External factors that affect vocabulary learning of grade 10 students at a high school in hanoi

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES  NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG NHUNG EXTERNAL FACTORS THAT AFFECT VOCABULARY LEARNING OF GRADE 10 STUDENTS AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN HANOI (Những yếu tố bên ảnh hưởng đến việc học từ vựng học sinh lớp 10 trường phổ thông Hà Nội ) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01 Hanoi – 2018 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES  NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG NHUNG EXTERNAL FACTORS THAT AFFECT VOCABULARY LEARNING OF GRADE 10 STUDENTS AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN HANOI (Những yếu tố bên ảnh hưởng đến việc học từ vựng học sinh lớp 10 trường phổ thông Hà Nội ) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01 Supervisor: Dr VŨ THỊ THANH NHÃ Hanoi – 2018 DECLARATION I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “External factors that affect vocabulary learning of grade 10 students at a high school in Hanoi” is my own study in the fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts at Faculty of PostGraduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi Nguyễn Thị Hồng Nhung Hanoi, 2018 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT On completing this thesis, I would like to express my thanks to all those who contributed their parts to the work of this research First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my respectable supervisor, Dr Vũ Thị Thanh Nhã, for her restless and sympathetic encouragement, constructive advice and patient guidance from the beginning up to the end of the study Had it not been for her valuable and timely feedback, I would have never been able to complete this research paper My sincere thanks also go to my dear students at Ngoc Hoi high school for helping me to collect data for this study and for all their support and encouragement Finally, I would also like to give my special thanks to my family and friends who have been interminably encouraging and facilitating me to fulfill this thesis ii ABSTRACT Vocabulary learning is a crucial part of learning a second language There have been a number of researchers studying roles of vocabulary learning, approaches to vocabulary and factors that affect vocabulary teaching and learning Despite these valuable sources of reference, there is still a lack of insight into external factors affecting students‟ vocabulary learning in the context of Ngoc Hoi high school Besides, vocabulary learning of grade 10 students at this school is not very effective in spite of both teachers‟ and students‟ efforts Therefore, this study was conducted to find out what external factors have the most and least influences on grade 10 students‟ vocabulary learning, and thus suggest some ways of improving the effectiveness of vocabulary teaching and learning at this high school This thesis is a survey study Questionnaire was used as the instrument to collect data for this research A Likert Scale questionnaire was developed on the basis of items which refer to external factors affecting students‟ vocabulary learning; and SPSS program was used to analyze the data collected The study revealed that “teachers” is the most influential factor, which is followed by English curriculum, Access to native speakers, Number of exposures to the new words, and Peers There is not enough evidence to prove that Lexical factors have strong influences on students‟ vocabulary learning It is expected that the findings of this study will not only benefit teachers and students at this high school but also evoke further study iii TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I: INTRODUCTION RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY AIMS OF THE STUDY RESEARCH QUESTIONS SCOPE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW VOCABULARY IN SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING 1.1.Definitions of vocabulary 1.2.The importance of vocabulary in language 1.3.Aspects of knowing a word 1.4.Types of words and vocabulary learning 1.5.Approaches to vocabulary FACTORS AFFECTING VOCABULARY ACQUISITION 2.1.Internal factors that affect vocabulary acqu 2.2.External factors that affect vocabulary acq VOCABULARY TEACHING TECHNIQUES 3.1.Deliberately teaching vocabulary 3.2.Some vocabulary teaching techniques SUMMARY CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY OVERVIEW OF THE METHOD USED IN THE STUDY 1.1 DEFINITION OF SURVEY RESEARCH 1.2 Rationale for using survey research 1.3 Strengths and limitations of survey research SUBJECTS DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENTS 3.1 Preparation 3.2 Data collection 3.3 Techniques of data analysis CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS 1.1 General information about the participants o 1.2 Reliability Statistics 1.3 Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)\ 1.4 Correlation analysis 1.5 Regression analysis 1.6 Descriptive statistics DISCUSSION PART III: RECOMMENDATION AND CONCLUSION SUMMARY OF MAJOR FINDINGS PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS 2.1 Educational administrators 2.2 Teachers 2.3 Changing students’ learning attitudes iv LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY 58 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH 58 REFERENCES 60 APPENDICES 64 APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRE WRITTEN IN ENGLISH 64 APPENDIX 2: QUESTIONNAIRE WRITTEN IN VIETNAMESE 68 v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS L2 Second Language EFL English as Foreign Language EFA Exploratory Factor Analysis KMO Test Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Test vi LIST OF TABLES Table/ Chart Table Chart Table Chart Table Chart Table Chart Table Table Table Table Table Table 10 Table 11 Table 12 Table 13 Table 14 Table 15 Table 16 Table 17 Table 18 Table 19 Table 20 Table 21 Table 22 vii Table 23 Table 24 Table 25 Table 26 Table 27 Table 28 Table 29 Table 30 Table 31 Table 32 Table 33 Table 34 Table 35 Table 36 viii motivation to learn To this, teachers should try to improve their English proficiency, use different techniques to teach vocabulary, let students watch films or listen to music if possible, and be helpful for students when they are in need In summary, teachers should increase their English proficiency and improve their methodology to enhance the effectiveness of their teaching 2.3 Changing students’ learning attitudes It is of much importance to help students have positive learning behaviors and attitudes To this, teachers should be conscious of the place of motivation in their classroom, not only to talk to encourage students to acquire large vocabulary but provide opportunities for students to know how important vocabulary learning is Besides, teachers should let students join enjoyable activities such as playing games, or singing songs in English It can be sure that students will not resist taking part in such activities; accordingly they may feel more interested in learning English Limitations of the study In most research projects, limitations are inevitable The study presented in this thesis is of no exception The first limitation is related to the context of the study The study was conducted at only one high school, so the findings which are significant to this school may not apply to other high schools In other words, it is hard for the findings of this study to be generalized Second, in terms of scope, the study limits itself to the investigation of some external factors affecting vocabulary learning of students, which means that other factors have not been examined Therefore, the solutions to students‟ problems concerning vocabulary learning may not be worked out completely Last but not least, the questionnaire used to collect data in this study was developed by the author and there were not enough participants for the author to pilot it carefully before use Recommendations for further research 58 There are certainly still some relative problems that need to be solved out of the author‟s limited knowledge and materials More detailed and deep research is expected to be done in the future Within the scope of this thesis with a limited time, there was no chance for the investigator to deal with other important factors affecting the students‟ vocabulary learning process such as the students‟ intelligence, culture background, and personality These call for further research with better validity and reliability Moreover, in this study, there is not enough evidence to prove that lexical factors had strong influences on students‟ vocabulary learning Therefore, further research on lexical factors is recommended In addition, teachers‟ beliefs and actual practices in class concerning vocabulary teaching and learning can be an interesting topic to study further In conclusion, the author sincerely hopes this humble thesis will evoke more attention and comprehensive study 59 REFERENCES Babbie, E R (1973) Survey research methods Wadsworth Barlett, J E., Kotrlik, J W., & Higgins, C C (2001) Organizational research: Determining appropriate sample size in survey research Information technology, learning, and performance journal, 19(1), 43 Beglar, D (2010) A 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AFFECTING VOCABULARY ACQUISITION 2.1.Internal factors that affect vocabulary acqu 2.2 .External factors that affect vocabulary acq VOCABULARY TEACHING TECHNIQUES 3.1.Deliberately teaching... what is the learners‟ need in terms of the materials and the methodology What are external factors affecting vocabulary learning of grade 10 students at a high school in Hanoi? What can be done... summary, the above literature on vocabulary in the second language teaching and learning indicates that there are certain factors that affect students? ?? vocabulary acquisition These factors can be divided