Luận văn problems and solutions in teaching and learning medical vocabulary at thanhhoa medical college

TETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYEN THI THU THUY PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS IN TEACHING AND LEARNI

TETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYEN THI THU THUY

PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS IN TEACHING

AND LEARNING MEDICAL VOCABULARY

AT THANHHOA MEDICAL COLLEGE

(Thực trạng và giải pháp trong việc dạy và học

từ vựng chuyên ngành y tại trường

Cao Dang Y tế Thanh Hoá)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Methodology Code: 601410

Course: K17

Supervisor: Kim Van Tat

Hanoi, 2010

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TABLE OF CONTENT

4, Soope ofthe study

5 Method of the stesdy

6 Design of the study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 General knowledge of English for Medical Purposes (FMP)

1.2 Vocabulary teaching and tcaruing in EMP

1.2.1, Vocabulary and its role in language teaching and learning

1.2.2 Teclmiques in presenting new vocabulary

12.3 Vocabulary practice

1.2.4, Vocabulary Consolidation

1.2.5, RMP vocabulary practice and consolidation

1.2.6 Difficulties in teaching and learning vocabulary

CHAPTER 2: CONTEXT OF THE STUDY

2.1 The general review of the teaching and karning EMP at TMC

2.2.4, Dal gnáÏySls con

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Resuits

3.1.1 Questionnaire for stndenls

3.1.2 Interview for teachers

4.3 Towards the teachcrs

4.3.1 Teaching vocabulary in context

4.3.2 Making uss of visual aids

1 Summary of the study

2 Limitations of the study

3 Suggestions for further stdies

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EGP: English for General Purpose

ESP: English for Specific Purposes

EMP: English for Medical Purpose

TMC: Tharihhoa Medical College

LIST OF FIGURES & TABLES

Table 1: Students’ length of English learning

Figure 1: Ways of learning vocabulary

Figure 2: Sludents’ management when [hey meet anew word

Figure 3; Problems inuenced on students’ motivation and interest Figure 4: Student's problems when learning vocabulary

Table 2: Ways of presenling new words

Figure 5; Student’s interest in ways of presenting new words

Figure 6; Ways of practicing new words

Fignte 7: Stndents’ interest in + practicing new words

Figure 8: stucdenls’ interest in ways af consolidating new words

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1, Rationale

One of the main concerns for those of us working in an ESP context is how to help our students deal with (ic andcrsland, cxtract information, assimilate, evaluate, sunmrnni⁄z) authentic academic texts which by their nature require a fairly advanced level of proficiency in order to be understood By ‘advanced level of proficiency’ it is meant, in fucl, a good vocdbulary size, because although it's possible to find cxamples in texts (especially scientific or technical texts) where grammatical structure is crucial to understanding the subtle nuances of meaning, what seems mors important for comprehension is knowing what the words mean (Coady, 1993; Grabe and Stoller ,1997)

As Vermeer (1992; 147) puts it: “Knowing words is the key to understanding and being understood”

Vouahulary is like tho base of a high building Without il, nothing can bo built Toachors who have been teaching English in general and English tor Specific Purposes in particular must know that at the beginning or in the ond, vocabulary is always one of the biggest problems, The English for Medical purposes (EMP) ficld is no exception Metticat language is a special language It is made up of vast pool of words and terms that is employed by doctors and nurses in writing medical records and communicating with each other Quastions are increasingly being asked about the role played by the specialized vocabulary needed for acadcmnie study,

At ThanhHoa Medical College, teaching and learning medical vocabulary are a really challengmg job Medical vocabulary has long been considered a difficult and boring subject by many ESP students at the college It takes much time and energy to make progress in this field For ESP teachers, comespondingly, it is difficult task to get students involved in voabulary explanation even they devoted much time io vocabulary teaching, the results have been disappointing, The question posed tor ESP teachers now is how to meet the needs of learners of ESP, especially the needs of improving their vocabulary acquisition for communication

Facing this situation, the teachers of English of ThankHoa Medical College want to do something new to help students develop vocabulary acquisition, Being one of the teachers there, T would like to do a stndy to find ont an effective way to claim a more satisfactory standing, for medical vocabulary for the sccond-year students at ThanhHoa Medical College, as a result, the minor thesis title goes as:

“Problems and solutions in teaching and learning medial vocdbulury ai Thanhhoa Medical College”

2 Aims of the study

Medical Vocabulary consists of so many new words and terns that medical students ofcn

have difficult time learning and understanding them The main purpose of the study was to

probe problems in teaching and learning medical vocabulary among the teaching staff and the second-year students al ThanHoa Medical College Within Ihis purpose the three

central objectives were:

i) To give a brief overview about teaching and learning medical vocabulary at ThanhHua Medicat College

ii) To describe the difficulties perceived by the ESP teachers and second-year students

when learning and teaching medical vocabulary

ji) To suggest some solutions to stimulate students and give recommendation for the

teachers to improve the teaching of ESP vocabulary at ThankHoa Medical College

3 Research questions

To achiove these above aims, Ihe following questions were groposed:

1 What ave the difficulties perceived by the ESP wachers ead second-year viudenis

when learning and teaching medical vocabulary?

2 What solutions should he offered to stinudaie students and give recommendation for the teachers to imprave the teaching of ESP vocabulary at Thanhhoa Medical

College?

4 Scope of the study

This minor thesis is conducted at Thanhhoa Medical College in order to perecive difficulties in teaching and learning medical vocabulary of both teachers and second-year sludenis The sfuly focuses on describing the problems and factors causing such challenges as, large-size class, facilities, materials, and students’ vocabulary acquisition

‘The researcher would like to offer some appropriate suggestions to better the current

context

5 Method vf the study

The study was designed to use a combination of various methods to achieve its aims and

objectives ‘'o begin with, an extensive review of literature was conducted, critically examining vocabnlary’s role in ESP teaching and learning

Various sources of data were used, involving second-year students and teachers of ESP at

ThanhlIoa Medical College in order to achieve the aims of the study:

« Conducting a survey questionnaire to investigate stndenis’ evaluative comments

on and altitudes towards teaching and learning medigal vocabulary al Thankihoa Medical College

Interviewing ESP teachers to got better insight into the rescarch questions

6 Design of the study

The thesis consists of three main parts The first part introduces the rationate for the study carried out by the researcher, the aims of the study, (he research questions, the scops of the study, and the method by which the study was conducted The second part developed in four chapters ‘The first chapter reviews relevant literature concerning the general knowledge of English for Medical Purposes and the vocabulary teaching and tsarning The second chapter discusses the context and methodology of the study The results and discussion of the survey are presented in the third chapter, followed by the solutions in the fourth, which arc expected to iinprove the second year students’ medical vocabulary learning and the teachers’ medical vocabulary teaching in TMC context, The conclusion serves as a summary of the major issues involved and discusses the implications of the slucly, limitations of the study and suggestion for further research,

PART B: DEVELOPM CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 General knowledge of English for Medical Purposes (EMP)

1.1.1 ESP vs EMP

To talk about Problems in teaching and learning medical vecabulary (EMP vocabulary),

we need to begin with the definition of ESP or LMP Pauline Robinson (1980) states that

the (crm of ESP itsclf has changed ils signification during the past ycars, Foonely standing for English for special purposes, the term now used by “an inereasing number of scholars, practitioners and institutions” is Tinglish for specific purposes Fnglish for special purposes is thought fo suggest special languages, Le restricled languages, which for many people is only a sinall part of ESP whereas English for specific purpose focuses on the purpose of the learner and refers to the whole range of langnage resources

Ronald Mackay (1976) stalos thai ESP is goncrally uscd to refer fo the lcuching/learning of

a foreign Janguage for a clearly utilitarian purpose of which there is no doubt

Brumfit (1979) says, “Hirst, it is clear that an ESP course is directly concerned with

pwposes for which learners need English, purposes which arc usoatly expressed in functional terms” “ESP thus fits firmly withn the general movement towards

“communicative” teaching of the last decades or so

Krashen (1982) identified what he calls a “transition problem,” which he refers to a perccived gap in the English language and study of earners who have passed through traditional language classes, and those required for study purposes within universities, He agues thal subject content-based courses cam impart both subject knowledge anil tmguage competence at the same time What he identified was actually what ESP is concerned with

According to Perren (1974), an ESP course is purposeful and aims at the successful

porfornemes of occupational or educalionat roles Ht is based on » rigorous analysis of students’ needs and should be “tailor-made.” Any ESP course may differ fiom another in its selection of skills, topics, situations and functions, and also language It is likely to be limited duration Students are more often adults but not necessarily so, and may be at any level of competence in the language: beginner, post-beginner, intermediate, oct Student, may take part in the ESP course before embarking on their occupational or educational role, or they may combine their study of English with performance of their role in English

as well as in thoir first language, According to this definition, EMP is a kind of ESP

We notice thát aifention tơ leamers" necds is a key clement in any definitions of ESP

‘Therefore, EMP is intended to help the medical student who is planning to study medicine

in English Tis assumed (hat he will have some knowledge of general English bul limited experience of studying works in medical English

Medical language is

special langnage TLis mare up of vast pool of words and Lerms thal

is employed by doctors and muses in writing medical records and communicating, with each other In fact medical students and nursing students have vatious reasons for learning medical English (Kawagos, 2009) Doctors nocd to learn lo read and write medical terminology in L2 40 complete hospital admission notes, diagnosis, and orders, which, later on, nurses must read, follow in order to carry out musing interventions and take care of their patients For these medical and nursing professionals, their first step to

im tctical words Resides

medical language is 10 They also necd to read journals and books in medical genres to speak to colleagues on professional visits, to make use of the expanding and increasingly important database available through the Internet, to participate in international conferences, to write up rescarch for joumal

publication, to take postgraduate courses in the U.S or in U.K to work in hospitals

where Fnglis

1.1.3 Mediral English courses

According to Higuchi Akihiko (2009) EMP is different, ftom English for General Purposes (EGP) in the seleetion of language that is to be taught There is an overlap with

is the first language or the Tingua franca

EGP course content (a common core), especially in grammar EGP teachers who start

teaching EMP have 10 Ica how to deal wilh the now nol included in the common

information (as opposed to extensive reading of stories) Typically, grammar is taught remedially, as arising from other work, rather than being an organizing focus

1.1.4, Subject knowledge

How much knowledge and whl kind of knowledge do FMP lcachors necd to know about medical science, the work pattams of doctors and nnses, or the study modes of medical and musing students? ‘his is one of the oldest and maybe traditional questions

from EGP Moreover, EMP teachers should not put themselves in the false position of

seeming to Leach medical subjects

Al the thor end is (he view that FMP toacters should have al least a lay knowkedge of medicine and an interest in the way in which doctors and norses work or study, and that they should ideally know as mich as possible about the register of medical English For example, these are lypical “genres” or text types, typical collovalions and their use, and the promuiciation of basic medical terminology etc

Then to what extent do we take into account in our teaching the specialist knowledge

the learner brings ta the EMP classroom? In most EMP classrooms, the medical

knowledge of the leamers is the most important resource in the EMP classroom, In order to best exploit this resource, EMP teachers need some understanding of basic medical concepis and work pallerns in medicine

1.2 Vocabulary teaching and learning

1.2.1 Vocabulary and Its roic in language teaching and learning

Words are the building blocks in a language By learning the lexical items, we start to develop knowledge of the targct language, Based on our expcricnee of being a lmguage learner, we seem to have no hesitation in recognizing the importance of vocabulary in L2

learning Meare (1980) points out that language leamers admit that they encounter

considerable difficulty with vocabulary even when the upgrade from an initial stage of acquiring a second language to a much more advanced level, Language practitioners also have reached a high degree of consensus regarding the important of vocatulary The findings in Macara’s survey (2003) indicate thal secondary language teachers view vocabulary as a topic they most need research to shed light on to enhance the teaching and

learning in their classrooms Therefore, it may be claimed that the role of vocabulary in L2 learning is immediately recognized and implications for teaching from substantial research are in greal demand

1.2.2 Techniques in presenting new vocabulary

According to Ur 1996:63, there are different ways of presenting new vocabulary In the

following, different techniques of presenting the meaning of new vocabulary are shown:

» Concise definition

* Detailed description (of appearance, qualities )

«Examples (hyponyns)

* Hlustration (picture, object)

* Demonstration (acting, mime)

* Context (story or sentence in which the item occurs:

© Synonyar

* = Opposite(s) (antonyms}

* Translation

* Associated ideas, collocations

Mucia 1991:301-302 lists different techniques used in presenting new vocabulary as

follows:

» Visual aids (Pictures, Objects)

* Word Relations (Synonyms, Antonyms)

* Pictorial Schemata (Venn diagrams, grids, ree diagrums, or stepped scales)

* Definition, Explanation, Examples, and Anecdotes

© Context

* Word Root and Affixes

1.2.3 Vocabulary practice

Presenting a word in the class does not secure that it will be remembered for a long time

‘There are many practice activities that include repeating of the new vocabulary to fix the mew words in the Isamexs 1uarmory The practice aclivitizs are divided into two main

groups: receptive and productive

Receptive practice (the learner does not really produce the target words) includes these types (Thornbury 91-99)

2) Identifying — means finding words in a tcx† or listcning, c.g underline specific

words or expressions in the text, or tick, put in the correet column or list items that

4) Sorting — pulting the lexical ilems into differe

adjectives in two groups _ positive and negative

5) Ranking and sequencing — patting the lexical items in some kind of order, e.g ordering ilems chronatogically, ranking itetus according to personal preference clc Productive practice (the productive skills writing or speaking are incorporated in the vocabulary teaching, includes thess types (Thornbury 100): completion and creation

- Completion tasks (context is giveri), oflen cutlad gap-fills, are widely uscd val only in

practice but also in revision stages They include open gap-fills or closed gap-fills (multiple choice activities), crosswords,

~ Creation tasks: the Tearner use the ward in a serilencc or a story, in writing, spouking or

both forms, use affixcs lo build new naming units from given words Generally speaking, vocabulary practice is divided into controlled and free Coutralied practice has to come Girst, because controlled activities require the student to produce a certain structure, they practice accwacy and fix the pattem The second phase, which demands productive use of vocabulary, is free practice ‘The specialists point out the

usage of free practice in the class, because according lo Lewis (151-152) “lo know a word means how to use it in the real life to be able to communicate.” This is a typical example

of the lexical approach where 1s a primary role of words which determine grammar Hree

practice is aimed at fluency and is productive Llowever Gairns and Redman warn against

Another division inclndcs speken and written practice Many vocabulary activitics uscd

in the class are based on discussions, dialogues, descriptions, role-play activities, or

different written tasks Tl has become a part of communicative chases, eg, ?n the form of

an activity well-known as ‘Find semeone who `, mumery games and furmy gamnes (hot

seat) etc

1.2.4, Vocabulary consolidation

As Thombuy (23) states, “in fact, loarning is remembering Unlike the learning of grammar, which is essentially a rule-based system, vocabulary knowledge is largely @ question of accumulating individual items.” [le distinguishes three basic types of memory

(233

® Short-term store — some information is held in memory for a very short time (a few seconds), Students are able to repeat a word that they have just heard from their

teacher

* Working memory — it is a space, where a student first places information for later

usage to recall a word repeatedly It lasts about 20 seconds

* Long-term memory to compare working memory, where the capacify is limited with long-term memory, where the capacity is wide and its contents are lasted over time

The great challenge for learners is to transform vocabulary from the quickly forgotten

ive knowledge

of vocabulary into an active form Rescarch into memory suggests that, in order to cnsure

(short-term store) to the never forgotten (long-term store), and to turn pas

that information moves into permanent long-term memory, a number of principles must to

be followed One of them is use “Pultmg words to use, preferably in some interesting way,

is the best way of ensuring they are added to long-tenm memory It is the principle well- known as Lse it or lose i (Vhombury 24) For this reason, words must be presented in their usual contexts, 30 that learners can get a sense for their meaning, their register and colfoeations In soparatcd vooabuliry activities, words arc often presented im the form of lexical sets, Ht is highly recognized that it is easier to learn the words that ars thematically arranged but have looser relation than lexical sets The system of practical exercises should

be thoroughly organized so that the amount of new words docs not discourage the student 1.2.5 EMF vocabulary practice and consolidation

The students should be encouraged to think about the importance af the word, therefore the

examples in context arc highly useful Morcover, this approach must be focused

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predominantly on learners, cach unit has to have clear aims, motivating topics and

challenging practical activities the appropriate issues must be presented in the context of

Tnmerous opportunitics to follow purposefidl tzarning” (Buchanan 6) As Machr points out,

in this way, teachers can support the naturalness of Jearning vocabulary, and in such an enriched atmosphere, learners find ideal authentic reasons for learning a foreign language ESP vocabulary can be prosented, practiced and consolidaled by similar methods and techniques used for practicing and consolidation of general vocabulary Writing tasks can include reports and different instructions for medicine, making summaries ftom technical

1.2.6, Difficulties in teaching and learning vocabulary

Oulside the classroom our students (and they are probably typical) do nol engage in extensive reading, It’s very unlikely, in fact, they will do any reading at all: one reason is a self-perceived lack of proficiency in reading which results in feelings of #nstraion, demolivation and » strong desire 1o avoid such effort Anolher is that they have very Hille time tie for extra reading In any case, reading a word once is not usually enough for a

learner to retain it Estimations in the literature of how many times we need to see a new

word before we learn it range from 5-17, averaging oul al around 10 (ef Saragi, Nation

stor 1978), so extensive rending is unlikely to result in Tar

vocabulary knowledge unless students read the enormous amount necessary for new words

to be repeated in context a sufficient number of times for them to be noticed and acquired Time is also a factor within the classroom Our medival students, for cxample can only look forward to (1) @ total of 60 hours of English or other L2 during the whole academic year, As Sinctair and Renowf (1988: 143) point oul, "it is exceptionally difficult to teach an organized syllabus of both grammar and lexis at the same time" And we do need to teach them grammar, for although it would make our task easiar if we could assume our students come from the same language learning background, unfortunately there are huge đifferenees in the linguistic and world knowledge they bring to the 12 class Nol all of them have a complete grasp of the more complex syntactic structures (such as conditionals, passives, embedding), precisely the range of structures which are more common in

ucuderme Loxts.

1

Then thers is the size of the class and a range of ñactors vhich affbot students’ attendance, Hoth large classes and irregular attendance make it extremely difficult to monitor a particular student's development or provide adeqquale individual feedback

There are olher difficultizs when we do decids to give time to specifie vocabulary in class,

To the question: how many lexical items should be taught in a lesson? Gairns and Redman

(1986), for example, snggest 8-12 items But, as Laufer (19976) points out, this figure does

nol lake inte account the level of difficulty of the target iter, Laufer discusses several what she calls ‘intralexical factors’ of a word which may either facilitate or make more difficult a word's learnability ‘hese intralexical factors refer to a set of properties such as the word’s pronunciation (or rather ils pronounecability), ils orlhography, the degree of correspondence between how the word is written and how i is said (ie soript and sound)

A new word in English may offer no clues to its pronunciation or, perhaps worse, misleading clues (compare, for example, crow ant cow: thrown and down; bul (hen crown’) Other intralexical factors include: word length, number of syllables, morphology, part of speech and semantic features such as abstractness, appropriateness, iciomaticity, xnulliple meanings The laller ara a particulary rich rca for confision Many learners fix

on one meaning, they know and find it very difficult to use another even if the one they Jmow has no sense in that new context

Other factors affecting learnability may involve the Largcl word's relalionships to other words (interlexicat factors") and ơr or uansfer from the learner's

linguistic influcn L1 To give an example of the first, there could be dangers in teaching associated words, such as synonyms of opposites, at the same time For example, teaching ‘righ?’ and ‘left

together could result in students conflusing form and meaning and being unsure afterwards whether Jeff means ‘left’ or whether it means ‘right’ A similar confusion occurs with words thal share a munber of semantic features (cf Tiga 1963, Nalion and Newton 1997), for example rigid, stiff, unbending, inflexible, stubbom

A quite important contributor to difficulty is what Laufér (1991) termed ‘synformy’ This

is the visual or acoustic similarity of lexical forms which may cause leamers to confiuse similar words We will return le some of these points Tater with examples, bul first we'đ like to move on to the question of what it means to know a word

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CHAPTER 2: CONTEXT Of TIIESTUDY

2.1 The general revicw of toaching and learning EMP at TMC

English for Medical Purposes (EMP) course is designed for TFT medical students (sophomores) at Tharthhoa Medical college FMP scrvas many purposas: to erihanes the medical entrants’ reading, comprehension skills as well as to provide them with the basic vocabulary they need in the very beginning of their medical study: to develop the medical students! basie aendomic and scisntifie writing skills; and to give the inedival students an introduction to the English medical terminology of medicine The cowse consists

of seventeen modules organized around the reading and writing sub-skills and their associated sccondary skills such as vocabulary The readings of this course are all about medical topics to go with the medical students’ major and to be appealing to them The topics will provide the students’ with general knowledge about some of the important health conttitions, diseases and their treanent making if a survey of the opportunities and problems inherent in the medical arena, The writing tasks presented in each module will be linked to the reading topics in a complementary way ‘The writing sub-skills will help the

hors al TMC are young md novice Icachors In general, these

major existing EFL approaches at TMC, aiming at language usc, Most of the spoken interaction in English classes is conducted in Vietnamese Students read, listen, speak, and write in Pnglish solely for the sake of learning English as « linguistic “code”

Furthermore, most of the teachers still adopted the more traditional teachers-centered and lecture-type approach in their classroom practices whereas they held positive beliefs

toward CLT They have never made teaching vocabulary interactive New words or

structures

always written down on the blackboard and the meaning of every word is provided right away without requirement for students’ prediction or guessing fiom the context Actually, in all stages of the lesson, teachers remain the center of the class As the maticr of fel, teachsrs did not have any erealiveness or make # choios of using apprapriale

activities that motivate students’ attention and listening improvement

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It was observed by the rescarcher that some of the ESP tcacher at TMC used techniques of

presenting new vocabulary in the following ways:

» Asking students to read new words after them, and then explain the words in their

Vietnamese one by one

* Or asking students to copy words for many times without teaching how to use the

words in the real commmnicative situations

® Or dealing with all words equally

As mentioned above, ihe context of TMC reveals a situation whereby sludents are required

to lea English, but the English they have learned in traditional language classes may not

be used effectively in real life It is apparent that student-centered approach has not been widely used in Leaching English at TMC The leachers still take the key role in classroom

activities and comer the students to be active learners Therefore, we should apply more appropriate teaching techniques to improve the situation of teaching vocabulary at TMC

2.1.2, Students

My students are non-English majors coming trom different parts of the country, All have

developed English language skills during the first years of college study under formal instruction In the second year, students are expected to learn English for Medical purposes and prepare for weckly tests and final cxamination essentially by themselves

During the teaching, | heard from time to time students complain in puzzlement: “s've

studied English for more than ten years but I don’t seem to have noticeable progress in

English Lean only use more or less dum the same words as I used before in speaking and

writing”, “1 know all the reading skills and grammar but still I can’t understand the exact meaning of this passage.” “I recite fifteen words a day it does help in reading comprehension But I always forget words I recited a week ago.” “How can I remember

words and their meanings quickly and for a long time?", "How can Iuse words property in

different contexts?", "Can you tell me an easy and simple way to retain the vocabulary that

1 have learnt?” The above complaint is not a problem to one or two students but to the majority of them-the problem of' vocabulary

The major problem in reading during the ESP course is vocabulary as “word meaning knowledge influcnec reading comprchension” (Harris & Sipay, 1990)

Poor vocabulary knowledge and lack of vocabulary learning strategies of the students are the matter of serious concern among those in and around education, and their quest for

finding suilable rewnedias is golting more and more inlonse

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Having worked with the ESP courses for three years, the rescarcher realized from her observation and experience for years that there are some factors account for the vocabulary problem, Tor many years vocalulary was (he poor relation of language teaching ls noglect has been in part duc to a specialization in linguistic rescarch on syntax amd phonology which may have fostered a climate in which vocabulary was felt to be a less important element in learning a foreign language In learning a foreign language, you will find (hal vocabulary is comparatively cusy, in spitz of the facl that it is vocabulary that

but that learning words came a poor third,

Encountering and understanding a word are seldom enough: as with meeting people,

needs lo be depth and interaction for the encounter ta be msmwrablc Some teachers do not recognize or neglect such a need, They take it for granted that students should be able to develop their own learning system, and thus put vocabulary at the disposal of students”

hers suggest thal students should ge hom

Iemory capacity, Same | ery evening and

learn a list of filly words “by hearl’, Such a practice may have beneficial ras

but it avoids one of the central tkatures of vocabulary use, namely that words occur in

When being asked about the way of leaning English vooabulary, most second-year students in our classes said they just copied new words provided by teachers or locked up words in the dictionary Many of them ierked or mderlined words they did not know in their textbooks and noted the meaning in Vietnamese Some students noted the time they had to copy lines and lines of new words in their notebooks which were forgotten soon "It

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was so boring I hated Icarning new words that way!" Sometimes, students asked many questions regarding learning vocabulary like “Teacher, how can | remember words and their memings quickly and for a tong fime?", "Tow can I use words properly in different conlexls™, "Can you toll me an casy and simple way to retain the vocabmlary (hat T have Jeamt™ etc, All of the Jeamers expressed their wish to learn vocabulary effectively in more interesting ways than the traditional ways that they knew

2.1.3 Facil

es Large classes usually present special challenges in terms of EMP vocabulary teaching and learning

Ever since 2006, TMC's higher education bas undergone @ continous expansion of enrollment at a rate of about 35% every year, which has given rise to a noticeable shortage

of both English teachers and classrooms Due to the very limited educational recourses, teaching English lo large classes is a common phenomenon in TMC In TMC, nomEnglish majors are usually grouped into classes of about 80 each Which meet two times weekly in two-homs periods for English language instruction It is obvious that stadents in a lange-

relat

sive class have fewer opportunitics lo practice activ

‘And if the class is dominated completely by the teachers, students will have almost no chance to use, practice, consolidate vocabulary On the other hand, many teachers consider

Although the important of vocabulary is typically recognized in vocabulary teaching and learning, the aclual acquisition of vocabulary presents significant ckalicnges to the language learners and teachers, especially in the earliest stages of the learning, process, Liven though researchers have presented various ideas that provide insights into the

of unproving language learing outcomes, 4

College, Victmn The sindy is conducted 140 students Grom two tandomly-chosen

classes, who take English for Medical Purposes class related for their own field

Students’ age ranged from 18 to 21 years with an average age 18 ‘he mmmber of female

students was higher thar thal of male The sluderis in of Nursing Faculiy get an FSP

course for 1 semester (75 hours), 10 meetings, and twice a week

Besides the medical college students, the respondents of the study were 3 English lecturers who are experls in Leaching Tinglish for Specific Purposes (ESP) and teaching

those classes

2.2.2, Research Instruments

Questionaire and interview arc mainly instruments Lo colle! the dala

‘The questionnaire was designed for students because it is a good way to access ihe Icamer’s point of view (Brace 2004:7) It is convenient and casy to conduct

It contains of 10 items pertaining a) student’s attitude toward vocabulary Jearning and teacning, b) vocabulary learning strategies while studying their academic texts, ¢) problems encountering in learning vocabulary The

instrument required 15 minutes to complete and was administered m the students’ ESP class

* ‘The interview for teachers was intended to collect almost the same information

as the questionnaire In other word, administration of theses type of interview would cnable the respondent to give their objective opinion about problems that their students and they encoumer in teaching and learning medical vocabulary Becanse only three teachers Ginchiding the (eacher-researcher) are responsible

for teaching ESP couse at TMC so it was just interviewed with two ESP teachers Despite that, useful comments were received and take into

consideration The interview was conducted in the form of cormputer-accessed

personal interviewing Lis an interviewing technique thal the interviewer and

the respondents sit in fiont of computer and communicative through chatting

of items that belong to a certain category The data of the present study was analyzed

by means of hoth quantitative and qualitative statistics to reduce potential limitations

of telying ona singte approach and onlumee confidence in the data

‘All the data collected ftom the instruments were grouped under two main areas: students” perception towards their problems in learning EMP vocabulary and the teachers’

porceplions lowards thoir prabloms for their sccond-ycar students in teaching EMP

vocabulary, which served to answer the research questions

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CHAPTER THREE: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Results

3.1.1 Questionnaire for students

Question 1: How long have you been learning English?

Length of English learning Total

with mixed capacities in English The Table 1 demonstrated that 14.2 % of the students

didn’t study English While 35.7% of the students studied English for 3-6 years and 42.8 %

of the students studied English for 6-10 years There were 14.3% of students who studied

English for ten years This means that it is very urgent for the students who didn’t study

English to enlarge vocabulary and master a certain number of English words as quickly as

possible so as to catch up with the others, As for teachers, who have been teaching for two

years have always faced additional difficulties including in vocabulary teaching, mainly

based on the number of students without previous considerable experience in English

Question 2: Which ways of learning English vocabulary do you usually use?

[Elin the meaning cfnew wands by Giiding them mào

Figure 1: Ways of learning vocabulary

Figure 1 gives a summary of the subjects’ opinion on vocabulary leaming strategies This

revealed that the major strategies for leaning vocabulary did not differ in general among

ESP students, that is, the most commonly used leaming strategy was writing the words and

19

Vietnamese equivalents covering 100% and next is oral/written repetition (85%) The word

list was also widely used approach to vocabulary development (66%), followed by item

‘made sentence with new words’ (22%) However, students seemed to have problems in

connecting new words to other words they knew with similar or opposite meanings (85%)

and students also encountered difficulties in analyzing words by breaking them into parts

(90%), In term of reviewing strategy, the figure indicates that fewer students knew the importance of revision and reviewed the newly learned words actively, only 9 % of the

students reviewed new words often The least preferred strategy are item ‘connected word

with pictures’ (5%) This may be significant because the studies showed that higher

students tended to use memory strategies and cognitive strategies Even they recognized

the value of the rest strategies, their action did not reflect their beliefs All of the learners

expressed their wish to learn vocabulary effectively in more interesting ways than the

traditional ways that they knew With regards to vocabulary learning strategies instruction,

therefore it might be anticipated that students should receptive to a program that included

Gask the teacher for Vietnamese explanation

Biiry to guess the meaning from the

experiences and common sense in guessing meaning of the words They often proceed to

ask the teachers to explain it (68%) 27% of the students often asked their classmates for

explanation Although the ESP teacher spoke English in the classroom and expected the students to find the English meaning of the new words in monolingual dictionaries, a number of students (20%) might share the same experience of looking up words in a bilingual dictionary to find their meanings and definitions when they encounter new words

There seemed to be some (32%) who did not concern when they encountered a new word

5% of the students employed their knowledge of the word formation in deciphering the

of words then they wrote those words in their notebooks or complete exercises Many

students did not think learning vocabulary in context was very useful, may be because their poor background knowledge couldn’t contribute much to guessing word meaning

Working those ways, after a short period of time, many learners may find out that learning

vocabulary didn’t satisfy them, and they thought the cause for it was just their bad

techniques 60% Students’ low background

knowledge

ant, 7 ‘for further practice)

20% Big size-class and poor facilities

Figure 3: Problems influenced on students’ motivation and interest

From the above chart, we found that things turned out to be encouraging and our efforts did bring about some results

Being asked about the factors have influenced their motivation and interest in learning

English vocabulary, most students (98%) in our classes at TMC said teachers’ method and

techniques which provided them vocabulary instructions or presentations greatly influenced on successful learning of vocabulary It meant that while students mostly relied

on teachers’ performance in the classroom, teachers’ vocabulary teaching methods and techniques did not satisfy students much Many of them (85%) considered class-size and

poor facilities as their big obstacles in their learning process The knowledge and usage of

English that students possessed gave rise concern (30%) Students found it very hard to cope with learning ESP vocabulary basically because of the lack of the general English which directly affected their confidence and activeness during classroom lessons It was

also discovered that 20% responded one of their difficulties involved in requirement of

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examinations This finding could imply that students were still very influenced by

examinations Some students (18%) noted time-management was one of their difficult in

practice and consolidation stages

Question 5: What problems do you have when learning vocabulary?

BI forget words I've learnt

I cannot remember words and their meanings

Figure 4: Student’ s problems when learning vocabulary From the figure 4 we learned that the biggest problem for students (64%) in learning vocabulary was they were easy to forget the words they've learnt Students could not

remember words hold 53% This may indicate that there should be more impressive

method of vocabulary teaching and more consolidating strategies from their teachers, and

their effective self learning ways of vocabulary to solve this problem as well In term of

word usage and use, 40% of the students get in trouble with using words properly in

different contexts Students who could not handle multiple meanings of words covered 24%

Question 6: How often does your teacher use these following ways to present new

words?

always | usually | sometimes | rarely never

Using visual aids (pictures, video, real objects 2% S196 2296

‘Translating new words into Vieinamese 92% 8%

‘Saying the words clearly one by one and writin

đen ca the board ™_ sme ie

‘Using mimes, gestures and facial expressions 100%

‘Using target language to define the new word 28% 18% S496

Encouraging guessing the meaning in context %6 915

Introducing new words in context and giving

STIS 34% 46%

Table 2: Ways of presenting new words