VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES -------------- DO THI MAI HUONG APPLYING FRAMENET TO TEACHING THE USAGE OF ENGLISH VERBS M. THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL Supervisor Assoc. DINH DIEN HO CHI MINH CITY, May 2009 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled: APPLYING FRAMENET TO TEACHING THE USAGE OF ENGLISH VERBS in terms of the statement of Requirements for theses in Master’s Programs issued by the Higher Degree Committee. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other institution.
Ho Chi Minh City, May 10th, 2009 DO THI MAI HUONG i RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, Do Thi Mai Huong, being the candidate for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL), accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library. In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan or reproduction of theses. Ho Chi Minh City, May 10th, 2009 DO THI MAI HUONG iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My appreciation is extended to those who made this research a formation. First of all, to Assoc.
Dinh Dien, who is always willing to give me the timely and valuable guidance; to Mis. Nguyen Hong Nhung – managing director of New York schools, who gave me advices within the process of making the research as well as opportunities for me to carry out the quasi-experiment. I wish to express my gratitude to my colleagues and my students at New York schools. My thanks also go to my father-in-law – the principle of Binh Khanh high school in Long Xuyen city because he helped me complete the lesson plans for typical teaching techniques.
Besides, I am really thankful to all my friends who gave encouragements to me. They all made a remarkable contribution to the preparation of the work. iv ABSTRACT English has become more and more essential to socioeconomic needs; however, it is not easy for everyone to learn this language. This research does not have the ambition of covering all aspects of how to study English well; therefore, it mainly focuses on the suitable techniques which can help learners learn English verbs effectively and conveniently.
On the one hand, this research will confirm the roles of English verbs in sentences and convey some general theoretical knowledge of teaching vocabulary from experienced researchers. On the other hand, basing on the questionnaires and analyzing the results collected from a quasi-experiment, the study will display logically the conclusion to withdraw some useful and practical recommendations for teaching English verbs. Nothing is perfect. Thus, this research still has its particular shortcomings and I do have a desire of fulfilling all of them in the near future.
Anyhow, it will surely help Vietnamese teachers as well as learners improve their teaching and learning process. v TABLE OF CONTENTS page Certificate of originality. i Retention and use of the thesis. iv Table of contents.
v List of tables. ix List of figures. x List of abbreviations. Aims of the Study.
Limitation and delimitation. Overview of the study. Definition of terms. 7 Chapter I: BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY .1 Description of New York schools.2 Description of current techniques applied to teaching English verbs .3 Negative factors affecting the learning process.
11 Chapter II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE .1 The history of teaching vocabulary .2 Teacher roles in communicative approach .3 Why do English learners have difficulty in learning vocabulary? .1 How to remember vocabulary .2 How to keep vocabulary in mind.5 How to teach vocabulary. 23 Chapter III: FRAMENET.2 Introduction to the Project .3 The aim and the goal of FrameNet .4 Comparison with WordNet and ontologies .1 How to organize Frames.1 Kinds of frame elements.2 Frame element relations.1 Phrase Type Labels for Verb Phrases .2 Assigning GFs for Verbs.3 Annotation with verbs as target. 44 Chapter IV: METHOD AND PROCEDURE. 52 Chapter V: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDING.3 The FrameNet applications.
87 viii Chapter VI: RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS.3 Recommendations for further research. 102 APPENDICES Appendix 1: Results from the first tests and second tests. 105 Appendix 2: The source to choose verbs for Quasi-experiment. 109 Appendix 3: Lesson plan based on FrameNet.
110 Appendix 4: Lesson plan based on Current techniques. 117 Appendix 6: Questionnaire 1 for learners. 118 Appendix 7: Questionnaire 2 for learners. 124 Appendix 8: An extra lesson plan.
126 ix LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: The differences of lexicographic annotation and full-text annotation .1: The difference in ages of the respondents .2: The difference in jobs of the respondents.3: The difference in seniority of respondents’ studying English .4: The reasons of learning English.5: The roles of learning English verbs .6: The roles and the reasons of learning English verbs .7: The interest of learning English verbs .8: The reasons of lacking interest of learning English verbs.9: Troubles in putting English verbs into practice .10: The reasons for disliking teachers’ teaching techniques .11: Context application in teaching .12: The reasons for seldom applying the verbs .13: Ways of self learning .14: Annotation Report of the verb ‘to Communicate’ .15: Lexical Unit Information .16: Lexical Units by Statuses.17: Results from the First test and Second test of the learners taught by using FrameNet.18: Results from the First test and Second test of the learners taught by using typical techniques.19: Comparison of learners’ average scores of First tests and Second tests.20: The difference in scores after the two tests.21: The convenience and usefulness of FrameNet .22: The difficulties in using FrameNet .23: Ways to find out answers for First test. 86 x LIST OF FIGURES Figure 5.1: The reality of learning English verbs .2: The reasons of the reality from the teachers.3: The reasons of the reality from the learners .5: Learners’ scores of the First Tests.5: Scores of the two tests of Group 1 (taught by FrameNet) .6: Scores of the two tests of Group 2 (taught by Typical technique) .7: Average scores of the two tests of group 1 and group 2 .8: Group 1’s average scores of 3 branches for First tests and Second tests 86 xi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS For the purpose of simplification and convenience in reference, the following abbreviations are utilized in the thesis: LU: Lexical Unit FE: Frame Element NP: Noun Phrase FN: FrameNet GF: Grammatical Function PT: Phrase Type xii CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled: APPLYING FRAMENET TO TEACHING THE USAGE OF ENGLISH VERBS in terms of the statement of Requirements for theses in Master’s Programs issued by the Higher Degree Committee. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other institution. Ho Chi Minh City, May 10th, 2009 DO THI MAI HUONG xiii RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, Do Thi Mai Huong, being the candidate for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL), accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan or reproduction of theses. Ho Chi Minh City, May 10th, 2009 DO THI MAI HUONG xiv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My appreciation is extended to those who made this research a formation. First of all, to Assoc. Dinh Dien, who is always willing to give me the timely and valuable guidance; to Mis.
Nguyen Hong Nhung – managing director of New York schools, who gave me advices within the process of making the research as well as opportunities for me to carry out the quasi-experiment. I wish to express my gratitude to my colleagues and my students at New York schools. My thanks also go to my father-in-law – the principle of Binh Khanh high school in Long Xuyen city because he helped me complete the lesson plans for typical teaching techniques. Besides, I am really thankful to all my friends who gave encouragements to me.
They all made a remarkable contribution to the preparation of the work. xv ABSTRACT English has become more and more essential to socioeconomic needs; however, it is not easy for everyone to learn this language. This research does not have the ambition of covering all aspects of how to study English well; therefore, it mainly focuses on the suitable techniques which can help learners learn English verbs effectively and conveniently. On the one hand, this research will confirm the roles of English verbs in sentences and convey some general theoretical knowledge of teaching vocabulary from experienced researchers.
On the other hand, basing on the questionnaires and analyzing the results collected from a quasi-experiment, the study will display logically the conclusion to withdraw some useful and practical recommendations for teaching English verbs. Nothing is perfect. Thus, this research still has its particular shortcomings and I do have a desire of fulfilling all of them in the near future. Anyhow, it will surely help Vietnamese teachers as well as learners improve their teaching and learning process.
xvi TABLE OF CONTENTS page Certificate of originality. i Retention and use of the thesis. iv Table of contents. v List of tables.
ix List of figures. x List of abbreviations. Aims of the Study. Limitation and delimitation.
Overview of the study. Definition of terms. 7 Chapter I: BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY .4 Description of New York schools.5 Description of current techniques applied to teaching English verbs .6 Negative factors affecting the learning process. 11 Chapter II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE .7 The history of teaching vocabulary .8 Teacher roles in communicative approach .9 Why do English learners have difficulty in learning vocabulary? .1 How to remember vocabulary .2 How to keep vocabulary in mind.11 How to teach vocabulary.
23 Chapter III: FRAMENET.11 Introduction to the Project .12 The aim and the goal of FrameNet .13 Comparison with WordNet and ontologies .1 How to organize Frames.1 Kinds of frame elements.2 Frame element relations.1 Phrase Type Labels for Verb Phrases .2 Assigning GFs for Verbs.3 Annotation with verbs as target. 44 Chapter IV: METHOD AND PROCEDURE. 52 Chapter V: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDING.3 The FrameNet applications. 87 xix Chapter VI: RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS.6 Recommendations for further research.
102 APPENDICES Appendix 1: Results from the first tests and second tests. 105 Appendix 2: The source to choose verbs for Quasi-experiment. 109 Appendix 3: Lesson plan based on FrameNet. 110 Appendix 4: Lesson plan based on Current techniques.
117 Appendix 6: Questionnaire 1 for learners. 118 Appendix 7: Questionnaire 2 for learners. 124 Appendix 8: An extra lesson plan. 126 xx LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: The differences of lexicographic annotation and full-text annotation .1: The difference in ages of the respondents .2: The difference in jobs of the respondents.3: The difference in seniority of respondents’ studying English .4: The reasons of learning English.5: The roles of learning English verbs .6: The roles and the reasons of learning English verbs .7: The interest of learning English verbs .8: The reasons of lacking interest of learning English verbs.9: Troubles in putting English verbs into practice .10: The reasons for disliking teachers’ teaching techniques .11: Context application in teaching .12: The reasons for seldom applying the verbs .13: Ways of self learning .14: Annotation Report of the verb ‘to Communicate’ .15: Lexical Unit Information .16: Lexical Units by Statuses.