04051001812 an investigation into the effects of using synonyms in teaching vocabulary for grade 10 students nghiên cứu về hiệu quả của việc sử dụng từ Đồng nghĩa trong việc dạy từ vựng cho học sinh khối 10 tại một trường

04051001812 an investigation into the effects of using synonyms in teaching vocabulary for grade 10 students nghiên cứu về hiệu quả của việc sử dụng từ Đồng nghĩa trong việc dạy từ vựng cho học sinh khối 10 tại một trường

INTRODUCTION

Statement of research problems and rationale for the study

Thanks to the development of the modern world, the need of travelling and trading is increasing gradually There also exist a large number of people who can now be called “global citizens” Living in such conditions, human beings need a tool to communicate with each other, and to carry out human and social affairs As a result, language acquisition in general and second language (L2) acquisition in particular are of great concern among human In most parts of the world, English language learning has become a trend due to its considerable advantages in the labor market Wilkins (1972, as cited in Thornbury, 2004) claims that in language learning,

“without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed” It is also supported by Ur (1996) that vocabulary is one of essential aspects that an EFL learner must learn as words in general are the core of a language It would be impossible for a person to engage in verbal communication without a variety of words Mastery of word meaning can be of great help in understanding a discourse However, in the practice of English language learning, it is clearly seen that many EFL learners exert hard effort in vocabulary learning but gain little in memorizing and using exact words in specific situations English vocabulary has been acknowledged as L2 learners’ greatest single source of problems (Meara, 1980) Vu and Peters (2021) points out that Vietnamese EFL high school students generally have limited English vocabulary knowledge since understanding the meaning of English words and formulaic sequences (e.g., collocations, idioms) and knowing their form are among the most common knowledge that students have

According to Brinton (2000), words do not exist in isolation in the consciousness of the speaker/ hearer but are related to each other It means that “the meaning of a word does not exist in the word itself but rather spreads over the neighboring words” (Jian, 2014) Therefore, using sense relations, in general, and synonymy, in

2 particular, might be one of the most effective ways to teach vocabulary since it may give organized access to the lexicon (Carter, 1998 as cited in Min, 2013)

This phenomenon poses the question among EFL teachers on the application of synonyms in teaching English vocabulary and its effectiveness However, little research has been done on the effects of synonymy on English vocabulary learning Webb (2007) states in the finding of her research that learning synonyms for known words may be easier than learning words that do not have known synonyms It can be assumed that in this case, a learner’s vocabulary size would increase because more and more words are likely to have known synonyms Susilo & Sunengsih

(2017) in the research “The Effectiveness of Using Synonym in Learning Vocabulary (A Quasi-Experimental Study at the Second Grade Students of SMP Islam At-Taqwa Pamulang)” also confirms the positive effect of using synonym in vocabulary learning In Vietnam, a few attempts have been made in exploring the effectiveness of using synonyms in vocabulary teaching Nguyen (2014) in her research entitled “An investigation into the effects of using synonyms and antonyms to teach vocabulary to 10th graders at Le Thanh Tong high school” points out that using synonyms and antonyms to practice vocabulary can improve students’ ability to memorize words, create real life context, encourage students’ interaction in a cooperative way and enhance students’ motivation on learning English vocabulary

To date, no studies have explicitly and systematically investigated English vocabulary teaching practices in Vietnam However, in the practice of English vocabulary teaching at high schools in Vietnam, it is recognized that some commonly used English vocabulary teaching techniques are translation, code- switching, songs, and storytelling and this is also confirmed in the paper by Vu and Peters in 2021 The use of synonyms in English vocabulary at Vietnamese high school is hardly mentioned or employed

Yet, a very limited number of research on using synonyms in learning English vocabulary are conducted; hence, further studies on the topic are needed

Aim, objectives, and research questions

The overarching aim of this paper is to facilitate better English vocabulary learning outcomes and enrich English vocabulary knowledge for students by employing synonyms in vocabulary learning This study also aims to find out to what extent the use of synonyms in teaching English vocabulary can be beneficial for 48 students of class 10A (school year 2020-2021) at X High School in Hanoi, Vietnam; and participants’ attitudes towards the effectiveness of this technique To achieve this aim, the following objectives are drawn:

1 Finding whether there is a positive effect in English vocabulary learning by using synonyms

2 Finding how students perceive the effectiveness of using synonyms in English vocabulary learning

Therefore, in line with this background, aims and objectives of the study, two research questions are formulated as follows:

1 To what extent does the use of synonyms in teaching English vocabulary help improve the students’ achievement in vocabulary learning?

2 What are the students’ attitudess towards the effectiveness of using synonyms in English vocabulary learning?

Research methods

This study makes use of mixed method as both quantitative data and qualitative data are collected and analyzed To answer the first research question, quantitative data is collected via a pre-posttest which is designed based on Nation’s theory After that, focus group discussions are performed based on Krueger’s guideline (1988) after the post-test The purpose of the focus group discussions is to gain qualitative data for the second research question on students’ attitudes towards the use of synonyms in English vocabulary learning.

Scope of the research

This action research solely focuses on investigating the effects of using synonyms in teaching English vocabulary for 48 10 th graders at an upper secondary school in Hanoi

It is undeniable that there exist many occasions/cases when students cannot use words precisely in L2 speaking or writing due to their lack of vocabulary knowledge Therefore, it is necessary and important for the English teachers to find out an effective technique in teaching English vocabulary to help students overcome the problems From those reasons, this study proposes an alternative way for the teachers to enrich students’ English vocabulary that has connection with the area of meaning or semantic field However, within the scope of this study, only the use of synonymy, which is one type of lexical sense relations, is taken into consideration Moreover, students with positive thoughts and feelings towards the target language tend to have higher language achievement than students with a negative attitude (Donato et al., 1996) Studies have also found a relationship of the attitudes to teachers (Noels et al., 1999), and to the tasks (Green & Shanks, 1993), with the level of success in learning the target language Hence, exploring the students’ attitudes towards the effectiveness of using synonyms to teach English vocabulary could be of help for further implementation.

Significance of the study

The finding of this study can be of significance to EFL teachers, students, and researchers For EFL teachers and students, this study can be useful as a technique in teaching and learning vocabulary because if the treatment of this technique is conducted properly and continuously, it may make the students comprehend the words easily The teacher as a facilitator can guide the students to improve their vocabulary knowledge by identifying and grouping words that have the same meanings Later, it is expected to become a reference for EFL researchers who may conduct a further research using other techniques in teaching English vocabulary.

Design of the study

The thesis consists of five chapters Chapter 1 (this chapter) presents the background to this study, the study’s objectives and placed these within the context of EFL teaching in Vietnam in 2021

Chapter 2 provides a theoretical and empirical framework for the study by

5 reviewing current literature on vocabulary, synonyms, using synonym in vocabulary learning and students’ perception towards this technique

Chapter 3 explains the methods that have been used for conducting the research and for the analysis of the data used in this study It describes the study sites and participants, the operational procedures used for this study, the instruments for data collection, the selection of data for analysis, and the methods of data analysis for this study

Chapters 4 presents the results of data analysis in an attempt to address the two research questions and provides discussion of these themes and the issues raised Chapter 5 summarizes the research findings, draws conclusions from those findings, and indicates some of the implications of the findings Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research in this field are also considered

LITERATURE REVIEW

Vocabulary learning and teaching

According to Grauberg (1997), the process of learning vocabulary involves four stages which are discrimination, understanding meaning, remembering, and consolidation and extension of meaning Learning new words is a slow process, and if presentation is the only factor to consider, words will not be forgotten and will not need to be relearned Words, on the other hand, appear to be absorbed slowly over time and only fully integrated into learners' own bank of vocabularies when they are fully integrated (Meara,1992 as cited in Grauberg,1997) It takes time to develop lexical command If one tries to relate this process to a linguistic description of vocabulary learning, it is likely that pronunciation and spelling come first, followed by understanding of meaning, control over morphological forms and syntactic linkages, and finally full semantic knowledge

The question whether explicit or implicit learning is the best way to acquire new vocabulary is another much debated question among second language acquisition researchers New language is " acquired totally unconsciously as a result of abstraction from repeated exposures in a range of activated contexts", according to the behaviorist viewpoint (Ellis, 1994, p.82) The hypothesis of explicit vocabulary learning would instead support the use of planned strategies to actively pay attention to learning new words (Chacón-Beltrán et al., 2010)

Implicit learning is a term often used interchangeably with incidental learning, unintentional learning, and unplanned learning These terms suggest that new words can be learned as by-products of other classroom activities, such as interaction, listening or reading (Milton, 2009) Research shows that extensive reading, i.e., reading a large number of books each term, does lead to vocabulary growth, without any explicit instructions New vocabulary can evidently be acquired implicitly, both in classroom activities and during spare time activities Moreover, implicit learning

7 is not restricted to the written form A great deal of vocabulary is learnt through oral input and according to Milton (2009), oral input also takes place when listening to songs or watching films in the L2

Although some research shows that vocabulary can be learnt implicitly, even more research confirms that vocabulary is best learnt when actively paying attention to learning new words and when receiving explicit instructions (Lightbown and Spada, 2008; Milton, 2009; Allan, 2010) Milton (2009) states that learners who are taught vocabulary explicitly in activities in a classroom acquire a larger vocabulary than those who only learn vocabulary implicitly Consequently, learners who are explicitly taught will become more efficient in the L2 Schmitt (2010) also discusses that when learners explicitly pay attention to and focus on learning vocabulary, they learn more words than during implicit or incidental learning

Despite what the discussed research suggests, it might not even be possible to say that vocabulary is learnt either implicitly or explicitly, since different aspects of word knowledge will be learnt in different ways Milton (2009) argues that, for example, recognition of the phonological form of a word is learnt implicitly while learning of the meaning requires explicit learning In fact, today most second language acquisition researchers would encourage a combination of the two processes when learning vocabulary (Chacón-Beltrán et al., 2010)

2.1.2 Vocabulary learning strategies and principles of teaching vocabulary

Vocabulary learning strategies have been considered as techniques that help memorize the words (Gu and Johnson, 1996) In the field of English language learning, vocabulary learning strategy plays an important part There are five main vocabulary learning strategies, according to Schmitt (2002, pp 205-215; as cited in Paul, 2009), including Determination strategies, Social strategies, Memory strategies, Cognitive strategies, and Metacognitive strategies Determination strategies are considered as individual learning strategies that language learners employ to understand the meaning of words by themselves without help, such as guessing meaning of words from context Social strategies emphasize on

8 individuals’ interaction like asking their classmate and their teacher for the meaning of a word Memory strategies are strategies which learners use in learning new words through mental processing by associating the words with its coordinates or by linking the background of the words Cognitive strategies are mechanical actions that students use to acquire new words, such as repeating new word pronunciations or keeping a vocabulary notebook Learners' ability to manage and assess their own learning new words is linked to metacognitive methods As a result, learners are better able to choose appropriate vocabulary learning tactics when learning new words

Because of the importance of vocabulary in English language learning, it needs a serious attention in learning English vocabulary from both learners and teachers Hence, based on the five main vocabulary learning strategies, some principles for vocabulary teaching are also stated in detail Since it has become a great challenging act for the teacher to teach vocabulary considering what kinds of method they use, what kind of vocabulary that they give, or how many vocabularies that they should teach, Schmitt and Meara (1997) state eight key principles in teaching vocabulary, namely (a) Building a large sight of vocabulary; (b) Integrating new words with previous words; (c) Providing a number of encounters with a word; (d) Promoting deep level of processing; (e) Facilitating imaging; (f) Making new word “real” by connecting them to the student’s word in some way; (g) Using various techniques; and (h) Encouraging independent learning strategies

It is easily recognized that using synonyms in learning English vocabulary belongs to Memory strategies and coincided with principle (b) as listed

As it has already been mentioned that there is no right or best way to teach English vocabulary, it all depends on the type of students, the school system and curriculum, the words that are targeted and many other factors The choice of vocabulary to teach should also be limited to the learners need, experiences and interest When it comes to teaching vocabulary, there are a variety of techniques Most English teachers, however, must remember that if they wish to introduce a new vocabulary or lexical item to their students, they must construct a task that requires the

9 vocabulary to be learned, practiced, and corrected in order to avoid pupils from forgetting Techniques employed by teachers depend on some factors, such as the content, time availability, and its value for the learners (Takač as cited in Naeimi & Foo, 2015) As a result, teachers have certain justifications for using specific vocabulary presentation techniques Instead of using just one strategy to teach one planned vocabulary item, the teacher frequently mixed several techniques

Taken as a conclusion for this part, several premises and comments on English vocabulary teaching made by Finocchiaro (1994) in Arteaga & Hidalgo (2000) are listed:

 A student's "active" vocabulary does not have to include all of the terms he or she encounters during a class or even in subsequent lessons Some words in the new language (our native language) will stay "passive," meaning that we understand them when we hear or read them but do not utilize them while speaking or writing The vocabulary for active use would be provided and practiced in a systematic way Vocabulary would always be taught in normal speech utterances

 New vocabulary items would be introduced in known structures at all times

 The vocabulary items would be centered around a single theme if possible

 When a familiar word is encountered in a new context, it must be taught and practiced again

 Vocabulary items would be taught in the same way we teach everything else

We give our students an understanding of the meaning in many ways

 Vocabulary would be practiced in the same way as structures are in substitution drills, transformation drills, and other drills

 Vocabulary items would be reintroduced many times with all the structures and all the situations in which they can logically be used.

Synonyms

Kreidler (1998) defined sense relations as “the relations of meaning between words, as expressed in synonymy, hyponymy, and antonymy.” (p.303) The resemblance of meaning, as in synonymy, the inclusion of meaning, as in hyponymy, and the

10 oppositeness of meaning, as in antonymy, are all examples of sense relations Cruse

(2004) classified sense relations into two classes i.e., those that express identity and inclusion between word meanings and those that express opposition and exclusion The first class discusses the sense relations between words whose meanings are similar or included in other ones The second class discusses the sense relations between words whose meaning are opposite or excluded from other words So, synonymy belongs to the first group of Cruse’s classification

Synonymy is a fundamental language phenomenon that influences the organization of the lexicon, although it has received significantly less attention in linguistics, psychology, lexicography, semantics, and computational linguistics than polysemy, which is equally important and well-studied Synonymy has long been considered of as a "non-problem" for a variety of reasons: either there are synonyms, but they are absolutely identical in meaning and hence easy to deal with, or there are no synonyms, in which case any word can be treated as any other

Synonymy is the semantic relation between two words Lyons (1981) defined synonymy as a linguistic term that refers to lexical items that share the same, or similar, meanings According to Kreidler (1998), synonymy is not a straightforward affair because two lexemes never have the same range of syntactic occurrences, and even when they do share occurrences and make predictions about the same class of referring expressions, they are likely to indicate different things Kreidler also suggested that having two phrases that occur in the same settings and have the same meaning in a language would be inefficient

Palmer (1981) admits that synonyms are defined with respect to certain senses of words It falls under the subject of semantic research, and semanticists' definitions of synonymy are similar in certain ways Grandy (2012) points out that translators can provide formal, functional, or ideational equivalence in literary texts where synonyms are utilized to express particular implications As a result, synonymy is a fundamentally important paradigmatic relation

This paper uses synonym definition proposed by Lyons Lyons (1981) defines a synonym as a lexical item that shares the same, or similar meanings with other words In this research, synonyms are defined as follows:

- Words or sentences that have at least one identical meaning and no opposite meaning are called synonyms

- Words or expressions can be synonyms if they relate to the same referent in a given context; in this research, words or descriptive synonyms can be considered as a type of synonyms in broad meaning

- Synonyms might be found in the same or separate parts of speech

According to Cruse (1986), there are three types of synonyms: "absolute",

"contextual-cognitive" and "plesionymy/ near-synonym" Synonyms could be placed on a scale of synonymity where different degrees of semantic overlap could emerge Cognitive synonymy is a type of synonymy in which synonyms' meanings are so similar that they can't be distinguished denotatively or connotatively, that is, not even by mental associations, connotations, emotive responses, or poetic value When two words are cognitively equivalent, they refer to the same thing regardless of context Contextual – Cognitive Synonyms refer to lexical items which are cognitive synonyms in certain contexts but not in most contexts Lyons (1969) calls this type

"context-dependent synonymy" This form of synonymy is best demonstrated by looking at the lexical terms buy and get in the following context: "I'll go to the store and get/buy some bread." These two words "get" and "buy" are simply cognitive synonyms in this situation because they are used interchangeably In other cases, however, the terms "buy" and "get" are not interchangeable Only “get” can be used in the sentence below: “I will get my son from his office.”

Plesionymy or Near-synonymy bring forth or give sentences with different propositional content They refer to lexical items that are similar in some ways but not in others As a result, near-synonyms are expressions that are similar in meaning but not identical Cruse (1986) further states that unlike cognitive synonyms which

12 have the same truth conditions, plesionyms have different truth conditions The members of the synonymous pair "foggy/ misty," according to Farghal (1998), are near-synonyms rather than cognitive synonyms in that we can deny one while affirming the other The following sentence exemplifies this: "It wasn't foggy yesterday; it was just misty," says the narrator Mistiness is clearly a lower level of fogginess.

Nation’s Four Strands Framework

Using synonyms in English vocabulary teaching should follow the general principles of vocabulary teaching In attempt to explore more theories on how to teach English vocabulary, Nation’s Four Strands Framework is among the most commonly used Nation’s Four Strands provide a valuable framework for guiding teachers in vocabulary teaching These four strands are meaning-focused input, meaning-focused output, language-focused learning, and fluency development Three of the four strands are meaning focused, and one is language focused

Acquiring new words from meaning-focused input refers to vocabulary learned incidentally through classroom activities involving reading and listening Research in this area has shown that learners often fail to guess the meaning of new words correctly (Nassaji, 2003) Moreover, other studies (Waring & Takaki, 2003; Pigada

& Schmitt, 2006) have found relatively low pick up rates for learning new words incidentally For these reasons, Schmitt (2008) maintains that the meaning-focused input strand is more conducive to consolidation of previous explicitly taught words rather than for acquiring new words

Meaning-focused output includes classroom tasks such as communicative activities and prepared writing These tasks allow learners to use the words that they know productively One study (Lee & Muncie, 2006) found that productive output tasks were more likely to lead to productive mastery than were receptive input tasks This suggests that structured productive practice might have advantages for vocabulary acquisition in terms of active vocabulary

The first 2,000 most frequent words in addition to the words on the Academic Word List merit intentional instruction due to the utility of knowing common and useful words (Nation, 2001) Furthermore, repeated, spaced exposures have been found to be an efficient means of direct teaching of vocabulary (de Groot, 2006) Taken together, consideration for word frequency and careful, spaced planning will increase the likelihood of learners to acquire the most needed words first

It is difficult to understate the importance of recycling previously learned vocabulary In fact, Nation (2001) goes as far as to say that consolidation is more important than learning new words because a forgotten word is a lost time investment Furthermore, because working memory is limited, and new semantic information can inhibit comprehension and fluency (Barcroft, 2002), reading easy graded readers or listening to easy passages reduces the cognitive load on working memory, allowing students to improve their automaticity, strengthen lexical access to existing words, and expand their word knowledge According to Schmitt (2008), the form-meaning link is merely the first stage in learning a new word, and fluency development is required to learn sometimes disregarded parts of work knowledge Simply put, in addition to purposeful vocabulary teaching, which focuses on language-focused learning, Vietnamese EFL teachers can assist their students improve their vocabulary knowledge by providing meaning-focused input (i.e., reading, listening, and viewing) and meaning-focused output (i.e., speaking and writing) In order to build fluency in each of the four abilities of listening, speaking, reading, and writing, Vietnamese EFL teachers should also present learners with simple and familiar tasks that aim to facilitate learners' quick access to existing knowledge When employing synonyms in English vocabulary instruction, several strands and principles should be considered.

Relevant previous studies

To date, very little research has been done in using synonyms in vocabulary teaching/learning for EFL learners Synonymy is one of seven inter-lexical

14 characteristics that can lower the likelihood of vocabulary acquisition, according to Laufer (1990) Finding a synonym that is simple enough to assist students is really tough Lewis (1997) said that there is little point in simply providing another new word to explain the one the students does not understand One principle in vocabulary teaching is that teachers do not always have to give an exact/absolute synonym since it is impossible The idea is to give the students the general meaning of the word In this case, the most important point is the students can understand the concept of it Thus, unknown synonyms are of little help in vocabulary learning Higa (1963) discovered that pairs of synonyms took longer to acquire than pairs of unrelated words in his study of the effects of synonymy on vocabulary development This study found that learners are more likely to mix up words with similar meanings than those with no semantic linkages The focus of Higa's research is on the notion that the closer the semantic relationship between the words is, the more difficult it is to learn them Studies of Tinkham (1993) and Waring (1997) also indicate the same result According to these studies, learning synonyms together may decrease the likelihood of acquisition (something acquired or gained) Learners are unlikely to learn synonyms together, according to Higa's research, since they may lack the motivation to learn two words that carry similar meaning or information In the later stages of vocabulary development, a synonym for a known term may be easier to learn

Synonyms may represent different aspects of knowledge that have already been acquired Webb (2007) takes an example that if learners are faced with learning the low-frequency words “revolver”, learning “revolver” may be easier because it has a high-frequency synonym (gun) that represents vocabulary knowledge that can be used to learn “revolver” If a newly learned word can be substituted in a sentence for a known synonym, then collocations and syntagmatic associates might be acquired when meaning and form are learned Although the degree of overlap of vocabulary knowledge varies from synonym to synonym, at least partial overlap may help facilitate acquisition

Recent research also shows that the application of synonyms can improve learners' use of vocabulary in writing lessons Chen et al., (2015), in their study, use lexical paraphrase (synonyms) to determine their influence in improving the writing of students of English as a foreign language The study's authors used an online system called PREFER to implement lexical paraphrase, which provided students with a wide range of paraphrase alternatives while writing As a result of the study, a better quality of written production was observed among participants Another article, written by Yeh et al., (2007), discusses the application of an online tool called TANGO, which had the same purpose That is, to improve the writing of university students of English as a foreign language Through TANGO, the authors provide students with synonyms of overused adjectives in writing such as important, beautiful, difficult, deep, and great The results of the study not only showed a better- quality writing by the students but also, in subsequent tests up to two months after the conclusion of the treatment, the students are able to remember the learned synonyms Because of the large number of synonyms, their complexity, and the various levels of English that the students possess, teaching vocabulary using synonyms necessitates careful consideration on the part of the English teacher Webb (2007) conducted research with 84 Japanese English as a second language students Their study investigated the effects of learning two groups of terms by administering ten tests to determine the learning of English words and synonyms The first group consisted of ten words with infrequent synonyms, while the second group comprised of ten words with frequent synonyms The study's findings revealed that participants performed better while learning words with recognized synonyms Emphasizing the above, Nation (2001) expressed the importance of the connection between the acquired knowledge of the target language and the vocabulary to be learned

Although the use of synonyms has been recognized as a technique that helps to increase students' vocabulary, Balcı and Çakır (2011) consider this technique as traditional and less efficient compared to the use of other techniques such as the use of collocations This assertion was generated by the results obtained in a

16 comparative study developed by these authors on the level of effectiveness of the use of collocations and techniques such as the application of synonyms, antonyms, and definitions for vocabulary learning The findings revealed that students who received the collocations technique scored better on vocabulary tests than those who received the other treatments

In research concerning the use of synonyms in English vocabulary learning, very few of these have considered the views and perspectives of students There found the study by Soto et al., (2017) which shows some disadvantages of this technique as the responses of several students are linked to negative aspects such as the lack of understanding of the meaning of the synonyms found, the amount of time their search demands, and the variety of meanings and contexts in which a synonym can be used However, the study concludes that in general, positive attitudes on the effectiveness of using synonyms in English vocabulary is recorded more than negative one.

Chapter summary

This chapter provides a review on English vocabulary learning strategies to shed a light on the position of synonyms in vocabulary learning and a brief review on synonym definitions and classification to guide researcher in the process of choosing known synonyms for 25 targeted vocabularies in later research stage Literature on how synonyms as vocabularies can be taught and learned is mainly led by Nation’s Four Strands Framework Relevant previous studies are also taken into analysis to find out the gaps that this action research may be filled in In brief, this chapter serves as a theoretical framework for the study

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Context and participants

48 students of class 10A at X Upper Secondary School were invited as participants in the study The researcher is also the English teacher who is in charge of the subject during the semester

In context of EFL in Vietnam, MoET’s new ten-year English textbook series for schools have been introduced and now applied nation-wide This marks a shift from, as confirmed in Hoang (2019), non-communicative language teaching approach to the relatively clearly- defined notion of communicative language teaching (CLT) He also claims that the final aim of these approaches is that the students will become independent learners and more effective language communicators Considering these objectives, apart from school English textbooks, the English division at X High School also develops a supplementary for students to learn in extra-session which is not counted in school time to boost their vocabulary and grammar knowledge related to each unit in the textbook Since 10 graders are new into this material, as it is observed in the researcher’s class, students get trouble in learning some specific vocabularies of 5 units (from Unit 6 to Unit 10) in supplementary materials at school

Students of class 10A have four English periods per week in the afternoon, however, this action program is carried out through teaching and learning process in the morning when students attend free extra class to improve their English knowledge; in order to avoid disruption to the official learning plan and procedure of the school The intervention was conducted in 10 weeks, 2 one-hour periods per week from 8 March 2021 to 14 May 2021

With convenience sampling, 48 students of class 10A (X Upper Secondary School) are invited to take part in the research The students in general may be considered as well-behaved with relatively good academic achievement since the average score of

18 students in high-school entrance test stands among top five of that of the school Moreover, their performance as well as academic results in English in the first semester of this school year were impressive compared to other classes in grade 10 When encountering troubles in learning some English vocabularies of the supplementary for Unit 6, students asked teacher to explain the meanings in Vietnamese It is recognized that this translation technique could help some of them in memorizing words However, they reported that it is hard to keep those words stored in their mind by rote-learning and they can hardly use the words in productive skill lessons Through observation, it is found that students misunderstood some aspects of the words, so they made mistakes and used them incorrectly This situation urges the researcher to find an alternative way to deal with the vocabulary extra-session In attempt to help students to gain more word knowledge, it is noted that the question on the effectiveness of the synonym’s application in English vocabulary learning can be tested this time As it is observed, even though the words asked by the students share some aspects of meaning or even the same meaning with learned words, students seem to fail in identifying, grouping, and drawing relations between them They just use the dictionary to look up and translate them into Vietnamese

Therefore, an action program was conducted with the hope to improve the situation Participation in this study is expected to present no potential risks to the participants Consent is obtained from the participants before they take part in the research Each student is assigned a Student Number to create a sense of anonymous and convenience for researcher to collect data

Theoretical Framework

Figure 3.1 Theoretical framework explaining the use of synonyms in improving

The diagram above demonstrates the theories used in the action research project as a basis Theories on English vocabulary learning strategies would draw a big picture of vocabulary learning strategies in which some emphasis on the effectiveness of using synonyms in vocabulary teaching and learning have been taken out The use of synonyms in a vocabulary learning lesson should follow the general principles on vocabulary teaching As a result, Nation’s Four Strands framework is chosen as a foundation to guide the researcher in the process of lesson planning and implementing.

Research design

The approach used in this research is action research method There are some definitions given by experts According to Kemmis (2006), action research is essentially a type of self-reflective enquiry carried out by participants in social circumstances in order to improve the logic and fairness of their own actions, their knowledge of these practices, and the situations in which they are carried out According to Burns (2009), action research is the application of fact finding to practical issue solving in social situations with the goal of improving the quality of

20 action by bringing together researchers, practitioners, and laymen

Furthermore, Schmuck (2006) proposes that action research is study a real school situation with a view to improve the quality of actions and results within it It also seeks to strengthen one's professional judgment and provide insight into how to reach desired educational goals more effectively Action research is a tool for changing from present practices toward better ones

Based on definitions above, it can be concluded that action research is research that conducted by the researcher for identifying problems, solving problem, and improving the quality of action and result in teaching learning process Action Research is a study that helps teachers to reflect on their teaching learning process The teacher gets the opportunity to criticize his/ her teaching practice according to students’ reality Ethics is involved in all the process since the teacher objectively and scientifically judges the teaching process to benefit the students in their learning and to make her teaching objectively This is how the teacher can decide which road to take to solve or improve the teaching learning practice (Cornett et al., 1994) The model action research adapted in this study is the model developed by Kemmis and McTaggart in Burns (2009)

Figure 3.2 Action Research Spiral (Kemmis and McTaggart in Burns, 2009)

However, considering the scope of this study, only one cycle would be established for 14 weeks which consists of planning, action, data analysis and reflection Further cycles might be considered after this study.

Data collection procedure

This action research was conducted in 14 weeks (from 22 February 2021 to 28 May

2021) including a 10-week-intervention in which there are 2 weekly periods lasting one hour for each Normally, students of class 10A have four English periods per week in the afternoon, however, this action program is carried out through teaching and learning process in the morning when students attend free extra class to improve their English knowledge; in order to avoid disruption to the official learning plan and procedure of the school

Based on Kemmis’s model, this action research procedure is described as follows:

Planning phase (22 February 2021 to 5 March 2021): I first recognized the stated problem and identified the possible causes After that, I tried to find the solution and using synonyms in vocabulary teaching was taken into consideration in making an intervention Then, I make teaching learning design based on the causes and the solution to use in the classroom It includes the following activities: a) Listing 25 vocabularies of Unit 6 to Unit 10 (5 words per Unit) that students got trouble in learning Preparing materials and making 5 lesson plans based on Nation’s Four Strands Framework

Of all 23 vocabulary learning activities suggested by Nation and Webb (2017), linked skills activities might considered to be the most suitable to be used in planning the lessons for the intervention Linked skills activities involve working on exactly the same topic using a succession of three of the language skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing For example, the learners may read about a topic, and then they talk to others about it, and finally they write about it By the time they get to the final activity in the set of three, they are well in control of the language and content involved in the activity They can thus perform the last of the three tasks at a fluent level There are many possible combinations of the skills, and thus

22 there are many possible linked skills activities It is likely that the first of the activities in a linked skills series is meaning-focused input or output perhaps with elements of language-focused learning The second activity would be clearly meaning- focused input or output, and the last activity in the series would be a fluency development activity Such activities require only a little teacher preparation and keep the learners usefully busy for a good period of time b) Preparing list of Student Number and scoring c) Preparing a test

Implementing action phase (8 March 2021 to 14 May 2021): In this phase, the following activities have been accomplished: a) Delivering a pretest, which lasts for a period of one hour b) Teaching and conducting the classroom procedure in 10 weeks, one lesson per week c) Delivering a post test, which lasts for a period of one hour d) Delivering a questionnaire, which lasts for a period of one hour e) Collecting data

Analyzing data phase (17 May 2021 to 19 May 2021): After collecting data, an analysis of pre-post tests on SPSS 26 and questionnaires is made, and results are kept for further analysis and reflection

Reflection phase (20 May 2021 to 28 May 2021): The researcher made an evaluation towards the teaching activity that had been carried out The evaluation was written down as field note In this phase, the outline for research findings and implication are also drawn to reflect the effectiveness of the intervention.

Data collection methods

In this classroom action research, the researcher used some technique of quantitative and qualitative data The two main instruments are utilized to obtain the data for the study as follows: A pre-test - post-test and a focus group discussion

 Instrument one: A pre-posttest is designed to address the first research question, which is to find out the effectiveness of using synonyms in teaching vocabulary for 48 10 th -graders of class 10A at X Upper Secondary school

The test instrument is used to collect the quantitative data of students’ vocabulary mastery and marked by the researcher and one colleague of her Each exercise is printed on a handout seperately and is taken after it is completed by the participants to avoid the guessing factor in doing test This data, further, is used to estimate the significant learning improvement caused by action research Therefore, after taking the test as pre-test, students would not receive their scores and/or have chances to get the answer key from the teacher The test is designed based on Nation’s theory on vocabulary knowledge which are knowledge on form, meaning and use Accordingly, this test consists of three parts with a maximum score of 125 Each correct response made is counted as 1 point

The first part, which includes two exercises, is designed to test students’ knowledge on word form of the 25 targeted vocabularies In Exercise 1, the teacher plays the audio containing words’ pronunciation extracted from Oxford Learners’ Dictionary and the learners write them This exercise helps to test students’ word knowledge on written form Regarding the requirement of word knowledge on spoken form, in exercise 2, the teacher delivers a paper list of 25 targeted words and the learners are asked to put on their headphones or earphones, pronounce 25 words and record on Flipgrid which is an online platform supporting easy-video filming Students do not need any special accommodations to record the videos and teachers can easily access to the videos in Group section on the web (Edwards, 2021) and this is the reason why Flipgrid is chosen to the most convenience of teacher and students

The second part of the test is created with the aims to measure students’ knowledge on meaning of targeted words To prevent students from guessing while doing the test, two exercises are designed to double-check their answers In Exercise 1 of this part, students have to match the words with the pictures which illustrate their meanings Whereas to complete the second exercise, students are supposed to fill in the blanks with given words to make

With the aim to gain insight of the students’ vocabulary knowledge on the use of 25 words, Part III of the test is designed with the requirement on making simple sentences using targeted words The true value of knowing a word is being able to use it in context Evaluating whether a student can use a word properly in context provides insights into whether they can apply their knowledge of the definition (Read, 1993) Hence, the researcher can get data about the knowledge of students on the use of those word regarding both grammatical functions and collocation as stated in Nation & Newton (1997)

 Instrument two: The focus group discussions guided by Krueger (1988) are performed after the post-test The purpose of the focus group discussions is to gain qualitative data for the second research question on students’ attitudes towards the use of synonyms in English vocabulary learning The main reason for the decision on choosing focus group discussions in stead of interview is that as individual interviews would be time-consuming as there are 48 participants For the organization of the data that are to be obtained from the focus group discussions and to maintain the anonymity of the individuals involved, the previously given Student Number is made use of this time Six focus groups are formed considering several common specific characteristics of students

The discussion session lasts for 60 minutes, and a facilitator is chosen for each group who would be able to keep the group focused on the topics for discussion The facilitators would be given a guideline with a series of questions and prompt An interview guideline for focus group discussion is developed with three main questions based on the criteria of a good question proposed by Stewart & Shamdasani (1990) The first question aims to find out students’ feelings and opinions about the vocabulary lessons which make use of synonyms The second question searches for students’ assessment of the effectiveness of learning vocabulary by using synonyms in these taught

25 lessons And the last question is designed to understand students’ expectation of using synonyms in vocabulary lessons

The questions used in focus group discussions and participants’ responses are written and delivered in Vietnamese However, they are translated into

English in this paper for the convenience in thesis writing Participants' responses are recorded by mobile phones and stored for further analysis.

Data analysis procedure

Results for the whole pre-post tests and three separated parts of each are entered into Microsoft Excel to make a data file This file would be imported into SPSS later to perform a Paired Samples T-Test The purpose of this test is to determine whether there is statistical evidence that the mean difference between paired observations is significantly different from zero The Paired Samples T-Test is a parametric test The results are showed in tables for further discussion

With Microsoft Excel, the data collected from the focus group discussion is transcribed, categorized, and codified according to some determining ideas, concepts, or similar themes (Rubin & Rubin, 1995 as cited in Nassar-McMillan &

Borders, 2002) by the researcher and another colleague of her This data would be discussed further in detail.

Chapter summary

This chapter describes the research methodology used to collect and analyze the data required to address the research questions The chapter begins with a discussion of the research design, followed by data collection procedure in which the timeline of action research is highlighted The chapter then continues with descriptions of the data collection instruments, that is, questionnaire design and focus group discussion

Finally, the choice methods of data analysis are discussed This chapter can be considered as an analytical framework of this action research study

DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

To what extent does the use of synonyms in teaching vocabulary help improve

The total score of a test is 125 with a correct answer is marked as 1 and 0 is given to incorrect choice There are 3 parts with 50 questions for part I, 50 questions for part

II and 25 questions for Part III

Of all 48 test results collected from each test, it is found from Table 4.1 that the mean of Post-test results is 70,04 which almost doubled that of Pre-test However, in Pair 2 comparing results on the first part of pre-posttests, it is statically seen that there is only a slight difference in the mean score Whereas students’ mean score on Part II of posttest is much higher than that of pre-test, which is shown in Pair 3 of Table 4.1 This pattern is also recognized in the mean score of the third part with that of posttest remarks a 4.06 higher than that of pretest Since the mean scores are different, there is no point in comparing the figure of standard deviation of the pair

Paired Differences t df Sig (2- tailed) Mean Std

Confidence Interval of the Difference Lower Upper

Pair 3 Part II Pretest – Part II

Pair 4 Part III Pretest – Part III

Posttest -4.063 5.046 0.728 -5.528 -2.597 -5.578 47 0.000 The p-value (Sig (2-tailed)) of all paired-samples which is shown in Table 4.2 are much smaller than 0.05 This shows that there is a significant average difference between pre-test and post-test score after the intervention as for the whole test, part

II and part III see a p