ABSTRACT This research focuses mainly on investigating how teachers use vocabulary checking activities in English lessons of grade 10 at upper secondary schools in Hue. The research aims to provide an overview of the real state of how teachers check vocabulary after presenting new words. Accordingly, the research explored the techniques of vocabulary checking teachers apply to help students remember vocabulary and how teachers design the activities. Together with finding out the impacts of the activities on student, the research discovered the activities are effective in vocabulary checking.
The subject of this study is composed of 300 students and 20 teachers at five upper secondary schools in Hue: Quoc Hoc School, Hai Ba Trung School, Nguyen Hue School, Gia Hoi School and Phan Dang Luu School. The study uses both qualitative and quantitative methodology. The findings of the study are obtained by means of questionnaires, interviews and class observations with the informants of the research. The findings reveal that the teachers at upper secondary schools are aware of the importance of vocabulary checking activities in English lessons.
They agree on the great benefits from the activities for the students including students‟ quick reaction, attractiveness of the lessons to create long-term memory for the students. Moreover, the majority of the students like vocabulary checking activities and this is a great motivation for the teachers to carry out the activities. Vocabulary checking activities are proved to create the feelings of fondness, happiness and eagerness among the students. However, the lack of clear instruction and encouragement certainly prevents the students from participating enthusiastically in the activities.
More importantly, techniques of vocabulary checking are suggested to be adapted by the teachers so that the students remember new words better when they participate in the activities. Finally, the students are suggested to make great efforts to take part in vocabulary checking activities in order to get the most benefits from the activities. Rationale Nowadays, with the tendency of globalization and integration, English is an international language to communicate among people from different countries. This requires students to learn since young every aspect of English language like grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, culture, etc.
Moreover, students have to master all language skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing. It is necessary that teaching English at school enables students to achieve these skills and the knowledge of English language. For a long time, English language teaching, in its own progress, has undergone many changes to complete its missions. There have been different points of view about how to teach and learn English.
Previously, the acquisition of grammar used to be the focus rather than that of vocabulary. For many years, vocabulary teaching has been considered to be inferior to grammar teaching as Nunan, D. [9:117] said, “It was believed that if learners were able to internalize these basic patterns, then building of large vocabulary would come later.” However, nowadays, vocabulary has been given a much more important role and is the focus of intention. This is because there has been an increasing demand in the use of English to communicate in real life.
The use of vocabulary in communication has been more and more necessary when speakers need to understand each other and get information quickly from words not grammar. It is clear that vocabulary play an important role in communication as Sheehan, A. [13:4] stated: “Vocabulary and lexical units are at the heart of learning and communication. No amount of grammatical or other type of linguistic knowledge can be employed in communication or discourse without the mediation of vocabulary.” In addition, Harmer, J.
[2:153] claimed that “where vocabulary is used correctly, it can cancel out structural inaccuracy”. Vocabulary, not grammar, certainly helps to get the right information. Therefore, students are 8 required to have a large number of vocabulary words to use in communication. That is to say, what the students have to master is not only a basic knowledge of grammar, but also a wide range of words.
Especially, at present, together with grammar-translation method, communicative approach plays its important role in teaching and learning. It helps vocabulary regain the status which once was considered inferior to that of grammar. Besides this, Nunan, D. [9:118] said, “These days, the consensus of opinion seems to be that the development of rich vocabulary is an important element in the acquisition of a second language”.
We know that a baby when he first learns its mother tongue, he starts with learning the new words. It is vocabulary that provides him with a mean to listen and speak and then understand everything around him. When we study a second language, that is English language, every word is new to us. We have to follow a procedure like a baby learning its first language.
However, this is a difficult procedure for students because they are required to remember thousands of words while their time is limited. On the other hand, the words students learn just come into their mind and stay there like cold stones. Students do not have many chances to use vocabulary in real life, that is, to communicate in English. At school, if the teacher just presents new words once in a lesson and this is the only time for the students to study these words, it will be impossible for them to remember all the words after many lessons, especially if vocabulary teaching procedure is too short with no impression.
It is necessary that students look back on what they have learnt and check how much they can remember so that they have chance to learn the second time any words they have forgotten. When teaching students a second language, the activities of vocabulary checking should be a great concern. In reality, students are not able to remember all new words which their teacher has just presented one time only. It is necessary to give the students more time to think of the words before moving to the next stage in the teaching procedure.
There should be an activity in which the students think of new words in a meaningful way. It is time for them to apply new words in a 9 given situation, then to check whether they can recall the words and use them correctly. After this kind of activity, new words are no longer „new‟ to students. Understanding the meanings of the words is not all in learning vocabulary.
To learn vocabulary is not to look at the words like looking at the stones on the paper and trying to remember the meanings from the letters. On the other hand, when the teacher presents new words, the students learn them passively. They listen, write, read and speak with the words as the teacher asks them to do. It seems that students are some kind of machine controlled by an operator that is the teacher.
Students should have a chance to express their feelings, thoughts and ideas. Here, students do not only receive the meanings of the words from the outside but also need to think and produce the words correctly in a given context. From these requirements, many activities have been designed and brought into use to help the students acquire and consolidate vocabulary. As far as teaching English in Hue is concerned, it is necessary for us to pay attention to this topic.
However, the question is, „How much have we accomplished with this?‟ On the other hand, the problem is that in the students‟ textbook, for example, textbook „Tieng Anh 10‟ which is being used at schools in Vietnam, there are very few activities for vocabulary checking. Therefore, when designing lesson plans, the teachers themselves have to think of the techniques which are appropriate to check how much students have learnt after new words have been presented so as to help them remember every word. This research has been carried out with the hope to find out the solutions to this problem. There are also many questions related to the research: Do teachers really realize the importance of vocabulary checking? Do they apply any techniques to check vocabulary? If yes, do they carry out the activities effectively so that students can remember vocabulary better? From the research, it is expected to find out an effective way to help students learn and remember vocabulary better.
Moreover, the researcher desires to discover new techniques and methods to check vocabulary successfully. Besides this, it is hoped that this research will serve as a useful reference for the teachers teaching at upper secondary schools. Topic An Investigation into How Teachers Use Vocabulary Checking Activities in English Lessons of Grade 10 at Upper Secondary Schools in Hue 1. Research purposes This research focuses on the following: - Providing us with an overview of the real situation of how teachers check vocabulary in English lessons in grade 10 at upper secondary schools in Hue.
- Exploring what techniques of vocabulary checking teachers apply to help students remember vocabulary and how teachers design the activities. - Finding out the impacts of the activities on students. - Discovering what activities are effective in vocabulary checking. Research questions The research makes an attempt to seek the answers to the following questions: 1.
What are teachers‟ techniques of vocabulary checking? 2. What are students‟ attitudes towards teachers‟ techniques? 3. What are the impacts of the vocabulary checking activities on the students? 4. What techniques are effective in vocabulary checking? 1.
Structure of the thesis Apart from the Table of Content, the References and Appendices, this thesis consists of five chapters: Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Literature Review Chapter 3: Methodology Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion Chapter 5: Conclusion and Implications Chapter 1 presents the rationale of the study, research purposes, research questions, scope of the study and the organization of this thesis. Chapter 2 reviews theoretical background of this thesis. From reviewing documents related to the topic of the research, some activities of vocabulary checking are summarized to be a basic for finding out how teachers design their 11 activities, what are similarities and differences between the activities in theory and those in reality. Chapter 3 reports the methodology of the research.
It mentions four parts such as research method, subjects of the study, data collection and data analysis. Chapter 4 presents the findings and discussion resulted from the questionnaires, class observations and interviews with the students in grade 10 and teachers at five upper secondary schools in Hue (Quoc Hoc School, Hai Ba Trung School, Nguyen Hue School, Gia Hoi School and Phan Dang Luu School). This chapter reveals the main content of the research – how teachers design and use vocabulary checking activities. Then, the problems related to the topic are discussed from the data collected.
Chapter 5 sumps up the results of the research. Also, in this chapter some implications of the findings and suggestions for further studies are presented. Before seeking for the data and drawing out the results of the research, the theoretical background of the thesis is needed to be reviewed so as to provide the basis from which the thesis could be developed in the right direction. This would be done in Chapter 2 - Literature Review.
12 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2. Basic definitions of vocabulary So far, there has not been only one definition of vocabulary. The concept of vocabulary has been understood differently based on different points of view of researchers: In the Random House Webster‟s Dictionary (1999), vocabulary was defined as “a list of collection of words and often phrases, usually arranged in alphabetical order and defined.” In this way of defining, we know vocabulary is words or phrases which have meanings. Besides, the Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary [3:1447] considered vocabulary as “all the words in a particular language” which showed the relation between vocabulary and language.
[4:3] had a similar idea, “when we speak of the vocabulary of a language, we are speaking primarily, but not exclusively, of the words of that language.