Promoting learner autonomy in learning vocabulary for second-year students at Hai Phong Medical University

This study is intended as an action research to improve the vocabulary learning practice of the second-year English non-majors at Hai Phong Medical University by means of an explicit str

Phong Medical University

Trần Thị Hòa

Trường Đại học Ngoại Ngữ Luận văn ThS Chuyên ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15

Người hướng dẫn: M.Ed Phùng Hà Thanh

Năm bảo vệ: 2010

Abstract: Learner autonomy has been widely promoted by researchers and educators

worldwide because of its benefits to learners However, a review of the literature shows that there is still a lack of insights into how learner autonomy is practiced and can be developed in the context of Vietnam This study is intended as an action research to improve the vocabulary learning practice of the second-year English non-majors at Hai Phong Medical University by means of an explicit strategy training programme of three strategy sets, namely dictionary-related strategies, recording vocabulary and studying affixes A ten-week strategy training programme, which was divided into three phases, was designed for a class of 27 students In the first phase, pre-treatment questionnaires were used to study the students’ problems in learning vocabulary Then the students attended three strategy teaching lessons

In the second phase, which focuses on the students’ performance and participation in the use

of the taught strategies, the students kept word-learning records as guided vocabulary practice In the last phase, they practiced vocabulary self-study in a free-style diary By the end of the last phase, post-treatment questionnaires were distributed The last phase aims at measuring the extent of maintenance of the taught strategies in the students’ independent learning and at disclosing their perception of the strategy training programme The results from the action research showed that (1) the learners’ biggest difficulty in learning vocabulary was “not knowing how to learn”; (2) they displayed good performance of all the three strategy sets; (3) two-thirds of them exhibited satisfactory participation in using these trained strategies; (4) the strategy sets of using dictionaries and recording vocabulary are much better maintained than the strategy of studying affixes As regards their perception of strategy training, the students assessed dictionary-related strategies as the most useful and most frequently-used, then recording vocabulary strategy came second, and the last position was for studying affixes The strategy training programme was appreciated as being highly effective The study will hopefully contribute to the literature of learner autonomy by showing an example of how it can be developed in an Asian educational setting

Keywords: Tiếng Anh; Phương pháp dạy học; Từ vựng

Content:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration i

Acknowledgement ii

Abstract iii

List of tables and figures viii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 3

4 Methods of the study 3

5 Significance of the study 4

6 Overview of the study 4

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

1.1 Definition of vocabulary 5

1.2 Processes of vocabulary acquisition 5

2 Vocabulary learning and teaching 7

2.1 Aspects of learning a word 7

2.2 Explicit approach vs Incidental learning approach 8

3 Learner autonomy 10

3.1 Definition of autonomy 10

3.2 Principles of developing autonomy 12

4 Vocabulary learning strategies 14

4.1 Definition of learning strategies 14

4.2 Classification of vocabulary learning strategies 15

4.3 Frameworks for strategy training 16

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 1 Background of the study 18

1.1 Current learning and teaching of English at Hai Phong Medical University 18

1.2 Identification of the problem 18

2 Participants 19

3 Implementation of the action research 19

4 Instruments of data collection 22

4.1 Description of the pre-treatment questionnaire 22

4.2 Description of the vocabulary – learning records 23

4.3 Description of the vocabulary learning diary 24

4.4 Description of the post – treatment questionnaire 26

5 Data collection procedures 26

6 Data analysis procedures 26

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 1 Phase One - Research question 1: Students’ problems in independent vocabulary learning 28

2 Phase Two 29

2.1 Research question 2: Students’ performance in the use of the taught

strategies 29

2.1.1 Students’ performance in the use of Strategy Set 1 and Set 2 29

2.1.2 Students’ performance in the use of Strategy Set 3 30

2.2 Research question 3: Students’ participation in the use of the taught strategies 31

2.2.1 Students’ participation in the use of Strategy Set 1 and Set 2 31

2.2.2 Students’ participation in the use of Strategy Set 3 32

3 Phase Three 32

3.1 Research question 4: Students’ maintenance of the taught strategies in independent vocabulary learning 33

3.2 Research question 5: Students’ perception of the effectiveness of the strategy training programme 34

3.2.1 Students’ frequency of using the taught strategies before and after the training programme 34

3.2.2 Usefulness of the taught strategies 35

3.2.3 Students’ evaluation of the strategy training programme 36

PART C: CONCLUSION 1 Conclusion 39

2 Pedagogical implications from the findings 40

3 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study 40

REFERENCES 41

APPENDICES

Appendix 1: Schmitt’s taxonomy of vocabulary learning strategies (1997) I Appendix 2: Three lesson plans III Appendix 3: Three word-learning records XXIV Appendix 4: Sample vocabulary-learning diaries XXXIII Appendix 5: Pre-treatment questionnaire survey (English version) LVIII Appendix 6: Pre-treatment questionnaire survey (Vietnamese version) LX Appendix 7: Post-treatment questionnaire survey (English version) LXII Appendix 8: Post-treatment questionnaire survey (Vietnamese version) LXV

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1: Criteria for evaluating word-learning records 24

Table 2: Holistic rubric for marking the maintenance of the trained strategy sets 25

Table 3: Students’ performance in the use of Dictionary-related strategies and Vocabulary-recording strategies 29

Table 4: Students’ performance in the use of Affix-studying strategies 30

Table 5: Students’ participation in the use of Dictionary-related strategies and Vocabulary-recording strategies 31

Table 6: Students’ participation in the use of Affix - studying strategies 32

FIGURES Figure 1: Students’ problems in independent vocabulary learning 28

Figure 2: Students’ maintenance of the taught strategies in independent vocabulary learning 33

Figure 3: Frequency of vocabulary strategy use before and after training 34

Figure 4: Usefulness of the taught strategies 35

Figure 5: Effectiveness of the strategy training programme 36

Figure 6: Students’ recommendations for vocabulary-learning strategy training 38

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

Learner autonomy, a concept promoted by Holec (1981) and others in the context

of European language education, has become a favorite topic for analysis for the last twenty years In many parts of the world, learner autonomy has been put forward as a goal

to achieve (Pemberton et al., 1996; Sinclair et al., 2000; Little et al., 2000; Benson, 2001) Several arguments may be used in favor of developing autonomy in language learners For example, according to Naimen et al (1978), autonomous learning is more effective than other approaches to learning, and Waite (1994) specifies that learners need to take charge

of their own learning in order to make the most of available resources, especially outside the classroom

Despite being widely discussed worldwide, learner autonomy remains a fairly novel concept in Vietnam Whether or to what extent learner autonomy is developed and practiced in Vietnamese schools and universities is still open to question Furthermore, since the idea of learner autonomy originated from Western cultures, it hardly suffices to just transfer the concept to an Asian context (Benson, Chik & Lim, 2003; Smith, 2003) Rather, the implementation of learner autonomy in Asian countries should be tailored so that an appropriate methodology for developing learner autonomy in non-Western contexts can be devised (Smith, 2003) Another argument is that learner autonomy is a universal social phenomenon, which manifests itself differently in different local contexts (Holliday, 2003) Because of all these complex and interesting points, it seems appealing to explore how autonomy can be enhanced in an Asian educational institution like Hai Phong Medical University Moreover, developing learners’ autonomy becomes increasingly important as far as tertiary education is concerned A student at university is required to do a substantial amount of research for his assignments, so he is supposed to know when and how to work independently so that he can achieve a satisfactory result

Specifically, the local context of Hai Phong Medical University calls for the idea of promoting learner autonomy The second-year students, who are at pre-intermediate level,

do not seem to study English as well as in the first year Having taught them for three successive semesters, I immediately take notice of the situation and intend to design a remedy plan to improve it After my open talk with the whole class, several problems came

to light Most of the students feel discouraged by a large number of words they encounter

in each English lesson As many of them confess, learning vocabulary seems to be the most difficult and most important to them However, as English non-majors, the students have only four periods per week for English lessons It means the time spent on vocabulary learning is really limited in class In order to develop the students’ vocabulary, it is crucial that they practice independent vocabulary learning regularly outside class Therefore, it has become increasingly essential to provide them with useful learning strategies so that they can employ in their self-study time In this case, the success of learning vocabulary depends very much on how effectively and autonomously the students practice vocabulary self-study As Waite (1994) says, learners need to take charge of their own learning in order to make the most of available resources, especially outside the classroom

For all the reasons above, I have decided to undertake a study on promoting

learner autonomy in learning vocabulary for second-year students at Hai Phong Medical University The focus of the study is a training programme of vocabulary –

learning strategies conducted for ten weeks

2 Aims and objectives of the study

Firstly, the study aims at improving the students’ autonomous vocabulary learning

by teaching them some helpful strategies, namely dictionary-related strategies, recording vocabulary and studying affixes Secondly, it is intended to evaluate their employment of these vocabulary-learning strategies in terms of performance, participation and maintenance These aims can be achieved by answering the following research questions:

1 What are the problems that the students encounter in their independent vocabulary learning?

2 How well do the students use the taught strategies in their guided vocabulary practice?

3 How much do the students use the taught strategies in their guided vocabulary practice?

4 To what extent do the students maintain the taught strategies in their independent vocabulary learning?

5 How effective is the strategy training programme in helping the students learn vocabulary, as perceived by the students?

3 Scope of the study

The research focuses on one specific way of developing learner autonomy: the explicit teaching of learning strategies A vocabulary-learning strategy training programme

is conducted for ten weeks Within the scope of the study, only three strategy sets, namely dictionary-related strategies, recording vocabulary and studying affixes, are taught The effectiveness of the taught strategies is measured in terms of performance, participation and maintenance Performance refers to the extent of correctness when the students use the taught strategies while participation means how much they use these strategies in their guided vocabulary practice Lastly, maintenance refers to the extent of retaining the taught strategies in their independent vocabulary study

The participants include 27 second-year students of the same English class at Hai Phong Medical University and their teacher In this study, the teacher is in charge of teaching the class and plays the role of the researcher at the same time

4 Methods of the study

The current study is carried out as an action research, which combines qualitative and quantitative approaches The action actually taken is a vocabulary-learning strategy training programme designed for the duration of ten weeks The programme is divided into three phases

In phase one, pre-treatment questionnaires are distributed to seek the answer for research question one regarding the students’ problem in learning vocabulary Then, the students are taught about three strategy sets, namely dictionary-related strategies, vocabulary-recording and affix-studying

In phase two, three word-learning records are provided as guided practice of the taught strategies The data from the word-records aim at answering the research question two and three about the students’ performance and participation in the use of the taught strategies

In phase three, the students keep free-style vocabulary learning diaries, in which they record the vocabulary they want to learn in their self-study time The diaries are used

to answer the research question four about the extent of maintaining the taught strategies in the students’ independent vocabulary learning By the end of phase three, post-treatment questionnaires are distributed to answer the research question five about the learners’ perception of the strategy training programme

The data from the pre-treatment and post-treatment questionnaires, the word-learning records and vocabulary-word-learning diaries are calculated with regard to items’ frequency, mean, and percentage

5 Significance of the study

First and foremost, the habit of independent vocabulary learning will hopefully be developed for the second-year students at Hai Phong Medical University The students can overcome their difficulties in learning vocabulary by means of monitoring and regulating their self-study with appropriate learning strategies In this way, the researcher hopes that the students’ awareness of learning strategies and learner autonomy can be raised and nurtured

Second, the study offers an example of how learner autonomy can be fostered in an Asian context It is expected that the study will contribute an insightful picture of the practice of Asian learner autonomy to the literature and help to shed light on the concept of

learner autonomy

6 Overview of the study

The research paper consists of the following parts:

Part A Introduction

Part B Development

The development is divided into three chapters:

 Chapter one (Literature review) provides the theoretical background of the

study, covering the key terms and review of related studies

 Chapter two (Methodology) justifies and describes the methodology of the

study in details

 Chapter three (Results and discussion) presents full analysis of the collected

data and discusses the findings

Part C Conclusion