VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ OANH IMPROVING ENGLISH VOCABULARY LEARNING FOR STUDENTS OF MEDICAL ENGLISH AT A MEDICAL COLLEGE IN HA NOI THROUGH GAMES: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT NÂNG CAO VIỆC HỌC TỪ VỰNG TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH Y CHO HỌC SINH TẠI MỘT TRƯỜNG TRUNG CẤP Y Ở HÀ NỘI THÔNG QUA TRÒ CHƠI NGÔN NGỮ: NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG MINOR THESIS Major : Methodology of teaching English (1) Code : 8140231.01 HÀ NỘI- 2019 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ OANH IMPROVING ENGLISH VOCABULARY LEARNING FOR STUDENTS OF MEDICAL ENGLISH AT A MEDICAL COLLEGE IN HA NOI THROUGH GAMES: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT NÂNG CAO VIỆC HỌC TỪ VỰNG TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH Y CHO HỌC SINH TẠI MỘT TRƯỜNG TRUNG CẤP Y Ở HÀ NỘI THÔNG QUA TRÒ CHƠI NGÔN NGỮ: NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG MINOR THESIS Major : Methodology of teaching English (1) Code : 8140231.01 Supervisor : PHẠM LAN ANH.PHD HÀ NỘI- 2019 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT ------------***------------ I hereby cetify that this minor thesis entitled IMPROVING ENGLISH VOCABULARY LEARNING FOR STUDENTS OF MEDICAL ENGLISH AT A MEDICAL COLLEGE IN HA NOI THROUGH GAMES: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT is completely the result of my own work for the Degree of Master at University of Language and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi and that this thesis has not been submitted for any other university or institution. i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS During the course of fulfilling my thesis I have owed my debt to many people. First and foremost I would like to express my sincere and deep gratitude to, Ms Pham Lan Anh, my supervisor for her wholehearted guidance, valuable suggestion and useful materials during the time of writing this thesis. Second, I would like to send my thanks to the colleagues at a Medical College in Ha Noi who have provided me with the insightful knowledge being most significant in paving the way for me to carry out the research.
I should be grateful to the librarians, for their constant help thanks to which I was able to access to all materials needed to accomplish the thesis. Finally but importantly, my heart-felt gratitude goes to my beloved family whose support and encouragement has always been the great source of inspiration for me to complete this thesis. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT One of the most challenging tasks facing any language teachers is to capture students’ interest, and therefore, keep them in high learning spirit. Meanwhile, vocabulary learning is a hard task which can sometimes be frustrating especially for teenagers.
To realize this situation, the teachers are supposed to find out teaching approaches corresponsive to students’ needs and wants. The study, in that light, lays a focus on students’ improvement in learning medical English vocabulary through language games. The study is conducted in the form of an action research with the research tools being teacher’s diary, pre-test, post-test and survey questionnaire to collect data. Then the data from teacher’s diary and tests were exploited to find out the improvement in students’ vocabulary.
And the data from survey questionnaire were used to find out students’ attitudes towards language games and provide factors that should be considered by teachers when using games to teach medical English vocabulary. Through the results of the teacher’s diary, the pre-test and post-test, it can be concluded that language games could help improve students' vocabulary retention. The results collected from the questionnaires showed that most of the students expressed their positive attitudes towards the games carried out in teaching medical vocabulary. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT.
iii TABLE OF CONTENTS.iv CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION. Background of the study. Identification of problem. Research objectives and research questions.
Scope of the study. Significance of the study. Structure of the study .3 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW. Vocabulary of medical English.
Techniques in teaching vocabulary of medical English. Teaching vocabulary of medical English using games. Kinds of games in language teaching and learning. Role of games in vocabulary retention of medical English.
Review of previous studies. 15 CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. Participants of the study .18 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Pre-test and post-test.
Planning the action. Implementing the action. Observing the action. Data collection Procedure.
Pretest and Post test. Data analysis procedure. Data from teacher’s diary. Data from the pre-test and post-test.
Data from the questionnaire .27 CHAPTER IV: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. Answer to the research question 1. Results from teacher’s diary. Results from the pre-test and post-test.
Answer to the research question 2 .41 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATION. Summary of major findings. Suggestions for further research. 47 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
IX vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: The vocabulary teaching plan .1: Students’participation and students’retention. The student’s attitudes towards studying medical English .3: Role of medical English for students’ jobs in future .4: Attitudes of students when learning medical English .5: Troubles students find the most challenging with medical English vocabulary? .6: Students’attitudes when the teacher use games in teaching vocabulary of medical English .7: Students’attitudes towards necessity and importance of using games in teaching vocabulary of medical English .8: Students’attitudes towards games the teacher used in teaching vocabulary of medical English .9: Students’activeness while playing games .10: Feeling of students after taking part in the game when learning vocabulary of medical English .11: Benefits of the games in teaching learning medical English vocabulary. 40 vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Background of the study Vocabulary is an essential part in learning a foreign language.
One of the most important issues in second language teaching and learning is vocabulary learning. And, perhaps, one of the most difficult aspects of learning a second language is the retention of learning vocabulary (Holden, 1999). Vocabulary seems to be the foundation of language. It encourages students to learn the four macro skills: listening, reading, writing and speaking.
Vocabulary is a very crucial element because without vocabulary students cannot learn other skills as Wilkin (1972) puts it, “Without grammar, little can be conveyed, without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed”. In the context of a medical college under study, (here by called college X), almost all the students have spent many years neglecting learning English before their college enrolment. Therefore, they get into trouble of attaining knowledge in general and vocabulary retention in particular. The students have difficulties in remembering the writen form and spoken form of English vocabulary specially the medical vocabulary which belongs to a specialized professional area.
The pronuncation, spelling and function of vocabulary make them confused in practicing and using them. They cannot remember the words they have learnt for a long time so they make mistakes each time the researcher asks them to do exercise. There are some main reasons that demotivate them in learning English. They do not use English in their career as well as in their daily life, so they feel it is useless to learn English.
In addition to this, medical terms cause them difficulties in pronouncing and writing which discourages them to learn English. Therefore, they do not have motivation to learn English. 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Identification of problem The problem of lacking motivation in learning medical English makes it difficult for the students in acquiring medical vocabulary through English lessons.
What is the best way to transfer knowledge to students effectively is becoming a big question for many teachers. Nguyen and Khuat (2003) believe that students prefer to learn language in a relaxing environment such as vocabulary games. They believe that in an interesting and communicative class, learners can learn 80 percent of what they are exposed to. According to Freeman (1986), learners enjoy language games as well as they enjoy communicative involvement in the classroom.
He believes that games can provide a healthy and constructive competition. Games can encourage learners to discover and involve in the learning process. Games can also establish a better bonding between teachers and learners. Finally, a good designed language game can create a real communication context in the classroom which can help learners to improve their vocabulary.
With the purpose of motivating the students to learn medical English vocabulary by using language games in lesson, this study was implemented with the participation of all the students in the class K7C. The methodology used in the research is action research with a number of tools such as teacher’s diary, a pre-test, a post-test and questionnaire. The purpose of using games is making the medical lessons become more interesting and helping the students remember the lessons easier. Research objectives and research questions The research sets objectives of finding out how vocabulary games help improve students’ vocabulary retention.
Besides, it explores students’ attitudes towards the teacher’s use of vocabulary games. In order to achieve 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com these goals, there is a need to answer the following questions: 1. How do vocabulary games help improve students’ vocabulary retention? 2. What are the students’ attitudes towards the teacher’s use of vocabulary games? 1.
Scope of the study When vocabulary is chosen to study, some researchers focus on vocabulary retention, some others increase vocabulary size and some researchers improve vocabulary usage. In this research, the researcher designed the study to improve the students’ vocabulary retention and change the students’ opinions by encouraging them to interact with each other through vocabulary games. The study was carried out in five weeks and the participants of this study were 30 students from class K7C at college X in Ha Noi. Significance of the study The findings of this study would be significant to the teachers, the students as well as the researchers.
Firstly, for English teachers, this research may provide more insights on how to improve the students’ vocabulary retention. Secondly, the study would serve as input for the students at a medical college in Ha Noi to be aware of medical English vocabulary. They would be informed on their weaknesses so that they can devise ways to improve their vocabulary. Third, for other researchers who conduct the same research, the results of the research would be expected to be a reference and contribute more information to solve the same problem.
In addition, the use of language games would enable students to improve their vocabulary and to use vocabulary correctly. Moreover, the students would enjoy English lessons more and feel comfortable to use English vocabulary. Last but not least, this study might provide recommendation for English teachers at a medical college to prepare more effective English lessons so that learners’ English vocabulary would be improved not only in classrooms but also beyond. Structure of the study 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com The thesis is divided into five chapter Chapter 1 introduces the background, the problem, the aims, the scope, the significance and the structure of the study.
Chapter 2 provides the theoretical framework of the study, including medical vocabulary, techniques in teaching medical vocabulary, types of games and roles of games in teaching medical vocabulary. Besides, review of previous studies and the gap for the study are also stated. Chapter 3 demonstrates the research methods applied in the study with details on how and why these methods were implemented in the research. Besides, this chapter presents the data collected and analyzed from teacher’s diary, questionnaire as well as from the pre-tests and post-tests.