AN INVESTIGATION INTO DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING ACADEMIC VOCABULARY

AN INVESTIGATION INTO DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING ACADEMIC VOCABULARY OF 2nd YEAR STUDENTS IN THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT Bài nghiên cứu khoa học về những khó khăn thường mắc phải trong việc học từ vựng chuyên ngành ở trường đại học Nowadays, the English language has been widely used many areas such as politics, economic, tourism, technology, culture, and science. Since Vietnam carried out the opendoor policy towards the regional and global integration, the English language has become more and more important for people of all ages and careers nationwide. Therefore, an amount of people learns and uses English for different purposes are increasing every day. In teaching and learning English as a foreign language in Vietnam, academic English has recently received a great deal of attention. A teacher or institution wish to provide educational materials that will fit specific subject areas for learners. Such materials may not be available commercially. In addition, with many similar characteristics and a number of features in comparison with general English, academic English is viewed as something hard to teach for a language teacher. Furthermore, the teacherresearcher has seen students have trouble during their English learning process. Most of the students said that they had to deal with a wider range of unfamiliar words and cope with their growing specialized vocabulary. They often passively learn vocabulary through their teacher’s explanation. There are too many new words and too little time to spend on memorizing.For all reasons mentioned above, this research to find out the difficulties of the students when learning academic vocabulary and the cause of their problems is necessary.

AN INVESTIGATION INTO DIFFICULTIES IN

STUDENTS IN THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

I Introduction:

Nowadays, the English language has been widely used many areas such as politics, economic, tourism, technology, culture, and science Since Vietnam carried out the open-door policy towards the regional and global integration, the English language has become more and more important for people of all ages and careers nationwide Therefore, an amount of people learns and uses English for different purposes are increasing every day

In teaching and learning English as a foreign language in Vietnam, academic English has recently received a great deal of attention A teacher or institution wish to provide educational materials that will fit specific subject areas for learners Such materials may not be available commercially In addition, with many similar characteristics and a number of features in comparison with general English, academic English is viewed as something hard to teach for a language teacher Furthermore, the teacher-researcher has seen students have trouble during their English learning process Most of the students said that they had to deal with a wider range of unfamiliar words and cope with their growing specialized vocabulary They often passively learn vocabulary through their teacher’s explanation There are too many new words and too little time to spend on memorizing

For all reasons mentioned above, this research to find out the difficulties of the students when learning academic vocabulary and the cause of their problems is necessary

II Literature review:

1 Definition

According to Academic Vocabulary for Fifth- to Seventh-Grade English Language Learners in Texas (2010), Academic vocabulary refers to the words that are used in academic discourse, both

written and spoken, and that traditionally have been identified from a corpus of academic texts Some lists of academic vocabularies include an indication of each word or word family’s rate of occurrence in academic texts (p.5)

Academic vocabulary divides into three branches: English for Science and Technology (EST), English for Business and Economics (EBE) and English for Social Studies (ESS)

2 The role of academic vocabulary

Academic Language is the language typically found in textbooks, used daily in classrooms, and presented on tests regularly It is the language that students must master in order to succeed in any content areas Students use it to require new knowledge Moreover, Academic language is used across all academic disciplines as Britain, phonetic and phonology, research method Academic word helps students to convey argument and facilities presentation of the ideas a sophisticated manner It helps the learners cope with problems comprehension in subjects

in school Academic language is necessary for the international exams like IELTS, TOEIC, SAT, etc Academic language is also important in many fields of life such as economic, tourism and education

3 Previous studies

Dung & Huong (2016), based on 140 students of Hue University

of Foreign Languages include filling in questionnaires, being interviewed, writing the diary, concentrate on exploring awareness of students and use of strategies in learning academic vocabulary outside the classroom Apart from this problem, the study also investigates difficulties faced by the students when they learn academic vocabulary outside the classroom

Maricel G Santos (1998) studied 10 language-minority community college students enrolled at an urban New England community college about the relationship between breadth and depth of academic word knowledge This study was primarily focusing on exploring students’ knowledge of polysemous academic words, not on developing a new measure of the depth

of vocabulary knowledge, also not on showing some difficulties of students in the way learn academic vocabulary

My & Huong (2016) studied strategies used by students to solve unknown vocabulary in the classroom This study uses two main methods of research: qualitative and quantitative methods The research subjects were 116 EFL students at Hue University of Foreign Languages and they obtained 101 questionnaires, 10 interviews and 33 evaluate rubrics Besides, difficulties which this vocabulary cause to the students was also mentioned in the study It helps for teachers and students can find out the best and the most reasonable strategies in teaching and learning academic vocabulary

Based on some researches which are taken in above, we found what is material challenging and it is not relevant to the sophomore in English Department of Hue University of Foreign Language In order to achieve the aims of the study, the following questions will be answered in this minor research:

1 What is the attitude of 2nd year students at Hue University of Foreign Languages towards learning academic vocabulary?

2 What are the difficulties in learning academic vocabulary

3 What causes difficulties for 2nd year students at Hue University of Foreign Languages to learn academic vocabulary?

III Research methodology:

1 Aim of the study:

On doing this minor research, we aim at finding out the difficulties which the second-year students have in learning academic vocabulary and some possible causes of these difficulties

2 Research methods:

When carrying out this assignment, we prepare a questionnaire to investigate into difficulties in learning academic vocabulary among 2nd-year students in the English department at Hue University of Foreign Languages

The questionnaires consist of 10 questions, basing on the information in the literature review part and the aims of the study This questionnaire is prepared in English for the learners

to read, think and answer suitably and adequately After that, it

is delivered to second-year students, and the answers are collected and analyzed The real difficulties in learning academic vocabulary and some possible causes to these difficulties will be found out

Besides, an interview with other students is also conducted Each student is given three questions, and their answers will contribute to consolidating our findings of students ‟ difficulties

in learning academic vocabulary”

3 Research subjects:

Research subjects are 2nd year students in the English department of Hue University of Foreign Languages Students begin to face many difficulties throughout their studies at university because most teaching and learning materials have academic vocabulary Students' ages who participated in the survey range from 19 to 20 They are all female, at intermediate level Students are selected randomly and on a voluntary basis, without coercion

The instruments used in this research consist of questionnaire and interview The questionnaire contained 10 questions and was delivered to 30 students by both paper and online Apart from the questionnaire, there were 3 interview questions for 2 students by face to face

IV Findings and discussions:

Based on the survey and interview, we have collected and analyzed data by two methods: table and chart

4.1 Attitude of 2 nd year students at Hue University of Foreign Language towards learning academic vocabulary

Yes; 93.33%

No; 6.67%

Chart 1: answer about important of academic vocabulary in learning english

Yes No

Chart 1 shows the student's answer about whether academic vocabulary is important to them It can be seen from the above pie graph that most second-year students agree that academic vocabulary is important in learning English (about 93%) A small number of students (7%) do not think academic vocabulary is necessary for them as they learn English From the information given, it can be inferred that most of the students participated in this survey has recognized the importance of academic vocabulary during the progress of their English studying

Table 1: Reasons why academic vocabulary are important

(TOEFL, SAT, IELTS, …).

Read and understand specialized text

Read and understand specialized subjects

(English phonetics and phonology, British

Necessary for daily life (reading newspapers,

Table 1 demonstrates reasons make students think that academic vocabulary is essential in learning English As shown in this table, 80% think academic vocabulary is necessary for international examinations, while 63.33% choose to read and understand specialized text About 66.67% of the opinions for reading and understanding specialized subjects and 43.33% of further opinions stated that academic vocabulary necessary for daily life From the statistics given, it can infer that academic vocabulary is essential for second-year students in a variety of areas related to their studies at university When interviewed one student, she answered that she learned academic vocabulary to take the IELTS examination Another student say that she just learned academic vocabulary to understand content of textbooks such as Britain culture and Phonetics

Always; 13.00%

Often ; 17.00%

Usually; 17.00%

Sometimes; 47.00%

Rarely ; 3.00%

Never ; 3.00%

Chart 2: Frequency of using academic vocabulary

Chart 2 shows the frequency of using academic vocabulary of student From the statistics in chart 2, we can see that most students (47%) sometime use academic vocabulary The second ranks fall into often (17%) and usually (17%) The smallest rate (3%) belongs to rarely and never About 13% of the opinions present they always use academic vocabulary The information in chart 2 manifests that academic vocabulary is very familiar to students Just only a few students are not or rarely contact to them

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Chart 3: Purposes of using academic vocabulary

Chart 3 presents purpose of using academic vocabulary of student According to this chart, to create a lab of report contributes to 17%, literature analysis makes up 13% A higher number (50%) learn academic vocabulary to take part in international examinations Most opinions focus on writing college essays is main purpose (83%) The smallest rate belongs to other purpose About 7% of students think academic vocabulary is necessary for understand vocabulary of specialized subjects text Chart 3 implies that academic vocabulary can use in many different purpose So, students should pay more attention to them

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Chart 4: The usual ways when come across a new academic vocabulary

Chart 4 illustrates the usual ways of students when coming across a new academic vocabulary It can be seen from the above chart that most students choose (73.33%) using dictionaries or translation applications, based on the context to guess accounts for 33.33%, asking teachers or friends 26.67%, only 3.33% for ignoring and no answer goes to the other opinions The information in Chart 4 hints that some students still use ineffective ways to learn new academic words, which makes it difficult in learning academic vocabulary effectively As being shared by one interviewed student that she used app “TFLAT” on her mobile phone to know the meaning of a new word Besides, the other one said that whenever she met a new word, she ignored it

4.2 The difficulties in learning academic vocabulary among 2 nd year students at Hue University of Foreign Languages

Table 2: Student’s way to learn a new academic vocabulary

Table 2 shows the students’ ways to learn a new academic vocabulary From the statistics in Table 2, we can see that about 66.67% practice vocabulary through the language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing The second and third ranks fall into doing vocabulary exercises (63.33%) and making sentences with the words (40%) The smallest rate (10%) belongs to playing word games About 6.67% of the opinions present the ways the learners have used for word practice They watch videos to know the word usage situations, make sentences with the words, ask the partners or the teachers to find out some more examples, and write the words for many times The information in Table 2 suggests that the students use few effective ways to learn a new academic vocabulary

Table 3: Students' difficulties in progress learning academic vocabulary

Which difficulties do you have when

you learning academic word? Percent age (%)

Exercises with no combination of the

Completely not found the right meaning

Table 3 presents the obstacles with learning academic word As shown in this table, about 33.33% choose lack of

Content Percent age (%)

Practice them through the language

skills: listening, speaking, reading,

vocabulary exercises and difficult vocabulary exercises 23.33% select completely not found the right meaning in dictionaries With 73.33% think there are many new words they do not know, while 20% choose exercises with no combination of the language skills Only 3.33% of other opinions for this question, most of the students think that there are too many new words, complicated phrases, tough word usage, and pronunciation From the statistics given, we can infer that there are too many factors affect to learning academic vocabulary for students One student also shared that she had many things to study, methodology, examinations, presentations, so she did not have time to learn academic vocabulary One student said that she could learn those words, but it was hard for her to understand and remember those words for a long time Especially each academic word contains a lot of meanings

4.3 Causes difficulties for 2 nd year students at Hue University of Foreign Languages to learn academic vocabulary

Yes; 83.33%

No; 16.67%

Chart 5: Teachers instruct the uses of academic vocabulary

Chart 5 present do teachers instruct the use of academic vocabulary for students A high rate of 83% means that 25 in total

30 answers, said that teacher instructed them to use the academic word Besides a small number of 5 answers (17%) said that teachers didn't teach them The information in Chart 5 implies that almost the teachers have instructed the uses of academic vocabulary to students