VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES TRẦN THI ̣ KIM OANH TEACHERS’ BELIEFS AND PRACTICES REGARDING VOCABULARY TEACHING: A QUALITATIVE STUDY AT NGUYEN THI MINH KHAI HIGH SCHOOL (Niềm tin của giáo viên trong việc dạy từ vựng và thực tiễn áp dụng trong lớp học : Nghiên cứu định tính tại trường trung học phổ thông Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai) M. Minor programme thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 601410 Hanoi - 2012 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES TRẦN THI ̣ KIM OANH TEACHERS’ BELIEFS AND PRACTICES REGARDING VOCABULARY TEACHING: A QUALITATIVE STUDY AT NGUYEN THI MINH KHAI HIGH SCHOOL (Niềm tin của giáo viên trong việc dạy từ vựng và thực tiễn áp dụng trong lớp học : Nghiên cứu định tính tại trường trung học phổ thông Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai) M. Minor programme thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 601410 Supervisor: Dr. LE VAN CANH Hanoi - 2012 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I: INTRODUCTION .1 Rationale for the study .2 Aims of the study.4 Significance of the study.5 Organization of the thesis.
2 PART II: DEVELOPMENT. 4 CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW .1 Role of vocabulary in second language teaching .2 Approaches to vocabulary.3 The teachers‟ belief .4 Teachers‟ beliefs about second language teaching .5 Convergence and divergence .6 Teachers‟ beliefs about vocabulary. 15 CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY .1 Data collection instruments .2 Participants of the study.3 Data collection procedures .4 Technique of data analysis. 20 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER III: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION .1 Teachers‟ beliefs about the importance of vocabulary .2 Teachers‟ beliefs about approaches to vocabulary presentation .3 Relationship between beliefs and practices .1 Time given for vocabulary teaching .2 Approaches to vocabulary teaching .4 Convergences and divergences between beliefs and practices.
35 PART III: CONCLUSION. 38 1 Summary of the major findings .1 Improving the teaching/learning environment .2 Solutions for changing students‟ learning attitudes. Limitations of the study. Recommendations for further research.
I APPENDIX 1: Interview Questions. I APPENDIX 2: Classroom observation sheet. II APPENDIX 3: Observation data. IV v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT Communicative Language Teaching CA Communicative Approach L1 First language L2 Second language ELT English Language Teaching ESL English as a Second Language EFL English as a Foreign Language T Teacher Ss Students vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table Page Table 1 Participants profiles 18 Table 2 Amount of time devoted to vocabulary with reference to 26 language skills and grammar (% of total class time) Table 3 Practical approaches of teaching vocabulary (teacher A) Appendix Table 4 Practical approaches of teaching vocabulary (teacher B) Appendix Table 5 Practical approaches of teaching vocabulary (teacher C) Appendix Table 6 Practical approaches of teaching vocabulary (teacher D) Appendix Table 7 Practical approaches of teaching vocabulary (teacher E) Appendix Table 8 Practical approaches of teaching vocabulary (teacher F) Appendix Table 9 Practical approaches of teaching vocabulary (teacher G) Appendix Table 10 Practical approaches of teaching vocabulary (teacher H) Appendix vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART I: INTRODUCTION This part introduces the study, which starts with the reasons for carrying out the research.
This is followed by the aims, the research questions, the significance of the study and, finally, the structure of the thesis. Rationale for the study Since the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) was adopted at Nguyen Thi Minh Khai High School, English teaching practice has also changed gradually. However, students‟ ability to use English for communication was quite limited. There are many reasons for this problem, but teachers believe that one of the reasons is students‟ vocabulary deficiency.
Although there have been some studies on vocabulary techniques, very little has been researched about teachers‟ beliefs and practices regarding vocabulary. If teaching is shaped by teachers‟ beliefs (Borg, 2003) it is necessary to research their beliefs and the relationship between their beliefs and practices. Therefore, this study is aimed to explore this issue in one high school in Vietnam. Aims of the study The study is aimed at investigating the beliefs and practices of a group of high school teachers in second language vocabulary and vocabulary teaching.
This aim is specified by the following objectives: 1. to explore teachers’ beliefs about the role of vocabulary in learning English as a foreign language; 2 to examine their practices concerning vocabulary teaching; and 3. to identify the relationship between their beliefs and practices regarding vocabulary teaching. 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Research questions In order to achieve the above stated aim and objectives, the study is designed to find answers to the following research questions: 1. What are teachers’ beliefs about vocabulary? 2. To what extent are those beliefs translated into their vocabulary teaching? 1. Significance of the study The study will mainly focus on analyzing eight English teacher‟s beliefs, examining whether or not these beliefs are aligned with teachers‟ actual instructional practices and identifying the factors that influence teachers‟ beliefs and practices.
The teachers‟ beliefs concerned regard to vocabulary teaching only and the actual instructional practices refer to principles, techniques and time given for teaching vocabulary, which were conveyed through class observations and the answers for the interviews of eight English teachers of Nguyen Thi Minh Khai high school. Organization of the thesis This thesis is divided into three parts as follows: Part I, „Introduction‟ presents the reasons for carrying out this study and states the aims of the study. The research questions, the significance and the outline of the study are also discussed in this part. Part II, „Development‟ includes the following chapters: Chapter 1, „Literature review‟ summaries the view of related literature – including the role of vocabulary in second language teaching, approaches to vocabulary, teachers‟ beliefs and those relating to vocabulary teaching.
2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Chapter 2, „Methodology‟ describes the methodology applied to this study and the procedures for carrying out the research such as instruments for data collection, subjects, procedures, and methods of data analysis. Chapter 3, „Results and discussion‟ conveys survey results and discussion on the possible reasons for the divergences between teachers‟ beliefs and actual classroom practice. Part III, „Conclusion‟ states a brief summary of major findings, proposes some recommendations arising from the study findings, reveals the limitation of the study and offers some suggestions for further researches. 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART II: DEVELOPMENT 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter reviews the literature on second language vocabulary as well as teachers‟ beliefs and practices regarding vocabulary teaching.
The chapter begins with a brief review of the role of vocabulary in second language learning. Then approaches to vocabulary will be reviewed. This is followed by a review of studies on teachers‟ beliefs and practices, particularly with reference to vocabulary teaching. Role of vocabulary in second language teaching Conventionally, educationists have undervalued the role of vocabulary in second language teaching and learning for quite a long time.
This was the reason why in linguistic course, curriculum and programs, little attention was paid to vocabulary teaching (Richards & Renandya, 2002, p. Fortunately, things have been changed since the mid-1980s. Second language vocabulary acquisition has grown into an increasingly interesting topic of discussion for many researchers and educationists working in the field of second language teaching (Coady & Huckin, 1997, p. From then on, the role of vocabulary in second language teaching has been reconsidered.
According to Richards and Renandya (2002), the first step to learn how to communicate in the second language was learning lexical phrases and routines. They explained vocabulary as the foundation of students‟ language proficiency. Learners, who did not neither have a wide range of vocabulary nor know how to learn new words, failed to utilize all learning opportunities offered to them. For instance, they could not listen to the radio, listen to native speakers, and watch television in the language they learnt.
That led to the results that they were discouraged and could not learn as much as possible (p. In addition, Nation (1990) confirmed that there were restrictions of “incidental learning” of second language learners due to their limited vocabulary. Thus, a second language program 5 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com should involve vocabulary teaching (cited in Richards & Renandya, 2002, p. In conclusion, developing vocabulary not only encourages but also facilitates second language learners to achieve as much as their potential allows.
Therefore, it is recommended that teachers should consider the important role of vocabulary for effective teaching as well as learning. Approaches to vocabulary Boyle and Scanlon (2009) claimed that “there is no single method for teaching vocabulary; instead, teachers should combine methods and techniques” (p. Below are some principles belonging to inferring from context, implicit teaching and explicit teaching, the three methods that were concerned by many researchers such as Nagy (1988), Graves (2006), Meunier and Granger (2008), Baumann and Kameenui (2004), Ma (2009), Sokmen (1997), Schmitt (2000), and so on. Inferring from context Belonging to the idea of Context Alone, “Inferring from Context”, also named as context method, or contextual approaches is the method of using context to clarify the meanings of the words that students need to learn.
For instance, when students are asked to guess the meaning of the words through one or some given sentences, they are learning vocabulary by inferring the meaning of words from the context (Nagy, 1988, p. Graves (2006:35) suggested several principles of teaching vocabulary in context method: Students should learn the words in meaningful contexts; Students should see words in variety of contexts; Depth of meaning should be fostered; Learners should be able to access the texts‟ meaning in the target language and learning a word involves pronuncication, spelling, morphology and syntax. 6 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Implicit teaching In implicit teaching, students are given oppotunities to do a great deal of reading. Meunier and Granger (2008:226) claimed that implicit teaching was an indirect method of teaching vocabulary.
For example, implicit learning happens when students read some texts and encounters a new word; they stop and ask for its meaning themselves. Thus, this approach can be called extensive reading. Same to its name, the most important principle of this approach is having students read extensively (Baumann & Kameenui, 2004, p. It was explained that the more students read, the more vocabulary terms they acquire.
Additionally, Ma stated that through implicit teaching, new vocabulary can be acquired incidentally by letting the students encounter with the word several times in different contexts (2009, p. On the other words, teachers dealing with implicit teaching always try to minimize the use of the students‟ mother tongue by asking the students not to define every word with their first language. The students can infer the meaning of words through their reading and from the contextual clues. Consequently, some signals that prove teachers applying implicit teaching can be the use of various contexts or monolingual dictionaries.
Explicit teaching Explicit teaching is considered as the traditional approach to vocabulary teaching (Schmitt, 2000, p. Sokmen (1997) discovered some principles which teachers teaching vocabulary in explicit approach had to follow as such: “Build a large sight vocabulary; Integrate new words with old; Provide a number of encounters with a word; Promote a deep level of processing; Facilitate imaging; Make new words “real” by connecting them to the student‟s world in some way; Use a variety of techniques; Encourage independent learning strategies” (cited in Schmitt, 2000, p. However, in addition to these principles, other points are worth noting.