1 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES TRẦN THỊ HÒA PROMOTING LEARNER AUTONOMY IN LEARNING VOCABULARY FOR SECOND-YEAR STUDENTS AT HAI PHONG MEDICAL UNIVERSITY (Phát huy tính tự chủ trong việc học từ vựng cho sinh viên năm thứ hai, Trƣờng Đại học Y Hải Phòng) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.10 HANOI - 2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES TRẦN THỊ HÒA PROMOTING LEARNER AUTONOMY IN LEARNING VOCABULARY FOR SECOND-YEAR STUDENTS AT HAI PHONG MEDICAL UNIVERSITY (Phát huy tính tự chủ trong việc học từ vựng cho sinh viên năm thứ hai, Trƣờng Đại học Y Hải Phòng) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.10 Supervisor: Phùng Hà Thanh, M.Ed HANOI - 2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Declaration. iii List of tables and figures. viii PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study.
Aims and objectives of the study. Scope of the study. Methods of the study. Significance of the study.
Overview of the study. 4 PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Definition of vocabulary. Processes of vocabulary acquisition.
Vocabulary learning and teaching. Aspects of learning a word. Explicit approach vs. Incidental learning approach.
Definition of autonomy. 10 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Principles of developing autonomy. Vocabulary learning strategies.
Definition of learning strategies. Classification of vocabulary learning strategies. Frameworks for strategy training. Background of the study.
Current learning and teaching of English at Hai Phong Medical University. Identification of the problem. Implementation of the action research. Instruments of data collection.
Description of the pre-treatment questionnaire. Description of the vocabulary – learning records. Description of the vocabulary learning diary. Description of the post – treatment questionnaire.
Data collection procedures. Data analysis procedures. 26 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 1. Phase One - Research question 1: Students’ problems in independent vocabulary learning.
29 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Research question 2: Students’ performance in the use of the taught strategies. Students’ performance in the use of Strategy Set 1 and Set 2. Students’ performance in the use of Strategy Set 3.
Research question 3: Students’ participation in the use of the taught strategies. Students’ participation in the use of Strategy Set 1 and Set 2. Students’ participation in the use of Strategy Set 3. Research question 4: Students’ maintenance of the taught strategies in independent vocabulary learning.
Research question 5: Students’ perception of the effectiveness of the strategy training programme. Students’ frequency of using the taught strategies before and after the training programme. Usefulness of the taught strategies. Students’ evaluation of the strategy training programme.
Pedagogical implications from the findings. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study. 41 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 9 APPENDICES Appendix 1: Schmitt’s taxonomy of vocabulary learning strategies (1997). I Appendix 2: Three lesson plans.
III Appendix 3: Three word-learning records. XXIV Appendix 4: Sample vocabulary-learning diaries. XXXIII Appendix 5: Pre-treatment questionnaire survey (English version). LVIII Appendix 6: Pre-treatment questionnaire survey (Vietnamese version).
LX Appendix 7: Post-treatment questionnaire survey (English version). LXII Appendix 8: Post-treatment questionnaire survey (Vietnamese version). LXV LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 10 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES TABLES PAGE Table 1: Criteria for evaluating word-learning records. 24 Table 2: Holistic rubric for marking the maintenance of the trained strategy sets.
25 Table 3: Students’ performance in the use of Dictionary-related strategies and Vocabulary-recording strategies. 29 Table 4: Students’ performance in the use of Affix-studying strategies. 30 Table 5: Students’ participation in the use of Dictionary-related strategies and Vocabulary-recording strategies. 31 Table 6: Students’ participation in the use of Affix - studying strategies.
32 FIGURES Figure 1: Students’ problems in independent vocabulary learning. 28 Figure 2: Students’ maintenance of the taught strategies in independent vocabulary learning. 33 Figure 3: Frequency of vocabulary strategy use before and after training. 34 Figure 4: Usefulness of the taught strategies.
35 Figure 5: Effectiveness of the strategy training programme. 36 Figure 6: Students’ recommendations for vocabulary-learning strategy training. 38 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 11 PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study Learner autonomy, a concept promoted by Holec (1981) and others in the context of European language education, has become a favorite topic for analysis for the last twenty years.
In many parts of the world, learner autonomy has been put forward as a goal to achieve (Pemberton et al., 1996; Sinclair et al., 2000; Little et al. Several arguments may be used in favor of developing autonomy in language learners. For example, according to Naimen et al. (1978), autonomous learning is more effective than other approaches to learning, and Waite (1994) specifies that learners need to take charge of their own learning in order to make the most of available resources, especially outside the classroom.
Despite being widely discussed worldwide, learner autonomy remains a fairly novel concept in Vietnam. Whether or to what extent learner autonomy is developed and practiced in Vietnamese schools and universities is still open to question. Furthermore, since the idea of learner autonomy originated from Western cultures, it hardly suffices to just transfer the concept to an Asian context (Benson, Chik & Lim, 2003; Smith, 2003). Rather, the implementation of learner autonomy in Asian countries should be tailored so that an appropriate methodology for developing learner autonomy in non-Western contexts can be devised (Smith, 2003).
Another argument is that learner autonomy is a universal social phenomenon, which manifests itself differently in different local contexts (Holliday, 2003). Because of all these complex and interesting points, it seems appealing to explore how autonomy can be enhanced in an Asian educational institution like Hai Phong Medical University. Moreover, developing learners’ autonomy becomes increasingly important as far as tertiary education is concerned. A student at university is required to do a substantial amount of research for his assignments, so he is supposed to know when and how to work independently so that he can achieve a satisfactory result.
Specifically, the local context of Hai Phong Medical University calls for the idea of promoting learner autonomy. The second-year students, who are at pre-intermediate level, do not seem to study English as well as in the first year. Having taught them for three successive semesters, I immediately take notice of the situation and intend to design a remedy plan to improve it. After my open talk with the whole class, several problems came LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 12 to light.
Most of the students feel discouraged by a large number of words they encounter in each English lesson. As many of them confess, learning vocabulary seems to be the most difficult and most important to them. However, as English non-majors, the students have only four periods per week for English lessons. It means the time spent on vocabulary learning is really limited in class.
In order to develop the students’ vocabulary, it is crucial that they practice independent vocabulary learning regularly outside class. Therefore, it has become increasingly essential to provide them with useful learning strategies so that they can employ in their self-study time. In this case, the success of learning vocabulary depends very much on how effectively and autonomously the students practice vocabulary self-study. As Waite (1994) says, learners need to take charge of their own learning in order to make the most of available resources, especially outside the classroom.
For all the reasons above, I have decided to undertake a study on promoting learner autonomy in learning vocabulary for second-year students at Hai Phong Medical University. The focus of the study is a training programme of vocabulary – learning strategies conducted for ten weeks. Aims and objectives of the study Firstly, the study aims at improving the students’ autonomous vocabulary learning by teaching them some helpful strategies, namely dictionary-related strategies, recording vocabulary and studying affixes. Secondly, it is intended to evaluate their employment of these vocabulary-learning strategies in terms of performance, participation and maintenance.
These aims can be achieved by answering the following research questions: 1. What are the problems that the students encounter in their independent vocabulary learning? 2. How well do the students use the taught strategies in their guided vocabulary practice? 3. How much do the students use the taught strategies in their guided vocabulary practice? 4.
To what extent do the students maintain the taught strategies in their independent vocabulary learning? 5. How effective is the strategy training programme in helping the students learn vocabulary, as perceived by the students? LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Scope of the study The research focuses on one specific way of developing learner autonomy: the explicit teaching of learning strategies. A vocabulary-learning strategy training programme is conducted for ten weeks.
Within the scope of the study, only three strategy sets, namely dictionary-related strategies, recording vocabulary and studying affixes, are taught. The effectiveness of the taught strategies is measured in terms of performance, participation and maintenance. Performance refers to the extent of correctness when the students use the taught strategies while participation means how much they use these strategies in their guided vocabulary practice. Lastly, maintenance refers to the extent of retaining the taught strategies in their independent vocabulary study.
The participants include 27 second-year students of the same English class at Hai Phong Medical University and their teacher. In this study, the teacher is in charge of teaching the class and plays the role of the researcher at the same time. Methods of the study The current study is carried out as an action research, which combines qualitative and quantitative approaches. The action actually taken is a vocabulary-learning strategy training programme designed for the duration of ten weeks.
The programme is divided into three phases. In phase one, pre-treatment questionnaires are distributed to seek the answer for research question one regarding the students’ problem in learning vocabulary. Then, the students are taught about three strategy sets, namely dictionary-related strategies, vocabulary-recording and affix-studying. In phase two, three word-learning records are provided as guided practice of the taught strategies.
The data from the word-records aim at answering the research question two and three about the students’ performance and participation in the use of the taught strategies. In phase three, the students keep free-style vocabulary learning diaries, in which they record the vocabulary they want to learn in their self-study time. The diaries are used to answer the research question four about the extent of maintaining the taught strategies in the students’ independent vocabulary learning. By the end of phase three, post-treatment questionnaires are distributed to answer the research question five about the learners’ perception of the strategy training programme.
LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 14 The data from the pre-treatment and post-treatment questionnaires, the word- learning records and vocabulary-learning diaries are calculated with regard to items’ frequency, mean, and percentage. Significance of the study First and foremost, the habit of independent vocabulary learning will hopefully be developed for the second-year students at Hai Phong Medical University. The students can overcome their difficulties in learning vocabulary by means of monitoring and regulating their self-study with appropriate learning strategies. In this way, the researcher hopes that the students’ awareness of learning strategies and learner autonomy can be raised and nurtured.
Second, the study offers an example of how learner autonomy can be fostered in an Asian context.