Applying framenet to teaching the usage of english verbs m a 60 14 10

With such the reality of learning the English verbs and the difficulties of the learners, this study will take on the task to find out suitable teaching techniques to help English learne

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL

Supervisor

Assoc Prof 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

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

My appreciation is extended to those who made this research a formation First

of all, to Assoc Prof 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

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

TABLE OF CONTENTS

page

Certificate of originality i

Retention and use of the thesis ii

Acknowledgements iii

Abstract iv

Table of contents v

List of tables ix

List of figures x

List of abbreviations xi

INTRODUCTION 1

1 The problem 1

2 Aims of the Study 4

3 Limitation and delimitation 4

4 Methodology 5

5 Overview of the study 6

6 Definition of terms 7

Chapter I: BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY 9

1.1 Description of New York schools 9

1.2 Description of current techniques applied to teaching English verbs 10

1.3 Negative factors affecting the learning process 11

Chapter II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE 13

2.1 The history of teaching vocabulary 13

2.2 Teacher roles in communicative approach 15

2.3 Why do English learners have difficulty in learning vocabulary? 16

2.4 Remembering vocabulary 17

2.4.1 How to remember vocabulary 17

2.4.2 How to keep vocabulary in mind 18

2.5 How to teach vocabulary 19

2.5.1 Davies, P., & Pearse, E (2000) 19

2.5.2 Doff, A (1988) 20

2.5.3 Willis, J (1998) 21

2.5.4 Ur, P (1996) 21

2.5.5 Harmer, J (1992) 22

2.5.6 Bress, P (2005) 22

2.5.7 Frost, R (2005) 23

2.6 Summary 23

Chapter III: FRAMENET 24

3.1 Frame semantics 24

3.2 Introduction to the Project 25

3.3 The aim and the goal of FrameNet 25

3.4 Comparison with WordNet and ontologies 26

3.5 FrameNet’s entry 27

3.6 FrameNet’s Frames 28

3.6.1 How to organize Frames 28

3.6.2 Frame development 29

3.7 Frame elements 30

3.7.1 Kinds of frame elements 30

3.7.2 Frame element relations 32

3.8 FrameNet Annotation 33

3.8.1 Annotation layers 33

3.8.1.1 Phrase Type Labels for Verb Phrases 34

3.8.1.2 Assigning GFs for Verbs 37

3.8.2 Annotation process 40

3.8.3 Annotation with verbs as target 42

3.8.3.1 Easy cases 43

3.8.3.2 Expletives 43

3.8.3.3 Aspect 44

3.9 Summary 44

Chapter IV: METHOD AND PROCEDURE 45

4.1 Research questions 45

4.2 Research design 46

4.2.1 The subjects 46

4.2.2 Instruments 48

4.2.2.1 Questionnaires 48

4.2.2.2 Quasi-experiment 50

4.3 Summary 52

Chapter V: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDING 53

5.1 Data analysis 53

5.1.1 Pre-questionnaires 54

5.1.2 Literature review 68

5.1.3 The FrameNet applications 70

5.1.4 Quasi-experiment 79

5.1.5 Post-questionnaire 83

5.2 Findings 87

Chapter VI: RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 92

6.1 Pedagogical recommendations 92

6.2 Conclusion 99

6.3 Recommendations for further research 101

REFERENCES 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 114

Appendix 5: Test 117

Appendix 6: Questionnaire 1 for learners 118

Appendix 7: Questionnaire 2 for learners 124

Appendix 8: An extra lesson plan 126

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1: The differences of lexicographic annotation and full-text annotation 41

Table 5.1: The difference in ages of the respondents 55

Table 5.2: The difference in jobs of the respondents 56

Table 5.3: The difference in seniority of respondents’ studying English 56

Table 5.4: The reasons of learning English 58

Table 5.5: The roles of learning English verbs 58

Table 5.6: The roles and the reasons of learning English verbs 59

Table 5.7: The interest of learning English verbs 60

Table 5.8: The reasons of lacking interest of learning English verbs 60

Table 5.9: Troubles in putting English verbs into practice 61

Table 5.10: The reasons for disliking teachers’ teaching techniques 62

Table 5.11: Context application in teaching 63

Table 5.12: The reasons for seldom applying the verbs 64

Table 5.13: Ways of self learning 65

Table 5.14: Annotation Report of the verb ‘to Communicate’ 74

Table 5.15: Lexical Unit Information 76

Table 5.16: Lexical Units by Statuses 77

Table 5.17: Results from the First test and Second test of the learners taught by using FrameNet 105

Table 5.18: Results from the First test and Second test of the learners taught by using typical techniques 107

Table 5.19: Comparison of learners’ average scores of First tests and Second tests 79 Table 5.20: The difference in scores after the two tests 81

Table 5.21: The convenience and usefulness of FrameNet 84

Table 5.22: The difficulties in using FrameNet 85

Table 5.23: Ways to find out answers for First test 86

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 5.1: The reality of learning English verbs 65

Figure 5.2: The reasons of the reality from the teachers 66

Figure 5.3: The reasons of the reality from the learners 67

Figure 5.4: Frame Relations 76

Figure 5.5: Learners’ scores of the First Tests 80

Figure 5.5: Scores of the two tests of Group 1 (taught by FrameNet) 82

Figure 5.6: Scores of the two tests of Group 2 (taught by Typical technique) 82

Figure 5.7: Average scores of the two tests of group 1 and group 2 83 Figure 5.8: Group 1’s average scores of 3 branches for First tests and Second tests 86

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

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

My appreciation is extended to those who made this research a formation First

of all, to Assoc Prof 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

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

TABLE OF CONTENTS

page

Certificate of originality i

Retention and use of the thesis ii

Acknowledgements iii

Abstract iv

Table of contents v

List of tables ix

List of figures x

List of abbreviations xi

INTRODUCTION 1

7 The problem 1

8 Aims of the Study 4

9 Limitation and delimitation 4

10 Methodology 5

11 Overview of the study 6

12 Definition of terms 7

Chapter I: BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY 9

1.4 Description of New York schools 9

1.5 Description of current techniques applied to teaching English verbs 10

1.6 Negative factors affecting the learning process 11

Chapter II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE 13

2.7 The history of teaching vocabulary 13

2.8 Teacher roles in communicative approach 15

2.9 Why do English learners have difficulty in learning vocabulary? 16

2.10 Remembering vocabulary 17

2.10.1 How to remember vocabulary 17

2.10.2 How to keep vocabulary in mind 18

2.11 How to teach vocabulary 19

2.11.1 Davies, P., & Pearse, E (2000) 19

2.11.2 Doff, A (1988) 20

2.11.3 Willis, J (1998) 21

2.11.4 Ur, P (1996) 21

2.11.5 Harmer, J (1992) 22

2.11.6 Bress, P (2005) 22

2.11.7 Frost, R (2005) 23

2.12 Summary 23

Chapter III: FRAMENET 24

3.10 Frame semantics 24

3.11 Introduction to the Project 25

3.12 The aim and the goal of FrameNet 25

3.13 Comparison with WordNet and ontologies 26

3.14 FrameNet’s entry 27

3.15 FrameNet’s Frames 28

3.15.1 How to organize Frames 28

3.15.2 Frame development 29

3.16 Frame elements 30

3.16.1 Kinds of frame elements 30

3.16.2 Frame element relations 32

3.17 FrameNet Annotation 33

3.17.1 Annotation layers 33

3.17.1.1 Phrase Type Labels for Verb Phrases 34

3.17.1.2 Assigning GFs for Verbs 37

3.17.2 Annotation process 40

3.17.3 Annotation with verbs as target 42

3.17.3.1 Easy cases 43

3.17.3.2 Expletives 43

3.17.3.3 Aspect 44

3.18 Summary 44

Chapter IV: METHOD AND PROCEDURE 45

4.4 Research questions 45

4.5 Research design 46

4.5.1 The subjects 46

4.5.2 Instruments 48

4.5.2.1 Questionnaires 48

4.5.2.2 Quasi-experiment 50

4.6 Summary 52

Chapter V: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDING 53

5.3 Data analysis 53

5.3.1 Pre-questionnaires 54

5.3.2 Literature review 68

5.3.3 The FrameNet applications 70

5.3.4 Quasi-experiment 79

5.3.5 Post-questionnaire 83

5.4 Findings 87

Chapter VI: RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 92

6.4 Pedagogical recommendations 92

6.5 Conclusion 99

6.6 Recommendations for further research 101

REFERENCES 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 114

Appendix 5: Test 117

Appendix 6: Questionnaire 1 for learners 118

Appendix 7: Questionnaire 2 for learners 124

Appendix 8: An extra lesson plan 126

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1: The differences of lexicographic annotation and full-text annotation 41

Table 5.1: The difference in ages of the respondents 55

Table 5.2: The difference in jobs of the respondents 56

Table 5.3: The difference in seniority of respondents’ studying English 56

Table 5.4: The reasons of learning English 58

Table 5.5: The roles of learning English verbs 58

Table 5.6: The roles and the reasons of learning English verbs 59

Table 5.7: The interest of learning English verbs 60

Table 5.8: The reasons of lacking interest of learning English verbs 60

Table 5.9: Troubles in putting English verbs into practice 61

Table 5.10: The reasons for disliking teachers’ teaching techniques 62

Table 5.11: Context application in teaching 63

Table 5.12: The reasons for seldom applying the verbs 64

Table 5.13: Ways of self learning 65

Table 5.14: Annotation Report of the verb ‘to Communicate’ 74

Table 5.15: Lexical Unit Information 76

Table 5.16: Lexical Units by Statuses 77

Table 5.17: Results from the First test and Second test of the learners taught by using FrameNet 105

Table 5.18: Results from the First test and Second test of the learners taught by using typical techniques 107

Table 5.19: Comparison of learners’ average scores of First tests and Second tests 79 Table 5.20: The difference in scores after the two tests 81

Table 5.21: The convenience and usefulness of FrameNet 84

Table 5.22: The difficulties in using FrameNet 85

Table 5.23: Ways to find out answers for First test 86

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 5.1: The reality of learning English verbs 65 Figure 5.2: The reasons of the reality from the teachers 66 Figure 5.3: The reasons of the reality from the learners 67 Figure 5.4: Frame Relations 76 Figure 5.5: Learners’ scores of the First Tests 80 Figure 5.5: Scores of the two tests of Group 1 (taught by FrameNet) 82 Figure 5.6: Scores of the two tests of Group 2 (taught by Typical technique) 82 Figure 5.7: Average scores of the two tests of group 1 and group 2 83 Figure 5.8: Group 1’s average scores of 3 branches for First tests and Second tests 86

INTRODUCTION

This study mainly investigates the learners’ difficulties in learning English verbs and the helpfulness of FrameNet, a computational lexicography project as well as an online lexical resource for English Hopefully, the findings of this thesis will help both learners and teachers to improve their learning as well as their teaching skill This introductory chapter presents the problems to the study, the aims and an overview of the study

13 The problem

Vietnam’s open-door policy, coming into existence in 1986, has resulted in cooperation between Vietnam with every nation regardless of political difference and a free, market-oriented economy This helped to attract a considerable number of English-speaking visitors to Vietnam Therefore, English has been considered a main foreign language taught in high schools as well as in universities As the result, it has played an important role in the overall development of Vietnam and has been one of the indispensable factors affecting the improvement of communicative ability

During the period of learning English, how to use the vocabulary correctly extremely helps to improve the four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing As Harmer (1992: 14) also put it “competent speakers of the language need to know the lexis (or vocabulary) of a language – although that knowledge will vary depending, for example, on their education and occupation” So, “language students need to learn the lexis of the language They need to learn what words mean and how they are used Whilst this obviously involves giving them the names for things (e.g.: ‘table’, ‘chair’, etc.) it also involves showing them how words are stretched and twisted (e.g.: ‘to table

a motion’, ‘to chair a meeting’)” (Harmer, 1992: 23) Of this idea, it is clear that in order to completely possess a word, the learners not only need to remember this word

but also need to know how to use it in different situations That is the reason why the teachers’ duty is mainly to find an appropriate way to help their students overcome this obstacle

“Unfortunately, vocabulary is neglected in some English language courses This

is a pity because working with words can be enjoyable and satisfying for learners” (Davies & Pearse, 2000: 59) Different from this point of view, on the contrary of the neglect of vocabulary, aware of the significance of vocabulary, many researches have also been done carefully to explore various interesting kinds of methods as well as techniques to help the teachers successfully transfer their knowledge to the learners Even though the process of teaching vocabulary have been improved and the learners seem to understand most of the new words after the class, they easily forget and can not apply them at all to real life situations

Among all kinds of English words, obviously the verbs are extremely necessary whenever an idea or an opinion is spoken out because without them the speakers can not transfer their information However, most of the teachers just consider them as other parts of speech, they have not recognized the specific features of English verbs so that their learners can not only easily use the verbs but also possess a large number of vocabulary Together with the neglect of these teachers learning English verbs is much more difficult than learning other kinds of words since the learners can hardly link the verbs to real actions in daily life So, although the Vietnamese have the habit of learning a lot of vocabulary, most of them are just the nouns; as the result, they still lack the verbs to use Beside this reason, the Vietnamese also have others for the obstacles in leaning English verbs Firstly, there is no finite verb in Vietnamese sentences Therefore, majority of the Vietnamese have not been aware of the tenses in speaking as well as in writing; secondly some kinds of Vietnamese sentence may not have a verb, for example, “cô ấy đẹp” so this habit surely results in producing some English sentences without verbs; especially the third is that the Vietnamese can not

recognize the compulsory participated elements built around a verb because this feature are not emphasized clearly in teaching This surely makes the learners hardly avoid particular grammatical mistakes For these reasons, “in recent years, the teaching of vocabulary has assumed its rightful place as a fundamentally importance aspect of language development” (Nunan, 1999: 103) But, most of the English learners still have the complaint of lacking vocabulary to express what they really want to say That

is why some previous theses have also been done to discover appropriate ways to solve this problem And, it seems that the crux of methods for teaching new words in general

or the verbs in particular have not been caught because the learners have not completely escaped from this obstacle

With the way of studying new words desultorily, the words surely gradually disappear So, some suggestions have been done to enrich learners’ vocabulary One example is that “students should go home every evening and learn a list of fifty words

‘by heart’” (Harmer, 1992: 24) According to Harmer (1992: 24), such a practice may have beneficial results, of course, but it avoids one of the central features of vocabulary use, namely the words occur in context This traditional learning skill helps to explain the fact that most of the Vietnamese learners are still confused in which situations the verbs should be used and how many elements a verb must have, etc With such the reality of learning the English verbs and the difficulties of the learners, this study will take on the task to find out suitable teaching techniques to help English learners easily obtain English verbs systematically That is also the reason for investigating FrameNet

FrameNet including both semantic as well as pragmatic features appears as a device to help the learners learn vocabulary through a system of related frames It is the result from collecting a hundred of sentences from real life to generalize a so-call formula for particular verbs so that the learners can easily pick out and apply them to transferring the information With FrameNet, all elements of a verb can be defined clearly to help the learners avoid using their participants incorrectly In short, from

FrameNet, various teaching and learning applications will be carried out in order to help learners obtain English verbs easily and systematically

14 Aims of the Study

The aims of the study are:

• to find out the reasons for difficulties in learning vocabulary in general and English verbs in particular

• to find out some strategies for remembering and keeping vocabulary in mind

• to explore the usefulness of FrameNet in teaching and learning English verbs

• to give recommendations based on FrameNet to improve the teaching and learning English verbs

15 Limitation and delimitation

Being conducted in limited time, the study is only confined to the intermediate learners at New York language schools in Ho Chi Minh city The study will not be generalized to all learners of all levels

The main purpose of the thesis is to find out the suitable techniques to help intermediate learners learn English verbs systematically so that they can understand and apply the words in lives, not all aspects related to teaching vocabulary

One more limitation of this study is the self-reported nature of the data collected

in testing the usefulness of FrameNet The researcher was the teacher in charge of the experimental teaching Therefore, the report on the effectiveness of FrameNet might not have enough objective evidence

Furthermore, although 8 lesson plans are collected from 8 different teachers of Binh Khanh high schools, Long Xuyen city, they are from the same school Thus, the generalization may not get the overview teaching techniques for English verbs

Finally, the investigation was taken mostly in the evening, after working day

So, the data might be collected in the state of learners’ tiredness Some results may change in other better situations

16 Methodology

Both of the qualitative and quantitative methods are employed in this study

(a) Qualitatively, various documents are used to describe, explain, and

investigate the suitable techniques to teach English verbs Therefore, the study is carried out by using qualitative methodology to explore various following issues: (1) difficulties in learning English verbs, (2) how to remember and keep vocabulary in mind, (3) recent applied vocabulary-teaching techniques and (4) FrameNet

(b) Quantitatively, (1) the descriptive data collected from pre-questionnaires

of 164 intermediate learners at New York schools are analyzed to get the recent reasons for learning obstacles; (2) a quasi-experiment was applied to two groups of participants (120 learners) together with two tests designed to prove the feasibility of the suggested techniques in the thesis; (3) one more descriptive data from post-questionnaires of 60 learners who are taught with FrameNet is also point out to verify the usefulness of FrameNet; (4) all of the data were also verified through discussions with 10 English teachers in Binh Khanh high school - Long Xuyen city as well as in New York schools All were done to aim at a full analysis of the descriptive data

relating to the answers to the research questions

In fact, every method has its own strong as well as weak points Therefore, multiple methods can produce greater confidence in results, elicit creativity in definition, discover unusual or deviant dimensions of phenomena, and lead to more inclusive theorizing As Denzin (1978) accepts, the quantitative – qualitative combination is believed to achieve validity in doing research Thus, the use of a variety

of qualitative methods in data collection permits an understanding of some previous

studies related to the problem under investigation Furthermore, the explanations induced from the findings will result in grounded theory – that is theory discovered, developed and provisionally verified through systematic data collection and analysis of data In other words, as Strauss and Corbin (1990: 23) further point out, “data collection, analysis, and theory stand in reciprocal relationship with each other” Generally, this study ensures the validity and reliability thanks to various relevant materials and the analysis of the data employed within the procedure to a complete work

17 Overview of the study

After the introduction of the problem, the aims, limitations and delimitations as well as methodology employed in the study, the over view of this thesis is organized in six chapters as follows:

Chapter I provides the background information to the study: a general

information of New York schools, a description of the recent vocabulary teaching techniques applied in Binh Khanh high school, negative factors affecting on the learning process and the significance of the study

Chapter II is a review of the literature with the emphasis on (1) the history of

teaching English words; (2) the reasons for difficulties in learning English verbs; (3) some strategies to help learners remember and keep vocabulary in mind; lastly (4) some suggested techniques for teaching vocabulary in general or English verbs in particular from experienced researchers

Chapter III is about FrameNet and its related information such as semantic

frame, frame elements and FrameNet annotation, etc

Chapter IV discusses the research methodology, together with procedures and

instruments including questionnaires administered to the intermediate learners at New

York schools and a quasi-experiment This chapter acts a foundation for the findings in chapter V

Chapter V presents the results and findings from the data analysis in the light of

the literature review The data analysis is intended to identify (1) the difficulties in learning and applying English verbs; (2) the useful applications of FrameNet to teaching English verbs; (3) the effectiveness of suggested techniques to teach English

verbs and (4) the common problems with learners in using FrameNet

Chapter VI is the one for general conclusions and recommendations for both

teachers and learners in applying FrameNet to teaching English verbs

Hopefully, this thesis brings practical benefits to not only teachers but also learners in terms of using FrameNet in teaching and learning the verbs

18 Definition of terms

A word is “a separate group of sounds or letters that has a particular meaning”

(Longman Active Study Dictionary)

A lexical unit is a pairing of word with a meaning Typically, each sense of a

polysemantic word belongs to a different semantic frame, which is a script-like conceptual structure This structure describes a particular type of situation, object, or event along with participants and drops These roles are called frame elements (FEs) For example, the Apply_heat frame has particular FEs, that are a cook, some Food, a Heating_Instrument and this frame is evoked by lexical units such as bake, blanch, boil, broil, steam, etc

Approach refers to different theories about the nature of language and how

languages are learnt (Richards et al, 1993: 20) This means that “an approach is based mainly on theories of the nature of language and the nature of language learning These theories, implicit or explicit, establish a kind of ‘philosophy of language teaching” (Davies & Pearse, 2000: 186)

Method means different ways of teaching language (Richards et al, 1993: 20) In

addition, “a method has a general approach behind it – a theory of language and of language learning – but it goes into more detail about such things as syllabus, learning activities, and teaching techniques Different methods may have essentially the same approach behind them” (Davies & Pearse, 2000: 186)

Technique is understood as “different methods make use of different kinds of

class room activities” (Richards et al, 1993: 20)

CHAPTER I: BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

This chapter provides the background information for the thesis Therefore, it includes (1) the general information of New York schools, the places that the investigation were mainly carried out at; (2) a description of current techniques applied

to teach English verbs and (3) negative factors affecting on the learning process together with the significance of the study

1.7 Description of New York schools

Established in 2003 and located in Ho Chi Minh city with 3 branches, New York language schools have totally 32 full-time as well as part-time teachers and over

1000 learners with all of the levels from elementary to advance Most of the classes are named with two initial letters ‘QR_’, standing for ‘Quick Reaction’ which is also considered the main method guiding the lesson plans here QR method is similar to Direct Method because although Direct Method is the dominant one, sometimes other methods are also applied to get the best result

New York has its own syllabus and it was verified by Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI), an association of evangelical Protestant Christian schools So, before in charge of a class, a new teacher has to take some training courses These professional training courses aim at providing new teachers with an overview of the syllabus, the guiding methods and some techniques applied in class Besides, this is also a chance for experienced teachers to share ideas and together solve the problems happening in the teaching process Paralleling with training courses, new teachers also have to observe some classes in order to visualize how the method and techniques are applied in reality As other schools, many problems related to teaching and learning English have not solved effectively yet One of these problems is learners’ lack of vocabulary to express the ideas

Dominated by Direct Method, as a result, most of the classes in New York are not very big with the average number of learners varying from 15 to 20 for each class These number of learners in one classroom can help the teachers easily control the class The classrooms are not very large but they are well-equipped with comfortable seats, air conditioners, LCD and enough lights With the advantages like this, learners are provided a good learning environment after their working time Therefore, New York schools welcome many learners with attitudes of towards learning English from all over Ho Chi Minh city Some are very active and enthusiastic while other are passive and shy Whatever their attitudes are, they come to New York schools with only one purpose: they need English and they want to be good at it

1.8 Description of current techniques applied to teaching English verbs

From 8 lesson plans collected from 8 different teachers of Binh Khanh high school in Long Xuyen city, An Giang province to teach 5 verbs: to recognize/ to include/ to contribute/ to acquire/ to inhabit, some generalizations are withdrawn

• The target word needs introducing first by some particular techniques such

as translation from Vietnamese, definitions, situations, synonyms or antonyms

• Models are made by the teachers to visualize how the word is pronounced

• Pronunciation are taught with repetition 2 or 3 times then checking the word’s stress

• Vietnamese meanings are confirmed at the following steps

• One example is made to help learners know how the word works in sentence

• Some synonyms are provided

The detailed information of these current techniques can be seen clearly in Appendix 4, a standard lesson plan based on current techniques

1.9 Negative factors affecting the learning process

English has played an important role in the overall development of Vietnam and vocabulary is one of the indispensable factors affecting the improvement of communicative ability Aware of the importance, most of the Vietnamese learners want

to learn as many words as possible As the result, they always look for the Vietnamese meaning of every new word whenever they encounter them

In addition, majority of learners consider English vocabulary similar to Vietnamese one Therefore, they have a habit of arranging the English words basing on their thought in Vietnamese; for example “I very like you”/ “I go a treet long to come here”/ or “the bird fly on the sky”, etc With the state like this, learners easily produce incorrect sentences and hardly get the English information because it takes them much time for translation when they receive the news or intend to speak out something

Although English is very necessary in life, not every learner really loves learning it They learn English just because of their need; so, however they try, they hardly obtain the language Of this factor, there may be various reasons such as poor learning environment, teaching techniques, unsuitable syllabus, or some other reasons from the learners Whatever the reasons are, the teachers also have to take the duty to help their learners overcome these obstacles to reach the success

Moreover, due to the differences in students’ English learning experience, students reacts differently in learning vocabulary Some are very active and enthusiastic whereas most of them are passive and shy Some can remember and apply the words after the class, others can remember a lot of words but can not use them at all correctly and the majority still complain that they totally lack vocabulary to use in daily life When asked about obstacles related to learning vocabulary, some students revealed that they tried to learn by heart many words but easily forgot all of them They also felt confused about the fact that some words had similar meaning but why they could not be used in the same situation They found it difficult to recognize compulsory

elements built around the words And, they sometimes did not know in which situations they would use the words they had learnt These problems can be explained

by unsuitable teaching techniques and learning strategies

Consequently, the teachers find it challenging to create suitable lesson plans to help learners understand new words and have the habit of frequently using the words after the class Therefore, to improve the teaching as well as learning process, it is necessary to examine the factors causing these obstacles and specific skills or strategies used effectively in teaching

Among all kinds of part of speech, English verbs can be considered the most important ones because they are main parts to form sentences Without verbs, hardly do the speakers transfer the information However, until now, although a lot of researches have been carried out to investigate the process of teaching vocabulary and many suggestions have been made to improve both the teaching and learning skill, the crux

of teaching techniques have not been caught because the learners have not stopped complaining lack of vocabulary

Considering all of the obstacles stated above, the teachers should make use of FrameNet to find better ways for their teaching process because with the appearance of FrameNet, a useful lexical dictionary for English, all elements around a verb are displayed systematically and illustrated by a huge amount of annotated sentences supported by corpus evidence In fact, in the study of FrameNet, each piece of information about the vocabulary in general or English verbs in particular is explored and organized in system so that it is not only helpful but also user-friendly The users can find the meanings, the examples, the relations among elements around a verb or among the verbs themselves just by clicking mouse

From all of the reasons stated above, an investigation into the helpful applications of FramNet to teaching the usage of English verbs will hopefully bring benefits to both teachers and learners in the teaching as well as learning process

CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE

The background information to the study has been presented The aim of this chapter is to emphasize the following factors: (1) the history of teaching vocabulary; (2) Teacher roles in communicative approach; (3) the reasons for difficulties in learning English verbs; (4) some strategies to help learners remember and keep vocabulary in mind; lastly (5) some suggested techniques for teaching vocabulary in general or English verbs in particular

2.13 The history of teaching vocabulary

According to McCarthy (1991: 64), “bringing a discourse dimension into language teaching does not by any means imply an abandonment of teaching vocabulary Vocabulary will still be the largest single element in tacking a new language for the learner and it would be irresponsible to suggest that it will take care of itself in some ideal world where language teaching and learning are discourse driven”

In addition, Nation (1990: 174) also confirmed that “strategies which learners can use independently of a teacher are the most important of all ways of learning vocabulary For this reason it is worthwhile ensuring that learners are able to apply the strategies and that they get plenty of help and encouragement in doing so By mastering a few strategies learners can cope with thousands of words” With such the significance of vocabulary, “language pedagogy has viewed and treated vocabulary in very different ways over the years” (Celce-Murcia & Olshtain, 2000: 73)

In the grammar-translation approach, which was codified by Karl Plotz in the

1880s (Kelly, 1969) and in the reading approach of the 1930s, word lists were a core element of the language curriculum In contrast, the audio-lingual approach, dominant

from the 1940s through the 1960s, deliberately suppressed the teaching of vocabulary

in favor of teaching grammar and pronunciation In current naturalistic and

communicative approaches, there is a widely shared assumption that vocabulary will

be learnt automatically and indirectly without any explicit formal instruction, merely through exposure to and practice with the target language Research in second and foreign language vocabulary acquisition (Coady, 1993) indicates that formal

instruction is beneficial and suggests a mix approach to vocabulary instruction in

which basic or core vocabulary is explicitly taught along with strategies That will allow learners to deal effectively with less frequent vocabulary that they encounter in context so that such vocabulary can be learnt when needed

In fact, formal linguists have tended to focus on syntax; they have long maintained that any human language is a rule-governed innate system and that those who have acquired a natural language apply its rules in original and creative ways by producing utterances they have never heard before (Chomsky, 1965) In contrast to this perspective, linguists who focus on vocabulary rather than grammar believe that a significant proportion of social, professional, and everyday language use is formulaic, routine, and fairly predictable The fact that formal linguists have focused on context-free aspects of syntax and that lexicographers have focused on words, which derive much of their meaning from context, is part of the explanation Nowadays, we have the new vision of vocabulary, where word meanings are viewed as reflecting use in contexts, especially the importance of discourse-grounded activities for learners Generally, the linguists always try their best to improve the “productive use of vocabulary and ways of learning and using new vocabulary because we feel this area has been neglected” (Celce-Murcia & Olshtain, 2000: 74) In short, for years it is proved that vocabulary should be learnt automatically and indirectly not only through appropriate contexts but through practicing with the target language as well

2.14 Teacher roles in communicative approach

Teaching is an art and the teacher is an artist In fact, teacher play extremely important roles to reach the learners’ success This does not mean that the teachers have the central roles in every classroom activity Their duty is just to increase the students’ centeredness in classroom

As Harmer (1991: 235) put it the teacher can play various roles in a communicative class such as a controller, an assessor, an organizer, a prompter, a participant, a resource, a tutor and an investigator

As a controller: What language the learners use, how they speak and what they

do are under the control of the teacher

As an assessor: The teacher has a crucial role to correct and organize feedbacks

As an organizer: This is the most important and difficult role because the success of every classroom activity mostly depends on good organization in order to let the learners know exactly what they have to do

As a prompter: When the learners are confused about what to do next, the teachers have to encourage them

As a participant: The teachers should participate as an equal role in classroom activities to give the learners a chance to practice with someone better

As a resource: The teachers are likely a kind of walking resource center for learners to consult if they wish

As a tutor: With the higher levels, the learners should be offered advice about their learning strategies

As an investigator: The teachers should investigate what is going on, apply new techniques and evaluate the lessons’ appropriateness

With all of the roles, a communicative teacher should be flexible to incarnate the teaching aim so that he can always have the most suitable role in class

2.15 Why do English learners have difficulty in learning vocabulary?

As Davies & Pearse (2000: 59) put it, learning words and how to use them is not

a simple matter On the contrary, it is quite challenging because of the following reasons Firstly, “while grammar at least seems to be finite, vocabulary is virtually infinite Words are also more complex than they appear to be on the surface Amongst other things, they behave differently in different languages” Secondly, “learners in a classroom often have to make a special effort to memorize words that they seldom use

in communication It may sometimes seem to them that they need the words only for the next test” In fact, from the article in British Council, everyone who has tried to force themselves to learn information will know the problem of being unable to get the information even though it is there somewhere in their mind Thus, repeating the item again and again is just able to hold it in the short term memory and getting things into the long term memory and back again can be a difficult process With such a stage like this, decay theory also puts an idea that unless we use the information that is stored regularly, it will slowly disappear from our memory (Frost, 2005) In addition, according to Frost (2005) information in fact stays in our memory, but we are unable to reach it Cue-dependent forgetting is an idea based on experiments where subjects found they forgot lists of learnt words but could remember them if they were given appropriate information to help them recall With a cue, ('It's a fruit' when they were trying to remember the word 'pear') students' performance was also greatly enhanced From this point, one more reason makes learners difficult with vocabulary is that in the learning process, they almost have not got any suitable cue so that they can recall the vocabulary they have learnt before That’s why the teachers need to take this into account and find ways to help their students combat the effects of memory decay and give them the tools to improve their retrieval ability With such the stated problems as teachers, we should find appropriate contexts to lead the students not only

subconsciously to explore and adopt the vocabulary but enjoy using the words often in daily life as well

2.16 Remembering vocabulary

2.16.1 How to remember vocabulary

There are various reasons why we remember some words better than others They may be the nature of the words themselves, under what circumstances they are learnt, the method of teaching and so on It is clear that the teachers mostly take this duty Thanks to the group experiment of memorizing words, Ur (1996: 65) took out the implications for teaching as follows:

• “You will get better results if the words you teach have clear, easily comprehensible meanings.”

• “You will get better results if items can be linked with each other, or with ones already known, through meaning – or sound-association.”

• “It is better to teach vocabulary in separated, spaced sessions than to teach it all at once.”

Besides, according to Frost (2005), there are also other ways to make the learning process more memorable for the learners such as, showing pictures or using interesting contexts and stories Furthermore, giving the students the opportunity to practice the new vocabulary in personalized and meaningful tasks is also essential tool This practice can help learners possess the language more deeply and retain it in the long term memory Guided discovery technique is one example This technique requires learners to find the meaning of vocabulary (with help and guidance from the teacher) to own the learning process

In addition, helping learners how to organize the notes will also benefit them in their studying The teachers can show alternative ways to organize a vocabulary