Teaching vocabulary explictly to first - year students at Yen Bai medical college = Dạy từ vựng cho sinh viên năm thứ nhất bằng cách cho nghĩa trực tiếp tại trư

Explicit vocabulary teaching is particularly useful for beginning learners who have a limited reading vocabulary and little exposure to incidental vocabulary learning through extensive r

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST–GRADUATE STUDIES

*****************

BÙI THỊ KIM CÚC

TEACHING VOCABULARY EXPLICITLY TO YEAR STUDENTS AT YEN BAI MEDICAL COLLEGE

FIRST-(Dạy từ vựng cho sinh viên năm thứ nhất bằng cách cho nghĩa trực tiếp

tại trường Cao đẳng Y tế Yên Bái)

M.A Minor Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10

Hanoi, 2012

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST–GRADUATE STUDIES

*****************

BÙI THỊ KIM CÚC

TEACHING VOCABULARY EXPLICITLY TO YEAR STUDENTS AT YEN BAI MEDICAL COLLEGE

(Dạy từ vựng cho sinh viên năm thứ nhất bằng cách cho nghĩa trực tiếp

tại trường Cao đẳng Y tế Yên Bái)

M.A Minor Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10

Supervisor: Vũ Mai Trang, M.A

Hanoi, 2012

iv

ABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

CANDIDATE'S DECLARATION……… i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……… ii

ABSTRACT……… iii

TRANSCRIPT CONVENTION……… iv

LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS AND TABLES……… v

TABLE OF CONTENTS……… vi

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study……… 1

2 Aims and objectives of the study……… 2

3 Research questions ……… 2

4 Scope of the study ……… 3

5 Method of the study ……… 3

6 Design of the study ……… 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW ……… 5

1.1 An overview of vocabulary ……… 5

1.1.1 Definition of vocabulary……… 5

1.1.2 The role of vocabulary in language teaching and learning…… 6

1.2 Principles in teaching and learning vocabulary ……… 7

1.2.1 Selection of vocabulary items for students……… 7

1.2.2 Aspects of word knowledge included in vocabulary teaching … 8

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1.2.3 Current approaches to L2 vocabulary teaching and learning… 9

1.2.4 Explicit and implicit approaches to vocabulary teaching……… 10

1.2.4.1 Explicit approach ……… 11

1.2.4.2 Implicit approach ……… 13

1.3 Principles for explicit approach to vocabulary teaching ……… 14

1.4 Challenges in vocabulary teaching ……… 16

1.5 Summary……… 17

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY……… 18

2.1 The current situation of English teaching and learning at YBMC… 18 2.2 Participants ……… 20

2.3 Data collection instruments……… 21

2.3.1 The interview……… 21

2.3.2 Class observation and Lesson analysis ……… 21

2 4 Data collection and data analysis procedures……… 22

2.4.1 Data collection procedures……… 22

2.4.2 Data analysis procedures……… 23

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS……… 24

3.1 Research question 1: Teachers' perceptions of explicit vocabulary teaching at YBMC 24

3.2 Research question 2: Teachers' selection of vocabulary to teach and aspects of word knowledge to be taught……… 26

3.3 Research question 3: The explicit vocabulary teaching techniques most frequently used in the classroom and their relevance……… 29

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Vocabulary presentation techniques ……… 31

Vocabulary consolidation activities ……… 35

PART C: CONCLUSION 1 Summary of the study ……… 38

2 Pedagogical implications ……… 39

3 Limitations of the study ……… 40

4 Suggestions for further studies ……… 41

REFERENCES ……… 42

APPENDICES

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PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

We all know that vocabulary plays a prominent role in foreign language learning It is an element that links the four skills of language like listening, speaking, reading and writing all together As Wilkin (1972) emphasized that,

“Without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be

conveyed” (cited in Thornbury, 2002: 47) Without vocabulary, it's not easy for learners to express their ideas, emotion, as well as fulfillment of communication targets Therefore, one of the greatest concerns of all language teachers is to look for an effective vocabulary teaching approach which is suitable with their own teaching contexts Vocabulary teaching task is neither easy nor simple as it is thought Each language teacher is responsible for making their students know word spelling, word meaning and realize how to use it accurately and properly in real situations

In the context of Yen Bai Medical College (YBMC), English is being taught

as one of the compulsory subjects along with other vocational ones The level of students at YBMC is quite low in general Some of them have learnt English for several years in secondary schools and some others have not learnt English for a few years Moreover, there has been little attention paid to vocabulary teaching and learning At many schools or colleges in general and at YBMC in particular, for most teachers of English, their common way of teaching vocabulary is to give explanations, definitions or translation of the word-list Then learners usually learn vocabulary passively through their teachers’ explanation Writing new words on the notebooks with equivalence in Vietnamese and trying to learn new words by heart are their major ways of vocabulary learning Consequently, they hardly remember the meaning of the words and use them oral activities In other words, by the time the new words are presented in the new lesson most of the words taught in the previous lesson will have gone out of their mind

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As a teacher of English for nearly 12 years, I have realized that the reason why learners have failed in using English is their lack of vocabulary Therefore, it is essential for every teacher in any language classes in Viet Nam educational system

to help his/her own students to widen their vocabulary size Explicit vocabulary teaching is particularly useful for beginning learners who have a limited reading vocabulary and little exposure to incidental vocabulary learning through extensive reading and listening like students at YBMC This encourages the researcher to conduct a study on explicit vocabulary teaching in an attempt to better vocabulary teaching and learning at YBMC, a newly re-founded college in Yen Bai province

2 Aims and Objectives of the study

The aim of this study is to investigate the perceptions of explicit vocabulary teaching held by the teachers working at YBMC and how they teach vocabulary explicitly

The objectives of the study are:

- To understand teachers' ideas of explicit vocabulary teaching at YBMC

- To examine how teachers choose vocabulary items to teach and what aspects of vocabulary they focus on in teaching vocabulary

- To find out the explicit vocabulary teaching techniques teachers frequently use

- To draw some conclusions on issues related to teaching vocabulary explicitly at this college

3 Research questions

In order to achieve the above-mentioned aims and objectives, the research was carried out to seek answers to the following research questions:

1 What are teachers' perceptions of explicit vocabulary teaching at YBMC?

2 How do they choose vocabulary items to teach at YBMC and what aspects of word knowledge they focus on in teaching the selected words?

3 What are the explicit vocabulary teaching techniques most frequently used in the classroom and their relevance?

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4 Scope of the study

This minor thesis does not cover all the four language skills; it only focuses

on teaching vocabulary explicitly to first-year students at YBMC It is confined to the investigation of the teachers' ideas of explicit vocabulary teaching, their choice

of vocabulary to teach, the aspects of vocabulary addressed as well as the explicit vocabulary teaching techniques used in the context of one mountainous college and the relevance of these techniques in this context Then this study will suggest some pedagogical implications to make explicit vocabulary teaching in the researched college more attentive and more effective

5 Method of the study

To achieve its objectives, this study employed qualitative methods of data collection which include interview, classroom observation and lesson analysis

First, interviews with the teachers were conducted to investigate the teachers' ideas of English explicit vocabulary teaching at YBMC as well as the way they teach words explicitly, which includes their choice of vocabulary to teach, the aspects of vocabulary focused on and their explicit vocabulary teaching techniques

Then, classroom observations were conducted to supplement teachers' interviews to test how English vocabulary is taught explicitly and the relevance of explicit vocabulary teaching techniques can be evaluated through lessons analyses

6 Design of the study

There are three main parts in my thesis as follows:

Part A is the Introduction presenting the rationale, aims, objectives, research

questions, scope, methods and design of the study

Part B, the Development, includes three chapters:

Chapter 1 is the Literature Review In this chapter, a basic theoretical

background for the study is created by reviewing the relevant issues related to English vocabulary, vocabulary teaching and learning focusing on explicit and implicit approaches

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Chapter 2 entitled Methodology is composed of some smaller parts: a

description of the current situation of English teaching and learning at YBMC, the participants, the instruments and the procedures of data collection as well as data analysis employed to reach the aims of the research

Chapter 3 is the Results and Discussions which presents, analyzes and

discusses the findings that the researcher found out from the data collected by means of interviews, class observations and lessons analyses

Part C, the Conclusion gives the summary of the study, states some limitations of

the study, draws pedagogical implications of explicit vocabulary teaching and offers suggestions for further studies as well

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides a brief review of the literature relevant to the study It consists of five sub-sections Section one clarifies the definition of vocabulary, its role in language teaching and learning Section two mentions the principles in teaching and learning vocabulary which include the selection of vocabulary items, aspects of vocabulary knowledge, current approaches to L2 vocabulary teaching and learning as well as explicit and implicit approaches Section three refers to principles for explicit approach to vocabulary teaching Section four presents challenges in vocabulary teaching and learning The last one summarizes the content of this chapter

1.1 An overview of vocabulary

1.1.1 Definition of vocabulary

As among the three dimensions of language: vocabulary, grammar and phonology, vocabulary stands out as the primacy forming the ground for the development of other skills It has been paid great attention by researchers, linguists, teachers and learners However it is really hard to give an exact definition

about vocabulary Hornby (2010) defined vocabulary as follow:

1 All the words that a person knows or uses

2 All the words in a particular language

3 The words that people use when they are talking about a particular subject

4 A list of words with their meanings especially in a book or learning a foreign language

According to Pyles and Algeo (1993), vocabulary is regarded as the focus of language with its sound and meaning interlock to allow us to communicate with one another Ur (1996: 60) offered a clear and specific definition of vocabulary by saying that: "Vocabulary can be defined roughly as the words we teach in the foreign language However, a new item of vocabulary may be more than a single word and also multi-word idioms." By this way, he defines that vocabulary is bigger

1.1.2 The role of vocabulary in language teaching and learning

As said above, vocabulary, like grammar and phonetics, plays an important role in mastering a foreign language In order to emphasize the special importance

of vocabulary in teaching and learning a language, Folse (2004: 3) asserted that:

"Lack of grammar knowledge can limit conversation; lack of vocabulary knowledge can stop conversation." In fact, learners can express themselves with poor grammar However, with poor vocabulary, communication is constrained considerably In other words, you can get by without grammar but you cannot get by without vocabulary

Shafaei and Nejati (2009: 32) also stated that “vocabulary is one of the most important objectives in teaching foreign languages.” In addition, Gower et al (2005) shared the agreement that vocabulary is very important to students; especially for communication purposes it is more important than grammar By all these statements, it can be concluded that vocabulary is the decisive component of all uses of language The main objective of language learners is to understand and be understood in their communication using the language acquired In order to achieve this aim, they have to achieve a certain number of vocabulary items If someone possesses an adequate vocabulary size, he or she is likely to feel more confident in communication and to express his/ her own opinions accurately, fluently in both oral and written forms

Vocabulary teaching and learning is a complicated and laborious process As

an important part of the foreign language teaching, vocabulary teaching has the goal

to help students not only to improve but to extend their vocabulary as well Building

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vocabulary is such an important aspect of learning a foreign language that each learner wishes to achieve an adequate vocabulary size The more words one knows well, the more successful he/she is in daily communication and the more information he can get from different sources such as books, newspapers, etc Therefore, vocabulary deserves an important position in foreign language teaching and learning

1.2 Principles in teaching and learning vocabulary

1.2.1 Selection of vocabulary items for students

It is not impossible for us to deny that vocabulary is the most essential element in learning a foreign language Therefore, teachers who teach English as a foreign language need to help their students build up a large size of useful words during the course However, the teacher should make a proper decision on selecting the right vocabulary items to teach at the learners’ different level and they need to judge whether a particular word deserves attention or not

According to McCarthy (1990: 79), the most frequent words in the language must be presented in the early state of language teaching Nation (1994) suggested

we regard the high frequency vocabulary as consisting of about 2,000 word families Nation (1995) also emphasized that "the most frequent 2,000 words are essential for any real language use, and so are worth the effort required to teach and learn them explicitly" (cited in Schmitt, 2000: 143) In Meara's point of view, these first 2.000 words of language are so important that teachers should focus on teaching them right at the beginning of a language course (Meara, 1995 cited in Schmitt, 2000) Knowing the first 2,000 words, students would be able to understand more of the speech they are exposed to and also more of the written texts that they read in their text book or from the other sources

Schmitt (2000: 144) stated that: "The 2,000 level is only a beginning, and teaching words explicitly beyond this level can still supply sufficient benefits that warrant the time expended." and "it makes sense to concentrate on the lower-frequency vocabulary" In addition, Nation (1994: 4) suggested "When the high

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frequency words are well known, then teachers may wish to spend time on frequency words." It is necessary for language teachers to help students acquire the strategies to cope with and learn these words on their own such as using dictionary, guessing from context, learning word roots and affixes along with mnemonic techniques

low-In short, teachers of English should have good decisions on which words to teach to the students as well as the number of vocabulary items taught during a lesson They also should take account of other factors such as the topic of the lesson, their students' proficiency More important, they should focus on what aspects of vocabulary to be taught in a lesson, which will be presented in details in the next following part

1.2.2 Aspects of word knowledge included in vocabulary teaching

In general, when a teacher teaches a new English word, he should, by all means, provide his learners with its meaning, forms, grammar and usage relatively Learners will not be able to put the word in proper use if they do not understand its meaning, forms, grammar and its usage in appropriate contexts

According to Ur (1996: 60-62), it's necessary for the teacher to teach their

students the following aspects of a new vocabulary item: Form: Pronunciation and spelling; Grammar: if it is regular or irregular, transitive or intransitive etc.;

Collocation; Aspects of meaning: denotation, connotation, appropriateness; Meaning relationships: synonyms, antonyms, co- hyponyms, super-ordinates,

translation; Word formation

As regard to this issue, Nation (2001: 27) gave the following description of truly knowing a word:

- Form: - spoken, written, word parts

- Meaning: form and meaning, concept and referents, associations

- Use: grammatical functions, collocations, constraints on use (register, frequency…)

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In conclusion, all these above aspects should be taught to language learners

in vocabulary lessons In other words, true mastery of a word involves knowing a variety of word knowledge aspects The more aspects of word knowledge we know about a word, the more likely we will be able to use it in right contexts in an appropriate manner Teachers should note that vocabulary should always be revised because learners will easily forget words if they do not have a chance to put them into use or practice them in learning other skills

1.2.3 Current approaches to L2 vocabulary teaching and learning

There are many different approaches, techniques as well as strategies to vocabulary teaching and learning These approaches involves both direct and indirect teaching and learning such as: the Grammar-translation method, the Direct method, the Reading method/ Situational language teaching, the Audio-lingual method, the Silent way and Communicative language teaching etc…In addition, Gairns and Redman (1986: 73-75) listed traditional ways of learning and teaching vocabulary including visual techniques, verbal techniques and translation Many researchers have had great concern about promoting the learners' vocabulary learning by using a variety of vocabulary learning strategies Among them, Schmitt and McCathy (1997) divided these strategies into five categories namely social, memory, cognitive, metacognitive and determination strategies

Hunt and Beglar (1998) considered three approaches to vocabulary teaching: 1) Incidental learning 2) Explicit or intentional instruction and 3) Independent strategy development

Incidental learning focuses on acquiring vocabulary through extensive reading and listening Accordingly, motivating learners to read and listen extensively can provide them with great opportunities to learn new vocabularies Hunt and Beglar (1998) pointed out the incidental vocabulary learning can be a useful approach for acquiring vocabularies for learners at all levels especially for advanced ones This approach helps students to develop the ability of sustained silent reading and then most of the reading should be done outside of class

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Another approach, explicit or intentional instruction concerns diagnosing the words learners need to know, presenting words for the first time, elaborating word knowledge, and developing fluency with known words This approach seems to be suitable for beginning learners whose reading ability is limited Some techniques were given in this approach such as word-pair translation, repetition and review Besides, some activities to deepen students' knowledge of words were also introduced including sorting lists of words; making semantic maps with lists; generating derivatives, inflections, synonyms and antonyms of a word; making tree-words; identifying or generating associated words; cloze activity; collocation crossword puzzles or bingo

The last approach named independent strategies development which insists

on promoting language learners' autonomy Many learners do use some common strategies for learning vocabulary are memorization, repetition and taking note on vocabulary In their research, Hunt and Beglar (1998) mentioned independent strategies such as practicing guessing from context and using dictionaries They stated that guessing from context is initially time consuming and is more likely to work for more proficient learners According to Nation (2001), learners need to acquire a few important vocabulary learning strategies such as guessing from context, using word cards, using word parts, using mnemonic techniques, expressing the keyword techniques and making use of dictionaries Therefore, applying particular types of strategies forms an approach to vocabulary learning that has great influence on the level of foreign language proficiency In my study, some vocabulary learning strategies are mentioned such as vocabulary notebooks and word cards along with using dictionaries in order to improve learners' vocabulary learning and encourage them to learn vocabulary independently

1.2.4 Explicit and implicit approaches to vocabulary teaching

As Schmitt (2000) asserted, there is no “right” or “best” way to teach vocabulary The best practice in any situation will depend on the type of student being taught, the words targeted, the school system and curriculum, and many

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other factors He also pointed out, it is advisable to use a proper mix of explicit teaching and activities from which incidental learning can occur in any well-structured vocabulary programs Graves (2006) shared the same idea that in addition to learning vocabulary indirectly through various reading and writing activities, students benefit from direct and explicit teaching of individual words In other words, students can learn incidentally/implicitly/indirectly through wide reading and other language-rich activities They also learn directly when teachers target individual words explicitly and promote word-learning strategies

1.2.4.1 Explicit approach

According to a survey by Sökmen (1997 cited in Schmitt, 2000: 146), explicit vocabulary teaching should be attached to the following principles:

• Build a large sight vocabulary

• Integrate new words with old

• Provide a number of encounters with a word

• Promote a deep level of processing

• Facilitate imaging

• Make new words “real” by connecting them to the student’s world in some way

• Encourage independent learning strategies

In addition to these principles, Schmitt (2000) considered a few other points

which are also worth remembering Firstly, the problem of cross – association is a

genuine one for learners When two or more similar words, such as “left” and

“right”, are initially taught together in the same class, learning them might be more difficult Students are often confused in choosing which word form to go with which meaning Antonyms, synonyms, and closely related semantic groupings are listed as subjects to cross – association Secondly, it is worth teaching the underlying meaning concept of a word Many words are polysemous in English; that is, they have more than one meaning sense Besides, some of these different meaning senses often have a common underlying trait By defining the underlying meaning, teacher can help students to understand the word in a much wider variety

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of contexts and the effect of teaching is maximized Lastly, teaching word families should be made a habit to enhance vocabulary learning When teachers introduce a new word, they should mention the other members of its word family

The US Report of the National Reading Panel (2000) showed that direct/explicit instruction is highly effective for vocabulary learning In order to acquire the in-depth word knowledge, students should be explicitly taught individual words and word-learning strategies Beck et al (2002) and Graves (2006) summarized four strategies for teaching individual words explicitly: Provide a student-friendly definition, use the word in context and give contextual information, provide multiple exposures and offer opportunities for active involvement (cited in Hanson & Padua, 2011: 10) Word learning strategies are the tools students can use

to figure out the meaning of unfamiliar words and increase their word knowledge According to Baumann et al (2003) and Graves (2006), direct teaching of word-learning strategies can help students become better independent words-learners and the effective word- learning strategies involve the use of word parts, context clues, and dictionaries to determine the meaning of unknown words (cited in Hanson & Padua, 2011)

Explicit teaching is particularly emphasized because of its time-efficiency, its suitability for beginners or low proficiency students and its possibility of improving word comprehension Students can learn vocabulary directly with a lot of help and careful explanations or guidance from teachers However, explicit approaches to vocabulary can only provide some elements of lexical knowledge In order to master some kinds of word knowledge, such as collocation, register constraints and frequency, learners have to base on numerous exposures to the word

in various contexts In general, with true beginners like students in the context of

my research, it is probably necessary to explicitly teach all words until students have enough vocabulary to start making use of unknown words they meet in context Then implicit or incidental learning should be encouraged in second language classroom

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1.2.4.2 Implicit approach

In contrast to explicit approaches to vocabulary, implicit vocabulary learning

is known as incidental learning focuses on the importance of using the context because words usually have different meanings in different contexts In implicit vocabulary learning, learners can acquire new vocabularies through extensive reading, through communicative interactions, through exposure to natural input such as movies, TV Many linguists share the agreement that L2 learners have to learn vocabulary implicitly from context The context enables learners to know different syntactic meanings and functions, to create appropriate word schemas, to infer the meaning of an unfamiliar word and to promote the guessing meaning strategies

Learners can achieve benefits from implicit vocabulary approach because of its contextualization, its pedagogical efficiency and its individualization (learner-based feature) It means that incidental learning gives the learners a rich sense of word use and meaning, encourages learners' vocabulary acquisition as well as reading and enhance their own selection of reading materials However, incidental learning through reading might occur only to a limited degree as Schmitt (2000: 150) stated that "Unfortunately, this desirable approach is not widely available to

students around the world." For successful incidental acquisition of vocabulary,

many prerequisites should be paid attention to such as level of language proficiency, learner’s large L2 vocabulary, strategic knowledge of inferencing process and rich context with sufficient cues (Schmitt & McCarthy, 1997) Therefore, incidental vocabulary learning of vocabulary may be a useful way of acquiring vocabularies for most advanced learners

From above, it can be concluded that any vocabulary programs need to include explicit teaching and activities which promote incidental learning The most frequent 2,000 words are essential enough to teach explicitly, but less frequent words may have to be largely acquired implicitly/incidentally Vocabulary acquisition is a gradual process; teachers have to focus not only on introducing new

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words but also on enhancing learners' knowledge of previously presented words Therefore, there should be a combination of explicit teaching and incidental learning in any well-structured vocabulary programs

1.3 Principles for explicit approach to vocabulary teaching

In my opinion, teaching words explicitly should be done meaningfully and through a systematic approach so that students will establish routines for learning Teachers should identify the potential list of words to be taught and determine which of these words to teach It is also important for him or her to pay attention to teaching the vocabulary "in spoken form" first to prevent students from mispronouncing, then explaining the word in written form and word meaning, placing the new items in context and revising them

There are many techniques to present new vocabulary items as well as activities to practice and consolidate these new words Teachers should have a good decision on which techniques or activities to apply in their contexts as long as the effectiveness of vocabulary teaching is likely ensured

In principles, there are such many things to which the teachers of English have to pay much attention in teaching vocabulary as presenting the form, explaining the meaning and the use of the new item as well as consolidating the word taught in class Nation (2005) proposed different techniques that are useful for anyone who are interested in teaching English vocabulary

In the first place, teachers quickly give the meaning of the word by (a) using

an L1 translation, (b) using a known L2 synonym or a simple definition in the L2, (c) showing an object or picture, (d) giving quick demonstration, (e) drawing a simple picture or diagram, (f) breaking the word into parts and giving the meaning

of the parts and the whole word (g) giving several example sentences with the word

in context, (h) commenting on the underlying word meaning and other referents

Next, teachers can direct learners' attention to the form of the word by (a) showing how the spelling of the word is like the spelling of known words, (b) giving the stress pattern of the word and its pronunciation, (c) showing the prefix,

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stem and suffix that make up the word, (d) getting the learners to repeat the word pronunciation, (e) writing the word on the board, (f) pointing out any spelling irregularity in the word

Lastly, teachers can explain the use of the word by (a) quickly showing the grammatical pattern the word fits into (countable/uncountable, transitive/intransitive, etc), (b) giving a few similar collocates, (c) mentioning any restrictions on the use of the word (formal, colloquial, impolite, only used in the United States, only used with children, old fashioned, technical, infrequent), (d) giving a well known opposite, or a well known word describing the group or lexical set it fits into

In addition, Nation also listed some main principles in vocabulary teaching process The teachers should 1) keep the teaching simple and clear and not give complicated explanations, 2) relate the present teaching to past knowledge by showing a pattern or analogies, 3) use both oral and written presentation - write it

on the blackboard as well as explain it, 4) give most attention to words that are already partly known, 5) tell the learners if it is a high frequency word that is worth noting for future attention, 6) not bring in other unknown or poorly known related words like near synonyms, opposites, or members of the same lexical set

After having been provided with the new words, learners should have a chance to practice these new items in a controlled setting in order to retain them in the long-term memory and to turn passive vocabulary into active vocabulary There are many exercises and tasks that give students practice in using the new words but course books cannot give enough space to this It is often up to the teacher to provide extra practice One way to help students retain new words is by getting them to repeat the words as often as possible It will be better if the new items are practiced in context not in isolation In other words, the teacher should encourage their students to record the new items by writing sentences that show both the meaning and how they work in the sentence Some other popular techniques of practicing and revising vocabulary can be listed such as gap-filling, words-matching

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(synonyms or antonyms), word games, paraphrasing, using words in sentences or dialogues, role-play, picture stories, using prefixes and suffixes to build new words from given words and so on

1.4 Challenges in vocabulary teaching

Vocabulary is one of three components of language together with grammar and phonology, which plays an important part in listening, speaking, reading and writing Hence, developing students' vocabulary is one of the most important tasks for English teachers Acquisition of vocabulary is an incremental and perhaps recursive process that involves the integration of various kinds of lexical knowledge along with the implementation of appropriate vocabulary teaching /learning techniques in language classes In general, teaching vocabulary is not an easy task, which depends on many factors such as the learners' characteristics, the learning task, the learning context and the learning strategies

Aganes (2008) found that many problems often appear during the teaching and learning process The problems faced by the teacher usually are on characteristics of the students themselves and the method or teaching technique approach Students' problems in learning vocabulary are also regarded challenges in language classes Firstly, the students get difficulties in pronouncing words correctly Secondly, it is difficult for the students to memorize the meaning of the words In addition, they are not interested in studying in English because they feel bored with the teaching technique Usually the teacher taught vocabulary by translating at the beginning of the lesson or translating of the material containing new words or glossaries at the end The teacher never uses self- defining context, definition in the target language, opposites, picture, dramatization, and reality to put across the meaning of a word to a class In the literature, it seems that the problems

in the teaching and learning vocabulary tend to come from teachers These factors are listed followings:

(1) The teacher is not creative to use media as aids of teaching

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(2) The teacher only gives a little time to practice in pronouncing the words correctly, whereas a little time to practice cannot create accurate pronunciation, especially for the beginners or low-proficiency students

(3) The technique of the teaching vocabulary that the teacher uses seems ineffective for the students It does not give the students great motivation to learn In other words, students are passive in learning vocabulary

1.4 Summary

So far the theoretical issues related to the topic of the research have been reviewed in this chapter The next chapter will describe the methods employed in the study and present procedure of data collection and data analysis

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CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

The literature on the research topic has been presented briefly for the theoretical basis of the study As said in Part A, this study employed qualitative method which helped to provide qualified background data for finding out teachers' opinions of explicit vocabulary teaching and how teachers teach vocabulary explicitly The semi-structured interviews with the three teachers are carried out in combination with classroom observations, lessons analyses to ensure the reliability

of the collected information and the relevance of the teachers' methods in teaching vocabulary at YBMC To continue, this chapter discusses in details the methodology applied in conducting this study, including the situation analysis, the participants, data collection instruments as well as the procedures of data collection and analysis

2.1 The current situation of English teaching and learning at YBMC

Situational factors:

YBMC has been re-founded for nearly one year The college is responsible for training future nurses midwifes and nursing staffs for the needs on health care for people in Yen Bai province Beside specialized knowledge for the future jobs, English is also considered a compulsory subject in the training syllabus of this college However, there has not been much attention paid to this subject Most of language learning and teaching activities are carried out in the classroom A chalkboard and a textbook are the equipments used frequently in the classroom In each class, there are more than 50 students, which causes a lot of obstacles in the language teaching and learning process The teachers find it difficult to apply new methods in English periods, especially in teaching vocabulary, an essential component of language The college has one cassette-player, one overhead projector and one computer for 4 teachers In reality, teachers hardly use these teaching aids because of three following reasons: first, there is not enough equipment for many classes to use in the same time; second, they often ignore the listening skill for its unnecessary role in the final semester test of these non-English major students;

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third, they cannot use these aids skillfully There is also a library in YBMC with only a few references for English subject Most of books and laboratories are specialized for medical issues It can be concluded that materials are not available for teachers and learners to widen their knowledge of the English subject

Teachers' factors:

Teachers are the most essential factors in the process of teaching To control this process properly, it is necessary for teacher to own good experience of teaching and understanding of the syllabus Among the 4 teachers of English at YBMC, one

of them has been following an M A course and the rest ones have B.A degrees from Thai Nguyen University of Training Teacher In general, they often come to class without any teaching aids They mostly depend on the textbook and hardly have any creative activities or pre-teaching support They waste much time giving explanation to any unknown words that the students meet in each lesson To some extent, their communicative competence in language teaching is limited Hence, they accidentally make their students passive in learning English However, they are willing to devote their time and enthusiasm to language teaching: researching and debating to find out an appropriate and progressive way to teach English effectively

Learners' factors:

Students are the most vital factors in the process of learning Most of the students who have studied at YBMC come from remote and mountainous areas of Yen Bai province They are both male and female aged from eighteen to thirty and many of them are from poor families Their parents mainly work as farmers, gardeners or hired workers so their living conditions are very low Besides, their English level is low and mixed-ability Before entering YBMC, some of them have studied English for 7 years, some has 3 years of learning English at high school and some have not studied English for a long time They often find it difficult to speak out and write down anything because of their poor English knowledge, especially their lack of vocabulary In addition, the majority of the students think that English

is not a major subject and not useful for their future job In their mind, the final goal

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is to pass the English exams in order to get necessary requirements for graduation

As a result, they learn English in a passive, independent and uncreative way They never prepare the lesson at home as well as review the lesson regularly

Material factors:

The teaching material currently used for the students at YBMC is the Lifelines-Elementary written by Tom Hutchinson The main aim of teaching English in this course is to provide students with background knowledge of general English for daily communication and social text comprehension This course book

is divided into fourteen topic-based units presenting and practicing vocabulary and grammar, as well as developing the four language skills After every two units, there is an extension to check the learnt knowledge There are often five parts in a unit namely grammar, vocabulary, reading and writing, listening and speaking and

pronunciation As for Vocabulary, it is designed according to topics It means that

there are 14 topics corresponding with 14 units as follows:

Table 2.1: Vocabulary designed in the course-book Lifeline - Elementary

Unit 1: Numbers (p 7) Unit 8: Giving dates (p 56)

Unit 2: Classroom language – (p 14) Unit 9: Verbs (p 64)

Unit 3: Describing people (p 22) Unit 10: Travel (p 70)

Unit 4: Time (p 28) Unit 11: Clothes (p 78)

Unit 5: Food and drinks (p 36) Unit 12: Parts of the body (p 84) Unit 6: Daily activities (p 42) Unit 13: Phrasal verbs (p 92) Unit 7: Parts of a house (p 50) Unit 14: The world (p 98)

Besides these topics, vocabulary is integrated in other parts of a unit It is easily to realize that teaching vocabulary appears in all parts of every unit in this course book

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is taking an M.A course so she cannot participate in the study The three left teachers of English at YBMC are the major subjects of this study Because the teachers wished to remain anonymous, the researcher would like to use the term Teacher 1, 2, and 3 to refer to them General information of the participants was

provided in Table 2

Table 2.2: Background of participants:

Participants Age Gender Years of teaching experience Qualifications

to McDonough (1997), the in-depth interviews give room for individual expression, which is helpful to investigate subjects’ further opinions of advantages, hindrances, and recommendations Although an interview often requires considerable time to get commitments from both interviewer and interviewee, it is an excellent way to collect data As Oppenheim (1992) stated that interviews have a higher response rate than questionnaires because respondents become more involved and motivated and they are better than questionnaires for handling more difficult and open-ended questions Hence, the researcher chooses interview as an instrument to get data for her study

2.3.2 Classroom observation and lesson analysis

Classroom observation which is a useful technique for giving additional information about the topic being researched can be beneficial to all involved in the collaboration process For the one being observed like participants in the study, an observation can provide useful feedback that may not be revealed by other

Lesson analysis is also chosen as an additional instrument to find out the relevance of the teachers' explicit vocabulary techniques to the lesson content and the teaching context at YBMC Therefore, this helps the researcher to realize the consistency and inconsistency between teachers' self-reports and their actual teaching vocabulary activities in a particular lesson

2.4 Data collection and data analysis procedures

2.4.1 Data collection procedures:

The process of data collection involved the following steps:

It was necessary for me to make some preparation for the data collection process, which consists of the designing of the interview questions to teachers and observation schedule Thanks to the invaluable help from my supervisor and friends, the interviews were carefully and reasonably designed

Before carrying out the interviews to teachers of English at YBMC, I met all

of them in order to explain the purpose of the research and ask for their cooperation for my study Luckily, all the teachers gave me warmly welcome and were willing

to collaborate with me

Because participants were too busy to come to a face-to-face interview, the researcher had to conduct interviews through chatting software, an interviewing technique that the interviewer and each respondent sit in front of their computers and communicate with each other The interview consists of two parts: The first one

is about the respondents' own background and the second one concerns the

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participants' perceptions as well as solutions to explicit vocabulary teaching basing

on the 8 questions (See the interview guides in Appendix A) Each interview lasted around 15 to 20 minutes in Vietnamese in a relaxing, friendly setting and then was transcribed, translated into English (See interview transcript in Appendix B)

In order to identify any gaps between what the teachers said in the interview and what they actually did in class, the researcher observed all three teachers The observed lessons were randomly chosen since the researcher would like to understand more about their vocabulary teaching in each lesson Classroom observations were carried out in two lessons for each teacher, altogether 6 lessons for 3 teachers (See classroom observation schedule in Appendix C) Because of the large class size, the researcher could neither tape nor video-record but observed and took notes All the events in classroom taken notes in details allowed the researcher

to gain insight into the participants' selection of word items and aspects of word knowledge to be taught as well as explicit techniques used in the classroom

Finally, the observed lessons which were delivered by the respondents in the study were carefully analyzed to see the relevance of their explicit vocabulary techniques with the taught content and the teaching context at YBMC (See lesson plans under observation in Appendix D)

2.4.2 Data analysis procedures:

It took me more than two months to collect all the data for my research Interview data was then analyzed in accordance with data gathered during the class observations and lessons analyses After all the data were gathered, they were transformed, analyzed both descriptively and interpretively and classified into different categories to answer the three research questions of the study The main categories are: i) Teachers' perceptions of explicit vocabulary teaching at YBMC, ii) Teachers' selection of vocabulary to teach, iii) Aspects of word knowledge to be taught, iv) Common explicit vocabulary techniques in the classroom as well as their relevance The qualitative data from the interview, class observations and lessons analyses will be presented in the next chapter

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CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The previous chapter, Methodology, has described and justified the context, the participants, the data collection instruments and the procedures of data collection and analysis of the study This chapter presents and discusses the findings drawn from the data which were collected to reveal the answers to the research questions of teaching vocabulary explicitly The data collected from the interview to teachers and through classroom observations as well as lessons analyses will be analyzed to give answers for the three research questions: i) What are teachers' perceptions of explicit vocabulary teaching? ii) How do they choose vocabulary items to teach and what aspects of word knowledge they focus on in teaching the selected words? iii) What are the explicit vocabulary teaching techniques most frequently used in the classroom and their relevance?

The researcher conducted an interview with each of the respondents in different time Following the interview, classroom observations were carried out in

6 different classes of first-year students to compare what the teachers said to what they did concerning to explicit vocabulary teaching In order to realize the relevance

of the teachers' explicit teaching vocabulary techniques with the vocabulary items to

be taught in the lesson and the teaching context, the researcher additionally presented some lessons analyses

3.1 Research question 1: Teachers' perceptions of explicit vocabulary teaching

All the teachers who were interviewed found the explicit vocabulary teaching suitable to the teaching context like at YBMC where most of the students are at low English proficiency They all knew this approach involved in giving the meanings of the words directly to facilitate the students' English learning and designing some exercises or activities to help learners to practice as well as retain these words One of the interviewed teachers gave her opinion that:

In my opinion, teaching vocabulary explicitly is as simple as providing students with the meanings of the words directly I often use this approach in my vocabulary teaching (Teacher 2)

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The teacher 1 added:

Teaching vocabulary explicitly is my usual way in class From my point of view, explicit vocabulary teaching is a teaching process which makes use of activities and exercises to direct learners' attention to vocabulary items

The other explained:

Not to make students difficult in learning English and waste class time, it is necessary for me to introduce the word directly with its spelling, pronunciation and meaning I often do this in my class (Teacher 3)

It is obvious that the participants often teach vocabulary explicitly in their teaching context All the interviewed teachers found this vocabulary method suitable with their students mostly at low English proficiency and with limited vocabulary size According to them, it is easy for students to get the word meaning and it doesn't cost them much time to present a new word item From the researcher's first view, the respondents seemed to distinguish the explicit approach and implicit approach to vocabulary teaching They all supported the explicit vocabulary teaching approach in which the teacher uses explicit techniques to present the new word and activities to practice as well as consolidate the item However, their understanding of this approach only referred to giving the word meaning directly but not selecting the word items to teach and using explicit techniques in their teaching process

The researcher strongly agrees to the opinion of the Teacher 1 that teaching vocabulary explicitly is involved in designing some activities and exercises that encourage learners to pay attention to vocabulary items introduced in the lesson As

we all know, most of EFL learners face many difficulties in learning English especially in learning vocabulary They can neither remember the pronunciation, spelling and meaning nor know how to use the new vocabulary item What should teachers do to help learners to enrich their vocabulary? In fact, the more impressively the new word is presented, the more activities for practicing the new item there are, the longer students can retain the vocabulary taught In other words,

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it is essential for teachers at YBMC to design some more activities or extra exercises of vocabulary in order to help their learners to learn vocabulary more effectively Then they may be highly motivated in learning English, especially in learning vocabulary and their vocabulary size may be gradually widened

3.2 Research question 2: Teachers' selection of vocabulary to teach and aspects of word knowledge to be taught

All the three participants shared the same idea on the selection of vocabulary

to teach and explained their selection as well as the criteria for this selection Through the classroom observations, the researcher found that they often choose some words to teach but not all the words included in the lesson

They gave many different reasons why they have to select some words to teach their students in English language class such as time constraints, students' limited vocabulary size and their difficulties in learning vocabulary as well as their poor knowledge of vocabulary learning strategies In addition, information collected from class observations showed that most of students at YBMC owned passive ways of learning vocabulary In class, some kept silent and noted down anything the teacher writes on the board while some others only added Vietnamese pronunciation forms beside the unknown words on their books They hardly prepared their lesson before going to class All these caused many difficulties to teachers of English at YBMC in vocabulary teaching process

In general, all the interviewed teachers agreed to select some vocabulary items to teach in each lesson It is impossible for them to pay attention to every new word included in the lesson because of many reasons mentioned above The researcher thinks that teachers in this context should take students' poor knowledge

of vocabulary learning strategies into consideration They may encourage students either to make vocabulary notebooks and word cards to remember the words or to use dictionary and guess word meaning in context to learn new words independently

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Criteria of vocabulary selection:

There have been different criteria for vocabulary selection to teach Many methodologists and linguists (Nation, 1990; Schmitt, 2000) suggest that teachers can decide and select the words to be taught on the basis of how frequently they are used by speakers of the language That is, the most commonly used words should be taught first Moreover, teachers can decide which words are useful and should be taught to their learners on the basis of semantics This means, that the word is more useful if it covers more things than if it only has one very specific meaning

All the interviewed teachers in this study insisted on choosing the words that are useful and high-frequency for their learners' daily conversation, exam and future job In their teaching context with lots of ethnic minority students, they also put an emphasis on selecting the words which are easy for the students to learn They all shared that their selection of a word item which is useful and highly frequent depends on their own judgment, but not bases on any principles The researcher recommends that these teachers should consult available words lists which help

them to identify useful and high-frequency words such as The General Service List (West, 1953), a list of the most common 2000 words used in everyday English and the Academic Word List (Coxhead, 2000), a list of the most frequent academic

vocabulary in written academic texts Then teachers can make sure that their

judgment of useful and high-frequency words is suitable or not

However, the information obtained from observations was different from what the teachers said in the interview Observing some classes, the researcher found that the teachers taught all the new words in the vocabulary sections or vocabulary files of each unit and they chose some active words to teach in other skill sections Below are two extracts from a lesson delivered by the Teacher 2 and Teacher 3

Extract 1: Vocabulary- Clothes

T You are going to learn some names of clothes, today Look at the pictures

and tell me what they are wearing

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T Ok, I'll give you some words of clothes in these pictures (Writes all the

names of the clothes and explains their meaning by pointing to the pictures)

+ T-shirt (n) + sweatshirt (n) + trainers (n) + high-heel shoes (n) + baseball cap (n) + dress (n)

………

Ss (take notes)

T (Reads the new words and asks Ss to repeat in chorus and individually)

Ss (Listen to the T and repeat)

(Observation 1: Unit 11, Fashion)

Extract 2: Reading and writing- A model pupil

T Are there any new words in the reading text?

Ss Yes, there are a lot of

T Ok, before you do the exercise 2 and 3, I'll give you some new words in this

text (Writes the new words, reads aloud and gives their meanings)

+to appear +catwalk (n) +different (a) +contract (n) + to offer + GCSE exam

T Any new words? (points at a boy raising his hand)

Bao competition? education? prize? (pronounces with some mistake)

T Yes (writes those words on the board and gives their meanings)

Ss (Note down these words, listen to the teacher and repeat)

(Observation 2: Unit 11- Reading and writing)

Aspects of word knowledge to be taught

All the three teachers shared that they presented vocabulary in each lesson especially in grammar and reading lessons In teaching vocabulary, they often focused on teaching the form (spelling, pronunciation and grammar), the meaning and sometimes the use of the word As one of the teachers said:

After selecting some words which are useful and high-frequency, the teacher has to think of the way how to teach these words You see, there are many things to teach when we want to introduce a new word In my opinion, knowing a word means knowing its meaning, its form and its use in appropriate contexts (Teacher 1) However, the researcher found that what the teachers said was different from what they did in their classroom The teachers observed often focused on the word meaning and the word form, they hardly mentioned to the word use Teaching vocabulary is not just conveying the meaning to the students and asking them to

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note down on their notebook then learn those words by heart Memorizing may be good and useful as a temporary technique for tests, but not for learning a foreign language Language students need to learn vocabulary of the target language in another way Teachers should teach their students word-learning strategies such as using dictionary, context, word cards, vocabulary notebooks and word parts to unlock the meanings of the words they don’t know or to learn new words independently All the teachers interviewed agreed to provide students with some word learning strategies so that they can learn the new words by themselves They all highly appreciated the way that the students read and listen to English texts extensively to learn vocabulary implicitly or incidentally However, it is not suitable for their students who have low English proficiency and ineffective, passive ways of learning It is recommended that teachers should vary their vocabulary teaching activities to improve the students' vocabulary size In fact, the students' vocabulary size is still limited and they cannot use the taught words in oral or written communication As the teacher 3 said:

In order to help them to learn vocabulary independently, I often ask students to have vocabulary notebooks and encourage them to use dictionary or make word cards However, I find that my students' vocabulary is poor because they are too lazy to learn new words In their mind, they learn English in order to pass the final exam and get full requirements for graduation

3.3 Research question 3: The explicit vocabulary teaching techniques most frequently used in the classroom and their relevance

When being asked "How do you often teach vocabulary explicitly in classroom and your frequent explicit vocabulary teaching techniques?" the three participants said that teaching vocabulary must be integrated with language skills and grammar but not isolated in a lesson Teaching vocabulary means not only teaching long lists of words in isolation but also integrating new items in the

practice of other language skills and grammar The teacher 2 shared: