use words in different contexts and make the lessons enjoyable It can not be denied that, classroom vocabulary learning activities are a well come break from the usual routine of the language class They help students to make and sustain the effort of learning; provide practice in the various skills, such as speaking, writing, listening and reading; encourage students to communicate Besides, vocabulary-learning activities bring real world context into the classroom, and stimulate students‘ use of English in a flexible, meaningful and communicative way That is the reason why I carry out this research entitled, “An investigation into classroom vocabulary learning activities at Dong Son I secondary school in Thanh Hoa” 2 Aims of the study The study was designed to achieve the following goals: To find out the English teachers and students‘ perception and attitude towards vocabulary and the current situation of vocabulary learning and teaching To evaluate the effectiveness of the currently used classroom vocabulary learning activities at Dong Son I high school To suggest how to use classroom vocabulary activities to improve vocabulary teaching and learning Research questions In order to achieve the above-stated goals, the study was to seek answers to the following questions: What are the English teachers and students’ perception and attitude towards vocabulary learning/teaching? How effective are the currently used classroom vocabulary learning activities at Dong Son I High School? Scope of the study There are, of course, many ways to motivate the students to learn English effectively However, in this minor thesis, I would focus my research on the effectiveness of classroom vocabulary learning activities at Dong Son I secondary school in Thanh Hoa The reason is that my students are too passive to learn vocabulary They need to participate more actively in learning activities I hope that through some classroom vocabulary activities, I will find the most effective learning activities to improve students‘ vocabulary learning My students have chance to use the words productively Methods of the study To gain the aims given in section 2, the study uses quantitative research approach In order to gain the most successful results, data will be collected through questionnaires (one questionnaire for students, and the other for teachers of English at high school) Collected data, then, will be processed and analyzed Besides, the study is also carried out through informal interview with some students and teachers at Dong Son I secondary school Additionally, the writer‘s own experience in designing classroom vocabulary learning activities and the analysis of current textbook and vocabulary teaching methods applied to th teaching English for the 10 form students at Dong Son I secondary school in Thanh Hoa will contribute much to the evaluation of the effectiveness of these activities Design of the study The thesis is composed of three parts Part A is the introduction, which presents the rationale, aims as well as the scope, method, and the design of the study Part B is the development of the study, divided into three chapters Chapter I is for literature review, which provides the theoretical background of the study The focus of this chapter is the definition, classification, the importance of vocabulary; aspects of word knowledge to be included in vocabulary teaching; techniques in vocabulary teaching; factors that affect vocabulary acquisition and classroom vocabulary learning activities Chapter II includes the description of the participants and the data collection instruments and the methods employed to analyze these data Chapter III presents the detailed analyses of the data collected from the survey questionnaires for the teachers and the students and the discussion of the findings Lastly, part C is the conclusion of the study, the limitation of the research and recommendations for the teaching and learning activities at Dong Son I secondary school in Thanh Hoa PART B DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW Definition of vocabulary The term ―word‖ appears to be a simple concept but in fact, it is extremely difficult to define Some linguists define words in terms of semantics or phonology, etc For instance, Palmer noted that a word is marked, if not by ―spaces‖ or ―pauses‖, at least by some features of the sound system of the language (e.g stress and juncture in English) And yet, in rapid spoken English, we sometimes can hardly find stress and juncture, we might say ―whatchangonna do?‖ for what in writing would appear ―what are you going to do?‖ Is ―whatcha‖ one word or three and ―gonna‖ one or two? So, let us, for the time being, accept the following definition which seems to be the most satisfactory: ―A word is a dialectical unity of form and content, independent unit of language to form a sentence by itself, for example ―book, bookish, unlucky, go, eat, lexicology, white-wash, kiss-mequick‖ and so forth Vocabulary can be defined, roughly, as the words we teach in the foreign language According to Harmer, if language structures make up the skeleton of a language, then it is its vocabulary that provides the vital organs and the flesh A word is a unit of language that native speakers can identify, “words are the block from which sentences are made” Knowing a word means being able to thing with it: to recognize it in connected speech or in print, to access its meaning, to pronounce it and to be able to these things within a fraction of a second (Stahl and Fairbanks, 1986) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ―vocabulary is a set of words known to a person or other entity, or that are part of the specific language‖ Meanwhile, Hoang simply defined vocabulary as ―words of a specific language‖ (Hoang, et al., 2006: 262) In a more detailed definition, Lewis (1993: 89) states vocabulary ―…may be individual words, or full sentences- institutionalized utterances- that convey fixed social or pragmatic meaning within a given community.‖ In short, vocabulary is the total number of all the words that a language possesses, including single words, two or three-word items expressing a single idea and multi-word idioms of which meaning can not be deduced from the analysis of the component words but only understood in the sentences; or in contexts, etc Classification of vocabulary In general, vocabulary can be classified in various ways according to different criteria Below are the most common ways of classifying vocabulary 2.1 According to the concept of morpheme Based on this criterion, McCathy divides words in to three kinds (1990: 5) Simple word A simple word has only one root morpheme For example: book, man, happy, eat… Derived word A derived word has a root morpheme and one or more than one affixational morphemes For example: bookish, booked, unhappy eater… Compound word A compound word has at least two roots with or without affixational morphemes For example: book worm, man-made, lotus-eater… 2.2 According to the meaning There are two main kinds of meanings in a word, lexical meaning and grammatical meaning Vocabulary, therefore, can be divided into notional words and functional words (Read, 2000:18) Notional words Notional words, whose meanings are lexical, form a great mass of the speaker‘s vocabulary They name objects, actions, qualities and have meanings in themselves They are nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and so on Functional words Functional words, whose meanings are grammatical, only have their meanings in relation to other words with which they are used They are particles, articles, prepositions, etc 2.3 According to the function of vocabulary items in a sentence Performing different functions in a sentence, English vocabulary can be divided into different items as parts of speech They are nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions and pronouns (Quirk, 1987:18) Each part of speech has its own position complying with certain grammatical rules and relating to others 2.4 According to the sequence of use This criterion refers to the frequency of occurrence of words There are three groups of words which appear in different frequencies: high frequency words, low frequency words and specialized words High frequency words are the words that appear most often in printed materials According to Robert Hillerich ―Just three words I, and, the account for ten percent all words in printed English‖ Low frequency words are words that almost every language user rarely uses, for example: eponymous, gibbous, bifurcate, plummet, ploy, etc They may represent a rarely expressed idea, they may be similar in meaning to a much more frequent word or phrase, they may be marked as being old fashioned, very formal, belonging to a particular dialect, or vulgar, or they may be a foreign words Specialized words are the words people who work in or study special areas of knowledge use a specific group of words, or specialized vocabulary, in talking about their subjects In the medical field, doctors often use terms, such as: nosocomial pneumonia, sinusitis, hypertension, asthma, bronchitis… It is necessary for the teacher to show his learners which group the learning words belong to because it is not important for learners to learn every word with equal concentration and in equal time but the words that are more commonly used This principle is very important in vocabulary learning 2.5 According to the use of word: Active and Passive vocabulary Learners understand many more words than they use in their own conversations, i.e one's passive vocabulary is much larger than one's active vocabulary The total number of words actively used in one's whole life is much smaller than the total number of words understood in one's whole life Even if we learn a word, it takes a lot of practice and context connections for us to learn it well This means that one word has different meanings in different contexts When a word connected with different prepositions will give different meanings You can not be able to remember and use all words exactly at the same time So having a great English vocabulary doesn't mean that you can use these words and phrases and that you can remember them when you need them This is the difference between an active and a passive vocabulary Passive vocabulary are words which a student can recognize but not necessarily use in speaking or writing Passive vocabulary are useful for receptive skills such as reading and listening Active vocabulary are words which students can both understand and use in communication Active vocabulary are especially useful for the productive skills such as speaking and writing So, the secret is to try to "activate" the passive vocabulary knowledge 39 Ineffective activities should not be in use any more Or we should consider again the way to design these activities to be suitable for our students, such as time allowance, steps and purpose Furthermore, vocabulary learning activities should be varied to avoid the boredom and encourage students‘ participation It could be explained that as teenagers, high school students are usually eager to explore new things rather than carry out the repeated activities Games in vocabulary learning activities should be more relevant to the content of the lessons in the text-book Furthermore, one important factor we need to pay attention to when using vocabulary learning activities is vocabulary learning activities used for grade 10 learners should be carefully chosen and organized The tasks should not be too difficult or too easy Also, it must be related to the lessons so that learners can both play and study at the same time The instructions should be clear so that students could understand what to immediately Below are some suggested vocabulary activities I myself have used them in my vocabulary lessons and find them useful for improving my students‘ vocabulary: Hangman Source Purpose Introduction Game 40 SLAP THE BOARD Source Purpose Introduction Music Crossword Puzzle Source Purpose Introduction Game 41 Across: a person who sings a person who writes music the word of a song a collection of recordings issued as a single item Down: a person who plays a musical instrument a style of music with strong and loud beats a large group of musicians the systematic arrangement of musical sounds Answer: singer; composer; lyrics; album; musician; rock; orchestra; rhythm WORD FROM WORD Source Purpose Introduction Game 42 WORK SEARCH Source Purpose Introduction - Note: before Ss work, T may ask if Ss know all the names of the animals provided in the puzzle T can give some Vietnamese equivalents of the words and quickly teach Ss to pronounce the words + ape: khỉ không đuôi + alligator: cá sấu châu Mỹ + deer: hươu, nai + llama: lạc đà không bướu The words in the box bellow are hidden in this puzzle The words go across, up, down, backward and diagonally BOX E I X R E G I T L A L WORD B U L Y E K N O M L C 43 Limitation of the study and suggestions for further study Like any research paper, it is apparent that certain limitations in the study are unavoidable Firstly, the investigator only uses survey questionnaires for data collection The student respondents are from only classes out of 12 classes at grade 10 (180 students out th of 566 at the 10 grade students), which may not be enough for the investigator to have precise judgments Therefore, the suggestions to improve vocabulary of 10th form students by using vocabulary learning activities at Dong Son I high school may be subjective and incomplete The author hopes that there are more future studies on classroom vocabulary activities that are beneficial for high school students, not only in grade 10 but also in grade 11 and 12 44 REFERENCES Vietnamese references Chu Quang Bình (2006) Thiết kế giảng tiếng Anh 10 NXB Hà Nội Đỗ Thị Bích Hà- Nguyễn Hà Đoan Phương (2007) Hoạt đông luyện tập Tiếng Anh 10 NXB Giáo Dục Nguyễn Thủy Minh- Lương Quỳnh Trang (2008) Thiết kế giảng Tiếng Anh 10 NXB Hà Nội Đỗ Tuấn Minh, Đặng Thu Phương, Nguyễn Thu Trang (2009) Câu hỏi tập trắc nghiệm tiếng Anh 10 NXB Giáo Dục Việt Nam Hoàng Tất Trường (1993), Từ Vựng Học Tiếng Anh Cơ Bản, NXB Trường ĐHSP Ngoại Ngữ Hà Nội Hoàng Văn Vân, Nguyễn Thị Chi, Hoàng Thị Xuân Hoa (2006), Đổi phương pháp dạy Tiếng Anh THPT Việt Nam, NXB Giáo Dục Hà Nội Hoàng Văn Vân, Hoàng Thị Xuân Hoa, Đỗ Tuấn Minh, Nguyễn Thu Phương, Nguyễn Quốc Tuấn (2006), Tiếng Anh 10, NXB Giáo Dục, Hà Nội Hoàng Văn Vân , Hoàng Thị Xuân Hoa, Vũ Thị Lợi, Đào Ngọc Lộc, Đỗ Tuấn Minh, Nguyễn Quốc Tuấn (2006), Tài liệu bồi dưỡng Giáo viên Tiếng Anh, GD&ĐT, Hà Nội English references Allen, V.F (1983) Techniques in Teaching Vocabulary, Oxford University Press Cohen, A.D., Weaver, S.j.,& Li, T-Y.1998 The impact of strategies- based instruction on speaking a foreign language Gairns, R Redman S (1986) Working with words Cambridge University Press John Morgan, Vocabulary, Oxford University Press (1986) Harmer, j (1991), The Practice of English Language Teaching, Cambridge: Longman Huyen Nguyen Thi Thanh and Nga, Khuat Thi Thu 2003 The Effectiveness of Learning Vocabulary through Games Asian EFL –Journal Com/dec_03_ind Php Lee S.K (1995), “Creative Games for the language class”, Forum, 33 (1), pp35 Lewis M (2000), Teaching Collocation, London Commercial Color Press plc London Michael McCarthy (1990) Vocabulary Oxford University Press 10 Pettigrew, j (2005), Teaching Vocabulary: Two Dozen Tips and Techniques 11 Paul Nation, Editor (1994), New ways in teaching Vocabulary 12 Quirk R (1987), A University Grammar of English, Longman class UK limited, Essex 45 13 Read J (2000), Assessing vocabulary, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 14 Stahl, S., &Fairbanks, M 1986 The effects of vocabulary instruction: A model based meta-analysis Review of Education Research 15 Wikin, D.A (1972), Linguistics in Language Teaching London: Edward Arnold 16 http://www.profesor.pl/mat/pd7/pd7_g_kwiatkowska_20070420.pdf 17 http://w.w.wscribd.com/doc/9639825/Teaching_English_Vocabulary_Using_Ga mes 18 http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/pronunciation-phonetics/38675- importance-pronunciation.html 19 http:writing.colostate.edu/guides/teaching esl/pronunciation.cfm 20 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/vocabulary 21 http: //People.bv.edu/jpettigr/articles and presentation/vol.htm.36k I APPENDIX QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS (VIETNAMESE VERSION) PHIẾU ĐIỀU TRA DÀNH CHO HỌC SINH Bản câu hỏi liên quan đến đề tài nghiên cứu “Nghiên cứu hoạt động học từ vựng lớp trường THPT Đơng Sơn I, Thanh Hóa.” Đây khơng phải kiểm tra, khơng có câu trả lời “đúng” hay “sai” Hãy bày tỏ quan điểm riêng em vấn đề hỏi Rất mong em trả lời với điều suy nghĩ, đảm bảo cho thành công vấn đề nghiên cứu Chân thành cảm ơn em! Em nghĩ vai trò từ vựng việc học ngoại ngữ? a Rất quan trọng b Quan trọng c Không quan trọng Em đánh việc học từ vựng mình? a Tốt Vì sao:………………… ……….… ………………….……… …………………… ……….…………………… ………………… .…………  b Trung bình Vì sao: ….….…….… ………… ……………………… …………………… ……….………………… ………………………………  c Yếu Vì sao: ………………… .… … …….………… ……… …………………… ……….…………… …………………………………… Em thường học từ vựng theo cách cách đây? (Em đánh dấu nhiều lần)  a Cố gắng đoán nghĩa từ qua ngữ cảnh  b Tra từ điển  c Yêu cầu giáo viên giải thích  d Lờ  e Viết từ tiếng Anh nhiều lần  f Viết từ tiếng Anh nghĩa tiếng Việt tương đương  g Đặt câu với từ  h Đọc to từ  i Kết hợp việc học từ với tranh  k Những cách học khác (hãy cho biết cụ thể)…… I II Em đánh hoạt động dạy từ vựng lớp giáo viên? STT Các hoạt động học Ghép từ Đoán từ Đặt câu với từ cho sẵn Sắp xếp trật tự từ để tạo thành từ Điền vào chỗ trống Tìm từ đồng nghĩa trái nghĩa Sử dụng phương tiện trực quan Tìm từ khác với từ loại Lập hội thoại với từ 10 Chơi trò chơi từ vựng 11 Yêu cầu lớp nhắc lại đồng sau gọi cá nhân nhắc lại II III APPENDIX QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS The reason behind questionnaire is to collect data from teachers’ attitude and experience about teaching classroom vocabulary activities The information obtained from it will serve as a background survey for the M.A thesis We are interested in your personal opinions So please respond to each statement or questions and complete all of them as frankly and accurately as possible Thank you very much for your help Rank the following section of language in the order of importance: Vocabulary Grammar Pronunciation What you think are the reasons why your students not have a good vocabulary? a They are lazy learning new words b They don’t know how to learn and memorize new words c They have bad memory of words d They are not interested in vocabulary lessons e They don’t read any thing in English other than the textbook f Others (please specify) Do you have any difficulties when using vocabulary learning activities in classroom?  Yes  No If YES, what are the reasons? a students’ passive learning habit b lack of time c lack of modern equipments (e.g OHP, computer, projector, …) c big class size d others (please specify) III IV Which of the following vocabulary learning activities you use to teach vocabulary and how effective are they? Ordinal number Activit Word matching Guessing the word Word to sentence Rearrange letters to form new words Missing word Finding synonyms and antonyms Using visual aids Odd man out Making dialogues with new words 10 Playing vocabulary games 11 Asking students to repeat in chorus and then individually IV ... to the meaning There are two main kinds of meanings in a word, lexical meaning and grammatical meaning Vocabulary, therefore, can be divided into notional words and functional words (Read, 2000:18)...Vietnam national university, Hanoi UNIVERSITY OF foreign languages AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES POST-graduate studies *** -*** B? ?I THỊ THẢO AN INVESTIGATION INTO CLASSROOM VOCABULARY LEARNING ACTIVITIES. .. always aware of the importance of vocabulary in language teaching Grammar was ranked number The teachers at Dong Son I school have realized that grammar also plays an essential part in learning