Using total physical response (tpr) method to improve students vocabulary retension and learning attitudes at le duc tho primary school

LE THI DIEU HUYEN USING TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE TPR METHOD TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY RETENTION AND LEARNING ATTITUDES AT LE DUC THO PRIMARY SCHOOL A thesis submitted in partial f

LE THI DIEU HUYEN

USING TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE (TPR) METHOD TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY RETENTION AND LEARNING ATTITUDES AT

LE DUC THO PRIMARY SCHOOL

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL)

Ho Chi Minh City, November 2019

LE THI DIEU HUYEN

USING TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE (TPR) METHOD TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY RETENTION AND LEARNING ATTITUDES AT

LE DUC THO PRIMARY SCHOOL

Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

Primary School” is my own work

Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis does not contain material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma

No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the main text of the thesis

This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution

Ho Chi Minh City, 2019

Le Thi Dieu Huyen

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere appreciation and gratitude

to my supervisor, Dr Bui Thi Thuc Quyen, for her valuable advice, great encouragement, expert support and enthusiastic guide Her constructive comments help

me fulfill my research

Second, I wish to extend my gratitude to all the lecturers for the Graduate School in Ho Chi Minh City Open University for their precious and useful knowledge

as well as experiences during the TESOL course

Third, special thanks are also forwarded to the Board of Principals and student participants at Le Duc Tho Primary School for their permission and support during the data collection process

Fourth, my heartfelt thanks are sent to my classmates for their support, assistance and encouragement throughout the study

Finally, my gracefulness goes to my beloved family who are always by my side, supporting and inspiring me in doing this research Their creative energies and strong spirit help me fulfill this academic goal

still have some trouble in vocabulary achievement Thus, this study was carried out to examine the role of the TPR method in improving vocabulary performance and learning attitudes of the fourth graders at Le Duc Tho primary school, Go Vap District,

Ho Chi Minh City To fulfill these research objectives, the quasi-experimental study was conducted in the second semester of the academic year 2018-2019, with the participation of 76 fourth-grade students These students were divided into two groups: one control group and one experimental group Data were collected through a set of instruments namely the vocabulary pre-test and post-test, the questionnaire and the interview The findings of the study revealed that the TPR method improved vocabulary performance of the target students Besides, this method also was positively correlated with their learning attitudes, i.e they felt motivated and interested in the TPR activities (i.e affective attitudes), they believed in the effectiveness of this method (i.e cognitive attitudes), and they actively participated in the activities of this method (i.e behavioral attitudes) Finally, some suggestions for teachers and further research in applying this method were also made

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS viii

LIST OF TABLES ix

LIST OF CHARTS x

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.2 Problem statement 3

1.3 Research aims 4

1.4 Research questions 4

1.5 Significance of the study 5

1.6 Organization of the thesis 5

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 Total Physical Response (TPR) 7

2.1.1 An introduction to TPR 7

2.1.2 Principles of TPR 7

2.1.3 Advantages and disadvantages of TPR 8

2.1.4 Teachers’ and learners’ roles of TPR 9

2.1.5 TPR activities 10

2.2 Background of young learners 12

2.3 Vocabulary teaching and learning 13

2.3.1 Definition of vocabulary 13

2.3.2 Aspects of vocabulary 14

2.3.3 Vocabulary teaching principles for young learners 14

2.4 Concept of attitudes 15

2.4.1 Definitions of attitudes 15

2.6 Research gaps 18

2.7 Chapter summary 19

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 20

3.1 Research setting and participants 20

3.1.1 Research setting 20

3.1.2 Research participants 20

3.2 Research design 21

3.3 Procedures of the study 23

3.3.1 Teaching material 23

3.3.2 Time distribution 23

3.3.3 Training for experimental group 25

3.3.4 Training procedure for the control group 26

3.4.2 Questionnaire 29

3.4.3 Interview 30

3.5 Data analytical framework 31

3.5.1 Tests 31

3.5.2 Questionnaire 31

3.5.3 Interview 32

3.6 Methodological issues 32

3.6.1 Reliability and validity 32

3.6.2 Ethical consideration 34

3.6.3 Triangulation 34

3.7 Chapter summary 34

CHAPTER 4 DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS 36

4.2 Research question 2 49

4.2.1 Data analysis of the questionnaire 50

4.2.2 Data analysis of the semi-structured interview 53

4.2.3 Discussion 56

4.3 Chapter summary 58

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION 59

5.1 Conclusion 59

5.1.1 Key findings of research question 1 59

5.1.2 Key findings of research question 2 60

5.2 Implications 60

5.3 Evaluation of the overall methodology 61

5.3.1 Strengths 61

5.3.2 Limitation of the study 62

5.4 Recommendations for further studies 62

5.5 Chapter summary 63

REFERENCES 64

APPENDICES 70

APPENDIX A 71

APPENDIX B 77

APPENDIX C.1 PRE – TEST 84

APPENDIX C.2 POST – TEST 87

APPENDIX D.1 QUESTIONNAIRE (ENGLISH VERSION) 90

APPENDIX D.2 QUESTIONNAIRE (VIETNAMESE VERSION) 92

APPENDIX E.1 INTERVIEW (ENGLISH VERSION) 94

APPENDIX G.1 TEST SCORES OF THE CONTROL GROUP 101 APPENDIX G.2 TEST SCORES OF THE EXPERIMENTAL GROUP 103 APPENDIX H.1: CONSENT FORM TO THE BOARD OF LE DUC THO

PRIMARY SCHOOL (ENGLISH VERSION) 105 APPENDIX H.2: CONSENT FORM TO THE BOARD OF LE DUC THO

PRIMARY SCHOOL (VIETNAMESE VERSION) 106

EFL : English as a Foreign Language

Table 3.2: Research design 22

Table 3.3: Description of the teaching material 23

Table 3.4: The main stages of the study 24

Table 3.5: The link between research questions and research instruments 27

Table 4.1: Group statistics on the pre-test of the control and experimental groups 38

Table 4.2: Independent Samples T-test on the pre-test of the two groups 38

Table 4.3: Paired samples statistics in the pre-test and the post-test of the control group 40 Table 4.4: Results of the paired samples t-test in the pre-test and the post-test of the control group 41

Table 4.5: Paired samples statistics in the pre-test and the post-test of the experimental group 43

Table 4.6: Results of the paired samples t-test in the pre-test and the post-test of the experimental group 43

Table 4.7: Tests for the normality of pre-test scores 44

Table 4.8: Tests for the normality of post-test scores 46

Table 4.9: The students’ affective attitudes 50

Table 4.10: The students’ cognitive attitudes 51

Table 4.11: The students’ behavioral attitudes 53

Table 4.12: Interview results (See Appendices E.1 and E.2) 54

Chart 4.3: The pre-test and the post-test’ score distribution of the control group 42 Chart 4.4: Normal distribution of the pre-test’s scores in the control and experimental groups 45 Chart 4.5: Normal distribution of the post-test’s scores in the control and experimental groups 47

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the study

In recent years, the need of learning English has explosion in Vietnam because knowledge of English has become the tool to get a better-paid job not only in the tourism, but in many other fields of work as life English has become an international language, and this is why our society is more concerned about introducing English to school learners at an early age Johnstone (2009) describes that the introduction of languages in primary schools is as “possibly the world’s biggest policy development in education” (p 33), with English being the most preferred language However, it is believed that teaching English to children is not an easy job as it requires a lot of work and preparations, especially vocabulary, for example, plays an important role in learning a foreign language Nguyen and Khuat (2003) agree that vocabulary is one bridge that connects the four skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing all together

In learning English, vocabulary plays an important role especially for young learners According to Cameron (2001), formulating vocabulary knowledge is an inherently decisive factor which affects a foreign language education and acquisition at the elementary level (Richards & Renandya, 2002) To communicate successfully and obtain positive academic performance, vocabulary has literally played an important role in students’ communicative competence (Katwibun, 2014) It is known that English language is considered to possess the largest vocabulary size in the world (Crystal, 2002) and then its acquisition is a vital part of learning a second language (Schmitt, 2008) It serves as a key factor to scaffold listening, speaking, reading, and writing achievement (Richards & Renandya, 2002) However, learning vocabulary involves exposures in meaningful contexts in lieu of simple memorizing definitions of

words (Daniels & Zemelman, 2004, p 13) Therefore; teaching English vocabulary to the tender age is a demanding job

Indeed, many teachers have found that students learning a foreign language tend

to forget or misuse new words most of the time (Rohani & Pourgharib, 2013), which stems from the fact that most students do not have the habit of self-study They just wait for the teachers to provide new forms of words For that reason, vocabulary learning is one of the most common problems in L2 learning There are several types

of approaches, techniques, exercises and practice that can be used to teach vocabulary (Hatch & Brown, 1995), but teachers need to select the most appropriate teaching approach for their students In vocabulary mastery, children begin learning simple expressions For some features of young learners, Scott and Ytreberg (1990) conclude that young learners like an amalgamation of playing and learning at the same time; in other words, they would like to be in pursuit of fun and amusement with whatever they experience in classrooms Nevertheless, their attention and concentration level seems

to be petite and inconstant (Harmer, 2001) Additionally, they tend to learn by moving, doing and experiencing (Kinsella, 1995) In other words, they prefer to learn with physical movement With the advent of Total physical Response (TPR) method by Asher (1968), vocabulary learning and teaching can turns out to be effective and suitable to these young learners

First, TPR lets children answer physically to the verbal commands in a productive way (Muñoz, 2011) Second, it creates a sense of control over the students’ world in a free-stress environment (Sariyati, 2013) Third, TPR method facilitates the development of social skills like cooperation, negotiating, and competing (Muñoz, 2011) Fourth, Nation (2001) suggests that a good vocabulary teaching should be attractive, repetitive and makes the learners give attention to the use of words The teacher may introduce vocabulary a word at a time but consistently repeat them so that

the students have time to digest and internalize the words As proven by numerous researchers, using TPR by giving a model to the young learners will make it easy for them to remember and recycle the vocabulary given and may be encourage to learn In sum, using TPR method in teaching English, young learners feel enjoyable and active

in the vocabulary class since this method is suitable to their traits In addition, this method can assist young learners to retain vocabulary well, and works with any mixed-ability class (Sophaktra, 2009)

1.2 Problem statement

Most of young learners have many challenges in recollect the vocabulary items and apply them for the future use (Luu, 2012) This author reckons that for young learners, perhaps learning vocabulary items for the first exposure time is less difficult than consolidating and remembering them Moreover, according to Nguyen and Khuat (2003), traditional teaching methods often make the learning atmosphere more boring and tedious in the classrooms In fact, the teachers are expected to identify what instructional materials and activities should be use, and what instructional methods should be implemented on their young learners like primary school students

In the same vein, Vo (2016) points out that some teachers frequently lost their creativity in their foreign language teaching practice on young learners Teachers sometimes made their students turn out tedious and they were really depressed that these teaching methods fail to provide more opportunities to them to grave the words in their mind Moreover, many students admitted their low participation in utilizing the target vocabulary items Moreover, during the teaching process of the researcher, the researcher realizes that learning English vocabulary with traditional methods reduces the primary school students’ vocabulary performance because when doing exercises in

the workbook or doing tests, they often ask “what does this word mean?” Furthermore,

the researcher’s colleagues also said that their young students did not have enough

exposure to practicing what they have collected in their English learning For the reason, teachers should create funny, attractive and interactive activities for their students to notice, practice and use the vocabulary meaningfully

In order to tackle these problems above, the researcher of this study would apply TPR method into vocabulary lessons for the fourth graders at Le Duc Tho primary school, with the aim of checking whether this method were really beneficial to these students’ vocabulary performance, positive attitudes and active participation

1.3 Research aims

The aims of the study were to scrutinize the effects of the TPR method on the young learners’ vocabulary acquisition (i.e fourth graders), and their attitudes (i.e inner psychology states) towards the enactment of the TPR method in vocabulary lessons at Le Duc Tho Primary School Specifically, the study aimed to:

1 Exploring whether TPR improved vocabulary retention of the experimental group; whether there was a significantly statistical difference in vocabulary retention between the control and experimental groups after treatment

2 Investigating the attitudes of the fourth graders in the experimental group towards the new application of TPR in their vocabulary class at Le Duc Tho Primary School

1.4 Research questions

To consummate the aims intended above, this study was conducted so as to find

out the responses to the research questions below:

Research question 1: To what extent does TPR method help improve

vocabulary retention for fourth graders at Le Duc Tho Primary School?

Research question 2: What are the fourth graders’ attitudes towards the

application of TPR method in vocabulary learning process at Le Duc Tho

Primary School?

1.5 Significance of the study

The future guide to English teachers, especially Le Duc Tho English teachers can be made upon the sought findings Through these findings, the teachers can renew their teaching practice Additionally, the researcher believes that through the study findings, the teachers can understand how the young learners feel, perceive and expect

in their vocabulary learning Consequently, they are able to seek some suitable

teaching activities to ameliorate the primary school students’ vocabulary mastery

1.6 Organization of the thesis

The thesis consists of five chapters as follows:

Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the study by introducing background of the study, statement of the problem, the research aims, research questions, research significant, and organization of the study

Chapter 2 is dedicated to reviewing the relevant parts of theoretical grounds to the study A brief review of TPR with regard to its history, principles, criticism, learners’ and teacher’s roles of this method, and TPR activities is first presented Following this, area related to characteristics of the young learners is reviewed A review of teaching and learning vocabulary at elementary schools to young learners is then presented, accompanied by the look at various aspects of learner attitudes Some studies on the TPR application in vocabulary class also will be reviewed in a critical way, helping the researcher fabricate the research gaps for this study

Chapter 3 contains a description of the research context and subjects, the research design, the TPR training procedure, the research instruments employed in this study Additionally, the collection and analysis process of the research instruments is clarified Besides, some important methodological issues of these instruments were elucidated

Chapter 4 frames a report of the results on the research questions from the analyses and interpretations of the quantitative and qualitative data, which was followed by an intensive discussion of these results

Finally, Chapter 5 paves a ways for a concise summary of the findings Additionally, the strengths and the limitations of the study are added, followed by recommendations for future study in the area of vocabulary instruction within TPR method

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Total Physical Response (TPR)

2.1.1 An introduction to TPR

TPR is one of the hands-on English teaching methods launched by Asher in the 1960s With this method, learners are encouraged to listen and react to the spoken target language commands generated by their teachers That is to say, TPR is a method devised by the amalgamation of speech and body movement (Richards & Rodgers, 2001; Holleny, 2012)

Propositionally, TPR is a “natural method” since Asher (1968) views first and second language acquisition as equidistant processes This idea of TPR method derives from studies of the process of sensing the mother tongue (i.e native language acquisition) Asher explains that the secret of language acquisition lies in the unique

conversations between parents and children For instance, when parents say, “Look at this father! Look at this mother!” The child will immediately turn around Henceforth,

he argues that L2 education should reflect the naturalistic processes of L1 learning According to Widodo (2005), there exist three phases of picking up a language First, listening ability is developed before they build up their speaking ability Second, children need to respond physically to spoken language by parental commands, so their listening ability is developed Third, when listening comprehension is established, speech evolves effortlessly Inferentially, TPR allows students to acquire vocabulary in

a similar manner to how children learn the mother language (Fadillah, 2011)

2.1.2 Principles of TPR

Prior to applying the TPR method for a foreign language education, a teacher must make sense of its principles to use it effectively in the teaching learning process Thus, this section is dedicated to clarifying the fundamental principles of the target method

The initiator Asher (1977) demonstrates some natures of TPR in conjunction with language acquisition First, languages are best acquired when the learner receives much comprehension beforehand Second, children can receive a lot of benefits from a

“silent period” in which they learn to understand without attempting to speak it Third, meaning of the target language can be conveyed through actions

Similarly, Larsen-Freeman (2002) delineates some assumptions of this method

as following First, meaning can be often conveyed through actions, in which students can learn by observing and performing actions themselves By the kinesthetic abilities the students can begin to learn parts of the target language rapidly Second, it is of importance to make sure children feel successful and non-aptitude Feeling success and lower anxiety can facilitate learning Third, correction should be made sensitively and proportionally Fourth, the teacher can monitor and orchestra the class behaviors through their imperative forms

To sum up, TPR, which places an emphasis on the physical reaction to verbal commands, is developed in order to ameliorate the result of teaching children (Richard

& Rodgers, 1986), to diminish the stressful people feel when taking any foreign language (Larsen-Freeman, 2002), especially to facilitate long-term retention (Harida, 2013) Advantages and perils of this method are presented in the following section

2.1.3 Advantages and disadvantages of TPR

2.1.3.1 Advantages

First, TPR is conducive to helping students improve their language performance Indeed, exposure to language by sound, image, and movement makes learners’ brain link to words become stronger, and thus they can remember longer (Harida, 2013) Theoretically, language acquisition must combine meaning and practical action to stimulate the right hemisphere, making the brain sober, not stressed, have many abilities more to learn, help learners absorb language best (Asher, 1968) Second, TPR can stimulate students’ interest and make them actively participate in

learning (Feng, 2017) Academically, TPR is internationally known as a stress-free approach for second language acquisition Third, it can be used both in large or small classes, and it works well with mixed-ability classes (Widodo, 2005)

2.1.3.2 Disadvantages

The use of TPR in the classroom also has its pitfalls notwithstanding its acknowledged advantages (Widodo, 2005) This author specifies three disadvantages Firstly, with this method, the teachers can meet unexpected troubles in transmitting abstract vocabulary items to young learners Secondly, TPR turns out to be ineffective

in achieving educational purposes in case teachers only exploit and enact TPR activities all the time without combination of different teaching methods The urgent integration of various teaching methods and techniques can reduce the state of tiredness from the students Thirdly, it should be repetitive when teachers are not flexible in their teaching behaviors, but the only use of TPR activities

In general, the advantages of TPR may outweigh its disadvantages In academic, TPR brings positive effects on the language learners’ achievement and attitudes Thus, the researcher decided to apply TPR method in teaching vocabulary to the four-grade students at Le Duc Tho primary school as a case

2.1.4 Teachers’ and learners’ roles of TPR

2.1.4.1 Teachers’ roles

Before conducting a TPR lesson, the teacher’s role is to pick up the topics for the class, exploit and introduce the new materials The teacher may set an interactive activity by charts or pictures (Widodo, 2005).During this lesson, the teacher manages the class interactions and facilitates learning process After a TPR lesson, the teacher turns out to be a feedback provider (Muñoz, 2011) Widodo (2005) describes teacher needs to skip mistakes in speech since this behavior can discourage the participation from the students To recap, the teacher in a TPR classroom must be very active as she

plans before the lessons, monitors during the lessons and gives feedback after the lessons

2.1.4.2 Learners’ roles

The decisive role of the students in a TPR lesson is that they are receivers and reactors (Muñoz, 2011) In specific, Machová (2009) describes learners’ roles in a TPR classroom as following

1 In the first phase, learners should chiefly pay attention to teacher’s commands silently and keep tract him or her modeling the action

2 In the next phase, learners react to the given commands by their physical actions, still remaining silent

3 In the last phase, students are ready to perform the physical actions modeled the teachers

2.1.5 TPR activities

From the late 1960s, when it was born, this method was supported by a majority

of foreign language teachers And it has maintained its value to these days The activities of learning by TPR are extremely fun and relaxing (Shi, 2018), even for adult students who have gone to work Commonly, in the classroom, the teacher will guide the students by saying a word, then using the body language to elicit the word meaningfully The teacher will repeat the request and the student must repeat those actions (Yang, 2017) This can be repeated until the students are able to catch the word

or phrase Here are some TPR activities that teachers can use in learning English

2.1.5.1 Games

Games are the most popular activities in teaching young learners, especially some active games (Reilly & Ward, 1997) Some typical games are Simon Says game, Charades game, and Mute game, which are described as follows:

Simon Says game: Simon Says is probably one of the most familiar activities to

English learners It is a product of TPR The teachers should use it when playing

with their students or while studying a group (Turketi, 2010) The teachers can

start with simple commands like Simon says: sit If at a higher level, try more

complex sentences like Simon says: mimic a frog while squatting for example Charades game: Charades is also a fun activity for a group of people But with

Charades, the teachers can touch many different topics A player will draw a vote with a certain word (e.g ballet, peacock, or movie name), not letting others know from there Next, they have to use their body language instead of words to express the word until someone can guess it Respondents must answer by

sentence with full subject and predicate (Frey, 2015)

Mute drama game: This is an activity that is particularly popular among

English learners Similar to Charades, a person will be dumb while others talk And this person must use actions to convey his meaning Others must guess and

make the full sentence accordingly

2.1.5.2 Story-telling activity

Story-telling is the most common learning activity to the young learners Through such activities, the students learn the noticeable language items since the fact that the stories often repeat these items (Pinter, 2006) In specific, when taking part in story-telling activities, the young learner will hear the target vocabulary items, and then stand up to look at and point to main interpretations of the stories This kind of TPR activities is expected to help the young learners generalize the learnt vocabulary by

context

2.1.5.3 Action-based drills

Drills are believed that they can help teachers to review and check the learnt vocabulary in a favorable environment When conducting these drills, the teachers ask the students to do the actions quickly so that they have to pay much attention to the teachers and to the activities

Asher (1968) states that many structures of language and a lot of vocabulary items are learned from the skillful use of the imperative form Action-based drills can

be a way to internalize the learnt vocabulary items (Rodríguez, 2014) The teacher says the command and the learners all do the action Teachers can ask the young learners to repeat the given words as they do the action, which is preceded by the repetition of the words with a few times In some cases, the students can do the actions by themselves and read aloud the command words which are made by the students themselves This activity is deemed to be effective for young learners to practice forms and meanings of the words

To recap, TPR is one of effective and suitable method that most English teachers choose for teaching children They focus on movements while learning a language, so they acquire the language unconsciously, which limit the negative atmosphere of learning a language (Krashen, 2002) As a result, when the language classroom is full of games and movement and stories and movement, young learners can feel interested in, confident of and comfortable in the learning process (Mirici, 1999) In this study, the researcher will use such these kinds of TPR activities to apply into vocabulary lessons In general, these TPR activities include games, story-telling activities and action-based drills in association with target physical movements

2.2 Background of young learners

It is commonly believed that young learners are holistically different from adults Accordingly, the teaching behaviors are distinct to each learner group Thus, teachers need to know who they are so that they can seek appropriate class activities Some features of this age group are agreed among the scholars as follows:

First, young learners are able to grasp abstracts and generalize language quickly (Halliwell, 1992; Nigora, 2018)

Second, young learners are those who have a very restricted attention and concentration level, often only seven to ten minutes in total (Harmer, 2001) They always look for new things, interesting realia, and lively lessons

Third, young learners prefer playing and satisfying their curiosity during their learning (Scott & Ytreberg, 1990) Consequently, teachers should remember that they need to arouse the students’ inner curiosity; consequently, their learning attention and concentration level is improved to maximum

Fourthly, young learners’ understanding of something derives from their hands and eyes and ears (Scott & Ytreberg, 1990) Therefore, teachers should pay much attention to find suitable teaching methods and techniques related to physical movement

Finally, young learners have distinct opinions about what they like and what they dislike (Scott & Lisbeth, 1992)

Overall, young learners like to be involved in activities that imply spending time having fun, doing activities in which they feel happy and relaxed The teacher must be aware of the young learners’ behaviors because those actions are the signs of their development

2.3 Vocabulary teaching and learning

In general, language production and comprehension can be assured in case that the students possess a sufficient piece of vocabulary knowledge Therefore, it goes without saying that teaching and learning vocabulary should be prioritized at the very

first stage like the primary school context (Mukoroli, 2011; Thornbury, 2002)

2.3.1 Definition of vocabulary

The concept vocabulary is defined in a variety of ways basing on different term

of vocabulary According to Hubbard (1983), vocabulary is a strong delivery of meaning Similarly, Read (2000) refers to words as constituents of sentences,

paragraphs or long texts In brief, vocabulary is a stock of words in a language with

meaning conveyed within a given context

aspect is really important to any learner in building up vocabulary knowledge Finally,

the best way to memorize vocabulary is to use it the students have to learn and

remember the vocabulary by context In concise, the best way of teaching vocabulary is teaching the students to pronounce and spell word forms, to understand word meanings and to use them in context Thus, vocabulary performance is related to the students’ ability to recognize sounds, forms, meaning and use

2.3.3 Vocabulary teaching principles for young learners

Wallace (1982) proposes some basic vocabulary instruction tenets to young learners To the first principle, teachers have to clarify what to be taught and learnt, i.e objectives To the second principle, teachers need identify the sensible quantity of the words to be taught and learnt To the third principle, teachers have to choose the suitable words according to the topics and the students’ needs To the fourth principle, teachers have to create many chances for the words to be repeated and generated over time And, to the last principle, teachers have to present the words within a specific context meaningfully

Generally speaking, given that the importance of the teaching English vocabulary at elementary school, in this case for fourth graders, the teacher should think about the appropriate choice of vocabulary, the words should be in an adequate

quantity, attached to the needs of the students and those words should be meaningfully

presented for the young learners

2.4 Concept of attitudes

According to Padwick (2010), learners’ attitudes along with intellectual ability share their responsibilities to language learning success Hence, investigating learners’ attitudes towards an object is really necessary Specifically, definitions, roles and aspects of learners’ attitudes are critically presented

2.4.1 Definitions of attitudes

In definition, attitudes are positive or negative psychological indicators on something (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993) In other words, attitudes are psychological expressions emerged from one’s experiences; for example, attitudes of the fourth-grade students after the TPR method intervention

2.4.2 Components of attitudes

Learning process is adhered to a positive movement in the learners themselves considering how they feel, how they think and how they believe (Wenden, 1991) That

is to say, behavioral, cognitive and affective (emotional) are three eminent components

of the attitude concept

Behavioral attitudes refer to the learners’ tendency of actions towards an object (Wenden, 1991) These attitudes are reflected on the learners’ participation and concentration level and effort extent in their language learning

The cognitive component of attitude involves the language learners’ beliefs and thoughts about the process of language learning (Wenden, 1991) That is to say, the learners’ beliefs and thoughts often are attached to the value, the importance or the effectiveness of an object

The last one, the affective attitudes refer to the person’s emotions and feelings towards an object (Wenden, 1991) Affective attitudes help learners find the excitement, interest, motivation or enthusiasm from an object

To sum up, the three components of learners’ attitudes were synthetically reviewed to enable the researcher to conquer meticulously how the students feel, think and behave about the infusion of TPR activities with their vocabulary lessons

2.4.3 Roles of learners’ attitudes

Language achievement is not only impacted by skills or language ability, but also by attitudes (Dörnyei, 2007) In other words, learners’ attitudes are identified as predictor of learning outcome Attitudes towards the language being learnt have two tendencies, one negative and one positive In short, attitudes play as an indicator of one’s behavior, as it can stimulate the behavior and spur this behavior in a specific direction By that reason, the researcher deliberately seeks the learning attitudes of the young learners after treatment of TPR activities in vocabulary lessons

2.5 Previous studies

Muñoz (2011) conducted an experimental study to examine the effects of applying TPR in teaching English vocabulary at a primary school of Colombia The sample was 32 third-grade students Through results of classroom observations showed that the TPR method helped the participants learn vocabulary items more effectively and quickly Besides, their motivation and interest level in the language learning was expanded thanks to the TPR method

In 2012, Sunardi carried out an experimental study with the purpose of investigating the effects of TPR on Indonesian primary students’ vocabulary learning and interest The sample of this study consisted of 48 fourth-grade students in which 24 students were chosen for the control group, and 24 students were recruited for the experimental group To collect the data, the researcher used two types of tests (e.g one for word use, word meaning and word spelling, one for word pronunciation), and questionnaire The findings of the tests showed that TPR helped the students improve learning quality on different aspects of vocabulary such as word use, word meaning

and word form Besides, the findings of the questionnaire indicated that TPR yielded high learning interest among these students

Sariyati (2013) conducted a research project on the effectiveness of TPR in English vocabulary achievement The participants of this research were 42 elementary school students in the first grade They were divided into 2 groups randomly Group A (21 students) as CG and group B (21 students) as EG in one Islamic elementary school

in Bandung, Indonesia Pre-test and post-test were used in this study to find out whether the TPR method was effective in the students’ English vocabulary performance Besides, observation was used to know the students’ response toward the TPR method in the experiment class The result of the research showed that the TPR was effective and suitable to be used for elementary school children to learn English

vocabulary and they felt happier and easier when learning with TPR method

To examine if using TPR improved primary students’ vocabulary mastery, Bahtiar (2017) studied on 18 Indonesian fourth-grade students The research design employed in this study was action research which consisted of some steps namely: planning an action, implementing the action and observing the action According to the findings from classroom observation and field notes, TPR helped the learners remember vocabulary easily Moreover, they were active and enjoyable to learn English with TPR applied

In Vietnam, Ngo and Pham (2018) studied the effect of using TPR method on EFL young learners’ vocabulary and speaking fluency in 2018 at Victory Informatics Foreign Language Center of Tra Vinh University The results showed a positive effect

of using TPR in teaching vocabulary to children; as well as enhancing young learners’ attitudes to vocabulary learning using the TPR method at their classes Besides, TPR

also made an improvement on speaking fluency

2.6 Research gaps

Overall, the previous studies shed light on the positive effects of TPR method

on enhancing primary learners’ vocabulary achievement and improving their positive learning attitudes in English vocabulary mastery Yet, the body of literature in the arena of using the TPR method in vocabulary instruction has revealed some deficits

It is notable that the correlation between applying TPR method and vocabulary

performance was recently and constantly ascertained (e.g 2011, 2012, 2017, and 2018)

at different research contexts and on different subjects both outside Vietnam (e.g., Colombia, Indonesia) and inside Vietnam Yet, there has been no study at Le Duc Tho primary school (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam) so far Hence, the researcher conducted

an experimental study at this context with the purpose of improving its young learners’

vocabulary achievement (Research question 1) Methodologically, pre-test and

post-test were employed

It is commonly recognized that learning attitudes contribute to a huge impact on learning achievement However, the effect of TPR activities on vocabulary learning attitudes was not systematically described Therefore, the current study will elucidate this effect with three its constructs of behavioral, cognitive and affective attitudes

(Research question 2) Methodologically, few studies combined questionnaire and

interview to address the participants’ learning attitudes towards learning vocabulary with TPR method To explore the primary school students’ learning attitudes, the researcher utilized both questionnaire and interview in this study

Overall, the previous studies not only provided useful lessons that could be applied in this study, but also helped the researcher to identify the research gaps Therefore, the present study was conducted at Le Duc Tho primary school with an experimental research design by collecting both quantitative and qualitative data through a set of data collection instruments, such as tests, questionnaire and interview

These instruments enabled the researcher to justify the effects of TPR method on young learners’ (i.e fourth-grade students) vocabulary mastery and learning attitudes

2.7 Chapter summary

The literature review has facilitated the researcher to grasp theoretical grounds

in terms of TPR method, nature of younger learners, vocabulary instructions at primary level, and definitions and roles of learners’ attitudes What is more, it has provided the researcher with some previous related studies, formulating research gaps for the current study The next chapter presents methodological grounds of this study

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

As the purpose of the present study was to investigate the changes of grade students’ vocabulary performance and attitudes after the treatment of the Total Physical Response method at Le Duc Tho primary school (Vietnam), this study was hence a quasi-experimental study This chapter describes the setting and participants of the study, the research design and training procedure, and the description and data collection-analysis procedure of the instruments, and research issues of validity and reliability

fourth-3.1 Research setting and participants

3.1.1 Research setting

The study was conducted at Le Duc Tho primary school which was established

in 2015 at 688/57/44 Le Duc Tho Street, Ward 15, Go Vap District, Ho Chi Minh City

It was carried out in the second semester of the school year 2018-2019 At present, the school consists of 29 academic classes ranging from Grade 1 to Grade 5 In specific, there are 4 Integrative English classes taught by only foreign teachers In addition, there are 3 Selective English classes where the students learn 4 English periods per week, two of which are taught by foreign teachers Besides, the other 22 classes are under Intensive English program with 8 periods per week, two of which are taken over

by foreign teachers Generally speaking, the number of the students in each class is around from 38 to 42 At the present, Le Duc Tho primary school includes all seven full-time English teachers, all of whom are qualified with a Bachelor’s degree in English Language Pedagogy

3.1.2 Research participants

The sample for this study was selected according to convenience sampling method “where subjects are selected because of their convenient accessibility and proximity to the researcher” (Zare & Othman, 2013, p 189) In the academic year of 2018-2019, the researcher was assigned to be in charge of two classes, i.e Class 4/1

and Class 4/4 Thus, thanks to convenience sampling technique, the researcher recruited the participation of 76 fourth-grade students comprising both males and females from two intact Intensive English classes Specifically, there were 38 students from class 4/1 and 38 students from 4/4 who would participate in the study The control group, Class 4/4, received the conventional teaching method Meanwhile, the other group, Class 4/1, was treated by the Total Physical Response method, respectively Their background information is presented in the following table:

Table 3.1: Profile of the participants

Components of profile Class 4/1 (n= 38) Class 4/4 (n= 38) Total (N) Percentage (%) Age

As Table 3.1 indicates, most of the students were in the age of 10 years old (98.7%) In addition, the proportion of the female students was much more than that of the male students, in which nearly two thirds (59.2%) of the students were females Considering the overall perception of learning the English language, almost the students, roughly 90%, were fond of acquiring the target language

3.2 Research design

Choosing a favorable approach is one of paramount importance for any researcher since there have existed many conglomerates of research studies like quantitative, qualitative and mixed-methods (Creswell & Plano, 2011) In the current

study, a quantitative research approach, considering numbers in a systematic manner of investigating the phenomena and their relationships (Creswell, 2012), was purposely employed to collect and analyze numerical data Based on Creswell (2012), there are three fundamental types of the quantitative research paradigm, including descriptive, correlational, and experimental designs With the purpose of exploring how Total Physical Response affects the students’ vocabulary performance and attitudes, an experimental design was used

At the debut of the academic year 2018-2019, the researcher was assigned two fourth-grade classes, Class 4/1 and Class 4/4 by the principal of Le Duc Tho primary school However, the researcher had no right to recruit any other participants for her research; she had to employ the two intact classes Class 4/1 and Class 4/4 as the sample of this study That is to say, the present research was such a quasi-experimental study as no random selection of participants could be made here despite the merits of a true experimental research design Generally speaking, the first one was the experimental group which was taught with the Total Physical Response method; the second one was the control group still under the conventional teaching techniques such

as copying new words on notebook, reading aloud, choral repeating and doing exercises

In this design, the pre-test and post-test were used to assess the causality of Total Physical Response intervention between the control and experimental groups A set of one pre-test and one post-test was exploited to check the progress in vocabulary achievement made by the two groups after the whole study The material used for this quasi-experimental study was the same for the two groups

The research design is condensed in the table below:

Table 3.2: Research design

3.3 Procedures of the study

3.3.1 Teaching material

In this quasi-experimental study, the researcher decided to employ the textbook

of Family and Friends Special Edition Grade 4, which was applied to the fourth-grade

students aged 10-11 years old This textbook included 12 units in total in which the first units numbered from 1-6 were taught in the first semester while the second units numbered from 7-12 were applied to the second semester Each unit consisted of seven constituent sections, that is, vocabulary, grammar, phonetics, reading, listening, speaking and writing skills, respectively As the study was conducted in the second semester of the academic year, units numbered from 7 to 12 were mentioned here Generally speaking, these units include some simple and basic themes such as places, food, nature, environment, transportation, position, and characteristics of person

Table 3.3: Description of the teaching material

mall, swimming pool, movie theater

noodles, cereal, meat, melon, cucumber, onion, lemon, sauce, mushroom, garlic, bean sprouts

-lake, mountain, waterfall, ocean, cave, river, building, island

-wide, deep, high

10 In the park Environment path, grass, flowers, bin, trees, fountain, litter

11 In the museum

-Transport types -Position

-bus, helicopter, motorbike, plane, taxi, train -in the middle of, between, at the top of, inside

12 A clever baby! Characteristics

Table 3.4: The main stages of the study

1 January 7

th

January 12th 2019

-Reviewing for pre-test Giving pre-test to 2 groups

Traditional method

Traditional method

st

- January 26th 2019 Teaching Unit 7

TPR activities: Games, Story-telling, Action drills

Traditional method

Lunar New Year holiday

4 February 11

th

February 16th 2019 Teaching Unit 8

-TPR activities: Games, Story-telling, Action drills

Traditional method

5 February 18

th

February 23rd 2019 Teaching Unit 8

-TPR activities: Games, Story-telling, Action drills

Traditional method

6 February 25

thMarch 2nd 2019 Teaching Unit 9

-TPR activities: Games, Story-telling, Action drills

Traditional method

th-March

TPR activities: Games, Story-telling, Action drills

Traditional method

8

March 11th-March

TPR activities: Games, Story-telling, Action drills

Traditional method

9

March 18th-March

TPR activities: Games, Story-telling, Action drills

Traditional method

10

March 25th-March

TPR activities: Games, Story-telling, Action drills

Traditional method

11 April 1

st-April 6th

TPR activities: Games, Story-telling, Action drills

Traditional method

12

April 8st-April 13th

TPR activities: Games, Story-telling, Action drills

Traditional method

13 April 15st-April 20th Teaching Unit 12 TPR activities: Games, Traditional

Delivering the questionnaire to the experimental group Conducting interview to the experimental group

As can be seen in Table 3.4, the study was carried out in 14 consecutive weeks

In the first week, the researcher reviewed content for the students of both groups before giving them the pre-test This test was distributed to the experimental group on January, 8th 2019, and to the control group on January, 10th 2019 In the twelve weeks from week 2 to week 13, the experimental group followed the TPR method-driven syllabus involving game activities, storytelling activities and action-drill activities; meanwhile, the control group followed the conventional methods There were total six units for the quasi-experimental study, each of which was taught in two adjacent weeks In week 14, the post-questionnaire on the students’ attitudes on learning English vocabulary with TPR activities was delivered to all participants in the experimental group after the training course on the chosen date of April, 24th 2019 In this week, moreover, all members in the experimental group and in the control group were given the same vocabulary post-test on April, 24th 2019 and April, 26th 2019, respectively

3.3.3 Training for the experimental group

Thirty-eight students in the experimental group are tackled with a different way Before starting the TPR class, their desks were not fixed, but moved to satisfy the requirements of the course The training course for the experimental group followed Presentation-Practice-Production model using TPR activities (see Appendix A):

In the Presentation stage, the researcher introduced the vocabulary by visual aids such as pictures, realia, or mini clips Then, she examined her students’

apprehension by modeling other actions and asking whether the word they had just learned was associated to the given behavior This stage was under action-based drills;

In the Practice stage, the researcher asked her students to practice newly learnt words by playing some kinds of games such as Simon Says, Charades, and Mute games These games combined physical movements and word decoding, which helped the students remembered new words by repeating actions However, depending on each unit, the researcher selected the appropriate games In order for the games to be effective, the researcher was well-prepared and flexible in time;

In the last stage, Production, the researcher implemented story-telling activities,

in which the students were required to work in groups or pairs to using newly learnt words to complete the given tasks Generally speaking, these activities provided necessary language input and visual aids such as pictures and/ or objects To these activities, the researcher provided comprehensible input that students could be understood She depended on their students’ available knowledge of the world and used postures, gestures, actions, pictures, and objects to express the way of speaking in other language The students incorporated the previously learnt vocabulary into the stories that they had just heard to discuss, write and rehearse them

3.3.4 Training procedure for the control group

For the control group, the researcher still followed the conventional syllabus

without any modification or new design To material, Family and Friends Special Edition Grade 4 was also employed for the control group To time allocation, the

researcher also spent 12 weeks (from week 2 to week 13) teaching the control group In the classroom, the researcher still played the authority over the time on the students Unlike the experimental group, the seat arrangement remained unchanged The textbook became the most prominent medium of transferring knowledge to these students In reality, students did not need to complete special activities in the class to get the language items; instead, the teaching motto of this group was the effect of rote

memory The time for this group mostly was for correcting the students’ pronunciation and noticing the word forms Below is a description of a typical lesson for the control group (see Appendix B):

In the beginning stage, the researcher asked the students to open their textbook and to find the pages of new vocabulary The researcher then modeled the target vocabulary by reading aloud Following that, she translated these vocabulary items from English to Vietnamese In other words, the control group was introduced new vocabulary by their looking at the pictures in the textbook and repeating the recording several times in chorus

In the middle stage, the researcher gave some examples of how new words were used in simple sentential structures Afterwards, she required her students to use newly

learnt words to make a similar sentence orally;

In the end stage, the researcher asked her students to take out the workbook and let them fill in the blank with the newly learnt vocabulary as a tightly controlled practice way Finally, the researcher checked the answers and checked if they were properly used and pronounced Put another way, the researcher used intact vocabulary

exercises in the Family and Friends Grade 4 for the control group

3.4 Data collection instruments

Table 3.5: The link between research questions and research instruments

1

To what extent does TPR method help improve

vocabulary retention for fourth graders at Le Duc Tho

Primary School?

Pre-test Post-test

2

What are the fourth graders’ attitudes towards the

application of TPR method in vocabulary learning

process at Le Duc Tho Primary School?

Questionnaire Interview

3.4.1 Tests

At the outset, the researcher used a pre-test to testify any disparities between the two groups before the treatment, which can interfere with the concrete results of the TPR treatment Thus far, the vocabulary pre-test was sent to the experimental and control groups in the dawn of the treatment Temporally, this test was administered by the experimental group on January, 8th 2019, while the control group took it on January, 10th 2019 as planned

In addition, a post-test was carried out after the TPR treatment of vocabulary lessons to find out if the students from the experimental group made any progress in vocabulary performance This post-test was sent to the experimental and control groups

on April, 24th 2019 and April, 26th 2019, respectively

Both the pre-test and post-test were completed in the length of thirty minutes on the chosen dates Each of these tests (see Appendices C.1 and C.2) consisted of 20

items, involving the four key techniques: Match words–pictures, Decide True/ False, Complete the passage by given words, and Reorder The topics and vocabulary of the

texts were highly familiar with whatever they had learnt in the previous lessons, and their difficulty level was harmony with the participants’ existing language proficiency These tests were based on Decision 1479 (2016) of MOET and the test techniques were commonly used with primary-level learners and based on Circular No.22 (2016) of the MOET about assessing for the primary students To administrate these tests above, the researcher consented to a chain of guidelines like arranging the students’ fixed seats, telling the allocated time, observing carefully during their completion of the tests well Finally, the researcher was responsible for marking the tests after collecting them The grading score was prepared in available to mark the tests consistently In specific, if the students made one correct response, they would be scored 0.5 point; and the total test score was 10.0