VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES DƢƠNG THỊ DOAN AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF ENGLISH VOCABULARY TEACHING STRATEGIES TO YOUNG LEARNERS AT POPODOO ENGLISH CENTER IN HA NOI (Nghiên cứu khám phá chiến thuật dạy từ vựng tiếng Anh cho trẻ em tại trung tâm Anh ngữ PoPoDoo ở Hà Nội) M. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI - 2016 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES DƢƠNG THỊ DOAN AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF ENGLISH VOCABULARY TEACHING STRATEGIES TO YOUNG LEARNERS AT POPODOO ENGLISH CENTER IN HA NOI (Nghiên cứu khám phá chiến thuật dạy từ vựng tiếng Anh cho trẻ em tại trung tâm Anh ngữ PoPoDoo ở Hà Nội) M. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Dr. Tô Thị Thu Hƣơng HANOI - 2016 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com DECLARATION I, Dương Thị Doan, hereby declare that this thesis is my own work, and I have provided fully documented references to the work of others.
In addition, this thesis has not been submitted for assessment in other formal courses in any other universities. I also accept all the requirements of ULIS relating to the retention and use of M.A Graduation Thesis deposited in the library. Hanoi, March 2016 Signature Dương Thị Doan i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my supervisor, Dr. To Thi Thu Huong, for her professional advice, thoughtful and constructive comments on almost every aspect of the study.
Her insightful suggestions and support helped me a lot from the beginning to the end of this study. Second, my thanks also go to all the lecturers at ULIS for their inspirational lectures in class, providing me useful knowledge to complete my thesis. Third, I am also deeply grateful to PoPoDoo English Center directors, English teachers and students who participated in this research work. I thank them for their support and co-operation.
Last but not least, my special thanks go to my parents, my husband, and my friends for their love, care, and encouragement. ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT The overall purpose of this research is to explore vocabulary teaching strategies to the young learners at an English center in Ha Noi. Besides, the study tried to find out differences in teachers‟ use of vocabulary teaching strategies to learners of different age groups (4-6 years old, 7-9 years old, and 10-12 years old), and which strategies teachers and students most prefer to use. The study employed both quantitative and qualitative methods.
The data were collected from survey questionnaire with 30 teachers and the interview with 15 randomly chosen teachers and 45 learners. Thus, descriptive statistics using frequencies and percentages were employed in analyzing the quantitative data and the qualitative data were analyzed qualitatively. The results of the study revealed that there were several strategies which were used to teach vocabulary to all groups of learners. However, there were also differences in the strategies used with learners in different age groups.
The reasons were perhaps due to different language focus or skills used and different characteristics of each age group. In addition, it was found that there were vocabulary teaching strategies which were most preferred by only teachers, only learners or both teachers and learners. Finally recommendations and limitations were shown. iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration …………………………………………………………………………….iii Table of contents ……………………………………………………………….iv List of tables …………………………………………………………………….vi PART A: INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………….
Rationale of the study …………………………………………………………. Aims of the study ………………………………………………………………2 3. Scope of the study ……………………………………………………………. Significance of the study ………………………………………………………3 6.
An overview of the rest of the study ………………………………………….4 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW …………………………………………. Definition of vocabulary ………………………………………………. The roles of vocabulary ……………………………………………………. Aspects of vocabulary to be taught …………………………………….
Vocabulary teaching strategies ………………………………………. Review of some common methods associated with vocabulary teaching. The grammar translation method ………………………………………. The Direct method ……………………………………………………….
The Audio-lingual method …………………………………………………9 1. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) ……………………………. Total Physical Response (TPR) ……………………………………. The Silent way ……………………………………………………….
Community Language Learning (CLL) ……………………………….11 iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Teaching English to young learners ………………………………………13 1. An overview of PoPoDoo English center in Ha Noi ……………………. Concluding remarks ………………………………………………………19 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY…………………………….
Data collection instruments ……………………………………………. Procedure of data collection ……………………………………………. Data analysis methods ……………………………………………………23 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ………………………………. Analysis of data obtained through questionnaire …………….
Analysis of data obtained through interview …………………. Discussion ………………………………………………………………45 PART C: CONCLUSION …………………………………………………………. Limitations of the study ………………………………………………………49 REFERENCES …………………………………………………………………….I v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Classification of young learners according to age group Table 2: Vocabulary teaching strategies in the questionnaire Table 3: Teachers‟ attitude towards English vocabulary teaching Table 4: Teachers‟ attitude towards using strategies in teaching English vocabulary to young learners Table 5: Teachers‟ responses to using vocabulary teaching strategies basing on learning styles in Presentation phase for age group 3-6 Table 6: Teachers‟ responses to using vocabulary teaching strategies basing on learning styles in Presentation phase for age group 7-9 Table 7: Teachers‟ responses to using vocabulary teaching strategies basing on learning styles in Presentation phase for age group 10-12 Table 8: Teachers‟ responses to using vocabulary teaching strategies basing on activating prior knowledge in Presentation phase for age group 3-6 Table 9: Teachers‟ responses to using vocabulary teaching strategies basing on activating prior knowledge in Presentation phase for age group 7-9 Table 10: Teachers‟ responses to using vocabulary teaching strategies basing on activating prior knowledge in Presentation phase for age group 10-12 Table 11: Teachers‟ responses to using vocabulary teaching strategies basing on learning styles in Practice phase for age group 3-6 Table 12: Teachers‟ responses to using vocabulary teaching strategies basing on learning styles in Practice phase for age group 7-9 Table 13: Teachers‟ responses to using vocabulary teaching strategies basing on learning styles in Practice phase for age group 10-12 vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Table 14: Teachers‟ responses to using vocabulary teaching strategies basing on activating prior knowledge in Practice phase for age group 3-6 Table 15: Teachers‟ responses to using vocabulary teaching strategies basing on activating prior knowledge in Practice phase for age group 7-9 Table 16: Teachers‟ responses to using vocabulary teaching strategies basing on activating prior knowledge in Practice phase for age group 10-12 Table 17: Teachers‟ responses to using vocabulary teaching strategies basing on learning styles in Production phase for age group 3-6 Table 18: Teachers‟ responses to using vocabulary teaching strategies basing on learning styles in Production phase for age group 7-9 Table 19: Teachers‟ responses to using vocabulary teaching strategies basing on learning styles in Production phase for age group 10-12 Table 20: Teachers‟ responses to using vocabulary teaching strategies basing on activating prior knowledge in Production phase for age group 3-6 Table 21: Teachers‟ responses to using vocabulary teaching strategies basing on activating prior knowledge in Production phase for age group 7-9 Table 22: Teachers‟ responses to using vocabulary teaching strategies basing on activating prior knowledge in Production phase for age group 10-12 Table 23: Strategies most preferred by very young learners (3-6 years old) Table 24: Strategies most preferred by young learners (7-9 years old) Table 25: Strategies most preferred by older/ late young learners (10-12 years old) vii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study Vocabulary is a very important element in a language.
It helps us express our feelings, ideas, and emotions to others. Without vocabulary, there is nothing we can express. As a result, communication cannot exist. However, for many years, vocabulary has been the victim of discrimination by researchers who claimed syntax to be a more important issue in the language development process (Carter, 1988).
As a result, vocabulary teaching and learning were not regarded as an area to focus on. After many decades of being neglected, the importance of vocabulary for language learning and teaching is admitted by theorists, methodologists and researchers today. In teaching and learning a foreign language, vocabulary plays a very important role. It is essential in all four skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing; and is considered as a tool to learn the four skills well.
Whether vocabulary teaching is effective in the classroom or not is really a constant challenge for teachers. Accordingly, several types of strategies which are the ways teachers use to allow learners to access the information have been introduced into the field to teach vocabulary. Several researchers conducted studies on vocabulary learning and teaching strategies. The interest of focusing on vocabulary teaching strategies may come from various reasons.
Firstly, for language teachers, it is one of the significant areas they concern so that their learners can access vocabulary items they teach. Secondly, for language learners, vocabulary teaching strategies that teachers use have great impact on the success of their vocabulary learning. Each strategy teachers practice in class may form a means to vocabulary learning that may enhance their learners‟ vocabulary knowledge or help them to be better in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. One thing is that teaching English in general and vocabulary in particular to young learners is different from teaching to adults.
Age plays a crucial role in what we teach and how we teach it, since a young learner class is different from an adult and/or a teenager class in terms of the learners‟ language learning needs, the language competences emphasized, and the cognitive skills addressed. As a result, teaching 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com vocabulary to young learners seems to be more difficult. According to Paul Fletcher and Michael Garman (1986), “Children learn new language from what they hear and they use their ability to imitate a sound of a word from the adult”. Therefore, to teach vocabulary to young learners, the teachers have to learn first about the way young learners learn and decide how to teach them.
However, researches on vocabulary teaching to young learners have not received enough attention in English language teaching contexts in Vietnam. There are few studies on English vocabulary teaching strategies to young learners in the Vietnamese context, only from secondary education. It becomes more difficult for teachers to design an effective English vocabulary lesson. The effectiveness of vocabulary lessons depends on teaching strategies teachers use in the classroom.
For these above reasons, I would like to conduct a research to explore vocabulary teaching strategies to the young learners at an English center in Ha Noi. I hope the result of my study will help teachers improve the effectiveness of English lessons in general and English vocabulary lessons with young learners in particular. Aims of the study 2. Overall aim As mentioned above, the overall aim of this study was to explore vocabulary teaching strategies to the young learners at an English center in Ha Noi in order to improve the effectiveness of English lessons in general and English vocabulary lessons in particular.
Specific objectives Based upon the overall aim, this research was intended to achieve the following specific objectives: a) To investigate the strategies of English vocabulary teaching to young learners (3- 12 years old) used by teachers at an English center in Hanoi. b) To explore differences in using vocabulary teaching strategies to learners of different age groups (3-6 years old, 7-9 years old, and 10-12 years old). c) To find out which strategies teachers and students most prefer to use. Research questions 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com The study was carried out with an attempt to find out the answer to the overall research question: What are the strategies used by teachers at PoPoDoo to teach English vocabulary to their young learners? which was further broken down into: 1.
Are there any differences in the strategies used with learners in different age groups?