An effective way of learning english vocabulary

I • meaning, pronunci tion, classification, style, antonym/ synonym and collocation ; 2 f nding out freshers' attitude towards vocabulary learning and then s ggesting an effective way of

Supervisor : Mr PRAM TAN QUYEN,M.A

Student number: 0271351

- Ho Chi Minh City, July 2006

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I }'ORlVIATION TECHN OI.•OGY

D partmellt o/Foreigll Languages

GRADUATION PAI.'R

Supervisor : lVIr PHAlVI TAN QUYEN,JVLA

Student number: 0271351

respectable advisor, for his preciousTan Quyen,

During the airly hard period of conducting this research

eived valuable advice, timely encouragement

as well as spirit al support from my beloved family members ,especially my sis r, my teachers and friends

First of all, I would like to send my gratitude to Mr Pham

I

suggestions and enthusiastic guidance

Also, my eartfelt thanks send to the whole staff ofForeign Langua es Department, especially Ms Bui Thi ThanhTruc for creatijg favorable conditions that helped me incarrying out my xperiment

I can not t: 1to mention the invaluable contribution made

n in UUFLlT(AV0501.02.03.04) for filling in myquestionnaire

uld like to express my high appreciation and

t to 11 students of AV050 1 (Dung, Tuan,A.Duy, Tuyen, at, Trang, Thanh, NIta, T.Duy, Vui, Oanh) forexperimenting y suggested learning methods

Last but Ii from least, I am indebted to dear members of

my class SAO 1, for giving me all good things during mystudent time

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In recent years, the English language appears so popular that English

learning has virtua y received the most consideration from public in

general and foreign language students at HUFLIT in particular Most

of them desire to ap roach an effective learning strategy to be capable

of using their stocks of vocabulary correctly and appropriately

This research aime at (1) presenting different aspects of words which

is necessary for ocabulary learning , focusing on word family,

.

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meaning, pronunci tion, classification, style, antonym/ synonym and

collocation ; (2) f nding out freshers' attitude towards vocabulary

learning and then s ggesting an effective way of vocabulary learning

To carry out this r search, a questionnaire was designed and used It

was completed by 41 first-year students from 4 classes:

AV0501-02-03-04 of HUFLIT Besides, an experiment was conducted on 11

students of the cl ss AV0501 in 3 weeks to assess the effect of 12

suggested methods

From the question aire, it was found that most students do not pay full

attention to their ocabulary self-learning Moreover, their methods

Additionally, due 0 12 given methods, a positive result on improving

students' stocks of vocabulary was proved through the experiment

The findings imp y that students should take interest in improving

their vocabulary by applying suggested strategies Also, a further

research on other strategies is necessary and encouraged

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page ABSTRACT

ACKNOWLEDGE ENTS

CHAPTER 1 : I TRODUCION •.•.•.•.•.•.•.• •.• •.• •.•.•.• 1

1 Backgro d •.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.• •.•.• • •.•.•.•.•.•.• •.•.• 1

2 Literatur review •.•.• •.•.• • •.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.• 1

3 Purpose •.•.•.•.•.•.•.• •.•.•.•.•.•.• • •.•.• •.• •.•.• 3

4 Organizat on •.•.• •.• •.•.•.•.•.• •.•.•.• •.• •.•.•.•.•.• 3

CHAPTER 2: ORD KNOWLEDGE 2.1 :Defmiti n of Word • •.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.• •.• • • 4

2.2 :Word F rmation •.•.•.•.•.• •.• •.•.•.•.• •.•.• •.•.•.• 5

2.3 :Word C assification •.•.•.•.• • •.• •.• •.•.•.•.• •.•.• 7

2.3.1 I C ntent words 2.3.1.1 :Noun •.•.•.• •.• •.•.•.•.• •.•.•.•.•.• •.•.•.• 8

2.3.1.2 :Ver b • •.•.• •.•.•.•.•.•.•.• •.•.•.• •.• • 9

2.3.1.3 :Adjective •.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.• •.•.•.• 12

2 3.1.4 :Adverb •.•.• • • •.• •.•.•.•.•.•.• 13

2.3.2 IF. ction words 2.3.2.1 :Pronoun • •.•.• •.•.•.•.•.•.•.• • • 14

2.3.2 2 :Determiner • •.• •.• •.•.•.•.•.• • 14

2.3.2.3 :Preposition •.•.•.•.•.•.•.• • •.•.• •.•.•.•.•.• 15

2.3.2 :Conjunction •.• •.•.•.•.•.• •.•.•.• • 15

2.4 : Word ronunciation • •.• •.•.•.•.•.• • •.•.• 15

2.5 : Word tyle •.•.• • •.• •.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.• •.•.•.• •.•.• • 16

2.5.1 F rmal and informal style •.•.•.•.•.•.• •.• • •.•.•.• 17

2.5.2 Sl ng •.• •.• •.•.•.•.•.•.•.• •.• • • 19

2.5.3 T boo •.•.•.•.• • •.•.•.•.•.• •.•.•.•.•.•.•.• 20

2.6 : Word eaning •.• •.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.• • •.• •.• • •.•.• 21

2.6.1 D notative meaning •.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.• •.•.•.•.•.•.•.• • 21

2.6.2 C nnotative meaning •.•.•.•.• • •.•.•.•.•.•.•.• • 24

2.7 ': Word ollocation •.• •.•.•.• •.• • •.•.• •.•.•.•.• 24

2.8 : Concl sion • •.•.•.•.•.•.•.• • •.• •.•.•.• • • 26

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, learnin English has become an indispensable need of a

modern society T erefore, finding out effective learning methods

always holds public concerns Among them, methods or strategies in

learning vocabulari s are being discussed more fully by linguists and

people with real i terest in English As far as the research doer

knows , many En lish learners - in general and foreign language

students majoring i English at HUFLIT - in particular have not yet

approached an effe tive vocabulary learning method Meanwhile, the

traditionallearnin style, simple translation into the learners' native

language - here is ietnamese- is still being used by a lot of students

According to them learning a word is learning the meaning and the

way to pronounce i as Lewis (1995:85) suggests

The most succes ful methods concentrate on meaning If we try and store

words in our mi ds simply by sound and not by meaning, we are doing the

same thing as w do when we try to remember nonsense words that have no

meaning for us.

However, Brown ( 994:365) supposes that finding out the meaning of

words to learn is not sufficient, learners should know the contexts

those words can be applied

(comprehension and production) with words within the context of

surrounding di course Rather than isolating words and/or focusing on

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dioLion.,y defini~on" aUcnd 10 ,ocabnl.,y within a eommnnicaLi,c framework in wh ch items appear students will then associate new words

Marilyn Lewis (1995 84) seems to agree with Brown's viewpoint:

common collocati ns (the words that usually go with it)

What is more, on considering the role of context In vocabularylearning, Yu (199 :96) also brings out his OpInIOn that derivingmeaning from cont xtual clues is an effective way to increase thestudents'vocabular He also states 11 types of contextual clues They

In addition to a c rrect approach to effective vocabulary learningmethods, being aw re of some difficulties learners may encounter willhelp them look for the best ways to deal with As Carter and Carthy(1988:97) says:

Vocabulary diffi ulty is estimated in various ways, the most usual are word

readable if they contain words that are of high frequency in occurrence and

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In the process of studying English at HUFLIT , I have witnessed many

"half laughing and half crying" situations in which students can notexpress their ideas, opinions or attitude in English in chatting with

their friends at English speaking clubs or in Speaking Exams because

of their shortage of vocabulary Consequently, they have to use

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nonverbal languages or translate them into their mother tongue.Additionally, several students take a lot of time to retrieve words whilespeaking or writing Nevertheless, when being able to recover words,

they use them in wrong styles, collocations or/and contexts

There are many reasons leading to these poor situations However, inthe writer's opinion, most students have not been acutely aware ofpractising vocabulary self-learning frequently Besides, an ineffective

learning strategy is likely to demoralize them

Thus I determine to carry out this research, firstly to investigate

HUFLIT freshmen's attitude towards vocabulary learning as well astheir strategies and then to suggest some more effective solutions fortheir vocabulary learning methods I strongly believe that once thesemethods are applied, students are likely to use words accurately and

retain words for a long time

The report opens with an introduction about vocabulary learning realsituations together with some concepts proposed by some linguists Itthen goes on to present word knowledge in chapter two The nextchapter is devoted to method Chapter four presents and interpretsthe results It is expanded with some suggested vocabulary learningmethods in chapter five Finally, a conclusion of the research is shown

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Definitions of word, however seem to vary from dictionaries todictionaries because words are notoriously difficult entities to define ineither universal or language specific terms (Delahunty and J.Garvey,1994:97).

According to Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (2000), word isall the words that a person knows or uses Meanwhile, Mc MilanEnglish Dictionary (2002) supposes word is a single unit of written orspoken language Another definition of word is drawn from Webster'sNew World College Dictionary (1999)

Vocabulary is a list of words, and often phrases, abbreviations, inflectional forms , etc usually arranged in alphabet order and defined or otherwise identified, as in a dictionary or glossary.

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2003) regards word asthe smallest unit of language that people can understand if it is said orwritten on its own

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Although there are many different definitions of word, learners areable to recognize individual words without effort (Akmajian et

al ,1995: 11)

2.2 Word Formation

To discover some basic and general principles of word formation, weshould know two components creating words are sound and meaning,According to Akmajian et al.(1995: 23), there are 3 different ways tocreate new words

I By inventing a new sound sequence and pairing it with a meaningRecently, English speakers have been familiar with words such as CD,Dr., LASER, PRO, brunch, etc These words come from a processknown as coining This process includes 5 types:

'., Howev'er, although speakers know that such words are originally

created as acronyms, they seem to forget the origins and use acronyms

as new independent words

1.2 Abbreviation

5

IS formed from the initial of a

III this case , the initials are

k :CD [si: 'di: ] = Compact Disk

PC [,pi:'si:] = Personal Computer

1.4 Blending

Blending means connecting the first part of one word with the last part

of another into one and the meaning of the new word blends both

original meanings

k: breakfast +lunch =brunch: a meal eaten in the late morning

smoke + fog = smog: dirty air that looks like a mixture ofsmoke and fog

1.5 Back-formationBack-formation is a way to form new words by "subtracting" an affix

thought to be part of the old word that is , ignorance sometimes can becreative

editor -7 to editswindler -7 to swindle

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category Consequently, the meanmg IS changed while thepronunciation is maintained Akmajian et al (1995:25) states that "Inthis way , a new meaning can be associated with and related to an

existing word"

k: ponytail ('pouniteil] (n) the hair that is tied together at the back

of the head-7 ponytail ('pouniteil] (v) making a ponytail

3.By modifying or augmenting the sound sequence of an existing

wordNew words can also be formed by joining individual existing words.This process creates compound words and is known as compounding.Especially , the parts of speech of newly-formed compounds are thesame as the part of speech of the compound head (the rightmostmember of the compound) Compound is considered a rich source of

new words in English

k: Over (adv) +load (v) -7 overload (v )

Cry (v)+ baby (n) -7 crybaby (n)

part of the vocabulary Sometimes they are called open-classesbecause they can regularly be added to the language by borrowing

from other languages Moreover, nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs

are also typically content words In contrast, pronouns, prepositions,conjunctions, and determiners are called closed-classes because newforms are infrequent Hatch and Brown (1995:231) also state that

words in these classes are often called function words because their

meanings show how we are able to determine relations between words

in utterances To make clear the classification between content words(major word classes) and the function words (minor word classes) ,

Delahunty and Garvey (1994: 143-144) put it :

minor word classes occur more frequently than members of major classes They account for about 60% of words used in speech and 45% of those used

in writing.

For this reason, Delahunty and Garvey (1994 : 144) used a metaphor

to talk about the role of these two different classes

Minor words form the necessary cement to hold together the bricks of content, whether those bricks are laid by the brilliant or the dull

2.3.1 / Content words

2.3.1.1 Nouns

* Definition: a noun is a "word that names a person, place, or thing"

E.g : Pitsburg, typewriter, John

~ Common nouns: woman, student

~ Abstract nouns: hope, understanding, love

~ Concrete nouns: disk, table, chair

~ Count nouns: books, birds

~ Uncount nouns: rice, gravy

~ Group nouns (nouns refer to the group of people as a unit) :bank,

* Noun Patterns (Hornby, 1975:112)

1 NP1A Noun + to-infinitive (Eg: attempt to climb; cf he

attempted to climb.)

2 NP1B Noun + to-infinitive Eg: anxiety to leave; cf anxious to

leave

3 NP1C Noun+ to-infinitive Eg: house to live in

4 NP2A Noun+ preposition + noun/pronoun Eg :anxiety for news

5. NP2B Noun (+ preposition) + conjunctive + phrase/clause Eg

mystery (of) why she left

6 NP3 Noun + that-clause Eg: news that she had left

2.3.1.2 Verbs

* Definition: verbs generally refer to actions, events and processes

E.g.: give, happen, become

* Subclasses :

~ Auxiliary verbs

./ be, have, do

./ Modal verbs can, could, will ,would , shall, should,

may, might, must

~ Lexical verbs

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./' Transitive verbs: are those that require an "object"

E.g.: thump, give

./' Intransitive verbs : are those that do not take an object

E.g.: go, die

./' Dynamic verbs :may enter the be + -ing construction

E.g :They are speaking Russian

• Activity verbs: drink, play, write

• Process verbs: grow, widen

• Bodily sensation: ache ,feel, itch

• Transitional event: arrive, die, fall

• Momentary verbs: hit, jump, kick

• Inert perception and cognition: astonish, believe

• Relational verbs: belong to , contain, matter

./'stative verbs: may not enter the be + -ing construction

Eg: We can't say They are knowing Russian.

* Verb Patterns (Hornby, 1975:13)

S+SEEM/APPEAR +(tobe )+adjective/nounS+SEEM/APPEAR/HAPPEN/CHANCE+( tobe )+to-

S+BE+to-infinitiveS+anomalous finite+infinitiveS+vt+noun/pronoun

S+vt+noun/pronounS+vt+gerund

S+vt+gerundS+NEED/WANT/BEAR+gerund (passive meaning)S+vt+(not )+to-infinitive

S+HAVE/OUGHT +(not)+to-infinitiveS+vt+interroga tive pronoun/ad ver b+to-infinitiveS+vt+that-clause

S+vt+dependent clause/questionS+vt+noun/pronoun+tha t-clauseS+vt+noun/pronoun(I O)+noun/pronounn(D 0)S+vt+noun/pronoun(I O)+noun/pronounn(D 0)S+vt+noun/pronoun+noun/pronounn

S+vt+noun/pronoun(D O)+to+noun/pronounnS+vt+noun/pronoun(D O)+for+noun/pronounnS+vt+noun/pronoun(D 0 )+preposition+noun/pronounnS+vt+noun/pronoun(D O)+adverbial phrase

S+vt+noun/pronoun(D O)+adverbial phraseS+vt+ adverbial particle+noun/pronoun(DO)[VP16A] S+vt+noun/pronoun(D O)+to-infinitive[VP16B] S+vt+noun/pronoun(D O)+askllike/as if+noun/clause

1- • [VA4D]

[VA4E]

infinitive[VP4F]

S+vt+ noun/pronoun+infinitiveS+HAVE+noun/pronoun+infinitiveS+vt+noun/pronoun+present participleS+vt+noun/pronoun+present participleS+vt+noun/pronoun/possessive+ -ing form of the verbS+vt+noun/pronoun+in terroga tive+to- infinitive

S+vt+noun/pronoun+dependent clause/questionS+vt+noun/pronoun (DO)+adjective

S+vt+noun/pronoun(DO)+noun (object complement)S+vt+noun/pronoun(D 0)+noun (subject complement)S+vt+noun/pronoun(DO)+past participle

S+HAVE+noun/pronoun(DO)+past participleS+HAVE/GET +noun/pronoun(DO)+past participleS+vt+noun/pronoun(DO )+(tobe )+adj ective/noun

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~ Non- gradable: previous, shut

~ Inherent adjectives : characterize the referent of the noun

directly E.g.: a wooden cross, a new car

~ Non-inherent adjectives :do not exhibit a direct

characterization of the noun E.g :a new friend, a wooden actor. Inthis case the actor is not made of wood, and the friend is not just

created or produced

*Adjective Patterns (Hornby, 1975: 139)

APIA Adjective+to-infinitive E.g.: easy to please; It's easy to

APID Adjective+to-infinitive E.g.: certain to wm; It's certain

that Jim will win

APIE Adjective+to-infinitive E.g.: first to arnve; Jim was the

first to arrive

AP2 Adj ective+preposition+noun/pronoun E.g ; anxious for news

AP3 Adjective(+preposition)+clause E.g.: glad that you succeed,

anxious about how they got on)

~Those which refer to circumstantial information about the

action, event or process, such as :the time, the place, or the manner

of it .E.g :yesterday, now, outside, there, carefully, beautifully

adjectives E.g : very hard, extremely uncomfortable, terribly

~ Reflexive pronouns :myself, yourself, himself, etc

~ Possessive pronouns :mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs

~ Interrogative pronouns: who, what, which, how, when, where,

why

~ Relative pronouns: who, which, whose, that, whom

~ Demonstrative pronouns: that, this

~ Indefinite pronouns : all many, few, everyone, anything, nothing, etc

2.3.2.2 Determiners:

* Definition : determiners are used with nouns and have the function

of defining the reference of the noun in some way

/articles +indefinite article :a/an

+definite article : the

/possessives: my, your, his, her, its, our, their

/ demonstrative: this, that, these, those

~ Quantifier: a lot of, many,few, several, little, etc

2.3.2.3 Prepositions

* Definition : a preposition is "a word that shows the relation of anoun ,or pronoun to some other words in a sentence"

* Subclass:

~ preposition of time :after the meal

~ preposition of place :infront of the bus

~ preposition of logic :because of his action

2.3.2.4 Conjunctions

* Definition: a conjunction IS used to JOIn together two or moregrammatical elements

* Subclass:

~Co -ordinating conjunctions: and, or, but

~Subordinating conjunctions: then, if,why, whether, because,

2.4 Word Pronunciation

Pronunciation is one of word's essential features Besides spelling, acorrect pronunciation will help learners do perfect their learning Infact, there are many factors relating to a word's production but stress

is considered the most basic and noteworthy problem to Vietnamese

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In order to understand what stress is, we should take its definition into

consideration Hornby (1975:XIII) defines stress as the force given to

a word or syllable in speech while Roach (1999:85) studies stress from

the viewpoint of production and perception The two are obviouslyclosely related , but are not identical The production of stress isgenerally believed to depend on the speaker using more muscularenergy than neighboring unstressed syllables On the other hand fromthe perceptual point of view, stressed syllables are recognized as

stressed because they are more prominent than unstressed syllables.Roach (1999:86) also finds out 4 different factors that make a syllableprominent They are Loudness, Length, Pitch, Quality

In the four main factors above of producing prominence: pitch and

length are powerful factor while loudness and quality have much lesseffect In other words, these factors are not equally important

2.5 Word Style

Level

Officialese

Official Formal Neutral Colloquial Slang Taboo

Eating is not allowed here.

You can't feed your face here.

Lay off the nosh.

Lay offthef nosh.

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In the examples above, we may recognize eight levels of formality bytrying to match the degree of formality, language simplicity orcomplexity, and emotional tone In fact, this shift in styles IS

completely unconscious and automatic Each speaker of any languagehas mastered a number of language styles and used them on differentoccasions without being aware of it

According to Joo's (1961 , in Hatch and Brown, 1995:319) , there arefive distinguished styles , including consultative style , casual style ,intimate style , formal style and frozen style used in differentcontexts For example the consultative style with careful choice ofvocabulary is used in talking with strangers to supply backgroundinformation while the casual style is applied with friends andacquaintances who share more information with us Besides, intimatestyle is the language of intimate friends and the language within thefamily Formal style detached the speaker from the hearer And frozenstyle is the register used in print or declamation

However, style is mainly considered in two main forms formal andinformal style or sometimes oral and written language

2.5.1 Formal and informal style

- Formal style often occurs insocial contexts which reqUIre

seriousness such as a formal jobinterview, meeting an importantperson and standing before acourt of law

*Lexical choice

- In formal style, especially III

tendency to avoid too muchrepetition and too many soundtouch-offs by searching forappropriate synonyms

- Informal style comes into use incasual, relaxed social settingssuch as chatting with closefriends interacting III anintimate or family environment

-Oral language is in spontaneoustalks with repeated sound

sequences, words and phrases

Additionally, formal and informal style also differ III grammaticalfeatures

~ Formal: Would you carefor some coffee?

May I offer you some coffee?

Informal: Want some coffee?

Coffee?

Akmajian et a1.(1995: 271) points out that the informal style has agreater amount of abbreviation , shortening , contraction and deletionwhile the formal style is often redundant and verbose

Once being able to distinguish the differences between two types of styles,

we will choose the most suitable ones for our contexts, because Hatch andBrown (1995:320) declare:

If we choose the same words and phrases in spelling as we do in writing, we sound stuffy ,pompous, opinionated or preachy This is because much of meaning is negotiated in face-to-face interaction When we do not negotiate the interaction, we sound like someone giving a lecture On the other hand, if we use the lexical choices for speech in written work, readers often feel the choices are inappropriate

2.5.2 Slang

* Delmition

Almost everyone recognizes and uses slang on some occasions but no onecan define it However, Akmajian et al (1995: 286) finds out somesalient features of this form of language

• Slang IS part of casual, informal styles of language use

• Slang can enter a language rapidly and fall out of fashion after a shorttime

• Specific areas of slang are often associated with a particular socialgroup, E.g.: teenage slang, underworld (criminal) slang, the slang of drug culture ,etc

Slang expressions used by college students in 1994

(Akmajian et al , 1995 : 287 )

-

parentsattractive female

to hide something from a parentskip a class

a good friend

* Formation

- Recombining old words into new meanings

E.g : rip-off (n) something that is unreasonably expensive-Introducing an entirely new word

E.g : gunk (n) any substance that is dirty, sticky, or unpleasant

goof(v) to make a silly mistake

- Ascribing totally new meanings to old words These words are regularvocabulary items in English and can be used in formal styles with theirliteral meaning but in slang they can be used as insults

E.g : turkey, banana = stupid or foolish people

pig ,fuzz =policeman (derogatory terms)

2.5.3 Taboo

- Taboo words are those that are to be avoided entirely , or at leastavoided in "mixed company" or "polite company" (Akmajian et al.(1995:289)

- Fromkin et al (1990: 268-269) states some taboo words such as wordsrelating to sex , sex organs ,and natural bodily functions or words thathave religious connotations but used outside of formal or religious

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"The study of how meaning IS encoded in a language is the central business of semantics, and it is generally assumed that its main concern is with the meaning of words as lexical items"

Therefore, here only lexical meamng IS taken into consideration Insemantic aspect lexical meaning of a word includes 2 semanticcomponents: denotation and connotation

2.6.1 Denotative meaning: is a set of semantic properties which serves toidentify the particular concept associated with the word in question

~The meanings of words have other properties:

E.g "male" is a semantic property of "father", "man" but "father" also has the property "parent", which distinguishes it from "man"

~The same semantic property may occur in words of different categories

~ "female" is a semantic property of the noun "mother" and of the adjective "pregnant".

* Semantic relations:

Words not only have meaning properties but also bear various meamngrelations to one another

~ Certain semantic categories may imply others

E.g the property "human" implies "animate"

[+human] -7 [+animate]

~ Some semantic redundancy rules reveal "negative"properties

E.g.: if something is "human" , it is not "abstract"

[+human] -7 [-abstract]

~ Some main sense relations should be considered

• Synonymy: the sameness of core or cognitive meaningE.g.: The room is light

-

The sun is bright.

-7 the relationship between "light" and "bright" is synonymy

• Hyponymy: is a paradigmatic relation between words which refers

to the inclusion of the meaning of one word in that of another

~~~

/r~lue

Blood red Crimson brick red scarlet

The sense of "blood red" includes the sense of "red" and it is said to

be a hyponymy of "red"

"Blood red", "crimson", "brick red", "scarlet" are co-hyponyms of

"red" and "red" is their superordinate

Moreover, "red" is also hyponyms of "colour" as Jackson (1981:75)

states that

The vocabulary of a language has a hierarchical organization with hyponyms of hyponyms of hyponyms as the meaning of the words become more general and more inclusive.

• An"to nymy: is defined as "oppositeness" or "incompatibility" ofmeanmg According to Fromkin et al (1990 : 210) "words that areopposite in meaning are often called antonyms Ironically, the basicproperty of two words that are antonyms is that they share all but onesemantic property"

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E.g : "beautiful" and "ugly" are antonyms , but "beautiful

" and "tall" are not because they have too few semantic properties incommon

2.6.2.Connotative meaning: is accompanymg semantic component thatexpresses emotion charge, stylistic value, evaluative associations

E.g.: denotatIve meanmg 0f "l ove, " "d" a ore : strong, deep, ten erd

believes:

"It's clear that a word may not combine freely with just any other word or words; there are constrains on the "grammar" or combinability of words"

Tracing the origin of the constraints, learners can see two kinds of this

Some constraints arise from the general grammatical or syntactic system of the language, from the rules for phrase, clause and sentence structure For example adjectives usually precede nouns in noun phrases or subject noun phrases usually precede verb phrases Other constraints arise from the nature of the word itself and its particular place and function in the language as a whole

(Jackson, 1981:68)

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Therefore, collocational restraint IS one kind of constraints on the

combinability of words Palmer (1876 : 79) holds three kinds of

collocational restriction

1 Some are based wholly on the meaning of the item as in the unlikely

green cow.

2 Some are based on range - a word may be used with a whole set of

words that have some semantic features in common

E.g : pretty girl ( likely)pretty boy ( unlikely)

3 Some restrictions are collocational in the strictest sense, involving

neither meaning nor range

E.g : rancid butter/ bacon ( likely)rancid cheese/ milk (unlikely)

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1-2.8 ConclusionWhat we have discussed so far in chapter two is some basis knowledge ofword, including: definition, formation, classification, pronunciation, style,meaning and collocation However, it is really necessary to emphasizethat a learner will not able to acquire a vocabulary item unless he/she iscapable of using it accurately, appropriately and meaningfully ininterpersonal communication

For example:

J One learner knows the meaning of the word "suggest" but he/she usesits classification incorrectly

"Toi d6ng y d~ nghi cua anh ({y."

Incorrect: I agree with his suggest

Correct: I agree with his suggestion

J One learner knows the meaning of the word "cop" and "gang", buthe/she uses its style incorrectly Instead of using "cop" and "gang" ininformal speech, he/she may use in writing

E.g.A gQ!],gof thieves attacked the cop in the execution of their duties.

J One learner knows the meaning of the word "rain", but he/she doesnot learn its collocation Consequently, he/she may use "big rain" or

"large rain", etc instead of "heavy rain" to express the high intensity ofraInIng

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1 Subjects of the questionnaire

The 141 participants were first-year students of four classes AVOS01-02

- 03 - 04, majoring English in Ho Chi Minh University of Foreign

Languages - Information Technology (HUFLIT) Their age ranged from

18 to 20 Most of them were female students They also learned English

as a second language for 7 years or more Therefore, they had a little

experience in vocabulary self-learning to contribute their ideas to the

investigation

2 Subjects of the experiment

The sample of the experiment was 11 freshmen of the class AVOSOI

comprising 4 male and 7 female students at the age of 18 Three of them

came from provinces Their average accumulated marks in the first term

are in the space of 6,8 to 7,9 This ensures their relatively equivalent

level and ability to pursue the experiment Moreover, their interest in

and eagerness for the experiment were considered to make the final

choice

11 these stud~nts were randomly divided into two group : Group 1 ( the

Control Group ) with 3' male and 3 female students and Group 2 ( the

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Experimental Group ) including 1 male and 4 female freshers It is

noticeable that two students with the highest accumulated marks fell into

Group 1 while two opposite students were in Group 2 The average mark

of Group 1 and 2 were 7,45 and 7,0 respectively

3.2 Description of materials

1 Questionnaire

To investigate the habit of, attitude and opinion towards vocabulary

self- learning, a brief questionnaire (Appendix 1) included 10 items

was designed 3 first questions aimed at finding out students' attitude

towards vocabulary learning The rest focused on students' strategies

and its effect in vocabulary learning All of them were optional

questions in which students could swiftly mark their suitable options

with ticks Two of them were Yes - No questions and six ones had

open-ended options in which students could contribute their own ideas

about the issues

The participants were not required to write their names on the

2 Materials for experiment

Material for experiment included texts, tables with necessary

vocabulary of text and vocabulary learning methods

Realizing the importance of vocabulary learning through contexts ,

three texts were carefully selected and based on three criteria

suitable level, here is Intermediate level, interesting topic and

approximately containing 10 - 20 new words All texts were taken

from reliable sources, namely The Shawl (Appendix 2) and What

Publisher and The Advertising of a Product (Appendix 4) from

McGraw-Hill Contemporary publisher

2.2 Vocabulary tables

This table (Appendix 5) was designed to supply students with the most

necessary information of vocabulary such as antonym, synonym,

meamng , examples, family word, style, collocation and grammatical

characteristic The information was compiled from many different

dictionaries like Longman, Lac Viet, English Study 4.0 software and

Oxford Collocation Dictionary

2.3 Vocabulary learning methods

12 vocabulary learning methods (Appendix 6) were collected from

rearranged and grouped into 4 general categories suggested by Hatch

Besides, the designed vocabulary exercises and games (Appendix 7)

were attached to vocabulary learning methods and then delivered to

participants with the aim of helping students review learned words

3.3 Procedure

3.3.1 The questionnaire

Mter completely designed, the questionnaire was given to all the subjects

of each class To ascertain subjects' understanding to questions, the

writers explained and gave some examples to new words and terms

With permission and enthusiastic help of teacher in charge, all students

had 10 minutes before break time to fill in the questionnaires under the

observation of the writer and the teachers in charge Mter 10 minutes,

the completed questionnaires were collected, counted to ascertain the

total rate of return and finally analyzed in chapter 4

For data analysis, the designer counted the answers for each item, then

changed them into percentage as below

.-n : the -number of stude.-nts' a.-nswers

N: the total number of students

3.3.2 Procedure of experiment

The Control Group and Experimental Group were delivered a text which

contained some new words to learn Besides, a ready-made vocabulary

table and well-prepared methods together with an elaborate explanation

of these methods were also sent to the Experiment Group only

The Experimental Group was required to write a short paragraph or

make sentences on their favourite topics with new words All these

papers (Appendix 8) were collected and done the necessary correction

and then returned to subjects to make sure that subjects had the exact

understanding of new words

Mter one - week self-learning new words, all subjects of two groups were

tested on two channels: speaking and writing

- Oral test (Appendix 9) took the form of conversations or discussions

Topic for speaking test was drawn from the text Candidates were

involved in supposed or real contexts and required to used learned words

in their answers This test aimed at students' ability in using newly-learnt

words correctly All of the conversations and discussions were recorded

and assessed on three criteria: meaning, pronunciation, and word's

grammatical characteristic

31

1 With reference to writing test(Appendix 10), it was done in 45

minutes, including a variety of exercises such as matching, filling in the

blank, choosing the correct form of word, translating into English and in

reverse, writing ,etc

h was remarkable that these tests were designed with the purpose of

assessing and comparing the effect of applying methods through two

groups' demonstration in terms of pronunciation, form of words, meaning

and collocation

Aiming at insuring the exactness and objectiveness of the experiment,

two more texts were given to subjects and the results of two tests became

the supplementary foundation to decide the effect of suggested methods

A detailed description and analysis of test scores were carried out in

chapter 4

Additionally, both groups' demonstration of their own learning strategies

were recorded by a camcorder to strengthen the findings

ro * *c.a.

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1-CHAPTER FOUR

PRESENTATION OF DATA AND INTERPRETATION

In this section, data collected from the questionnaire and the experiment

will be presented in tables and charts are followed by the research

doer's comments and discussion

4.1/ The questionnaire

4.1.1 Students' attitudes towards vocabulary learning

1. Vocabulary plays an important role in

1-

Table 1 : Students' attitudes towards vocabulary learning

-Table 1 presents students' attitudes towards vocabulary learning It is

noticeable that all of them (l 00%) realized the significant role of words

There were no students negating this assertion This finding leads us to

believe that once they are well-conscious of vocabulary position in a

language, they may pay more serious and strict attention on learning

them

-Students' attitude towards vocabulary learning is also displayed through

the number of hours they spent engaging in It is noteworthy that the

more hours the answer suggested , the less students chose that

option While 33,3 % had the habit of learning vocabulary less than one

hour, only 32,6 % learnt in one hour and 25.6% spent more than one

hour The rest studied new words in their free time or some of them did

not notice amount of time as long as they can remember words l!

appears that most of freshmen have not yet formed a daily vocabulary

practice In fact, it is not so difficult for students to arrange their

timetable to spend 1-2 hour(s) per day learning new words because it is

considered the average amount of time for foreign language students to

enrich their stocks of vocabulary In short, they did not pay full

attention to improving their word stocks Obviously, this result

completely goes against the previous predict

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