Some methods for teaching vocabulary in pre reading helping class 11c2 at nhu xuan 2 high school be motivated in the reading lessons

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAININGNHU XUAN II HIGH SCHOOL THE INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE THE THESIS: SOME METHODS FOR TEACHING VOCABULARY IN READING HELPING CLASS 11C2 AT NHU XUAN

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

NHU XUAN II HIGH SCHOOL

THE INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE

THE THESIS:

SOME METHODS FOR TEACHING VOCABULARY IN READING HELPING CLASS 11C2 AT NHU XUAN II HIGH SCHOOL BE MOTIVATED IN THE READING LESSONS.

PRE-Author: Pham Thi Lien Occupation: Teacher Field ( Subject): English

THANH HOA, 2018

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

NHU XUAN II HIGH SCHOOL

THE INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE

THE THESIS:

SOME METHODS FOR TEACHING VOCABULARY IN READING HELPING CLASS 11C2 AT NHU XUAN II HIGH SCHOOL BE MOTIVATED IN THE READING LESSONS.

PRE-Author: Pham Thi Lien Occupation: Teacher Field ( Subject): English

THANH HOA, 2019

TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

I.1 Reasons for choosing the thesis 1

PART II: CONTENTS OF THE THESIS 3II.1 Rationale which affects to the thesis 3II.1.1 Students' language level 3II.1.2 Teacher's teaching method 3

II.1.4 Material limitations 3II.1.5 The reading program for the grade 11th at Nhu Xuan II high

II.3.4.1 Using real objects 7II.3.4.2 Using situations 7

II.3.4.4 Using spoken laguage 8II.3.4.5 Using body laguage 8II.3.4.6 Using prefixes, suffixes, root words 9

II.3.5.7 Jumbled words 11II.3.5.8 Noughts and Crosses 11

II.4 Results after applying the research with the teaching activities,

my colleagues and my school

12

PART III: CONCLUSION, SUGGESTIONS. 19

PART I: INTRODUCTION I.1 Reasons for choosing the thesis.

As you know, English is an international language which is used by a lot

of countries all over the world It also becomes main language incommunicating among different people in different countries in the world

With the trend of integrating, Vietnam has been promoting their abilities

in all aspects Therefore, in education, Vietnam really pays attention to teachingand learning English all schools in Vietnamese educational system English isalso becomes a chore subject in national educational system From those, we seethe importance of teaching and learning English in the development andintegration of our country

English is a device for communicating and integrating with manycountries in our region and in the world, a device for approaching moderntechnology and science and exchanging economics, politics and culture betweenour country and others in the region and in the world

In Vietnam, nowadays students begin to learn English at primary school

In high school, they continue the learning program from primary school tosecondary school They learn English with four skills such as writing, listening,speaking and reading along with language focus to continue improving theirskills and knowledge Furthermore, they also prepare the best knowledge fortheir most important examination of graduating or use the knowledge for highereducation

As an English teacher I know the importance of English with my students,

so I always try to find out the best methods in teaching English for them In ourschool system, English is both different and characteristic subject It makesstudents curious and passionate However, it also creates a lot of difficulties andmisunderstandings As a result, students sometimes feel discouraged In thissituation, teacher has a very important role to transfer the passion and theenjoyment to their students

When teaching English at high school, specially teaching the 11th grade atNhu Xuan II high school, I see that most of my student like learning English.They also try their best to learn it in all skills and language focus but they seemindifferent to reading skill However, nowadays reading skill is step by stepbecoming an important part in their study As you know, this skill has beenbecoming a very important part in the examination for English students formany years Reading skill also plays a key role of enriching English vocabularyfor learners But students often have difficulty in understanding a commonreading because of some new vocabularies When teaching my students, I seethat they often stop to look up a dictionary when encountering new words Thistakes a lot of time to complete a reading Reading texts often contain many newwords They often find there are too many new words in reading texts becausethey forget or miss a word of those so they often feel confused before acomprehension exercise That’s why the teacher’s guide is very necessary

Meanwhile, the current teaching method is to make students find their own way

of learning, teacher is only a guide to show them how to read rather than prepareall for them.From these elements, I see that I have to update and change mymethod in teaching reading skill so that I can make students really like this skillmore than ever before So as to help students improve their reading skill,teaching vocabulary effectively is very important for them to overcomedifficulties in vocabulary

With my own thought and my own experience in teaching English at NhuXuan II high school for many years, I strongly try to give my own brightexperience: Some methods for teaching vocabulary effectively helping the 11thgrade students improve their reading skill

With the thesis I hope that I will contribute my little experience to help

my students like and improve their reading skill in the next courses

I.2 Objectives.

When teaching reading skill to the students in the grade 11C2 at NhuXuan II high school I found out that vocabulary stage is very important inteaching reading skill and it also effects students' reading result, so I decided tocarry out this thesis Firstly, I want to find out some other methods in teachingvocabulary effectively From changing this stage helps students improve theirreading performance result in reading skill Secondly, I want to create my ownexperiences which are useful and necessary for my teaching The experienceswill be used in the next courses and bring out the good results in my job.Furthermore, I also want to contribute my own experiences in teaching English

at Nhu Xuan II high school Hopefully that the results of this study would beshared with any colleagues who had the same problem or anyone who isinterested in this study Last but not least, Based on the results of this actionresearch, some changes and new methods could be applied in some lessons Ihope that my students will love reading skill more than ever before and workeffectively in the reading lessons

I.3 Participants

The subjects chosen for the research include 38 students in the class 11C2

at Nhu Xuan II High School with the survey questionnaires The research wascarried out during the first term of the academic year 2017 – 2018 at Nhu Xuan

II High School

I.4

Methods of the study.

The study bases on teacher's main activities: teaching time in the classThe data is collected by sets of questionnaires some were set before usingthe methods and others were set after using the methods

Other sources of data come from reading tasks from the textbooks Theanalysis of the data hopefully will bring about reliable findings useful for theteaching of reading to students at Nhu Xuan II High School

PART II: CONTENTS OF THE THESIS II.1 Rationale which affects to the thesis.

From my teaching I know clearly that students' result in receivingvocabulary in pre-reading can be affected by some major factors which originatefrom students, teachers, and other external factors

II.1.1 Students' language level

It can be easily seen that Nhu Xuan high school is situated at thecountryside in Bai Tranh commune, Nhu Xuan district Most of the people herehave medium living condition, so most students learn English with very simpleways They only learn English from their teacher at school These students havemedium level, few also have low level Others, but not large a mount of studentswith good living condition from their parents, find out some extra ways forlearning English such as learning outside the school, using cassette, computerand cell phone to learn online This group of the students has good knowledge Itmeans that students' language level is different Therefore, teacher may havesome difficulties in choosing a suitable teaching method, language and activitywhich are used in a class

II.1.2 Teacher's teaching method.

In pre-reading stage, teacher's teaching method focus on the ways whichteacher designs appropriate activities to motivate students to havecomprehension reading effectively So the more easy and memorable way ateacher can apply vocabulary to his students, the more interested students feel.When students feel comfortable and interesting, they can do the reading taskswell

II.1.3.Time limitations.

Normally, in pre-reading stage it takes from 10 to 13 minutes to conductthe activities However, in some large classes with a number of students whoseEnglish knowledge is limited, it often takes more time to conduct these activities

II.1.4 Material limitations.

In teaching lesson, facilities for displaying pictures and chart also play animportant part to help have a successful lesson As we know English is a subjectusing and updating a lot of pictures about many aspects in daily life The use ofvisual display to show these pictures in teaching and learning is an effectiveway, that makes students exciting and wants to discover the subject more.However, most schools of Vietnam don't have the best condition for students tolearn foreign language Most classroom don't have computer screen or visualdisplay unit Those surely affect students' learning result

II.1.5 The reading program for the grade 11 th at Nhu Xuan II high school

Basing on the new textbooks designed by the Ministry of Education andTraining English is taught with four skills and language focus which focuses ongrammar and pronunciation The reading program at Nhu Xuan II high school is thesame as this book with the aim of improving students' abilities in reading On English 11

textbook, we have 16 units with 16 topics for student's reading Different topics from 16units provide students with a large number of new words which they need eliciting inpre-reading stage to prepare for the next stages: while-reading and post-reading.

From the factors mentioned above, the question: “How to teach

vocabulary in pre-reading stage effectively?” is important and neccesary to every teacher From my old methods in teaching vocabulary with bad results, I tried to find out some new methods for teaching vocabulary to help my students improve their comprehension reading in particular and their reading skill in general after studying some references materials such as: “Top ten” principles for teaching reading Ray Williams; Nuttall, C 1982 Teaching Reading Skills

in a Foreign language London: Heinemann; Allen V Techniques in Teaching Vocabulary Oxford University Press, 1983…

II.2 Reality before implementing the thesis.

I began teaching class 11C2 with 38 students when they were at grade 10

At that time I taught reading skill based on the design of the textbook with threestages pre, while and post stage sometimes four stages consisting warm-up Ididn't change anything in the textbook In pre-reading stage, after gettingstudents to have a through look on the reading text, I started to teach mystudents some new words in the reading text by writing them on the board andexplain their meanings in a simple and quick way: translating.Next I helped mystudents to pronounce the words and I continued the lesson with the tasksalready designed in the textbook From my teaching, I saw my students readingbad They didn't like this skill because when they read the text and did the tasksrequired, they appalled with the number of new words they met in the text.Whenever they met a new word that they didn’t know, they stopped to look it up

in the dictionary This took them much time and as a result, they didn’t haveenough time to complete the tasks in while – reading and post – reading Thisalso made them feel bored and afraid of reading skill

I thought of this much and I also asked my colleagues for how they taughtthis skill They gave me the same steps as I did I decided to implement a surveyasking my students some questions in order to know exactly the cause of thisproblem and to find out the solution as well as the better methods in teachingreading.In my survey, 38 students in class 11C2 were asked to give their answer

to the questions from the teacher then handed in their papers to the teacher.After the survey, teacher statisticed students' answers to find out the cause.There were the results of the survey

Question 1: "What make(s) you not satisfied with and interested in a reading

lesson?"

a It takes me time to look up new words which I don’t know

b I don't do the tasks well

c I don't feel being motivated enough

d You choose all

of the importance and the influence of pre - reading stage in students’ reading.

Question 2: "What factors do you want your teacher change in a reading

lesson?"

a Teacher should create pre-reading stage effectively and attractively

b Teacher should speak louder

c Teacher should create the tasks in while-reading and post-reading moreeasier

d Teacher should change his/her mood and teacher's lifestyle

From these causes and students' ideas I think I should change my method

in teaching reading skill, specially in teaching pre-reading stage

II.3 Some methods for teaching vocabulary in pre-reading effectively to help students be motivated in the reading lessons.

With the results from the convey I conducted with my students, I see thatteaching vocabulary effectively in pre-reading plays a very important role inhelping students have a successful reading lesson And I tried my best to findout some methods which I really think that will be useful to teachers Whenapplying the research, teachers should remember some notes as follows to getthe best results

II.3.1 Preparation.

Before starting a new lesson, the teacher must have good preparation He/she should prepare a list of new words appearing in the reading that areneccesary to teach students in order for them to do well in the reading And he/she should make the teaching learning vocabulary process clear and easy forstudents to remember With good performmance of teaching vocabulary,students will be motivated for the tasks in the next part: while-reading and post-readingthat leads to a good and successful lesson for both students and the

teacher However, teaching vocabulary is not just conveying the meaning to thestudents and asking them to learn those words by heart If the teachers believethat the words are worth explaining and learning , then it is important that theyshould do this efficiently Teachers should use different techniques and activities

in teaching English vocabulary to motivate their students, enrich theirvocabulary and enable them to speak English properly as well as do thecomprehension reading well

II.3.2 Choose words to teach.

Normally, a reading textalways appears some new words, but it is notneccesary to teach all of them and teach them in the same ways The teachershould choose words which need teaching Choosing words to teach, the teacherhas to consider whether they are active or passive words

- Active words are words which students know and use in communicating

To avoid teaching words which are unnecessary, the teacher should checkstudents’understanding by asking some questions or asking students to giveexamples with the new words And the teacher can ignore if the words aredifficult and strange and they are not related to the passage Teachers alsoshould encourage students to guess the meaning of new words if the words areimportant and easy in the passage.Teacher should mark the words he/she can askstudents to guess However, the teacher has to show students ways to guess themeaning of new words by reading words near new words carefully and checkaffixes This not only helps students to know more about the new words andtheir part of speech such as nouns, verb, adjectives, adverbs…by themselves butalso encorages them to have good habit in reading in stead of stopping reading

to look up the dictionary

II.3.3 Teaching vocabulary combined with pronunciation.

When students can pronounce new words well, they will write the wordscorrectly as well as help them in speaking and listening skills So, a part fromhaving a good teaching method to intruduce new words to students, the teacheralso need to teach students the best ways to read the words exactly

II.3.4 Choose the best way to teach and show the meaning of new words.

There are some basic ways to introduce and explain the meaning of newwords But the teacher should not teach allnew words in the same way Therewill be a suitable way for teaching each word in the lesson if the teacher trieshis/her best to think of it and have good preparation for it By using right anduseful techniques in teaching vocabulary, it can help create both a successfuland effective pre-reading and the whole lesson Follows are some populartechniques that teachers can use to teach vocabulary effectively in pre-reading of

a reading lesson:

II.3.4 1 Using real objects.

It is a great way to use real objects to teach new words, which helpstudents understand and interest in learning vocabulary.By this way, studentscan remember vocabulary for a long time and feel more attracted to studyit.With words used by this way to introduce, teacher has to prepare before that

Eg1: In Unit 2: Personal experiences – Part A: Reading

When teaching new words appearing in the reading text, with the

word: “a floppy hat”, teacher can prepare areal object like this:

Eg 2: In Unit 3: A party – Part A: Reading

Teacher can use the real object: a candle to teach this word

II.3.4.2 Using situations.

With some words, teacher can use specific situations in classroom oroutside classroom to show their meaning The situations given should be easyand simply for students to understand

Eg: In Unit 6: Competitions – Part A: Reading

To teach the word “representative”, teacher can use a situation like this:

Huong and Lan were the two representatives of your class taking part in thecompettition “Ring the golden bell” in our school last month

II.3.4.3 Using pictures.

Pictures as a part of visual aids are used as a technique in teachingEnglish vocabulary Pictures used to explain the meaning of vocabulary itemscan be posters, postcards, flashcards, graphs, family photograph, maps or evenboard drawing… With easy words, students can immediately guess the wordsbut with some difficult ones, students have to imagine and make a connection

from the image to the words Anyway, pictures help motivate students and makethem to pay attention and take apart.

Eg: In Unit 12: The Asian Games – Part A: Reading

Teacher can use pictures to teach some words related to kinds of sports:

II.3.4.4 Using spoken languages.

With this technique, teacher can use definition forms, synonyms orantonyms to show the meaning of new words

Eg 1: In Unit 15 – Part A: Reading

When teaching the word “ astronaut”, teacher can use synonym to helpstudents know its meaning: astronaut = spaceman

Eg 2: In Unit 10 – Part A: Reading

To introduce and show the meaning of the word “disappear”, teacher canuse antonym: appear  disappear

II.3.4.5 Using body language.

Using body language, actions or gesturesis also a good way to motivatestudents in studying especially in learning vocabulary because this technique canmake them not feel bored Students can have good memory aboutvocabularybecause it relates with part of human body So, they can be easyremembering it

Eg 1: In Unit 3: A party – Part A: Reading

The word:“blow out”

Eg 2: In Unit 13: Hobbies – Part A: Reading

The word: “throw away”

With these two verbs, using specific actions to show their meaning

is an effective way than any others

II.3.4.6 Using prefixes, suffixes, root words.

With many words in English, teacher can use prefixes or suffixes to showthe meaning of new words By using this way, teacher can use some usual

prefixes such as un-,il-, dis-, re-…or suffixes such as -able, -er, -or, -ty, -less…

to teach different parts of speech

Furthermore, teacher can use root words to teach vocabulary Try to usecommon roots with common words This way must be repeated and repeatedday by day Teacher ought to do it slowly and frequently Some common roots:trans (move, go): such as transport/ translate, pect (see): such as respect/ expect

…

Eg: In Unit 13: Friendship – Part A: Reading

Teacher can use prefixes : “in-” to teach students the word “incapable of”

or “un” to show the word “unselfish”.

II.3.4.7 Translating.

With wordswhich are too difficult to use one of the above techniques,teacher can give students their Vietnamese equivalents in meaning afterintroducing them

II.3.5 Create appropriate activities to check vocabulary.

A long with teaching and showing the meaning of new words, activitiesfor checking vocabulary after that are very important to help students rememberthe words they have learnt in the class and know how to use them corrrectly Aninteresting and appropriate activity with students’ level will help stimulate them

in the next stages of the lesson The activity teacher chooses for his/her students

do should be based on what the words in the lesson are and students’ level aswell as their interest In time limitations of the stage: pre-reading, teacher shouldcreate suitable and useful activity for checking vocabulary after instructing them

to pronounce the words correctly Teachers can apply some popular andeffective activities as follows:

II.3.5.1 Gap - filling.

In this kind of task, teacher prepares a list of sentences with a missingword in each one The words for students to fill in are the ones the teachers hasjust taught This activity can help students know how to use the words inspecific situations

II.3.5.2 Matching.

Matching is a widely used activity among 3 stages: pre-reading, reading and post-reading and it is quite easy to students There is a variety ofthis kind of task Teachers can choose one that is suitable for their students andthis also depends on what the words are Follows are some samples of matchingtasks for teachers to choose:

while Matching the words with their definitions

- Matching the words with the right pictures

- Matching the words with their meanings

- Matching the words with synonyms

- Matching the words with antonyms.