Luận văn the effect of contextualized vocabulary presentation on 10th form students’ english vocabulary acquisition an action research at to hieu high school hai phong

‘the roles of vocabulary knowledge in guessing meaning of the unknown words vi... the impact or efféctiveness of this vocabulary technique on students’ vocabulary acquisition and relenti

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOT

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FALCUTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

DANG THI HUONG

TITE EFFECT OF CONTEXTUALIZED VOCABULARY

PRESENTATION ON 10™ FORM STUDENTS’ ENGLISH VOCABULARY ACQUISITION AN ACTION RESEARCH

AT TO HIEU HIGH SCHOOL, HAT PHONG

ANH HUGNG CUA VIỆC DẠY TU VỰNG TRONG NGỮ CẢNH TỚI VIỆC TIẾP THU TỪ VỰNG CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10 NGHIÊN CUU HANH ĐỘNG TẠI

TRƯỜNG TRƯNG HỌC PHỞ THÔNG TÔ TTỆU, HÃI PHÒNG

MLA MINOR THESIS Field: ENGLISH TEACHING METIIODOLOGY Code: 60-14-10

TIA NOL 2011

DANG THI HUONG

‘THE EFFECT OF CONTEXTUALIZED VOCABULARY

PRESENTATION ON 10‘! FORM STUDENTS’ ENGLISIT VOCABULARY ACQUISITION AN ACTION RESEARCH

AT TO HIEU HIGH SCHOOL, HAI PHONG

ANH HUONG CUA VIỆC DẠY TỪ VỰNG TRONG NGỮ CẢNH TỚI VIỆC TIẾP

THU TỪ VỰNG CÚA HỌC SINH LỨP 10 NGITEN CUU TIANIT DONG TAT

TRUONG TRUNG HOC PHO THONG T6 HIEU, HAI PHÒNG

MLA MINOR THESIS

Field: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY Code: 60-14-10

Supervisor: Dr Lé Vin Canh

HÀ NÓI- 2011

5, Scope of the study

6, Significance of the study

x Design of the study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

Chapter 1: Literature review

1.1 Definition of contextualized vocabulary presentation

1.2 A contextualized presentation to vacabulary acquisition

13 Previous studies on contexlualived vocabulary presentation

1.4, Guessing or inferencing strategy

1.5 ‘Types of contextual clues

1.5.1 Structural clues

1.5.2 Inference clues

1.6 Advantages and disadvantages of contextualized vocabulary presentation

to vocabulary acquisition

17 Activities and excreises for presenting and practicing words in context

1.8 ‘the roles of vocabulary knowledge in guessing meaning of the unknown words

vi

iv

19 Vocabulary in English texthook for 10 form non- Lnglish major students

1.19 Summary

Chapter 2: Methodology

2.1 Rationale for the use of an action research

2.2 Action Research Procedure

2.3 Background of the study

23.1 Participants

23.2 Data collection instruments

2.3.2.1 Tests

2.3.2.2 Kocus group interview

2A Dala collection procedurss

Chapter 3: Data analysis and discussion

3.1 The results of the students” post-tests

3.2 The results of focus group interview

3.2.1, Students’ opinions of the uscfulness of contextualized vocabulary

presentation,

3.2.2 Brihameing motivation for vacabulary leaning

3.2.3 Memorizing words better

3.24 Preference of contextualized vocabulary activities and exercises

3.2.5 The help of contextualized vocabulary presentation lo word selention and,

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND LIST OF TABLES

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

Table 1.2: Components of a theory of learning words from context

(From Sternberg and Powell, 1983)

Table 2.1: Differences between Action Rescarch and Fonnal Research

‘Table 3.1: The results of the students” post-tests

Page

a 29

but recently there has been a renewed interest in fhe nalure of

Janguags learners faco in vocabulary loaning Tha rescarch findings have revauled thal lexical problems fiequently interfere with communication, As a matter of Hết, communication breaks down when people do not use the right words (Allen, 1983:5)

It is also generally accepted that second or foreign language leatnets who possess go0d word power or knowledge of vocabulary are usually more successful language learners Simply put, people with large vocabularies are more proficient users of the target language than those with liniied vocabularies in fuel, (here is usually a positive eorrclation between one’s knowledge of vocabulary and his/her level of language proficiency (Luppescu & Day: 1993)

When teaching vocabulary to the 10" fonm students at To Hieu High school the author found out that word retention is a big problem to the students Students tend io forget words quickly Another problem is thal they may rernember words bul they da not know how to usc thom appropriately, It has often been suggcsicd that leaming vocabulary by using it in contexts should be employed as the main approach to improve vocabulary knowledge A nuriber of researchers such as Gaims and Redhman (1986) and Oxford and Crookall (1988) have suggested that to leam words in context is an effective vocabulary jearning strategy

This has urged the researcher to carry out this action rescarch, which is aimed at finding

out how contextualized vocabulary presentation affects students’ vocabulary acquisition

2, AIMS AXD OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The research is aimed to explore the effectiveness of contextualized vocabulary presentation on students’ vocabulary acquisition and retention By acquisition, | mean the students understand the meaning of the taught words and know how to use them appropriatcly Because onc aspeot of vocabulary acquisition is the students’ ability to retrieve the words they have learned, the study is alse aimed at measuring the impact of the

contextualized vocabulary presentation on students’ vocabulary retention

Specifically, the aims of the study are:

1) To cxaming the (casibilily of presenting vocabulary in contexts lo 10" graders in a

particular high school

2) To measure the eflectiven

of this vocabulary teaching technique on students? vocabulary acquisition and vocabulary retention

‘Therefore, the study is to achieve the following objectives:

1) To experiment presenting vocabulary in contexts in order to measure its 2ficetivencss on

students’ vocabulary acquisition

2) To cxamine the impact of presenting vocabulary in contexts on students’ vocabulary

the impact or efféctiveness of this vocabulary technique on students’ vocabulary acquisition and relention, Morcover, a focus group inlerview was conducted to obtain mare in-depth data about how students assessed their progress when applying guessing strategies and whether contextualized vocabulary presentation affected students’ vocabulary velention and learning

5, SCOPE OF THE STUDY

‘The sindy is timited to the cxarmination of how presenting vocabulary in contzals affect one group of grade 10 students’ vocabulary acquisition and retention, No intention is made

to generalize the findings

6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The resulis of this action arch will help the author lo improve her approaches fa vocabulary teaching, Those results can also be helpful to other teachers in the school or in

other schools which are similar to the school where this research was conducted

7 DESIGN OF THE STUDY

‘The research consists of three main parts: Part A, Part B and Part C

Part A: Introduetion pr

research procedure, the scope of the study, the significance of the study and the design of the study

its the rationale, the research question, the method of study, the

Part B: Development consists off 3 chapters Chapter one reviews the literature relevant to the study including the definition of context and a mumber of researches in which contextualized vocabulary presentation has been used to helps students make improvement

in their language study This chapter also presents some types of contextual clues used to guess the meaning of unknown word and students’ vocabulary learning strategies Chapter avo discusses the method used in the sludy, TL presents a thorough justification for the use

of action research and the research’s components and program Chapler three presents the Endings and discussion of the study ‘'his part is apparently important because it justifies

the effectiveness of the research.

Part C: Conclusion provides summary of the Endings, implication, refection as well as presents limitations and suggestions for further sluly

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER E: LITERATURE REVIEW 4.1 Definition of contextualized vocabulary presentation:

From the perspective of aman verbal comnmmication, Hymes (1974) secs context as a

limiter of the range of possible interpretations, and, on the other hand, a supporter of the

intended interpretation Con can be seen as information and in lun, information is thal

which reduces uncattainly

‘Taking a discomsal perspective, Nelion ant Coady (1988) dlaim thai “conlexl is also referred to as morphological, syntactic and discourse information ina given test, which can

be classified and described in terms of general features.” (p 102)

In this study, context is defined as @ particular linguistic cnvixomucnt where a particular word is used and interpreted semantically and pragmatically In other words, context is the information that determines the grammatically, semantically and pragmatically appropriate use of particular words,

Defined as such, contexts play a very important role in the identification of words in text

A word used in different contexts may have different meaning so simply leaming the definition of a word with ont examples of where and when it oceurs will not help learners

to fully understand its meaning If learners are not able to contextualize new words by

below.

1.2 A contextualized presentation to vocabulary acquisition

Herman, Anderson, Nagy, and Pearson (1987) used four different types of context in a study of incidental vocabulary leaning ‘They used a 1,230-word passage from a text and three edited versions with varying degrees of implicit and explicit clues about the target words, Other contexts uscd in incidental learning of vocabulary experiments were a novel (Saragi et al., 1978), a graded reader (Horst et al., 1998), specially constructed paragraphs (Jenkins, Stein, & Wysocki, 1984), and narrative and expository texts of about 1,000 words

(Nagy, Herman, & Anderson, 1985) Studics on lcaming from context have used sing]:

sentences (Dempster, 1987; Laufer & Shmueli, 1997), multiple sentences (Dempster, 1987), 12 sentences together with (heir Lt transtations (Griffin, 1992), 1.1 sentences containing the L2 target vocabulary (Pickering, 1982), three sentences one of which was a definition (Gipe 4 Amold, 1979), and L1 and L2 glossed passages (Laufer & Shmueli, 1997) 'The wide range of contexts may lead to misintespretation of results Without a clear definition of contexl, it scorns likely thal results will continue to vary between studics

Context may account for the contrasting results in the study by Rott (1999) and Huistijn et

al (1996) Tn the Roll (1999:330) study, tho texls wore oreated with cough contoxlusl clues for the Jeamers to be able to infer the meaning of the target words Whereas, in the study by Llulstijn et al., the text was authentic, and the researchers had determined that it was “extremely diffivull lo infer the oxacl meaning” of the largsl words From the context

Moreover, context may be one reason the number of repetitions needed to leam individual words varies In some sentences the meaning of an unknown word might be transparent but

in olhars il my be opaque Bock, MeKcawn, and McCaslin (1983) suggested that many contexts may be deceptive, leading learners to infer an incorrect meaning, In studies that involve reading books, there may be too many encounters for researchers to take each context into account, Unless context is taken into consideration, it may be difficult to make

an accurate assessment of incidental vocabulary leaming This may be particularly true in 1.2 leaming where the number and frequency of encounters with unknown words are likely

to be less than in L1 Icarning.

In other studies, more generic strategies were tanght to the students without specific

„ 1993), # high schoal teacher,

algoritimns, For oxample, Buikema (Buikema & Grav

developed a 3-day sequence of whele-class lessons teaching children to use context clues She began with word riddles and used a riddle metaphor to help her students derive words from context, They found significa! cffeets for the treatment on two tncasines of deriving words from context and on a measure of incidental learning using an Edgar Allen Poe short story followed by an unexpected vocabulary test Contextual variables can be labeled as

mediating variables, which can be onc or mare (han one of the following:

The numiber of eccurrencss of the unknown word

‘The variability of contexis in which muttiple pecurroncos of the unknown words appear

The donsity of unknown words

‘The importance of the unknown words to understanding the context in which it is embedded

‘The perceived helpfulnass of the surrounding context in understanding the mzaning of the

unknown word

‘The concreteness of the wiknown word and the surrounding context

The usefulness of knowledge in cue utilization

In addition, in teaming vocabulary some internal contextual variables should be taken into account, These can be called contextual clues They are contextual because they are part of the word, and they inchade

Prefix enes

Stem cues

Suffix cues

Interactive cues (where two or thres word parts convey information in combination)

Table 1.2: Components of a twory of learning words from context (jrom Sternberg and Powell, 1984)

Read (2000:34) shows that the Stemberg and Powell framework does not cover one colegory of clues thal relate to the structure of the fext as revealed in Ames (1966) Structure clues may be syntactic or discoursal, On a syntactic level, readers need to identify the target word's part of speech and fo search for grammatical cues, At the

discoursal tevel, readers can look for expressions of language functions such as definition, comparison, and contrast, cause and effect, question- answer and the main idea- details However, this contextual category is not related to this study, which focuses on conloxluatizod vocabulary proscnlation

1.3 Previous studies on contextualized vocabulary presentation

Rescarch findings about the success of students’ guessing unknown words rom conlext arc inconchisive, Bensoussan and Laufer (1984) provide a guessing task which learners had to answer in writing Their finding shows that leamers frequently make wrong guesses Wrong guesses resulled from giving the incorrecl, meamng of a word thal had several aneanings, mistranslating an idiom, translating the individual morpliemes of a word, and confusing the target word with one that looked or sounded similar Particularly, learners

‘have beon found to make guosses on some tesson basis, produeing an inferred meaning that hhas little relation to the wider context of the text One point needs to be made here, that is +the participants of the study have not been specifically trained to do lexical guessing

Another study, conducted by Haastrup (1987, 1991), in which Danish secondary students

of English, in pairs or groups, worked together to guess the meaning of unknown words, thus producing introspective “think-aloud” accounts of their reasoning processes Ileastrup

Linto Um:

analyzed the clnes they ategories: intertingual, mbatingnal, ancl contextual Haastrup implied that many of the introspective accounts were incomplete or difticult to interpret, about half of the subjects were also interviewed individually as soon as they had completed the guessing task, in order to clarify what they had said

Lin and Nation (1985) were a more optimistic after they studied leamers” ability to guess the meaning of nonsense words used Lo roplace real world al regular intervals in written texts, They conclude that success is determined by the relative density of unknown words Where there was only one nonsense word per twenty-five words, they were easier to guess

than when there was one every ten words Liu and Nation estimated that at least 85

per

their relevant knowledge and skills

of unknown words could be guessed by a ct s of learners working together to pool

In addition, Xiaolong’s (1988) research revealed that those learners who were good at word inference also retain the first-cncounter conlextuat meaning of the contexts in which they were learnt The importance of context was also stressed by Honeyfield (1997), who argued that even with a fumctional vocabulary of the three thousand most frequently occurring items in English, lcamers will still not now around 20 percent of the items they encounter in an unsimplified text The problem confronting both teacher and learners is that no couse can provide learners with anything like the vacabulary they will need to comprehend authentic texts, He suggested that it is therefore of impoitance to equip students with strategies for inferring the meaning of unknown vocabulary from the context

in which it oceurs rather than getting them to undertake the time-consuming task of memorizing long Tis

1.4 Guessing or inferencing strategy

Guessing meaning of unknown words from context most commonly refers to inferring the meaning of a word fram surourding words in a wrillen texi In this thesis, the Iwo lerms are used interchangeably, It is an active and deliberate process to acquire a meaning for a

word in a text

“By reasoning from textual clues and prior knowledge, including language knowledge and

‘hypotheses developed from pricr encounters with the word, but without extemal sources of

hefp such as dictionarics or Iumman” (Rapaport, W.1., 2005)

Following are some definitions and ideas of guessing, strategy defined by some

researchers:

10

“Infering means making use of syntactic, logical and cultural clues to discover the meaning

of unkown clements” (Grellet, F., 1981-14)

“Inferring involves creating a scheme for the unknown word(s), based on world knowledge and previous experience, both of the world and texts In other words, inferring means drawing conclusions as lo word incaning by following certain rational steps in the face of

‘the evidence available.” (McCarthy, M., 1990: 125)

For instance, @ sentence is taken from an article aboul progress in East-West disarmament talks in a British newspaper like this: “There are a lot of nasty snags yet to overcome” When a learner is faced with it and does not know what “nasty snags” mean, the, apart Grom the general context (the article in this case), it is possible for him to infer that “snags”

is a countable noun, that they are something which can be “overcome”, and therefore, given the subject-matter, may mean something like “ obstacles”, “difficulties” or ~ problems”, If they are “problems”, then “nasly” is likely to mean something negative like

“small” or “minx” and se on, Inferring in this way is an example of the “construction” of meaning by the reader when he/she activates schemata

Gaims and Redman (1986: 83) usc the term “contextual guesswork” for the strategy of making use of context in which the word appears to derive an idea of its meaning or in some cases to guess fram the word itself They claim thal speakers of European and none European languages alike can also make use of previous knowledge of English to guess the

meaning of unknown words They give two examples

(2) Toverstept this morning

(b) My work varies from week to week,

In the first example, the unknown word consists of parts which are already Giuniliar and the learner might have met the prefix “over” in other words e.g., overtime This knowledge enables the learners to work ont the meaning In the second example, with their knowledge

of the common noun “varicty”, it is sufficient for the camer to reduce the meaning of

“varies” and understand the sentence.

1 Word elements such as prefises, suffixes and roots

The ability to recognize component part of words, word families, and so on is probably the single most important vocabulary skill a student of reading in EVL can have It

substantially reduces the mumber of compl: y new words he will sncaunter and inereascs

‘his control of the English lexicon

2 Pictures, diagrams and charts

‘Lhese chies, so obvious to the native speakers, must offen be pointed out to the EFL

studenl, He may not connect the illustration wilh the ilent thất is giving himn difficulty Te amay also be unable to read charts and graphs in English

3 Chues of definition

The student nmust be taught to notic: many types of highly uscful definition clues Among

these are:

a) Parentheses or footnotes, which arz the mest obvious definition clues The student can

‘be taught to recognize the physical characteristics of the clue

) Synonyms and antonyms usually occur along with ofher clucs tat ts, is- clauses, explanations in parentheses and so on

4 Inference clues from discourse, which are usually not confined to one sentence

a, Example clues, where the meaning for the word can be inferred from an example, often use physical clues such as ie, e.g., and far example

b Summary clues; ffom the sum of the information in a sentence or paragraph, the

student can understand the word.

12

c Experience chues; the reader can get a meaning from a word by recalling a similar

situntion xpericnocd and making the appropriate im

5 General aids, which usually do not help the student with meaning, narrow the possibilities ‘These include the function of the word in question, i.¢., noun, adjective, ect.,

d

and the subject being dise

‘To conchude, acquiting vocabulary knowledge from context is a sophisticated strategy but

il plays a very important part in vocabulary development Thus, it has been widely promoted as it has been seen to fit in more comfortably with the communicative approach than any other

When seeing the next pair of words in parallel construction, the meaning of new word can

be assumed or example: “David was very ontgeing as opposed to his alder coy sister” In

this

ở, Coy ust be nol oulgomyg, so tL means ursociable,

Fyponms

The relationship between an unfamiliar word and Ganitiar one is that of general concep! accompanied by a specific example (a hyponym) } For example: “The room contained Jots of funiture: chaiz, table, air-conditional.” In this case, all of the items are of the same category and furnilure is used as a hyponyrn, iL covers all of the other ilerns which arc

sted

Definitions

Often the writer uses definitions to suggest the meanings of words in the text For instance’ “Many animals live only by killing others and eating them ‘hey are called predatory animals”, Basing on the suggestion, readers can infor that “predalary anitnals™

are those which kill and eat other animals,

Restatement

A writer may provide context clues by restating a term in easier language Commas, dashes, or other punctuation can point to a restatement clue, along with expressions such as that is, in other words, and or For instance: My father is a podiatrist, or foot doctor, The restatement clue, “or foot doctor,” shows the meaning of podiatrist

Reference words

Identitying the referents of pronouns may suggest a clue to the meaning of unknown word, for example: “Malnutrition gave him the shallowest of chests thimest of limbs It sitmted his growth.” Readers can guess the meaning of maluutuition by reading the cffeet of it to growth

Alternatives

14

Readers can understand the meaning of the new word by looking at an alternative For instance: “Tehthyologisis, or specialisis in the study af fish, have vontribuled to understanding of the past.” The word ichthyologist is a new word but readers can guess its meaning because itis explained by a familiar term “specialists in the study of fish”

Inference clues need a higher level of analytical skill and practice than structural clues

‘They force the readers to use rationals or reasoning skills in order to figure out the meaning of a new word Even though the word is not directly detined, the reader can logically reason out the meaning using the information provided in context Readers can use inference clues such as comparison and contrast, summary, cause and result, cohesion

to understand the meaning of new word

Comparison and cantrast

Comparison clues are words and phrases that have the same or similar meaning as an unfamiliar word, Words and phrases such as like, as, and in the same way often signal

comparisans

Contrast clues are words and phrases that mean the opposite of an unfamiliar word Words and phrases such as although, but, yet, however, except and on the other hand signal comizasts, Tn tho sentence “The large dog scemed incnacing, as Hf wore rondy to bite me”, the word “as” signals the comparison between the clues, “ready to bite me,” and the meaning of menacing is “threatening,”

Soommary

When summarizing, the information of the sentence or paragraph is sum up in a word or phrase Thanks to the familiar words of the whole scntcnee or paragraph, reader can

in adjacent sentences because they regularly co-ocenr with the unfamiliar word Itis called

“gotlouational cohesion” by Halliday and Hasan (1976:287)

In conclusion, to make effective guess, leamers need to be trained to look for clues in context Llowever, the contextual clues must be sufficient in order to make inferences to be possible and productive

1.6 Advantages and disadvantages of contextualized vocabulary presentation to vocabulary acquisition

Comtextualized vocabulary presentation consists of some advantages in the first place, this

from meaningful context, This way

of learning task is much more active, interesting, and challenging, explanation of words Another advantage is that it gives input on the semantic properties and register of word taught, It also gives the leamers understanding of the usage and use of the word taught Nation (2004:232) maintains that “incidental loaning via guessing from conlzxt is the most important of all sources of vocabulary leaming”, Over the past two decades, this strategy has been greatly promoted since it seems to “fit in more comfortably with the communicative approach than other, more discrete, Discovery Stratcgics” (Schmitt 1997:209) Context tends to be more interpreted as simply textual context

a large vocabulary to be able to guess the meaning of unknown words from surrounding

context clucs suct

distinct disadvantage

fully This puts lower proficiency sludonls with tess vocabulary al a

In a seminal study, Mulstijrr (1992) conctades that using natural context lo guess word imeanings 1s a vary complex and etror-prone process for L2 leamers He found that while jeamers are more likely to remember the form and meaning of a word when they have inferred its meaning by themselves than when the meaning has been given to them, the same fearners arc more Hkely to infer an ineorrcet micaning of an unknown 1.2 word in an

L2 text when no cue has been given to its meaning,

1.7 Activities and exercises for presenting and practicing words in cantext

Nation (2003) suggests introducing some activities and exercises for presenting and

practicing words in context which allow learners to infer the meaning of unknown words such as; guessing fiom context and teaming the meaning of unknown words from examples In these exercises, have students follow very explicit instruction for them to

- copy the sentence where the ward is

- underline the word that they do not know the meaning of

- explain in at least tive sentences what strategies in the text guide them to the approximate meaning of the word

- give the meaning

- cheek the dictionary to see if theix approximate meaning is close or not

- do this exercise with groups, pairs, and individunts

Lxercises of this type are aimed at raising students’ awareness of how the words are used

In this action research, some types of context clues such as punctuation, antonyms, synonyms, hypenyms, definitions, restatement, and reference words were distributed and used to help $S to infer the meaning of new words

1.8, The roles of vocabulary knowledge in guessing meaning of the unknown words

Many researchers consider vocabutary knowledge lo be an important variable thai affects reading comprehension in both first and secand language learning (Alderson, 2000; Joshi,

2005; Qian, 2002; Ricketts et al, 2007) A limited vocabulary size, as well as a lack of

sufficient knowlodge of word meanings, often hinders learners from understanding th meaning, of the text, Garcia (1991) finds that a Jack of familiarity with vocabulary in the test passages and questions is a powerful factor affecting fifth and sixth grade Latino bitinguat tcamers on a lest of reading comprehension

Qian (1999, 2002, Qian & Schedl, 2004) also studies the roles of breadth and depth of vocatnilary knowledge in reading comprehension in academic settings Breadth of vooatndary knowledge refers lo the sixe of vocabulary thai a person knows and depih of vocainulary knowledge relates to how well the person knows a word The two factors play

an important role for second language ieamers because learners are more likely to come

across words in which they arc not familiar

Qian (2002: 518) also emphasizes the important roles of vocabulary knowledge in guessing memring of the unknown words that: “having a larger vooahulary gives the learner a larger databasc from which to guess the mcaning of the unknown words or behavior of newly leamed words, having deeper vocabulary knowledge will very likely improve the results of the guessing work”

1.9 Vocabulary in English textbook for 10° form non- English major students

In the text book which is currently im use for grads 10 students, vocabulary is taught and practiced via both materials for language skills development and in its own right in the Language focus section Thus, vocabulary is both taught in meaningful contexts and

further consolidated in form-focused exercises.

18

In the Reading section, vocabulary is taught through activities such as matching definitions with words, gap-fill, finding antonyms and synonyms, and translation, In the Language focus section, vocabulary is practiced most frequently via gap-fill and word formation exercises Among the different aspects of vocabulary teaching, emphasis seems to be placed on denolational meaning rather than connotational meaning, and word building

tather than collocations

The book also seems fo give due attention to teaching vocabulary strategies via activities which focus on developing skills in dealing with unknown words and using dictionatics Unfortunately, however, many of these activities are not properly designed: thus they are unlikely lo achieve their purposes

‘has been prepared for investigation in the next chapter

19

CHAPTER II: METHODOLODY

2.1 Rationale for the use of an action research

Mills (2003-4) defines action research as “any systematic inquiry conducted by teacher

Tusoarehors lo galhor information about the ways that their partiontar school operates how they teach and how their students learn The information is gathered with the goal of gaining insight, developing reflective practice, effecting positive changes in the school environment and on cdavational practices in generals, and improving student outcomes.”

According to Kemmis and MC: Taggart (1988), there ate three characteristics of an action

+ To solve own problems in a scicnlifie process and inmprovs own practice

- Toadapt theory ( findings of conventional research) to practice ( own problems)

~ To share the results of action rescarch with other teachers

Moreover, action research is also for teacher professional development ‘Ths teacher will

‘become a better teacher hecause he knows how to find out and solve his problems in

teaching scientifically on his own

In fact, action research has a lot of advantages in comparison with other types of research,

which is summarized in Table 2 bellow:

‘Training needed by Lxtensive On own or with consultation researcher

Goals of research Knowledge that is Knowledge to apply to the

generalizable Jocal situation

Method of identifying the | Review of previous Problems or goals currently problema lo be studisd research faced

Procedure for literature Lxtensive, using primary | More cursory, using secondary

Sampling approach Representative sampling —_| Students or clients with whom

significance significance

Table 2.4: Differences between Action Research and Formal Research

From http:/¢nypage iu.edw~gmetteta/Classroom_Action_Research html#Differences

21

2.2 Action Research Procedure

A typical action research needs to go from one step to another Eileen Ferrance (2000)

suggested an action research cycle as follows:

As can be seen from this cycle, to carry out an action research, first of all, the researcher

must identify the problem The second step is to collect and organize data Then the data is

interpreted to find out the problem After that the researcher has to design a plan of action

to make change and to study that change Then he/ she will evaluate its effects to justify

whether the invention worked or not, If it has not been effective, the researcher would have

to consider another method so as to improve the situation

According to Nunan (1992), there are seven steps of action research:

- Step 1: Initiation (Identify the problem)

- Step 2: Preliminary Investigation (Collect data through a variety of means)

- Step 3: Hypothesis (Develop research question)

- Step 4: Intervention (Devise strategies and innovation to be implemented)

- Step 5: Evaluation (Collect data again and analyze it to work out the findings)

- Step 6: Dissemination (Report the result by running workshop or issuing a paper).

22

- Step 7 Follow- up (Jind alternative methods to solve the same problem)

Finding, that action research is the best choice for the purpose of improving the students’ ocatrdary aoquisitien, 1 decided to carry out an action research

First of afl, thanks to action rescarch, the teacher can have a thorough took and investigation on the vocabulary acquisition problems of students on a daily basic Besides, the teacher is able to work out a detailed analysis on the students’ performance during the progress af the rescarch Tl helps (he teacher design a dotaited program which is mosl

suitable to the class and brings benefits to students

Secondly, im this action roscarch, the dala is fakon from every student and treated individually so the teacher can see students’ progress easily, She will be able to get the most up-to-date information and make sensible changes if necessary to the research while applying il to mect the dernand of the students Teacher can spond more lime on practicing contextualized vocabulary prescntation and paying morc attention when giving fecdback to students, Performance of students is collected weekly, and any potential problems can be

solved in time

In short, the action research design is the most practical and feasible for the researcher, all above factors considered The research followed the seven-step procedure suggested by Nunan (1992)

2.3, Background of the study

2.3.1 Participants

‘The participants of the research were students from grade 10C3 at ‘To Hieu high school, Hai Phong, 1 am also an English teacher of this school Naturally, they became idcal samples for the research I ensure the variety of the students’ background, which varies from one to another as the group was chosen by chance with the method of cluster sarupting This also cnables for a wider range of application to other classes, which, to some extend, shorten the limitation of an action research,

of the research program due to the lack of participation in the very initial steps of it and

their performance should nol be treated as a (rusted soureo of information

‘Taken every factor into consideration so as to minimize the risk of invalidity and to ensure that every single participant, was uealed under the sams conditions of the ressarch, 7

reached the final number of 36 students whose performance would be appropriate data provider for the research ‘They were the one who participated thoroughly in the research from beginning to the end in order not to make other students feel excluded, { still let thera

parlicipale in Ihe rescarch programs However, their performance was nol counted on to

yield any comments or interpretation of the research,

Fusthor abservaiion, investigation and talks with students revceled mors information aboul them Most of the participants ave at the age of 16 Nearly half of them are male and more than a half of them are female All of them are ftom countryside Students have been learning English since they were in grade 6 al secondary school so they had already acquired a certain level in L2 in order to be able to read a second language and infer meaning of particular words from the main context, They were willing to take part in this

by the researcher In the vocabulary test, there is a multiple- choice test with the four