Luận văn difficulties in learning english vocabulary faced by the 10th from students at Đông sơn 1 upper secondary school

Charts: Charl 1: Students’ level of English vocabulary Chart 2: Students’ attitudes towards vocabulary learning in Linglish acquisition Chart 3: Students’ attitudes towards leaming new

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOT

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

RRERRARARERERRA RE

LE THI MINH

DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING ENGLISH VOCABULARY FACED BY THE 10™ FORM STUDENTS AT DONG SONI

UPPER SECONDARY SCIIOOL

(Những khó khăn trong việc học tiv vung Tiéng Anh cha hoc sinh lép 10 tai

frudng THPT Pang Son 1)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: Knglish Language ‘caching Mcthodolagy

Code: 601410

HANOI — 2013

UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL

(Những khả khăn trong việc học từ vựng Tiếng Anh cita hoc sinh lép 10 tai

trường THPT Đông Sơn 1)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: Knglish Language Tcaching Mefhodolngy

Code: 601410

Supervisor: Lam Thị Phúc Han, M.A

HANOI — 2013

LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES

Charts:

Charl 1: Students’ level of English vocabulary

Chart 2: Students’ attitudes towards vocabulary learning in Linglish acquisition

Chart 3: Students’ attitudes towards leaming new words

Charl 4: Students’ difficulties mm tearing new words

Chart 5: Students’ evaluation of their ways of leaming new words

Chart 6 Students’ attitudes towards teacher’s role in their English vocabulary acquisition

Chart 7: Teachers’ ways to present new words

Chart 8: Effective ways of new words presentation to students

Chart 9: Students’ evaluation towards teachers’ teaching method

Tables:

Table 1: Students’ tune tor learmmg new words

Table 2: Students’ ways of learning new words

Table 3: Students’ expectation to ways of leaming new words

Table 4: Students’ preference towards teacher

clivities in vouabulary lessor

Table 5: Students’ expectation towards teachers’ activities in vocabulary lesson

v

1 Rationale for the study

2 Aims of the study

3 Research questions

A Scope of the study

5 Methods of the study

6 Organization of the study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER T: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.2 Atroverview of vocabulary

1.2.1, Definitions of vocabulary

1.2.2 The notion 0Ÿ WOFd cà cà nà nà bê HH nh như

1.2.3 Vocabulary item

1.2.4, Roles of vocabulary in foreign language learning

1.3 Vocabulary learning

1.3.1 Aspects of knowing a word

1.3.2 Explicit and implivit vocabulary leaning

1.3.3, Difficulties in vocabulary learning

2.3.3.1 Data collection instruments

2.3.3.2, Data collection procedure

3

1 Students’ level of English vocabulary

2.4.2 Suuslents’ attitudes towards learning English vocabulary

2.4.3 Students’ difficulties in learning a new word

2.4.4 Students’ preference and attitudes towards ways of learning English vocabulary

2.4.5 Students’ preference, attitudes and expectation towards Linglish vocabulary teaching method

2.5, Summary

CILAPTER III: FINDINGS AND SUGGESTIONS

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Students’ difficulties in leaming English vocabulary

3.2.1 Difficulties related to sudents themselves

3.3.1.1 Ti

clive ways of learning vocabulary 3.2.1.2 Lack of motivation cà -

3.2.2, Difficulties related to vocabulary itself

3.2.3 Dillicultses related to teachers

3.2.3.1 Teachers’ attitude to students

3.2.3.2 Teacher's teaching method

3.2.4.2 The challenging cwriculum

3.3 Suggestions

3.3.1 For the tes

rs 3.3.1.1 Improving awareness of teachers’ roles 3.3.1.2 Improving vocabulary teaching method

3.3.1.3 Improving students’ self-study 3.2.2 Kor the stuđets

3.2.3 For the adminstralors at DSUSS

4, Suggestions for further research

REFERENCES

APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONRATRE

AFPPRRDIX 2: SURVEY LNTERVIEW

PART A: INTRODUCTION:

1 Rationale for the study

As far as we know, English is a common language im international communication In Vietnam, with the reformation of the economy and society, as well as the implementation of the open - door policy, English has been used more and more widsly English also becomes « compulsory subject m education

curriculum

It is known that, in learning a foreign language in general, and English in particular, the knowledge and mastery of vovabulary play an oxlremely impertant role McCarthy (1990) states that “No matter how well the student learns grammar,

no malter how successfully the sounds of 1.2 are mastered, without words Lo express

a wide range of meanings, communication m an L2 just cammot happen in any meaningful way.” By having rich vocabulary, students can improve their listening, speaking, reading and writing abilities; nol only in the way they comprehend but also in the way they produce language

In reality, in Viet Nam, vocabulary lessons are not paid enough attention in order to help students leam new words more interestedly and effectively As a

result, most of them have formed a habit of only leamming new words found in their

text books or through teacher’s sources They normally leam vocabulary by such

methods as listing new words on a notebook and learning them by heart, writing

new words repeatedly down on papers, reading new words out loud several times, and so forth These above seem not to he very effective and interesting ways for vocabulary acquisition Moreover, students only think of vocabulary learning as Imowing the primary meaning of new words, they ignore all other functions of the words Many of them may also recognize a word in a written or spoken form and think thal they already "know the word", but they may not be able to use thal word properly in different contexts or pronounce it correctly Many students, after learning Fnglish for many years, they can only read and understand short and

simple texts aud hardly communicate in English

As a teacher of English, I have dealt with many questions relating to vocabulary learning which are raised by my students or among my colleagues or

cxample, whl are the effective ways of learning vocabulary? How to retain a new

word in the mind? ‘Therefore, I conducted a study to find out the main difficulties in

learning vocabulary faced by the 10" form students at Dong Son I upper secondary

school (DSUSS) Then I would like to give some suggestions to help students learn

English vocabulary more effectively

2 Aims of the study

The study aims to find out the difficulties faced by the 10" form students at DSUSS when they lean Fnglish vocabulary Then some suggestions will be given

to help students lean English vocabulary more effectively

- Whal are the suggestions thal help the students learn English vocabulary better?

4 Scope of the study

The study was designed to find oul the diflicultics im leaming English

vocabulary faced by the 10" form students at DSUSS In the context of teaching and learning English at DSUSS, Engli

vocabulary mentioned here mean the new words in the English textbook Tieng Ank 10 that students arc taught or Ieam by

themselves ‘I'he target population is the 10" form students ‘They have experienced

from 4 lo 7 years of learning English, bul their English knowledge is nol very good,

The findings of the study would be much beneficial to both teachers who are considering whether lo improve thew sludsrils’ vocabulary and sludents who wants

to overcome the difficulties and boredom in leaming vocabulary

5 Methods af the study

In order to achieve the purpose of the study, both qualitative and quantitative metheds were uscd A survey questionnaire and an informal interview wore

implemented with 120 10 form students who were chosen randomly The

questionnaire consists of 18 questions grouped into 2 main parts, that is background information which helps to seek for information conceming students’ background and the reality of learning English vocabulary which serves for gathering

information of students’ attitudes to vocabulary learning, the ways the students

leam English vocabulary, some difficulties they face when leaming Fnglish vocabulary, the ways they are taught Linglish vocabulary and their expectation towards English vocabulary teaching method The informal interview with 30

students was conducted basing on the students’ answers in the survey questionnaire

6 Organization of the study

The thesis is composed of Ice main parts:

Part A - Introduction

In this part the rationale, the aims, the research questions, the scope, the method,

and the organization of the study are presented,

Part B - Development

This part is divided into three chapters

Chapter 1: Literature Review

‘This chapter presents the theoretical background for the study It focuses on some concepts in the second language vocabulary learning and some difficulties in second

language vocabulary learning

Chapter 2: The study

This is the main part of the study It describes the context of the study, the

participants, the dala collection methods and data aualysis procedures

Chapter 3: Findings and Suggestions

This chapter presents some main findings im the study, the relevant discussion and some teaching and learning implications

Part C - Conclusion

This part summarizes the study, states the concluding remarks, the limitation of the

research and offers suggestions for futher research

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CIIAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Introduction

This chapter provides a brief review of the theoretical Inowledge relevant to the study including An overview of vocahulary; Vocabulary learning; Whai can

cause difficulties in vocabulary learning,

of two or three words or multi-word idioms” Richards and Platt (1992: 400) also

noted that vocabulary is “a set of lexemes, inchiding, words, compound words and

idioms” These statcrnents indicate that vocabulary is “the total mumber of words in

a language” (Llomby, 1995: 1331)

1.2.2 The notion of “word”

Vocabulary mastery begins with a word, So what is a word? Michael McCarthy (1990) defined words as “free-standing items of language that have

meaning For example: the word eating is free-standing in itself, and that within it

has another potentially free-standing clement eal, indopondently mearang{ul [rom the second element -ing

Pyles and Algeo (1970-96) said “when most of us think about language, we

think first about words It is truc that the vocabulary is the focus of Ianguage It is

in words that sounds and meanings inter-lock to allow us to communicate with one

another, and iL is words thal we arrange together lo make senisnces, conversations

and discourse of all kinds”.

1.2.3 Vocabulary item

AAs in Penny Ur's definition of vocabulary, a new item of vocabulary may be more (tan a single word For example, post office and mother-iu-law, whieh are made up of two or three words but express a single idea, Another term to call for vocabulary is “chunks” as stated by Schmitt, N & McCarthy, M (1997): “Some of the vocabulary people now is originally learned as parts of multi-word chunks, often as phrases, idioms, or proverbs”, A useful convention is to cover all such cases by talking about vocabulary “items” rather than “words”

1.2.4 Roles of vocabulary in second language learning

The prominent role of vocabulary knowledge in second language learning has been increasingly recogmzed According to Bogaards, P and B Laufer (2004 1), “ much has been done in the field of vocabulary in the context of the acquisition of foreign or second languages The growth ol’ imleresi in T.# vocabulary since the days of “a neglected aspect of language learning” (Meara, 1980) has also been reflected in authored and edited books specifically devoted to vovabnlary”

Michael West (1930: 514) stressed that “the primary thing in learning a language is the acquisition of a vocabulary, and practice in using it”

McCarthy stated that “the biggest component of any language course is vocabulary” (McCarthy, 1990: viii) “No matter how well the student learns grammar, no matter how successfully the sounds of L2 are mastered, without words

lo express 2 wide range of meanings, commumiation in an L2 just cannot happen in any meaningful way.”

A leading linguist researcher Paul Nation notes: “Vovabulary 1s not an end in itself A rich vocabulary makes the skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing casior lo perform” When leamers’ working memory is not loaded with hesitation about the correct spelling, pronunciation and contextual use of the words, they can concentrate fully on higher level aspects of language such as using precise sentence

structures and appropriate expressions for the type of conversation that is going on

‘These all show that the success of a student in becoming proficient in any language depends in part on the extent and richness of his’ her vocabulary, so vouabulary teaching should be part of the syllabus, and vocabulary should be taught on a well- planned and regular basis

To sum up, vocabulary is considered an important aspect of leaming a foreign language Second language vocabulary acquisition has become an increasingly interesting lopic of discussion [or rescarchers, leachers, curriculum designers, theorists, and others involved in second language learning and teaching,

1.3 Vocabulary learning

1.3.1 Aspects of knowing a word

There have been many definitions as to what it is exactly to know a word,

According to Cook (2001:61), “a word is more than its meaning”, knowing a word may involve four aspects: form of the word (for instance spelling and pronunciation), grammatical properties (for example, grammatical category of a word, its possible and impossible structure), lexical properties (for instance, word combitations and appropriateness), and general meaning and specific meaning

Nation (1990:30-33) and Taylor (1990:1-4) share the same idea thal knowing

a word involves not only knowing its spelling, morphology, pronunciation, meaning, or the equivalent of the word in the leamer’s mother tongue but also its collocations, register, polysemy, and even ils homonym There is also the issue of precision with which we use a word, how quickly we understand a word, and how well we understand and use words in different modes, receptive or productive; and for difforent purposes

Yings (2000) describes some types of context clues thal may be available to

the readers to guess the meaning of unknown words: the morphology (for instance,

derivation), reference word (such as pronouns), cohesion (for instance, co-

`

occurenes), definitions antonyms, synonyms, hyponyms (sometimes provided in

the same sentence), altematives, restatements, examples, summary, comparison and

contrasL, and punctuation

In summary, aspects of knowing a word compose of:

- Word form: pronunciation and spelling

The basic, and by all leamers first perceived, characteristics of each lexical ilem are what il sounds and looks like Both these aspects ought to be accurately presented and leamed ‘There are two parts of the form of a word written (spelling) and spoken (pronunciation) form If learners have encountered only one

of the forms, they “have receptive, but not productive, knowledge of the word” (Thombury, 2002: 15)

- Grammar The form of a word can changes unpredictably in certain grammatical contexts Therefore, when leamers leam a new word, they should know this information at the same time they learn the basic form of a word Kor example, when they learn the noun person they should leam its plural form as people

- Collocation: collocation is the way in which two or more words go together in a

certain context In many cases a word has more than one meaning only Then it is

the context and collocations that give essential clues to recognize which meaning is

intended Therefore, this is another piece of information of a new item, which may

worlh paying altention to For example, we say éhrow a hall bul toss a coin, we cannot say dense hair instead of thick hair

- Word meanings include donotation, connotation, appropriateness and meaning, relationship

+ The denotation refers to things or concepts This is often the sort of definition given in dictionaries such as whale denotes a very large mammal that lives in the sea or rose denotes a kind of flowers with red color and symbolizes for

love.

+ The connotation is association, or positive and negative feelings the word evokes which may not be indicated in a dictionary definition, Connotation includes stylishe, affective, evaluation, intensifying value, pragmatic communicative values, the word acquires by virtue of where, when, how and by whom, for what purpose and in what context it is or it may be used

+ Appropriateness is more subtle aspect of meaning which indicates whether a

particular item is appropriate one to use ina certain context or not Thus, it is useful

for a loanter to know whether a cerlain word is very conunon, or relatively rare or taboo in polite conversation, or tends to be used in writing but not in speech, or is

more suitable for a formal than informal discourse or belongs to a certain dialect

+ Associalions or mearng relationships show how the meanmg of one item

relates to the meaning of the others These are various relationships and here are some of the main ones like synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms, oo- hyponyms or co- ordinates, super ordinates, and translation

- Word ~ formation: Words can change their shape and their grammatical value Vocabulary items whether one- word or multi- word, can often be broken down into their components "bits" Leamers need to know affixing rules and derivation principles im word formation and how to use words lo fit different grammatical contexts l'or example, if learners know the meaning of affixes sub, un and able, this will help them guess the meaning of words such as substandard, uncomfortable

and enable

1.3.2 Explicit and implicit vocabulary learning

1.3.2.1 Explicit (or Direct) vocabulary learning

In explicit vocabulary learning, leamers do exercises and activities that focus

their allention on vocabulary (Nation, 1990:2) For example, when students are

doing word-building exercises, guessing the meaning of unknown words in context

learning words in word lists, or playing vocabulary games, they are leaming

vocabulary explicitly Such activities usually take place in class with a lot of help

and instruction from teachers Io make successful instruction for explicit

vocabulary learning, leachers olien consider the following to teach high-lrequency words, to maximize vocabulary leaming by teaching word families instead of

individual words, and to consider meaning associations attached to the word

Thanks to such careful explanations and guidance of teachers, students at low and

intermediate levels may acquire vocabulary explicitly before they begin implicit

learning mainly by themselves

1.3.2.2 Implicit (or Incidental) vocabulary learning

Implicit vocabulary leaming has been explained by researchers as incidental vovabulary learning TLis the learning of new words as a by-product of a meaning- focused communicative activity, such as reading, listening, and interaction It occurs through “multiple exposures to a word in different contexts” (Iluckin and

Coady, 1999)

Krashen (1981) believes that there are some certain conditions for such leaming to occur Firstly, the lamers must be interested in understanding the message From the point of view of vocabulary learning, this interest creates a need

lo understand the unknown words in the message Secondly, the message should contain some items that are just outside the learners’ present level of achievement These items, however should be understandable from the context in which they oceur This includes both language and non-language contexts Thirdly, the learners should not feel worried or threatened by their contact with the foreign language

1.3.3, Difficultics in vocabulary learning

Vocabulary can never be mastered fully, the expansion and elaboration of it extends across a lifetime since words represent complex and often multiple meanings (Kamit & Hiebert 2005-2) For example, the Collins Cobuild English Dictionary for Advanced Learners (2001) contains over 110 000 words, phrases

and definitions Moreover, individuals have different sets of vocabulary and they

10

use them for differont purposes For example, oral and printed languages often use different vocabulary and a failure in distinguishing the proper vocabulary for the

occasion can lead to msunderstandings (Kamil & Hiebert 2005:3),

‘There are several features which have an effect on vocabulary learning and can make learning a word difficult Carter and MeCarthy (1988:13) point out that learning vocabulary effectively is closely bound up with a teachers understanding and learner’s perception of the difficulties of words and therefore

the role of the teacher must be taken into account also in vocabulary

learning Carter and McCarthy (1988:13) continme that the difficulty of a word may result from several reasons and due to the vast number of possible reasons and the complexity of the learning process these reasons have been hard to classify appropriately

Nation (1990-33-50) mentions three different factors which have mfluence

on making a word difficult to learn [he first is the leamner’s previous experience of English and their mother tongue since one’s first language affects the second language vocubulary acquisition and usually borrowing and interferenae between first and second language vocabulary occurs For example, leaming the function and meaning of a word can be difficult since words rarely correspond exactly to a word of another language

The second factor which causes difficulties in learning the words of a

second language is the way a word is learned or taught In fact, bad organization in the learning situation can cause problems in leaming a word According to Nation (1990:43) this “unteaching” is rather common Consequently, teaching can have

three effects: positive, neutral and negative When the effect is positive, the

learners move closer lo masiermg the language When the effet is neutral, nothing

is learned When the effect is negative, learning occurs but the learning will

have a negalive impact on whal has been laugh before or on what will be taught

in the future (Nation 1990:49)

Nation (1990:45) continues that the relationship with other words can also

11

cause problems in the leaming of a new word Nation (1990:47) summarizes that the more similar items are, the more likely they are to be closely associated with cach olher For example, words which in some sense are close o each other, such as long and short, which are both adjectives and are antonyms, having the opposite meaning, can easily become hard to leam if they are presented together for the first time This can cause problems since leamer may mix the meanings of these two words due to the fact that they are closely related

The third aspeel is the intrinsic difficulty of the word which basivally means that some words are harder to learn than others According to Nation (1990:48), nouns and adjectives are usually easier lo learn than verbs and adverbs In addition,

it is casier to learn to recognize a word for and recall its meaning than to produce the word at suitable time A teacher cannot have a great impact on reducing the intrinsie difficully but he or she can be aware of il and Wy 1 reeognize il when if occurs (Nation 1990:49)

Laufer (1997:154) has also studied the intralexical factors affecting vowabulary learning and she mentions several factors which can make learning a word difficult For example, phonological factors, length, semantic features, abstractness and multiple meaning may have an impact on how easily the word can

be learned

1.4, Summary

Tn this chapter, some information about history of research on vocabulary

learning has been introduced such as definition of vocabulary, aspects of knowing a word, explicit and implicit vocabulary leaming, difficulties in vocabulary learning This will serve as a base for the study to gel ils aim: finding out some difficulties in

learning English vocabulary faced by the 10" form students at Dong Son 1 upper

secondary school

CHAPTER TI: THE STUDY 2.1 Introduction

This chapter 1s devoted to the presentalion and discussion of the study, which refers to the situation of teaching and leaming English, especially, English vocabulary at DSUSS, research methodology, data analysis and discussion In the

rst part, mformation about the teachers and uheir leachmg methods al DSUSS the

students there, and the available resources for teaching and learning in DSUSS is

presented Tu the second part the research questions, the parlicrparis and the dala

collection are discussed The final part, which 1s the most important one, refers to the analysis and discussion of the data collected from survey questionnaire and

informal interview

2.2, The context of teaching and learning English at DSUSS

TSUSS is a state - nin school located in the country of Thanh Hoa province It

was ostablished in 1965 IL is one of the three 3 upper secondary schools in Dong Son district All subjects imoluding Knglish are taught with new course books and

new methods

ccording to the renovation program pul forth by the Mimisiry of

Education and Training

2.2.1 The teachers and their teaching methods

In DSUSS there are & English teachers whose teaching experience varies from

4 to 30 years All of them are female and have BA degrees in English language teaching from different tertiary institutions in Vietnam Though some of them used

to teach Russian before teaching English, most of them have twice participated in

textbook training workshops rum by key teachers ‘hey are also very enthusiastic teachers with great responsibility for the students, and at the moment they are in charge of leaching Fnglish in 28 classes

It is ebvious that most of the English teachers at DSUSS are deeply influenced

by grammar-translation method For most of the teachers, the common method of,

13

teaching is the traditional teacher - centered In classes, explanation, translation, asking and answering questions are the main class activities ‘Therefore, when

toaching vocabulary the te

chers oflen spends a lot of teaching - hours explaining

new words, new structures and even translating the reading texts into Vietnamese

The major interaction patterns in the classroom are:

- Teacher - whole class (most of the time)

- ‘Teacher - student interaction (sometimes)

- Students initiating interaction: pair work, group work, questions and comments

(ocuasionally)

2.2.2, The students

With regard to students, there are around 43 students of mixed ability in each class There are 28 classes, among which the 10" form students take up 8 classes Most of the students come from the countryside, so they have less or no exposure to

authentic English In addition, most of them do not have the habit of leaming

Rnglish independently and tend to depend on the textbooks and the teachers for Imowledge ‘Ihe majority of them lear Hnglish because it is a compulsory school

subject and they learn il just 1o pass the nalional examinations They do not have an

obvious comnmunicative need in the target language Most of the students say that they can hardly express their ideas in speaking and writing lessons and it is difficult for them to get the gist of information from the conversation or texts in listening and reading lessons All they need is the knowledge of grammar and vocabulary of the target language enough to pass the national grammar - based examinations

2.2.3 The available resources

All the classrooms are well-equipped with furniture, light, board ‘here are 2 computer rooms equipped with LCD projectors, computers and speakers and board

So 11 1s possible for teachers Lo take the advantages of information technology into

language teaching However, the English teachers at DSUSS rarely exploit these

resources because they have difficulties in designing lessons using power-point

14

program, There 1s also a library in DSUSS but with few English books or magazines

2.3 Rescarch methodology

2.3.1 Restating the research qucstions

The aims of the study, as stated in part A, are to find out:

- What are the difficulties in learning English vocabulary faced by the 10 form

students at DSUSS ?

- What are the suggestions that help the students leam Inglish vocabulary better? 2.3.2 Participants

A total of 120 LO form students at DSU'SS participated in the study These

parlicipanis were randomly selected from 6 different classes 70 of them were

female and 50 were male All of the participants are at the age of 16 and have been studying English for at least 4 years at secondary schools Most of them come from the countryside in Thanh Hoa provinae The researcher chose the 10" form students because they have begun their first year in upper secondary education and they may have difficulties in leaming English in general and in Dnglish vocabulary

acquisition specilically

2.3.3 Data collection

2.3.3.1 Data collection instruments

To collect necessary data and information [or the stusly, ihe researcher used

two kands of research instruments, that is questionnaire and interview

© Swvey queslionnane:

‘The survey questionnaire was chosen as the main instrument for data collection Survey questionnaire is a simple and familiar instrument of collecting

15

information from the students, it is casy to administer and less time-consuming than

other imstruments

‘The questionnaires were constructed based on the literature on vocabulary learning and the discussion between the supervisor and the writer They were written in Vietnamese to make sure that the participants could fully understand the questions before giving their answers The question items were multiple- choice and

divided into two sections:

- ‘the first section helps to collect background information about the

participants

- The second section helps lo collect the mformation about the reality of the

participants’ leaming Hnglish vocabulary: their attitude towards leaming English vocabulary, how they learn, how they are taught, and the difficulties they face when learning English vocabulary

The sample of the questionnaire is presented in appendix 1

© Informal interview:

Besides survey questionnaire, informal interview was also used to collect more data about the participants Basing on the participanls’ answers lo the survey questionnaire, the writer interviewed the participants to clarify their thought and attitude, so the data for the study would be more sufficient and valid

The sample of the informal interview is presented in appendix 2,

2.3.3.2 Data collection procedure

Firslly, a pilot survey was conducted with 10 participants ta help the wriler get a clearer idea about the data for the study ‘I'hen the writer edited the questions

in the questionnaire with the supervisor's help After that the questionnaires were delivered to 120 10 form students The survey questionnaire required 10 minutes

to complete and was administered in the students” Linglish class efore doing the

16

questionnaire, students were told that their participation was voluntary and their

responses would remain confidential; they were also asked to give their opinions as

honestly as possible, which was crucial to the success of this study After the

respondents were given the questionnaire, they were encouraged to read it

thoroughly and answer frankly and truly

Four days after the survey the writer conducted an informal interview with 30 participants basing on the data collected from questionnaire

2.4, Data analysis and discussion

This section deals with the treatment of all the data gathered from the survey

questionnaires and informal interviews The results are statistically presented in the

forms of tables and charts, categories into five groups: students’ level of English

vocabulary, students’ attitudes towards learning English vocabulary, students’

difficulties in leaming a new word, students” preference and attitudes towards ways

of learning English vocabulary and students’ preference, attitudes and expectation

towards English vocabulary teaching method

2.4.1 Students’ level of English vocabulary (Q1)

= Good

E Medium Bad

Chart 1; Students’ level of English vocabulary

As can be seen from chart 1, a large number of students thought that their

level of English vocabulary was medium This number presents 58% 15% of them

thought their English vocabulary was rather good, 25 % of them supposed their

vocabulary was bad Only 2% of the students found that their vocabulary was good

17

These figures indicate that a majority of students have English vocabulary at medium or undermedium level This can be one of the problems in students” vocabulary learning process

2.4.2 Students’ attitudes towards learning English vocabulary (Q2, Q3, Q4)

Chart 2: Students’ attitudes towards vocabulary learning in English acquisition

As shown in chart 2, all of these students are well aware of the importance of vocabulary learning in their English acquisition 57% of the students considered vocabulary learning a very important element in English acquisition The rest, that was 43% of them thought vocabulary was important It is their good attitudes towards the importance of vocabulary leaming that motivates them in their learning

18

and only 7% found it not difficult This means that English vocabulary acquisition

is really a challenge for students

Table 1: Students’ time for learning new words

Table 1 shows that more than half of the students learnt new words at least twice a week 27% of them learnt new words 3 times and 33% of them learnt new

words twice a week A small number of students learnt new words every day,

accounting for 18.5%, The same percentage corresponds to the number of students

who only learnt when they feel like 3% of students leamt new words once a week

It can be inferred from these figures that many students are aware of the necessity

of self-learning and they spend a certain amount of time learning new words at home but some others seem to pay little attention to vocabulary learning

m= Word lexical similarity 5,00%

0,00%

Chart 4: Students’ difficulties in learning new words

The result in Chart 4 shows that many students, accounting for 35 %, found

it difficult to lear new words because they did not know how to pronounce them

correctly The similar number of students (30%) usually found it difficult, Lo

understand the usage of new words he number of the students who complained

about the length of new words, the multi-meaning and the lexical similarity of new words, takes up the same percentage (11.66%)

Students’ answeis in the informal imerview reveal that 100% of the surveyed

students were not taught to leam to pronounce words from dictionary phonetic

transeriplion, or from some relative pronunciation rules in English sơ they did not

Imow how to pronounce the words correctly Moreover, 15% of them thought that their teachers spoke so fast that they could not remember the words’ pronunciation

Students also give the reason why they have difficulties in understanding words usage as they do not consider Huglish as their target subject hey either did

not pay attention in class at all (10%) or paid little attention and did not practise

Other ways (pictures, internet, TV, radio program .) 13%

Table 2: Ways of learning new words

As illustrated in table 2, most students (77%) were influenced by traditional

ways in their learning habits such as writing the words in English and Vietnamese

or writing the words in English many times in pieces of paper and trying to leam

them by heart Thus, more than half of the students learnt new words by writing

them again (77%) Obviously, it is not effective ways in leaming vocabulary, as

Decarrico (2001) states that words should not be learnt by memorization without

understanding The percentage of students who usually lear English vocabulary

via pictures, internet, software, TV, radio program, ete comparatively small (13%) while no students base on reading or wordlist as their main way of learning new

words The number of students who learn new words with synonyms and antonyms

takes up only 3%

It can be inferred that when most students choose to write the words and

Vietnamese equivalents, or write the words many times, they focus only on the

spelling aspect of the words rather than on how to use the words in sentences or

context,

~ Uneffective Effective

Chart 5: Students’ evaluation of their ways of learning new words

Chart 5 shows that only 30% of students found their ways of learning new

words effective while 70% complained that they were likely to forget the words

easily When being interviewed, 57% of the students said that they usually learned

to prepare for teacher’s check in class, they tried to remember the words quickly but

forgot them easily The rest, taking up 13% said that they did not really pay attention when leaning vocabulary

Moreover, when being asked directly, 87% of the students said that they did not use reference books or dictionary because they did not have them (73%) or they

thoughl i feck much time (more than 13%) and 88% of studenis said that they

hesitated to ask their teacher or classmates because they were not interested in

English or they felt afraid of their teachers or their classmates did not know, too

They also did not work in groups at home

Spend more time leaning new words by yourself 13%

Spend more lime leaning new words with your Inends | 25%

‘Read and listen to English more often 27%

Other ways (mlernel, sofiware, TV, radio program .) | 22%

Table 3: Students’ expectation to ways of learning new words

AAs can be seen from table 3, 27% of students wanted to read and listen to

English more often, they thought that il would help them remember tonger 25% of

students wanted to spend more time learning new words with their friends because

they would be more motivated Leaming alone would make them feel bored and demotivated 22% of the students wanted to learn new words in other ways but

when being asked, it is surprising that 15% of students could not decide which way

of learning they wanted to apply, only 7% of them gave out the specific way of

learning vocabulary which was vỉa inlemel and games

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