skkn tiếng anh thpt MOTIVATIONAL WAYS OF TEACHING VOCABULARY

So, in my opinion, this research will help me as well as other teachershave some new interesting ways of teaching which motivate the students tolearn vocabulary.. Moreover, there are man

PART A: INTRODUCTION

I Why was the research paper written?

Nowadays English has become an international language, so learningEnglish becomes more and more important English helps us not to be out ofdate and erase the big hole of being far from many countries all over theworld If we have English, we have a key to open the door of the world and goahead without hesitation Like any other languages, vocabulary is the basiccore for learners to master It is the most important factor for all people tospeak and write It is the basic element for people to communicate Withoutusing words we can not understand what opposite people want to deliver and

of course do not know how to send messages to them In teaching anylanguages, vocabulary becomes a very necessary part that all teachers shouldpay attention to In this seminar on methodology, I specially and straightlyfocus on motivational ways of teaching vocabulary in teaching English.Wilkin ( 1972) wrote that: “ …while without grammar, very little can be

conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed…” (p 111- 112) This

means even we do not master grammar, or just hold a poor grammatical point,

we can communicate; but if we do not have vocabulary, we cannot expressanything in many situations Thus, we all agree that vocabulary is verynecessary in the process of learning and teaching English

However, most of students do not like to learn English One of theirreasons is that they can not remember the words Of course there are somelazy students who never review their lessons or learn the words after classes

so they can not hold them or even there are some do not want to learn Englishbecause they think it is too hard for them We, English teachers, also have toask ourselves the questions why they are lazy or why they do not want tolearn All students admit that if they like the subject they will try their best toachieve good results In contrast, they will ignore it or even hate it if they feel

it is a boring and odd thing to pay the attention

As an English teacher in a remote and mountainous area, I really hopethat the result of this subject will be higher and higher I have tried to applymany ways to help my students love English by showing them how importantEnglish is and learning English is very interesting The first thing of all ishelping them learn vocabulary with motivational ways in order that they canmaster the most important factor of English and also the base to approachskills like reading, speaking, listening and writing

II What is the actual situation of teaching and learning English?, and who is the study for?

Most students know that English plays an important role in life and also

in their study because they have to take the tests which all school do toestimate their quantification to let them move higher or not Of course thereare many students want to achieve English but that is not very easy for thembecause they do not realize the interest in learning They think English is ahuge pile and complex chain of knowledge and sometimes, a boring subject

Besides, many teachers do not access the new ways of teaching Theyfollow the traditional teaching methods and hold students in a hole which iscalled “ passive” They just take all from the text books and have no ideas tomake their lessons more interesting and help students understand the lessonseasily What students should do is that just sitting, listening, doing someexercises in the textbook and may be having a valuable chance to be invited tostand up and say some comments That is one of the reasons why studentsconsider English so boring, complex and too difficult to learn Therefore, theyfail from the first step: learning vocabulary.

So, in my opinion, this research will help me as well as other teachershave some new interesting ways of teaching which motivate the students tolearn vocabulary

III How is the research paper organized?

This research paper has four parts:

Although I gave a lot of effort as well as much time to write this researchpaper, I really know that there are something wrong and I can hardly findthem myself I will frankly appreciate criticisms and suggestions from therespectable professors, the fellow-teachers, the readers to whom I will bemuch grateful if they take the troubles to correct me constructively and help

me have a better research paper for the next time

PART B: DEVELOPMENT OF MOTIVATIONAL WAYS TO

TEACH VOCABULARY

I Theoretical background motivational ways of teaching vocabulary.

1 Definition of vocabulary

In this research, I am going to focus on motivational ways of teachingvocabulary, so first of all, I want to define what vocabulary is.

You may think that vocabulary is the words of a language, which is howmost people define vocabulary, and that is correct because vocabulary doesdeal with words Yet vocabulary is much more than just a single words.Recent vocabulary studies draw on an understanding of lexis, which inEnglish, refer to all the words in language, the entire vocabulary of a language

“ (Barcroft, Sunderman, & Schmitt, 2001, p 571) So it will probably notsurprise to say that vocabulary also includes lexical chunks, phrases of two ormore words, such as Good morning and Nice to meet you, which researchsuggests children and adults learn as single lexical units Phrases like theseinvolve more than one word but have clear, formulaic usage and make up asignificant portion of spoken or written English language usage Also calledformulaic sequences ( Alali & Schimitt, 2012), they are central to Englishvocabulary learning and therefore worth teachers’ attention as we teachvocabulary

So vocabulary can be defined as the words of a language, includingsingle items and phrases or chunks of several words which convey a particularmeaning, the way individual words do Vocabulary addresses single lexicalitems- words with special meanings- but it also includes lexical phrases orchunks

2 The importance of vocabulary

In order to progress in a foreign language, students need to be able tounderstand what they are hearing and reading That is, the input must becomprehensible in order for it to be useful and meaningful to the students andhelp with acquisition (Krashen, 1982), but if students do not understand asizable portion of the vocabulary in the language that they are reading orhearing, then this language is not comprehensible and therefore cannot beuseful for acquisition Many argue that vocabulary is one of the most

important-if not the most important components in learning a foreign

language, and foreign language curricula must reflect this In general, withoutvocabulary, people can hardly communicate with each other Much more thangrammar, vocabulary is the key for students to receive and send messages incommunication And , it is also the best friend for students to get high marks

in their tests and examinations

So we can see clearly that vocabulary is very important in the process ofteaching and learning English What we should do is to help students havebest ways which are suitable to them to learn vocabulary and besides, teachthem vocabulary in interesting methods

3 Definition of motivation

Motivation has been defined in various ways and by different authors.Gareth Jones, Jennifer George and Charles Hill (2000: 427) define motivation

as “psychological forces that determine the direction of a person’s behaviour[ ], a person’s level of effort, and a person’s level of persistence in the face ofobstacles” David Myers (1996: 297) defines motivation as “a need or desirethat serves to energize behaviour and to direct it towards a goal.”

Frank Hawkins (1993: 132-133) defines it as “what drives or induces aperson to behave in a particular fashion [ ] the internal force which initiates,directs, sustains and terminates all important activities It influences the level

of performance, the efficiency achieved and the time spent on an activity.” All

of the definitions refer to stimuli that trigger the motivational process

Hawkins identifies also the properties of motivation such as it being aninternal process with different roles in influencing behaviours (such asdirecting, initiating, sustaining or terminating it), and with different degrees ofexpression at the level of intensity, quality and speed in which the behaviour iscarried out

All of the above definitions are true, one could even summarize andcreate a general definition saying that motivation is what drives us to perform

an action

However, in this thesis one should also distinguish one more definition,concerning the foreign language learning process Kyösti Julkunen (in 2001:29) claims that “in the classroom context, motivation can be seen as acontinuous interaction process between the learner and the environment [ ]Its main role is in controlling and directing an activity [ ], coordinatingvarious operations towards an object or goal, motivation transforms a number

of separate reactions into significant action Learners build object-directedmeans-end structures [ ].”

Motivation is vital in language learning process because it determineswhether the action of foreign language acquisition is undertaken by the learnerand to what extent he is ready to continue this intelectual effort This is thereason why so many scientists and researchers have devoted such a great deal

of attention to motivation

Moreover, there are many ways that we can use to motivate the students

to learn vocabulary but here, I just mention to the most effective ones: usingsongs and writing journals

II Using songs and writing journal in teaching vocabulary

1 Using songs to motivate the students to learn vocabulary

1.1 Why songs are used as a motivational way of teaching vocabulary?

Jeremy Harmer (2001: 242-45) names music “a powerful stimulus” forlanguage learning He classifies the song as one of the tools for teachingvocabulary It is a versatile technique, as it enables the teacher to present thewords graphically (printed song lyrics), verbally (listening to the song) andcontextually (song lyrics) at the same time The song can change the students’mood and it can positively influence their motivation for vocabulary learning.

As Harmer (2001:242) states, “it can make a satisfactory connection betweenthe world of leisure and the world of learning.”

Students memorize vocabulary more willingly that is linked to real lifesituations, their own experience and interests, so they remember it for a longerperiod of time if not for a lifetime Of course, the song can also be used forpracticing correct pronunciation, accent and intonation, as well as thegrammar structures Some scientists, like Dee Dickinson (1993) or RobertZatorre (in Jensen 1998: 35-36), support the thesis that the influence of music

on both hemispheres of the brain is undeniable, thus the text combined withmusic has probably better effect on the students’ minds and their languageacquisition process than the text alone

Some experiments have been taken in the field of vocabulary acquisitionthrough the song Suzanne Medina (1993: 1-8) conducted an experiment onelementary school There were four experimental groups The first onelistened to the spoken version of the story with the pictures used to illustratethe main ideas of the story, the second group also listened to the spokenversion of the story but without illustrations The third group listened to thesung version of the story with the illustrations shown and the fourth grouplistened to the sung version of the story without pictures

There were some pre-tests and two posttests to measure the amount ofvocabulary acquired by the students The results of the experiment showedthat the combination of the sung version and the pictures was the mosteffective one This experiment supports the idea that songs can be beneficial

in terms of vocabulary acquisition and retrieval Don Campbell (1997: 21-24)states that music enhances memory, reasoning, spatial imagination and logicalthinking This is partly because under the influence of music, which increasesthe level of catecholamine and serotonin, neurotransmitters are involved in thelearning processes

Music enhances and strengthens the process of remembering because itstimulates the limbic system, which is the emotional centre in the brain closelylinked with learning Music helps to integrate internal rhythm and externalcognitive activity and balances the emotional processes

The song is a very specific kind of expression because it is an inseparablecombination of music and language The song plays a major role in teachingforeign languages It allows students to develop all language skills andunderstand the purpose of learning It has a great potential as a teachingresource in the process of learning and teaching foreign languages

The song has the greatest value when it becomes an integral part of thelearning processes, when it is used regularly and frequently, not only for funbut also to facilitate learning the language By the effective use of the songone should understand using it on many different levels, including the song as

a whole (music and lyrics), only the content of the song (only lyrics) or a part

of the story selected for the purpose of the lesson, or even just the thememusic

According to Komorowska (1978: 46) songs, when used regularly, canhelp to reduce or even completely eliminate some of the negative factorshindering mastering of the language Songs to a greater extent than othertraditional teaching techniques, arouse the students’ interest because of theirdifference from traditional teaching techniques Komorowska (2001: 98)states that songs influence the students’ motivation She also notices that thestudents’ activity is no longer so highly dependent on external motivation(marks) when the songs are used Songs motivate students and create a feeling

of success in a different way than marks

Jan Wierszyłowski (1970: 37) believes that nothing is as motivating assuccess This is one of the factors that develops, maintains and promotesmotivation in the best way Students learn willingly when they see thefulfillment of their hopes and their self-esteem is strengthened Songs allowstudents to experience a sense of success When singing with understandingthe lyrics, even the weaker students can experience the feeling of success.From this follows a conclusion that the song has a great potential as ateaching resource in the process of learning and teaching a foreign language,especially vocabulary Another thing worth mentioning is the influence ofsongs on the students’ memory Some research on human memory, described

by Jan Wierszyłowski (1970: 19), shows that students remember best whattruly interests them

1.2 What kind of songs should be chosen to teach vocabulary?

There is also another thing to consider, it is the song selection Teachersshould choose songs carefully to have a desirable effect When choosing anappropriate song, one should remember to especially consider the level of

language proficiency of the students and their age Teachers should decidewhether it should be a rock song, a pop song or something else.

Besides, the content of the songs must be clear and easy to understand.That is terrible if students listen to the songs but they do not understand what

it is And, teachers also should remember to choose the songs suitable to thestudents For example, the songs about the friendship, family or love can beacceptable, but teachers can not let students listen to the songs which can leadstudents to do something wrong like fighting or affect students’ spiritnegatively Teachers should use the songs which are interesting and humorousand sometimes meaningful to life or especially should choose ones have goodcontents to help students try their best to learn or to become good people.One more thing teachers should pay attention to when choosing songs toteach vocabulary is that those songs must not be very hard for students If theylisten to the song which has many difficult words or unfamiliar to them, theywill feed up with the song immediately As the result, the activity is odd andmeaningless

1.3 Some activities using songs to motivate students to learn vocabulary:

1.3.1 Gap- filling:

Students will be given hand- outs prepared by the teachers in advance.The hand- outs contain some blanks that students will listen to the song andwrite down the missing words.

In this kind of activity, first of all, I usually ask students to tell me whichpart of speech are needed in the blanks This helps students to know the place

of words in the context and master more about the words they are learning, if

it is a noun, a verb, an adjective or an adverb…

Teachers should let students listen to the first time, just to listen to get thecontent of the song With the second time, students will fill in the blanks Andfor the third time, students and teachers will check if they have got the rightwords

1.3.2 Getting the words from the songs:

Teachers write down some words related to the lessons from the songs.They are the new words that teachers need to teach Then teachers play thesongs Students listen and stay stop if they hear the words

1.3.3 Choosing the words that have the same meaning or oppositemeaning with the given ones:

After students listen to the song and get some words, they need to domore exercises related to those words This will help students remember thewords for a long time and know what are their synonyms and what are theirantonyms

1.3.4 Checking the spelling:

One more exercise that teachers can use to teach vocabulary to students

is correcting the spelling of the words For example, teachers write down somewords containing both the correct and the wrong spelling ones and students’task is to find out the incorrect ones and give their right words

1.4 The sources to find out the songs:

Teachers can find the songs to teach students from many sources asbooks, newspapers, magazines, disks, radio and especially, internet Theinternet is considered the best source because teachers can save a lot of timeand money

2 Developing students’ vocabulary by writing journal.

2.1 What is journal writing?

Journal writing is a learning tool based on the ideas that students write tolearn Students use the journals to write about topics of personal interest, tonote their observations, to imagine, to wonder and to connect new informationwith things they already know

2.2 What is its purpose?

Using journals fosters learning in many ways Students who use journalsare actively engaged in their own learning and have the opportunity to clarifyand reflect upon their thinking When students write in journals, they canrecord such things as ideas and feelings, special words and expressions theyhave heard, interesting things that have happened to them or information aboutinteresting people Journal writing offers students opportunities to writewithout fear often associated with marking

So, writing journals is very helpful in process of teaching and learningvocabulary I usually ask my students to write journals everyday to have adeep understanding about the words they have learnt They can use the words

to express their feelings, like, love or hate Or just very simple, they can writeabout what happened to them in a day, what they want to eat, what theirfavourite colour is… Sometimes, my students also gave me some ideas aboutthe way I taught in the lass They gave me advice or their secret They sharewith me their habits, their hobbies Those things are very valuable in ateacher’s career Based on them, teachers can have many information abouttheir students, know that what they expect from the teacher, what their strong

or weak points are to help them develop their English and maybe help them inother parts of life Therefore, teachers will consider if they need to changetheir methods of teaching to suit to their students

2.3 When should students write their journals?

Some teachers want their students write their journals for five minutes

at the end of the class but I totally disagree with this I think that it is not asuitable time for students and they do not want to be forced to do this.Everybody does the work more effectively if they feel they like it and they arepleased to do So do the students in this case The suitable place for them to dothis is at home and the time is in their free time They see writing journalstheir favourite homework

2.4 Language students use when writing their journals?

When students write journals, I usually ask them not to use Vietnamesebecause I want them to practice thinking in English We all know thattranslating is not good in learning language because they can be stuck betweenthe mother language and the target one Gradually, they have to spend muchtime thinking in their mother language and then again much time will bewasted on how to translate it into the target one So, my students just writewhat they think and if they do not know how to express in English, they candraw pictures to illustrate their ideas It is an acceptable way in teaching andlearning English

2.5 How to give feedback to students’ journal writing?

One more thing to remember when teachers ask students to write journals

is that teachers should collect the journals every week and read them Studentswill think that they have a person to confined and what more is they writethem responsibly Feedback is considered very important because it is also anelement to cheer students up

Moreover, journal writing is a completely non- threatening place forstudents to practice their English, especially their vocabulary Because of thispoint, teachers should not pay much attention to their mistakes Do not correctwhat they are not right But teacher can do this with the students who arewilling and pleased to receive the correction from teachers In the first days ofwriting, there are a lot of mistakes but later, they will develop their vocabulary

so much Some students told me they then had many words because theyusually wrote journals They had not care much about the objects in the house

or some names of foods or vegetable… before they wrote journals Whenwriting journals, they needed to know them to tell teachers what they hadeaten or bought or helped their mothers…

Those things help me have the motivation to try my best to teach Englishdespite spending much time to read and reply all the journals and keepstudents writing journals year after year

PART C: DEMONSTRATION

SOME TYPICAL EXAMPLES USING SONGS AND WRITING JOURNALS IN

TEACHING ENGLISH VOCABULARY

I EXAMPLES OF USING SONGS TO TEACH VOCABULARY:

Teachers can use songs to teach vocabulary at the beginning of thelessons as warm- up activities or after the lessons like post parts to revise thevocabulary

Both the two ways are very good because they have their own benefits Ifteachers use the songs as warm- up part to lead into the new lessons, studentswill have the time to relax with music, and they have some words prepared fortheir new reading parts And, if teachers use it as the free practice, studentscan check again their vocabulary

There are some examples that I have used to teach vocabulary by songs:

Grade 10:

Unit 12: Music Lesson 1: Reading Warm- up:

-First of all teacher ask students to list the kinds of music that they know

- Then teacher collects students’ answers: pop music, folk music, rock ’n’ roll, classical music, jazz…

- Teacher lets students listen to five different pieces of songs and asks students to tell her what kinds of music they are

- The teacher can download the songs thought the internet and use cassetteplayer or computer to play them The teacher stops when students give the correct answer:

1 The song: Moi Trau- > Folk music.

2 We will rock you-> Rock’n’ roll

3 Until you-> Pop music

4 Don’t know why-> Jazz

5 Moon sonata -> Classical musicHere, students just need to listen to music, they even do not need to knowthe words of the songs but they can give the words that related to the topic andthe unit about kinds of music

Grade 10:

Unit 12: Music Lesson 3: Listening

Warm- up:

- Teacher asks students to sing the song “ Tien Quan Ca”

- Then teacher asks students what it is; students may know theanswer in English, that is good But if they even do not know, they can answer

in Vietnamese

- Teacher gets the word: Vietnam National Anthem to teach students

- Besides, teacher can ask them more about the person who wrote this song- Van Cao to get the word: musician

- Then teacher leads into the new lesson

Grade 10:

Unit 13: Films and Cinema Lesson 4: Writing Warm- up:

- Teacher lets students listen to the song: My heart will go on

- Teacher asks them if they know the name of the song , then gets its name and asks them more about the content of the film Titanic

For example:

Is Titanic a happy or a tragic love story film?

Maybe before the teacher asks them question, they do not know what theword “tragic” means but here they can understand that it is opposite to the word happy and immediately choose it as their answer

Grade 10:

Unit 14: the world cup Lesson 1: reading Warm- up:

- Teacher lets students listen to 4 pieces of songs :

1 World Cup Willy - Lonnie Donegan

2 Gloryland - Daryl Hall, Sounds of Blackness

3 The Cup of Life - Ricky Martin