HANOI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES LÊ SƠN THỦY A STUDY ON TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH VOCABULARY AT THAC BA HIGH SCHOOL. NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ VIỆC DẠY VÀ HỌC TỪ VỰNG TIẾNG ANH CỦA TRƯỜNG THPT THÁC BÀ. MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH METHODOLOGY CODE: 601410 SUPERVISOR: NGUYỄN HUYỀN MINH, M.A HANOI- 2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of contents Acknowledgement Abstract List of tables PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. THE SCOPE, OBJECTIVES, SIGNIFICANCE, METHOD OF THE STUDY 2.
The scope of the study 2. Objectives of the study 2. Significance of the study 2. Methods of the study 2.
Design of the study PART B. An overview of the teaching and learning of English vocabulary I. The status of vocabulary in the curriculum I. word list and frequency counts I.
Vocabulary and context I. vocabulary development and second language acquisition I. Semantic networks and features I. Memory and vocabulary development I.
Current points of view of teaching and learning English vocabulary I. Previous studies related to teaching and learning English vocabulary CHAPTER II. THE STUDY II. The English teaching and learning situations at Thac Ba high school II.
Description of the students at Thac Ba high school II. Description of the teachers at Thac Ba high school II. Settings of the study II. Research methodology II.Subjects LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Survey instruments II. Questionnaire for the students II. Questionnaire for the teachers II. Interview CHAPTER III: DATA COLLECTION AND DISCUSSION III.
Presentation of statistical results III. Questionnaire for the students III. Students' background of English language before entering Thac Ba high school III.2: Students' attitude to learning English vocabulary.3: Students' difficulties in learning English vocabulary III. Students' activities in a vocabulary lesson III.5 : Students' suggestions for bettering the learning of English vocabulary III.
Questionnaire for the teachers III.1: Teachers' ages III.2: Teachers' teaching experience.3: Teachers' opinions on teaching English vocabulary.4: Difficulties confronted by teachers in teaching English vocabulary.5: Activities teachers do when teaching English vocabulary.6: Teachers' suggestions for bettering the teaching of English vocabulary III. Interview CHAPTER IV. FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS IV. Difficulties faced by the teachers in teaching English vocabulary and their own solutions IV.
Difficulties faced by the students in the learning of English vocabulary and their expectations IV. Recommendations LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vi III. For the students. Changing the students' attitude to learning English vocabulary IV.
For the teachers IV. Retraining teachers IV. Suggesting activities for teaching English vocabulary at Thac Ba high school PART C. Suggestions for further research REFERENCES APPENDICES APPENDIX A: Questionnaire for the students APPENDIX B: Questionnaire for the teachers APPENDIX C: Interview APPENDIX D: Lesson plan LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com iii LIST OF TABLE Table 1: Students' background of English before entering Thac ba high school.
Table 2: Students' attitude to learning English vocabulary. Table 3: Students' difficulties in learning English vocabulary Table 4 : Students' activities in a vocabulary lesson. Table 5: Students' suggestions for bettering the learning of English vocabulary. Table 6: Teachers' ages Table 7: Teachers' teaching experience.
Table 8: Teachers' opinions on teaching English vocabulary. Table 9: Difficulties confronted by teachers in teaching English vocabulary. Table 10: Activities teachers do when teaching English vocabulary. Table 11: Teachers' suggestions for bettering the teaching of English vocabulary ' LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1 PART A: INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale Foreign language teaching at secondary school level in Vietnam has been granted increasing supports from educational authorities, regarding the demand of Vietnam younger population for better means of communication with the world. The most important issue in this field, which has presented various complicated problems for generations of foreign language teachers in Vietnam as well as anywhere in the world is the adoptation of an appropriate language teaching method. Having been aware of this necessity, Thac Ba high school as well as others in Yen Bai province has paid considerable attention to update teaching methodologies and encourage English language learning, which can be seen from the 1990s to date. Thac Ba high school has chosen a pilot set of textbooks then.
In accordance with the new materials, teaching methods should also be changed to meet the need of the learning of learners and to better teaching and learning conditions. The most effective approaches which have been theoretically applied at high school are learner- centred instruction, task- based language teaching and communicative language teaching. As for me English language has been structurally taught and learnt. Students have been mainly asked to focus on language structures, grammar.
Vocabulary teaching and learning are not much mentioned or are not seriously put into consideration. There are some sound reasons for me to take the teaching and learning of English vocabulary into consideration, rather than others. First of all for some time, the teaching and learning of English vocabulary have been strongly influenced by the traditional methods. Emphasis has been placed on the mastery of language structures rather than on how language is used.
Students are asked to translate or to analyze the text grammatically. The teaching of language teachers is seen as a full time- explanation to the passive listeners. Language teachers do not care much for the teaching of Vocabulary. There are some teachers who have poor knowledge of the language in general, and of the teaching of vocabulary in particular.
They dot not show their students the importance of adequate vocabulary. These are some of the serious reasons that discourage the students in the learning of the language generally and of vocabulary particularly. The students are often fed up with boring vocabulary lessons. That is perhaps why the students do not feel like learning vocabulary and do not show their interests of learning the language.
The reasons LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 here are that the teachers are not qualified enough to teach the language in general and to teach vocabulary in particular. The teachers of language are known to be traditionally educated to meet the demand of foreign language teaching, as we all know that there have been many types of English teachers training courses recently. Last, but not the least, the new Tieng Anh 10 textbook has been widely used as the official teaching and learning material. It has 16 units with interesting topics.
Every unit consists of 5 lessons: Reading, speaking, listening, writing and the language focus. This book was designed with various learning tasks, the purpose of which is to set up chances for students to practise different language situations. It has been said to be a suitable material. However, it is the vocabulary that is not clearly presented or not culturally related and so on.
This makes students and teachers find it difficult to teach and to learn vocabulary. For all the reasons mentioned above, I would like to devote my time and effort to investigating the current vocabulary teaching and learning at Thac Ba high school including teaching methods, difficulties faced by the teachers and the students, their suggestions for better in the situation,.then finding out how the teaching and learning of vocabulary are carried out there at my school. Especially, the study will recommend some suitable and specific teaching methods for the teachers and the students at my school as references. It is to improve the teaching and learning at Thac Ba high school, Yen Bai Province.
The scope, objectives, significance, method of the study 2. The scope of the study The study focuses on the teaching and learning of vocabulary at Thac Ba high school. Objectives of the study. To investigate the teaching and learning of vocabulary at Thac Ba high school, difficulties faced by the teachers and students; activities done by the teachers and the students; their suggestions for bettering the teaching and learning of English vocabulary.
To investigate teachers' and students' attitude to the teaching and learning of vocabulary. To suggest some effective teaching techniques to help learners in the learning of vocabulary. Significance of the study This study play a crucial role for enhancing vocabulary teaching method to the teachers and grade 10 students at Thac Ba high school. Its implemented recommendations will LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 3 make the application of vocabulary teaching and learning at my school more successful and effective.
Methods of the study The researcher collects information from all the English teachers who teach at Thac ba high school. First, questionnaires are delivered to the teachers to investigate their vocabulary teaching and their attitude to vocabulary teaching, their solutions and expectations to better the teaching of Vocabulary. Questionnaires are also delivered to the students to find out their attitude to vocabulary learning, their activities, their expectations for better in the learning condition. Interviews are carried out to increase the reliability of the obtained information and provide more information relating to the teachers' method of teaching vocabulary.
The combination of information from questionnaires and interviews for the teachers and the students can help to draw a general picture about the application of new techniques and activities in the teaching and learning of vocabulary at Thac Ba high school. Design of the study The thesis consists of three parts. Part A is the introduction, which presents the rationale, the scope, the objectives, the method, significance and the design of the study. Part B consists of three chapters: Chapter I deals with an overview of the literature.
It starts with the various methods of teaching and learning English vocabulary, activities need using. The final is the review of previous studies related to the teaching and learning of English vocabulary. Chapter II presents the methodology performed in the study. It provides information about the participants, the instrumentations and data analysis.
Chapter III discusses the data of the study. Chapter IV proposes some recommendations on teaching and learning of vocabulary to teachers and students at Thac Ba high school. Part C is about the conclusion and suggestions for further study. PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW I.
An overview of the teaching and learning of English vocabulary LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. The status of vocabulary in the curriculum According to David Nunan and some other linguists like H. Teaching by Principles. An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy; Ruth Gairns and Stuart Redman (1986).
Working with Words. A guide to teaching and learning vocabular; Edward Finegan (2004). Language Its structure and use the principal focus of language teaching has been on the grammar of the language. Grammar translation approaches to the teaching language provided a balanced diet of grammar and vocabulary, audio-lingualists suggested that the emphasis should be strongly on the acquisition of the basic grammatical patterns of the language.
It was believed that if learners were able to internalize these basic patterns, then building a large vocabulary would come later. This emphasis on grammar and, to a certain extent, pronunciation, at the expense of vocabulary reflected a traditional going back to the nineteenth century when the International Phonetic Association published its six principles of language teaching. These principles, which were later reflected in audio-lingualism, advocated the inductive teaching of grammar, a focus on the spoken language of everyday life and an emphasis on the direct teaching of the target language rather than translation. Some of the most influential structural linguists of the day went so far as to argue that vocabulary was the easiest aspect of a second language to learn and that it hardly formal attention in the classroom.
However, the status of vocabulary has been considerably enhanced. This has come about partly as a result of the development of communicative approaches to language teaching, and through the stimulus of comprehension-based methods such as the Natural Approach ( Krashen and Terrel 1983).