Teaching vocabulary to primary children by using story telling method

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** PHẠM THỊ THU TRANG TEACHING VOCABULARY TO PRIMARY CHILDREN BY USING STORY TELLING METHOD (DẠY TỪ VỰNG CHO HỌC SINH TIỂU HỌC THÔNG QUA PHƯƠNG PHÁP KỂ CHUYỆN) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 601410 HANOI, 2012 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** PHẠM THỊ THU TRANG TEACHING VOCABULARY TO PRIMARY CHILDREN BY USING STORY TELLING METHOD (DẠY TỪ VỰNG CHO HỌC SINH TIỂU HỌC THÔNG QUA PHƯƠNG PHÁP KỂ CHUYỆN) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 601410 Supervisor: Dr LÊ VĂN CANH HANOI, 2012 TABLE OF CONTENT DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii ABSTRACT…………………………………………… ………… … iii TABLE OFCONTENT………………………………………………… iv Part I: Introduction Rationale of the study 1.1 Theoretical background 1.2 Practical background Aims of the study Research questions 4 Method of the study Design of the study Part II: Development Chapter I: Literature review 1.1 Vocabulary in language teaching and learning 1.1.1 Definition of vocabulary 1.1.2 The role of vocabulary in English teaching and learning 1.2.1 The value of teaching vocabulary to primary children through stories 1.2.2 The characteristics of teaching vocabulary to primary children through stories 11 Chapter II: The study 2.1 Description of the study 17 iv 2.2 Description of the data instruments 2.2.1 Questionnaires 2.2.1.1 Questionnaires 2.2.1.2 Questionnaires 2.3 Procedure 2.4 Results and analysis from questionnaires 2.4.1 Preliminary results and analysis 2.4.2 Result and analysis after application stage 2.5 Summary * Appendices v Part I: Introduction Rationale of the study 1.1 Theoretical background If a language was a house, vocabulary would be construction material to build up that house Therefore, needless to say, vocabulary is an essential constituent of the language acquisition In learning a foreign language, vocabulary plays an important role 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, learners should acquire an adequate number of words and should know how to use them accurately At the point of linguistics, vocabulary is all the word known and used by person It means if someone had no vocabulary of a language, he or she could not use that language for reading, writing, speaking and listening It‟s known that vocabulary is an important part of language learning, without which no communication can be successful, so knowing vocabulary of a language is a minimum self-requirement for those who want to learn a foreign language 1.2 Practical background Vietnam is the country with the population more than eighty seven million people It is considered one of the dynamic, metropolitan countries heading for regional and international integration As the result, the need for future generations who can use English to communicate is urgent because English has become an international language Nowadays, most educated people will expect to learn English and to use it well Thanks to English, the international relations among the countries all over the world can be maintained and developed Consequently, the teaching of English as a second and foreign language becomes a major international enterprise So, it is very important to teach English to children as early as possible in order to prepare them facing the new era In reality, the parents' growing need for their children to learn English when they are young, many primary schools cooperated with English centres to teach English for young learners Consequently, teaching and learning quality was been controlled That lead to very poor performance in English since there had been no curriculum, no training course for the teachers and no guidelines on the way the centres had been operating Teaching English, especially for young learners, at primary schools had become a messy picture so it is important to design a suitable program that meet the needs of the society The purpose of the programme must provide "standard English" to a large number of the students even the poorest, most remote areas The question needs answering how to transfer parents' needs into children needs for the programme It had been customary that teaching English through stories was used to reward the students for good behaviour as learning was believed to be about formal tests and formalized learning and teaching For the level at primary schools, teaching method is required with the very special techniques as the result when games, songs and stories are used to create an English learning environment, the problem of changing the teacher's awareness is challenging We have to design training workshops to shift teachers from traditional methods to more student - centred approaches to make them aware that they can use stories to build up English for the children in a very natural way However, organizing training workshops has not solved the root of the problem of the lack of professional teachers for primary students With the growing need for children to learn English, we cannot answer this need at present because the whole country does not have any university which can train teachers to teach English for primary students And so the challenge continues Since young children are able to learn foreign language more naturally and to some extent more easily than older learners, children can start learning a foreign language as soon as they are old enough to accept the social requirements demanded by group teaching Children can learn English from the earliest age since they have got knowledge or ability to learn foreign language In this case, the teachers only need to develop, support, motivate and dig up their basic ability in improving it It is in line with Halliwel opinion (1998:3) that young children not come to the language classroom empty handed but they bring with them on already well established set of instinct, skills and characteristic which will help them to learn another language In teaching English to children the teacher should pay attention not only to how the right implementation of the techniques used but also on how these techniques are suited to the elementary students‟ characteristics It is the target to create the teaching learning process becoming interesting and understanding to the children in order to reach the learning goal To meet the goal, many teaching techniques can be implemented, one of them is using story By listening to the story, some important skills can be developed such as prediction, guessing, message decoding and assimilate new vocabulary Story can allow students to be creative and imaginative and also give students a sense of achievement Story can be applied through telling and reading Story telling activities are a great way to allow students to express themselves freely and creatively in an authentic and real way According to Taylor (2000:16), story telling is relating to tale one or more listener through voice and gestures Oral telling terms use to get much simpler language; in addition, the sentences are generally shorter With oral telling, we usually repeat things more redundancy, especially if the students are having difficulty to follow the story Telling story needs much time and energy, but different with story book reading, it is very simple and very efficient technique because the teacher only reads the text on that book From the above explanation, the writer is interested in conducting the research in titled “Teaching vocabulary to primary school children through stories.” Aims of the study This research is conducted to: Find primary school students‟ perceived difficulties in learning English vocabulary Investigate primary school students‟ attitudes toward teaching vocabulary through telling stories The investigation was carried out in three classes of 5th grade at Dinh Tien Hoang primary school Research questions Base on the aims of the study, we need to answer the following questions: What are the 5th grade students‟ self – reported difficulties in learning English vocabulary? What are students‟ attitudes toward teaching vocabulary through telling story? Method of study In order to achieve the aims mentioned above, both qualitative and quantitative methods are used Design of the study The study has parts Each part deals with different aspects of the study: Part I deals with the introduction of the study Part II consists of chapters and in chapter I, the writer focuses on some main points: the role of vocabulary in learning and teaching English, the importance and the characteristics of teaching vocabulary to primary children through stories Chapter II is related to the investigation into the quality of teaching vocabulary through stories In part III, there are some recommendations for effective use of stories in teaching methods Moreover, the conclusion in which the writer summaries all the main points studied and then some suggestions for further study are presented Part II: Development Chapter 1: Literature review 1.1 Vocabulary in language teaching and learning 1.1.1 Definition of vocabulary There have been many different definitions of vocabulary Wilkins (1972:11) gave his ideas about vocabulary: „Without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed‟ In other words, vocabulary is an important part of language learning and the human existence, without which no communication can be successful According to the Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary (2000:1011), vocabulary is defined as „words known to a person or used by a particular language book, subject‟ and „total number words that make up a language‟ The precious value of vocabulary is mainly for the students in that they reinforce key concepts Moreover, Nation (2001: 103) also pointed out that: „Knowing a word means knowing at least its form, its meaning and its basic usages‟ Thus, learning English vocabulary is not quite simple to learn a word It means students have to learn many things concerning with that word such as its forms, its meanings, and its usages Even if we learn a word, it takes a lot of practice and context connections for us to learn it well However, the writer completely agrees with the definitions of Nation because it gives us an overview about vocabulary There are many different opinions about this and in fact, vocabulary represents a major component of language learning, teaching and help students can understand lesson Vocabulary plays an important role in teaching process Bảng câu hỏi số (phát cho học sinh) Chúng ta có thơng tin việc sử dụng thủ thuật thực tiễn việc dạy học từ vựng tiếng Anh trường P.T.T.H Xin khoanh tròn đáp án, chọn số A, B, C, D mà em thấy 1.Em tham gia tiết học mà giáo viên kể chuyên để dạy từ vựng? A Tham gia không nhiều C Không nhiều B Tương đối nhiều D Không tham gia Mức độ ý em việc học từ vựng hoạt động kể chuyện áp dụng? A Chú ý cao B Tương đối cao Em có thấy thủ thuật áp dụng thú vị? A Rất thú vị B Khá thú vị Theo em, hoạt động áp dụng có phù hợp khơng? A Rất thú vị B Khá phù hợp Theo em, trò chơi sử dụng có kích thích khơng? A Rất kích thích C Khơng kích thích cho B Khá kích thích D Khơng kích thích Em có thích hoạt động kể chuyện áp dụng việc dạy từ? A Rất thích C Khơng thích B Tương đối thích D Khơng thích Em tham gia tiết học có sử dụng câu chuyện việc dạy từ vựng? A Rất nhiều C Không nhiều xiv B Tương đối nhiều D Không tham gia Khi câu chuyện áp dụng, em có thấy dễ để hiểu từ? A Rất dễ C Chỉ dễ chút B Tương đối dễ D Không Cảm ơn cộng tác em! xv APPENDIX II Tables and pie charts 100 80 60 40 20 Very important Important Not important Not important at all Table 1: Students’ attitudes toward the role of vocabulary in learning English (p.22) Table 2: Students’ self evaluation of their own vocabulary (p.23) xvi Very interesting Rather interesting A bit interesting Boring Pie chart 3: Students’ a t t i t u d e t o w a r d l e a r n i n g vocabulary through telling story (p.23) Options All the words students not know Only words difficult to pronounce Only words difficult to use Only the important words Table 4: The number of words in presentation (p.24) Options Find it difficult to pronounce new word Find it difficult to use word Find it difficult to remember word forms Find it difficult to remember word meaning Table 5: Students’ difficulties in learning vocabulary (p.25) xvii Pie Chart 6: The frequency of having difficulty in remembering words (p.26) Translating and giving examples Using antonyms and synonmyms Using situation Using visual aids Pie chart 7: Teachers’ common techniques in presenting vocabulary through telling story (p.27) xviii Table 8: The frequency of telling story in presenting vocabulary (p.29) Very involved Quite involved Not very involved Not involved at all Pie Chart 9: Students’ involment in learning vocabulary through telling story (p.30) xix Table 10: Students’ concentration on learning vocabulary in teaching vocabulary through telling story (p.31) Pie chart 11: Students’ appreciation about the levels of the interest of telling story in teaching vocabulary (p31) xx 3% 7% Very appropriate Quite appropriate Not appropriate at all Pie chart 12: Students’ appreciation of teaching vocabulary through telling story appropriateness (p.32) 60 55% 50 40% 40 30 20 10 5% Very Quite Not very Not challenging challenging challenging challenging at all Table 13: Students’ appreciation of teaching vocabulary through telling story (p.32) xxi Table 14: Students’ opinion about activities used to teach vocabulary through telling story in class (p.33) xxii APPENDIX III Lesson plan Revision A Period 1: Listen the story I/ Objectives: By the end of this period, students can be able to: - To engage children in the art of storytelling - To develop public speaking skills II/ Language review: rain, train, ball, hall, car, garden, park, blouse, blue, black, bread, brother, brown III/ Teaching aids: picture, word cards, rubric, peer conferencing sheet IV/ Procedure: time 10' Listen and repeat: -introduces the way of re AI - guides Ss read - reads the letters, then a repeat - asks Ss read i - feedbacks, co Read and match: - introduces the pictures their knowledge 20' - reads the words and asks Ss - calls some Ss to read th xxiii - work in pairs park blue black - guides the way to read and match - asks Ss to give the result - corrects and gives the key Telling story - T make up a story with the picture • • What are the key points of your sto - T let SS practice - T let Ss tell their story - T use the rubric to assess Homework: 3' -asks Ss review letters and words - try to present the story xxiv xxv ... it is very important to say that teaching vocabulary through telling story is necessary to primary children Thanks to the application of teaching vocabulary through telling story, students can... characteristics of teaching vocabulary to primary children through stories Teaching vocabulary through stories activities We can use stories to give children more practice vocabulary at listening,... TRANG TEACHING VOCABULARY TO PRIMARY CHILDREN BY USING STORY TELLING METHOD (DẠY TỪ VỰNG CHO HỌC SINH TIỂU HỌC THÔNG QUA PHƯƠNG PHÁP KỂ CHUYỆN) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Language Teaching Methodology