Vocabulary retention through games for pupils at grade 8 at marie curie school

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI UNIVERSITY PHUNGTHI BICH NGOC VOCABULARY RETENTION THROUGH GAMES FOR PUPILS AT GRADE AT MARIE-CURIE SCHOOL SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF REQUIREMENTS OF THE DEGREE OF MASTER IN TESOL SUPERVISOR: PHAM HONG THUY, M.A Hanoi January, 2009 T A B L E O F C O N T E N T I A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S I l l A B S T R A C T .I V L I S T O F F I G U R E V C H A P T E R I: I N T R O D U C T I O N 1.1 B a c k g r o u n d t o t h e s t u d y 1.2 T h e a i m o f t h e s t u d y R e s e a r c h q u e s t i o n s 1.4 T h e s c o p e o f t h e s t u d y 1.5 S i g n i f i c a n c e o f t h e s t u d y 1.6 T h e o u t l i n e o f t h e t h e s i s C H A P T E R II: L I T E R A T U R E R E V I E W 2.1 V o c a b u l a r y t e a c h i n g a n d l e a r n i n g 2.1.1 What is involved in learning a w ord? 2.1.2 Stages in word learning 2.1.3 Factors affect vocabulary acquisition 2.1.4 Some implications fo r vocabulary teaching 14 O a m l s f o r v o c a b u l a r y t e a c h i n g 15 2.2.1 Games fo r language teaching 15 2.2.2 Word g a m es 20 R e l a t e d s t u d i e s t o t h e r e s e a r c h 2 C H A P T E R III: M E T H O D O L O G Y 3.1 M e t h o d 3.1.1 What this study is about? 24 3.1.2 Subjects 24 3.1.3 Variables: 25 D a t a c o l l e c t i o n i n s t r u m e n t s 3.2.1 Questionnaires 27 3.2.2 Weekly records 29 3.2.3 Tests 29 T h e p r o c e d u r e s 3.3.1 The pre-test procedure 31 3.3.2 The experiment procedure .31 3.3.3 The weekly record procedure 32 3.3.4 The post test procedure 33 3.3.5 The students questionnaire procedure 33 D e s i g n o f d a t a a n a l y s i s 33 3.4.1 T-test for test results analysis .33 3.4.2 Analysis fo r questionnaire results 34 C H A P T E R I V : R E S U L T S A N D D I S C U S S I O N .3 4.1 R e s u l t s f r o m t h e t e s t s 35 4.1.1 Analysis o f results o f the pre-test and post-test 35 R e s u l t s f r o m w e e k l y r e c o r d s R e s u l t s f r o m l e a r n e r Q u e s t i o n n a i r e s 4.3.1 Questionnaire .38 4.3.2 Questionnaire II 43 4 S u m m a r y o f f i n d i n g s a n d d i s c u s s i o n s C H A P T E R V : R E C O M M E N D A T I O N S A N D C O N C L U S I O N 5.1 R e c o m m e n d a t i o n s o n t h e a p p l i c a t i o n o f w o r d g a m e s 53 S u g g e s t i o n s f o r f u r t h e r s t u d i e s 55 C o n c l u s i o n R E F E R E N C E S A P P E N D I C E S 61 A p p e n d i x : Q u e s t i o n n a i r e s 61 A p p e n d i x A p p e n d i x A p p e n d i x 71 A p p e n d i x 73 A p p e n d i x 6: Q u e s t i o n n a i r e r e s u l t s 75 A p p e n d i x 7: T h e r e s u l t s f r o m t h e w e e k l y r e c o r d s o f t h e ex p e r i m e n t a l a n d CONTROL GROUP 7 A p p e n d i x 8: P r e t e s t a n d P o s t t e s t r e s u l t A p p e n d i x 9: S a m p l e w o r d g a m e s a n d t r a d i t i o n a l p r a c t i c e ex e r c i s e s A p p e n d i x 10: L e s s o n p l a n f o r r e v i s i n g v o c a b u l a r y in u n i t 83 The researcher would like to begin by acknowledging the Dean and the Staff of Department of Postgraduate Studies, Hanoi University, for their assistance through the fulfillment of this MA thesis, and to express her appreciation to Ms Nguyen Thai Ha, Vice-Dean of the post- Graduate department of Hanoi University for her critical ideas, and invaluable advice The person who the researcher wants to express her gratitude to is her supervisor, Mrs Pham Hong Thuy (MA), for the encouragement and guidance throughout the research Without her help during my carrying out this paper, the researcher would not complete this MA thesis Many thanks are given to the students of class 8M and 8P, Marie Curie school, who have participated in the study ABSTRACT As teaching and learning English has become more and more popular in Viet Nam, communicative approach is now widely used to make the work more effective and enjoyable According to some language researchers, using games is one of the most effective techniques in retaining vocabulary learnt So this study aims to find out if games are more effective than traditional exercises in helping students remember vocabulary meanings at Marie-Curie School It also intends to find out the students’ attitudes towards word games and practice exercises To reach the study aims an experiment was conducted with 50 students from two classes 8M and 8P at MarieCurie school One class was chosen to be the control group-who revise new words through practice exercises and the other class- experimental group- through word games The data for the study were obtained through three instruments- English vocabulary tests, questionnaires and weekly records The analysis of the data showed that word games are more effective than traditional practice exercises in helping students retaining vocabulary meanings, and through questionnaires, the students showed their positive attitude toward revision word games because of their fun, interest, competitiveness, etc Games also bring about a relaxing atmosphere to the students in class well as the confidence for most of the students in studying As a result, games help the students remember word meanings for longer time However, in the experimental group there are a few students who not like joining in games, they like revising vocabulary through traditional practice exercises Based on the findings, some recommendations are given to improve the effectiveness of the application of games in classes for vocabulary meaning revision It also reveals that combination of the techniques with traditional practice exercises should go parallelly to satisfy different learning but it is necessary to combine the techniques of traditional practice exercises to satisfy different learning styles Some suggestions are also mentioned for further studies in the field LIST OF FIGURE Table 1: The importance of retention in study Table 4.1: Paired Samples statistics Table 4.2: Paired Samples Tests Table 4.4: Number of words that students can remember during weeks Table 4.5: View on the use of word games for vocabulary revision Chart 4.1 : Feelings about traditional exercises Chart 4.2: Feelings about participation in traditional exercises Chart 4.3: Feelings about the tasks in traditional exercises Chart 4.4: Belief about the effects of traditional exercises Chart 4.5: The experimental group’s general feelings about revision word games Chart 4.6: General students’ opinions about the effect of word games Chart 4.7: Feelings about interaction in revision word games Chart 4.8: The experimental group’s feeling about the tasks in word games Chart 4.9: Belief about the effect of word games CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION In learning a foreign language, vocabulary/ plays an important role Large knowledge of lexis paves the way for language learming success Vocabulary provides learners with materials in order to produce com plete utterances It is one element that links he four language skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing all together In )ther words, a well- developed lexical competence promotes the language skills Jevelopment That means a fluent listener, speaker, reader, and writer can hardly veil without knowing as many words as possible 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 New words themselves create good background for pupils to express their ideas, therefore vocabulary is considered crucial to language acquisition Despite the important role of the vocabulary, nowadays many pupils in the general and pupils at Marie-Curie school in particular are lazy to learn new words Many learners think that learning new words is a hard and tedious process It is common that pupils sometimes learn a series of new words but they not know how to use them in different contexts, moreover in English book there are plenty of new words in each lesson, that crates the pressure on the students At our school, in the classroom learners expect that teachers write new words on the board, explain the meanings of new words in Vietnamese, asking the whole class to read out, following the teacher and then to write these new words into their notebooks The task for pupils is to write the new words at home (it is common that there should be lines for one new word) and to learn them by heart The students are not interested in learning and writing new words, so they easily forget the new words they have learnt The revision of new words does not attract the students when the teachers often give practice exercises such as: filling each blank; translating the new’ words into Vietnamese: matching words with their meanings, so the students not remember new words easily In their tests, they not usually get good marks in vocabulary exercises How can the teachers at our school help the students have better attitudes to learning new words and how to help them retain new words? This is the question that the researcher wants to try to find the answers to in this study The process of learning vocabulary is included different stages: presentation, practice and revision It is clearly known that teaching vocabulary is not only presenting new words to students All the new words introduced must be reviewed; otherwise, they will gradually disappear from the learner’s memory after a short time, 'udd (1978) affirms that rarely native speakers incorporate new words into repertoire of vocabulary on a single exposure; the foreign language learners should not be expected to so either Therefore, “the more exposures given to words, the better the chances for retention are” (p.74) As Koprowski (2006) states, learning is remembering If we respect this axiom, the review and recycling of new language iiems will be crucial if they stand a chance of becoming readily accessible In fact, s.udents the majority of their forgetting shortly after the lesson and then the rate of forgetting diminished In order to avoid this lexical vanishing act, learners should review new words shortly after they are presented, and then at increasingly longer intervals (cited by Dao Thi Thanh Mai) .earners of English have to deal with unfamiliar vocabulary during their language cquisition In order to learn and retain new words, learners should participate in afferent task-based activities in their classroom whether it is a guessing task, a iescribing exercise or conversation making Such activities also include vocabulary ;ames, which especially focus on helping learners develop and use words in different ontexts by making the lessons enjoyable If teachers want students to remember new vocabulary, it needs to be learnt in context, practiced, and then revised to prevent sudents from forgetting Therefore, teachers should create opportunities for learners to rview words through various activities Ii fact, there are too many new words that the students have to learn to remember in etch lesson in the book English (published by Ministry of Education and Training), S' it is challenging for students to remember the number of new words after each lisson it puts too much pressure on the students, therefore they can easily get bored wth learning new words / t Marie Curie School where the researcher is working, the teachers often apply the tnditional way to present and revise new words in each lesson Ai the presentation stage of new words, the teachers often write them on the board, and tnnslate their meanings into Vietnamese and ask the students to copy down into the notebooks During the lesson they not actively get involved in the lesson because thiy not remember much the new words Maybe, they get bored with repeated activities for many years: such as multiple choice, gap fill-in, matching items, tnnslation, etc) It is clear that these types of exercises have not helped the students very much in remembering new words because they seem to be rather boring and too faniliar At the revision stage, the students are required to go to the board and write new words in English or Vietnamese which the teachers read out in Vietnamese or in Erglish They seem to be afraid of being asked to go to the board to write new words Besides, the teachers give a test in which there are gap-filling, matching, m slating exercises Most of the students not remember well new words they iave learnt As a result, they not often get good results in their tests, especially in he lexical part The lack of vocabulary affects their ability in other skills such as eading, speaking, writing and listening It is time for teachers at Marie-Curie school o change their method of teaching new words instead of applying traditional teaching ur a long time Vhich of the activities can help students remember word meaning better? According D many researchers, educators and methodologists, the teachers can use language ;ames - active and interesting activities in helping students recycle lexical items In tieir opinions, games are highly motivating, competitive and fun They can bring a lot