Supporting young learners’ vocabulary through pictures an action research approach

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* DƯƠNG THU TRANG SUPPORTING YOUNG LEARNERS’ VOCABULARY THROUGH PICTURES: AN ACTION RESEARCH APPROACH (Hỗ trợ việc học từ vựng học sinh tranh ảnh) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01 HANOI - 2019 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* DƯƠNG THU TRANG SUPPORTING YOUNG LEARNERS’ VOCABULARY THROUGH PICTURES: AN ACTION RESEARCH APPROACH (Hỗ trợ việc học từ vựng học sinh tranh ảnh) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Lê Văn Canh HANOI - 2019 DECLARATION I hereby make an oath that this thesis is my own work and it has not been submitted anywhere for any award Hanoi, July 2019 Dương Thu Trang i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to all people who gave a hand with giving me the chances to complete this thesis First of all, I would like to show my deep appriciation to my supervisor, Prof Lê Văn Canh for his worth advice, careful instruction and endless encouragement during my time of conducting this thesis Secondly, it is my lecturers in the Faculty of Post – graduate Studies, the University of Foreign Languages and International Studies that gave me various beneficial lecturers motivating me to investigate my own teaching situation to reach a more professional level Thirdly, I would like to send my thanks to all the teachers and students at the chosen English center in hanoi for being willing to join my research for eight weeks Finally, my family and friends are the people I would like to show my genuine appriciation Without their support and encouragement, I could not have completed this thesis due to daily life routine ii ABSTRACT Vocabulary is one the most important elements in English acquisition Without words, human cannot express their ideas, feelings or thoughts In the chosen English center in Hanoi, teaching and learning is paid attention to with a view to improve the students‟ English acquisition and one of the major concern here is vocabulary teaching and learning through images of young learners To explore how images support young learners‟ vocabulary acquisition, the study was carried out among forty 2th grade students for eight weeks with six units in their books They were divided equally into two groups and each one was taught in two different ways of vocabulary teaching: one with traditional method – the translation method while the other by using pictures The classroom observations and tests were instruments to collect the data for the research After the treatment time, the results showed that the experimental group gained higher scores by using pictures to learn vocabulary and the classroom atmosphere was vey comfortable and ludic while the control group obtained not as good results as the experimental one It can be inferred from the results that images make a greater dedication to enhancing not only young learners‟ vocabulary acquisition but also their motivation in English learning than not using them iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF CHARTS vi LIST OF TABLES vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study Aims of the study Method of the study Significance of the study Structure of the thesis CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Vocabulary knowledge 2.2 Approaches to vocabulary learning and teaching 2.3 The role of images in vocabulary learning 2.4 Teaching vocabulary to young learners 2.4.1 Characteristics of young learners 2.4.2 Techniques of teaching vocabulary to young learners 12 2.5 Studies on teaching vocabulary to young learners through pictures .15 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 19 3.1 Action research in language teaching 19 3.1.1 Purposes of action research 19 3.1.2 Features of action research 20 3.1.3 Steps in action research 21 3.2 Why is action research chosen? 21 3.3 The context of the study 22 3.3.1 The current situation of teaching and learning English at the center 22 3.3.2 The teaching program and materials 23 iv 3.4 Research procedures 23 3.4.1 Research question 23 3.4.2 The participants 24 3.4.3 Design of the procedures 24 3.5 Data collection instruments 28 CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 30 4.1 Analysis on classroom observations 30 4.1.1 Interest 30 4.1.2 Interaction 33 4.2 Analysis on test results 35 4.2.1 Analysis on immediate tests 35 4.2.2 Analysis on delayed tests 38 4.3 Discussion of the findings 39 CHAPTER 5: RECAPITULATION 42 Conclusion 42 Implications 43 Limitations and recommendations for further studies .43 REFERENCES 45 APPENDICES I APPENDIX I APPENDIX IV APPENDIX VIII APPENDIX IX APPENDIX X APPENDIX XII v LIST OF CHARTS Chart 4.1: Students‟ interest in learning activities 30 Chart 4.2: Classroom interaction 34 Chart 4.3: The students‟ mean score of immediate tests‟ average mark .37 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 Characteristics of young learners……………………………………… 12 Table 3.1 Design of the study…………………………………………………… 33 Table 4.1: The two groups‟ results of six immediate tests Error! Bookmark not defined Table 4.2:The two groups‟ results of two delayed tests 38 vii teaching, 1, 1–12 26 Nation, P (2013a) What Should Every EFL Teacher Know? Seoul: Compass Publishing 27 Nelson, D & Castaňo, D (1984) Mental representations for pictures and words: Same or different? American Journal of Psychology, 97(1), 1-15 28 Nunan, David (2003) Practical English Language Teaching New York: McGraw Hill Company 29 Phillips, S (1993) Young Learners Oxford: Oxford University Press 30 Piaget, J (1970) The science of education and the psychology of the child New York: Oxford 31 Sankey, M., Birch, D and Gardiner, M (2010) Engaging students through multimodal learning environments: The journey continues In: C.H Steel, M.J Keppell, P 32 Smith, F (2006) Ourselves: Why we are who we are; A Handbook for Educators Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates 33 Gerbic & S Housego (Eds.), Curriculum, technology & transformation for an unknown future Proceedings ascilite Sydney 2010 pp 852-863 34 Scott.A.Wendy and Ytreberg, H.Lisbeth.1990.Teaching English to children, London.New York:Longman 35 Slatterly, M., & Willis, J (2001) English for primary teachers Oxford: Oxford University Press 36 Vygotsky, L (1962) Thought and language Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 37 Williams, M (1991) A framework for teaching English to young learners Teaching English to Children From Practice to Principle Eds C Brumfit, J Moon and R Tongue London: Collins ELT 203 – 212 38 Zarei, G and Khazaie, S (2011) L2 vocabulary learning through multimodal representations Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 15 (1), pp.369- 375 47 APPENDICES Note: T: Teacher Ss: Students APPENDIX LESSON PLAN (Week – the control group) Unit 3: On the street I Objectives: At the end of the lesson, students can: - Remember the words in the lesson – the words about things on the street - Sing a song included II Materials: Textbook and audio tape III Students: - Number of students: 20 - The control group IV Time allowed: 45 minutes Stage Warm up (5 mins.) Introduction (10 mins.) I Practice (15 mins.) Production (5 mins.) II Review (2 mins.) Conduction of Immediate test (6 mins.) Wrap up (2 mins.) III APPENDIX LESSON PLAN (Week – the experimental group) Unit 3: On the street I Objectives: At the end of the lesson, students can: - Remenber the words in the lesson – the words about things on the street - Sing a song included II Materials: Textbook, pictures and audio tape III Students: - Number of students: 20 - The experimental group IV Time allowed: 45 minutes Stage Warm up (5 mins.) Introduction (10 mins.) IV words they know about things on the street Guess - Show the pictures matching with the the words they can see in required words in the lesson and ask the pictures them guess the word of each picture + If one gives the right answer, T ask the whole class repeating the word along with pointing at the picture + If not, T will invite the others and still have the right answer, T give them the words - Request Ss to repeat the written new Repeat after T and then words on the board after T pronoune write down the words in them and then ask them to write down the notebooks the words in their notebooks Vocabulary in the lesson: Mike Bike V Slide Five Practice (15 mins.) - Activity 1: + Divide Ss into groups and Work in groups and read the chant in exercise in discuss the pictures group Ss will be looking at the pictures to notify the words they have been taught + Read aloud in front of the After minutes, ask each class and point at the group to stand in front of the things matching the class to read it Each student words will read one sentence along with poiting at the thing Tell T what they can see mentioned in it - Activity 2: Tell Ss to read exercise + by using the already known words Ask Ss to look at the picture in the textbook and desribe what Fill in the gap as required the children are doing + Fill in the gap with the suitable Sing along with the words matching with the pictures - Activity 3: Play audio tape and ask VI Production (5 mins.) Review (2 mins.) Conduction of Immediate test mins.) Wrap up (2 mins.) VII APPENDIX Name:…………………………………… Mark Exercise: Listen and tick Question 1: a Question 2: a VIII Date:……………………… APPENDIX Name:…………………………………… Date:……………………… IMMEDIATE TEST – UNIT 4: At the ice cream van Times allowed: minutes Mark Exercise: Look and match a ice cream b beach c tea IX d peach APPENDIX Name:…………………………………… Date:……………………… Mark Exercise: Look and circle Question 1: Sheep A B Question 2: Tree A B X Question 3: Sweets A B Question 4: Bee A B XI APPENDIX Name:…………………………………… Date:……………………… Mark Exercise 1: Listen and tick Question 1: A Question 3: A B XII Exercise 2: Listen and tick or cross: Question 1: Question 3: Exercise 3: Read and tick: Question 1: It’s a slide A B Question 3: She’s my mother A XIII Exercise 4: Listen to the teacher’s three questions about the following picture and awnswer them XIV ... UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* DƯƠNG THU TRANG SUPPORTING YOUNG LEARNERS’ VOCABULARY THROUGH PICTURES: AN ACTION. .. involved in language activities and promote their motivation of language learning 2.5 Studies on teaching vocabulary to young learners through pictures Vocabulary plays an important part in language... alternatives and changes as well as shows them personal approaches to teaching Secondly, action research is a practical research to obtain both action (changes) and research (understanding), so