An action research project on the effects of explicit english vocabulary teaching on grade 9 students’ vocabulary retention at lam thao lower secondary school

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES  N U N T P N N AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT ON THE EFFECTS OF EXP

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



N U N T P N N

AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT ON THE EFFECTS OF EXPLICIT ENGLISH VOCABULARY TEACHING ON GRADE-9 STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY RETENTION AT

LAM THAO LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOL

(Nghiên cứu hành động về hiệu quả của dạy từ vựng tiếng Anh hiển ngôn đối với sự nhớ từ vựng của học sinh lớp 9 tại Trường Trung

Học Cơ Sở Lâm Thao)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Code : 60140111

HANOI – 2016

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



N U N T P N N

AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT ON THE EFFECTS OF EXPLICIT ENGLISH VOCABULARY TEACHING ON GRADE-9 STUDENTS’ VOCABULAR RETENTION AT

LAM THAO LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOL

(Nghiên cứu hành động về hiệu quả của dạy từ vựng tiếng Anh hiển ngôn đối với sự nhớ từ vựng của học sinh lớp 9 tại Trường Trung

Học Cơ Sở Lâm Thao)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Code : 60140111 Supervi or Prof Dr oàng V n V n

HANOI – 2016

DECLARATION

I hereby certify that the thesis entitled

“An action re earch project on the effect of explicit Engli h vocabulary teaching on grade-9 tudent ’ vocabulary retention at Lam Thao Lower Secondary School”

is the result of my own research for Degree of Master of English Pedagogy at College of Foreign Languages, Hanoi National University, I confirm that this thesis has not been submitted for any other degrees

Hanoi, 2016

Nguyễn Thị Phương nh

Secondly, I would like give my sincere thanks all my lectures in Post-graduate Department for their valuable lectures and suggestions during the time I have studied at university My gratitude also goes to the leaders and staff at Faculty of Post-graduate Studies of ULIS, for their support in providing me the materials and convenience in the process of learning and conducting my thesis

Besides, I am also grateful to all my dear students at Lam Thao Lower Secondary School for their sympathetic participation in my research

Last but not least, my sincere thanks are desired to send to my family members, who always stand by me even at the harshest moment

ABSTRACT

Teaching vocabulary is one of the most important tasks in the English language teaching process To enhance my students‟ vocabulary retention the researcher applied explicit vocabulary teaching due to its suitable characteristics for her students However, a research to find out the effects of this method was recognized to be a compulsory task to take advantages of the strength of this method and limit its weakness because every method bears its own weak points The research was carried out with the participation of grade-9 students from Lam Thao Lower Secondary School

This research was conducted to find out the answers to the two questions

below: firstly, “How does explicit English vocabulary teaching influence the

students‟ vocabulary retention?”, secondly, “What are the good and bad effects of explicit English vocabulary teaching on the students‟ vocabulary retention? An action research was implemented based on its useful features In the research process, the questionnaires and the tests were used to collect quantitative data, and the interviews and the observation were applied to collect qualitative information The results of the research revealed that explicit vocabulary teaching method is relatively effective the learners‟ vocabulary retention, especially short term retention; however, the effects turn out unstable and different among different kinds

of students The researcher discovers the emerging problem related to the solution improving the students‟ attitude to English learning generally and vocabulary learning particularly

The findings of this research contributed further information to the theoretical background related to effects of explicit vocabulary teaching to the students‟ vocabulary retention, especially teenager students It is believed to be useful for the teachers and the researchers who share the similar interest about this topic

TABLE OF CONTENT

DECLARATION……… i

ACKNOWLEDFEMENT……… ii

ABSTRACT……… iii

TABLE OF CONTENT……… iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS……… v

LIST OF TABLES……… vi

PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 The aims of the study 2

3 Research question 2

4 Research methodology 2

5 Scope of the study 2

6 Significance of the study 2

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1 1 Definition of special terms 4

1.1 1 Explicit vocabulary teaching 4

1.1.2 Vocabulary retention 6

1.1.3 Effect 6

1.1.4 Long-term and short-term memory 6

1.2 How has vocabulary been taught? 7

1.2.1 Empirical background of explicit English vocabulary teaching through the previous studies 7

1.2.2 What are students taught in terms of vocabulary? 9

1.2.3 The influential factors on the students‟ foreign language learning performance 9

2.1 Rationale for the use of action research 11

2.2 Background of the study 11

2.2.1 Participants 11

2.2.2 Data collection instruments 12

2.3 Data collection procedure 16

CHAPTER 3: FINDING ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 19

3.1 The results of the tests 19

3.1.1 The results of the progress tests 19

3.1.2 The results of the posttest and delay test 20

3.2 The results of the observation 22

3.3 The results of the questionnaires 26

3.4 The results of focus group interview 32

3.5 Discussion and conclusion 36

3.5.1 The obstacles of the students to learn vocabulary well 36

3.5.2 How does EVT method improve the students‟ vocabulary retention? 43

PART C: CONCLUSION 45

1 Effects of EVT to students‟ vocabulary retention 45

2 Limitations 45

3 Implications 46

3.1 Attitude and the suitable age of starting learning English 46

3.2 The importance of learning English vocabulary frequently 47

REFERENCES 51 APPENDICES I

Appendix 1: Teaching content……… I Appendix 2: The observation analysis……… II Appendix 3: The results of the questionnaires in English ……… XI Appendix 4: The results of the questionnaires in Vietnamese……….XIX Appendix 5: The results of the interviews……….XXVII Appendix 6: Sample of the progress test 1……… ……XXXIX Appendix 7: The results of the progress tests……… XL Appendix 8: The results of the posttest and the delay test- Part A………XLI

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Appendix: Ap

Appendices: Aps

explicit vocabulary teaching: EVT

international phonetic alphabet: IPA

page: p

vocabulary teaching: VT

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: The results of the progress tests

Table 2: The results of part A in the posttest and the delay test Table 3: The results of part B in the posttest and the delay test

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

The important role of teaching vocabulary for foreign language learners in general and for English learners in particular is transparent and undeniable A learner cannot succeed in learning a foreign language without prolific vocabulary Nevertheless, to teach vocabulary successfully is always a challenge to all English teachers The question “How to teach vocabulary effectively?” is really one of my big obstacles in the teaching process

The students who participated in this research attended an English course at

my private English class All of them learned at Lam Thao Lower Secondary School; however, they came from different classes Two months after the course started, it was realized that the students‟ performance showed their poor vocabulary Especially, the students never learned vocabulary before attending my class However, they were required to retain a large amount of vocabulary to pass the high school entrance exam, which led their need of learning vocabulary This inquiry was a challenge to them because the amount of time for teaching vocabulary at class was limited while their ability of learning vocabulary independently at home was ineffective Consequently, explicit vocabulary teaching (EVT) was chosen to apply for the students because it is believed to be able to help students not only understand vocabulary clearly and quickly but also resume many lexicons simultaneously (Burn & Joyce, 2008) Nevertheless, there has been no best method to teach a foreign language in general and vocabulary in particular EVT may not bring unpredictable disadvantages to learners Hence, the requirement of evaluating the effects of this method of teaching vocabulary on students‟ vocabulary retention was given

Another research reason is related to the lack of information in the theoretical framework in terms of the effects of using EVT to students‟ vocabulary retention The previous studies which shared the same topic and similar research background had not been implemented in Vietnam This resulted in the impossible application

of the implications provided by these studies

Due to the urgent demand of strengthening the students‟ vocabulary retention,

a research was required to be carried out The research named “An action research

project on the effects of explicit English vocabulary teaching on grade-9 students’ vocabulary retention at Lam Thao Lower Secondary School”

2 The aims of the study

The aim of this research is to study the effects of explicit English vocabulary teaching (VT) to grade-9 students‟ vocabulary retention at Lam Thao Lower Secondary School

5 Scope of the study

The research focused on the grade-9 students‟ vocabulary retention at Lam Thao Lower Secondary School The results of this research are expected to be helpful for the researcher to teach vocabulary for grade-9 students in particular and for other teachers to work in the similar conditions

6 Significance of the study

It is hoped that the results of this research will be helpful for the researcher to improve her students‟ vocabulary retention, especially unmotivated students They

will help the researcher realize the cause of the current conflict aspects in her teaching process to enhance the efficiency of the students‟ vocabulary learning Besides, the research also makes a contribution to enriching the related theoretical theory, which helps teachers working the similar conditions to improve

their work

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

Gass (1999) states that learning second language means learning its vocabulary Besides, Wilkins (1967 cited in Thornbury, 2002) contents that one can convey very little without grammar and nothing without vocabulary The participants of this research were believed to have poor vocabulary, which required this research to be implemented Explicit English VT was chosen to apply in the research process To have firm background knowledge of this teaching strategy, viewpoints of scholars in this field will be represented in the following writing

1 1 Definition of special terms

1.1 1 Explicit vocabulary teaching

a Vocabulary:

According to Cambridge Advanced Learners‟ Dictionary (4th

e-edition), vocabulary is defined as “all words that exist in a particular language or subject” Besides, vocabulary can be defined as being “all the words that someone knows or uses”, “all the words in a particular language”, “the words that are typically used when talking about a particular subject” and “a list of words with explanations of their meanings, especially in a book for learning foreign languages” (The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 2003)

Especially, the definition of vocabulary became more specific in the definition given by Hiebert & Kamil (2005, as cited in Abolghasem, 2015) in relation to VT It was pointed out that vocabulary can be defined as the knowledge

of words and words meanings More specifically, we use vocabulary to refer to the kind of words that students must know to read increasingly during the test with comprehension

In this study, to the researcher„s view point, the term vocabulary is the knowledge of any word or combination of words (such as collocations, phrasal verbs and idioms) in any form and their meanings that were taught explicitly within the realm of the curriculum for English for grade-9 students in the Vietnamese

school system as well as new words or word phrases emerging in the exercises for the students

b Explicit vocabulary teaching

The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2003) defines the term

“explicit” as being “expressed in a way that is very clear and direct” Furthermore, the Cambridge Advanced Learners‟ Dictionary (4th e-edition) defines “explicit” in a slightly different way as “clear and exact or very detailed” Especially, the National Reading Panel ((NRP, 2000, as cited in Abolghasem, 2015) identified five main methods for teaching vocabulary including explicit instruction: Explicit instruction

is the teaching strategy in which the researcher gave students definitions or other attributes of words to be learned

The definition of explicit teaching was defined more detailed by Burns & Joyce (2008) as the teaching strategy where teachers tell learners clearly and directly about what they have to learn, why they have to learn, how they have to learn This idea is highly appreciated by the researcher Consequently, in this paper, this definition of explicit English VT was understood to be teaching English vocabulary in this way

c Implicit vocabulary teaching

It is important to include some background on what is meant by implicit VT and acquisition because the learning of new words can and does occur this way

“Implicit” is defined in Cambridge Advanced Learners‟ Dictionary as

“suggested but not communicated directly” Noticeably, implicit instruction is identified by The National Reading Panel (2000) as the strategy where the researcher exposes students to words or given opportunities to do a great deal of reading Ellis (2004) provides definitions of implicit learning as below: “Implicit learning is acquisition of knowledge about the underlying structure of a complex stimulus environment by a process which takes place naturally, simply and without conscious operations.”

In the writer‟s opinion, “implicit teaching” is understood to be a strategy of English teaching in which students are not explained about what they have to learn

or how they should learn, but are given many opportunities to gain new knowledge

by themselves thanks to participating in many activities in a particular context

1.1.2 Vocabulary retention

Retention is defined in Cambridge Advanced Learners‟ Dictionary (4th

edition) as “the continued use, existence or possession of something or someone” Besides, Oxford Dictionary Advanced Learners‟ Dictionary defines this term as

e-“the continued possession, use, or control of the fact of keeping something in one‟s memory.”

Based on the definition of retention given above, vocabulary retention in this paper is defined as the continued use, existence or possession of vocabulary in the English learners‟ memory

1.1.3 Effect

According to Cambridge Advanced Learners‟ Dictionary (4th e-edition),

“effect” is defined as “the result of a particular influence” Furthermore, Oxford Advanced Learners‟ Dictionary also defines this term as “a change which is a result

or a consequence of an action or other cause”

In this researcher, “effect” is understood to be the result or consequence of explicit English VT for grade-9 students of Lam Thao Lower Secondary School

1.1.4 Long-term and short-term memory

Long-term memory has the ability to store information away indefinitely According to Gairns and Reman (1986) it is the ability of assuming an unlimited amount of new information in an automatic processing and realize them without any effort

In contrast, short-term memory holds information in mind over a brief period

of time Short-term memory is a controlled processing procedure at which the learners can retrieve their new knowledge with effort It is believed to be limited in capacity according to Gairns and Reman (1986)

The definitions of short-term and long-term memory given above do not mention how long a period of short-term memory lasts Besides, the unlimited capacity of information retention mentioned by Gairns and Reman seems incredible and fabulous Most of the learners do not have this ability Consequently, short- term memory in this research is identified as the ability of remembering the vocabulary right after learning at the class Besides, the long-term memory is identified as the ability of remembering the taught vocabulary within at least twelve weeks after being taught This period of time is equivalent to the average time of a semester, and the students often take a semester test after this specific period

1.2 How has vocabulary been taught?

1.2.1 Empirical background of explicit English vocabulary teaching through the previous studies

Many researchers have done studies about the effects of explicit English teaching Each scholar brought new ideas and findings about the effects of explicit English teaching in general and explicit English VT in particular

Firstly, it is given by the side of the scholars who underestimate the effects of this strategy It is believed that students learn languages most effectively by way of expressing ourselves and trying to understand and communicate, not by studying separate building blocks in the language (Skolverket, 2011) Navy (1997, cited in Shakouria et al (2014)) sharing the similar idea with Skolverket argued that the amount of vocabulary is too much; hence, EVT is “time-wasting” and “only accounts for a very small proportion of native speakers‟ vocabulary growth” Remarkably, although Nation (2001 cited in Shakouria et al (2014)) did not absolutely appreciate EVT, he concluded that it is only suitable to teach “high frequency words, a very small group of words, which deserve time and attention”

In contrast to the opposing idea given above, many other scholars highly appreciate EVT Hanson and Padua (2011) suggested that using EVT with English teaching as the second language to give multiple encounters with words may provide deep word knowledge Beck et al (1982) concluded that participants processed word meanings more accurately and more rapidly due to this instruction method

Researchers agree that implicit word learning is important, but it is equally important to have a balanced approach to word learning Moreover, explicit learning has been shown more frequently to be of higher effectiveness in improving acquisition (Bardovi –Harlig Hatford, 1998; Beaton, Cruneberg and Ellis, 1996; Hulstjin, Hollander and Greidanus, 1996; Knight, 1994)

It is summarized that EVT can be given through providing word definitions, synonym pairs, word lists, word associations, the keyword method, semantic mapping and semantic feature analysis (Duin and Graves (1987, cited in Shakouria

et al (2014)) Harmer (1991) states that the introduction of new vocabulary can be carried out through the use of realia, pictures, mimicry, contrast, enumeration, explanation and translation All these vocabulary teaching techniques involve direct teaching Hence, EVT and directing teaching have the same characteristics

Burns & Joyce (2008) clarified the traits of teaching explicitly as below: telling learners how new activities link to previous activities in earlier lessons or earlier segments of the same lesson, explaining the learning goals of activities and how they link to learning in previous activities, giving students the terms, allowing sufficient time for activities to ensure successful completion by all learners, providing learners with clear course introduction that frames and structures learning goals and material These traits given by Burns & Joyce are considered the clues for the researcher to plan and implement curriculum to meet instructional goals and standards in this paper

However, it is realized that the results of the previous studies mentioned above are not useful and sufficient to apply for the participants of this research Although explicit vocabulary teaching is pointed out to be suitable for the learners with their poor vocabulary, how this method improves the learners‟ vocabulary retention in a particular period has not been shown clearly It is difficult for the researcher to make her vocabulary teaching plan, especially vocabulary revision activities, to enhance her vocabulary retention in long-term memory Besides, the participants in the previous studies had more chances to communicate in English than the participants of this research as well as most of the learners the researcher usually

works with Because of the difference in the learning environment, the results of the previous studies may not work well with the learners taught by the researcher

In conclusion, results of the previous studies in relation with EVT assert EVT

is worth applying at first for the situation of this research although it still bares its weak points Besides, the findings of this research are hoped to fill the knowledge gap of the previous studies

1.2.2 What are students taught in terms of vocabulary?

Nu (2004) gave the different criteria of classifying vocabulary such as morpheme, meaning, function, frequency of use, etc Below are the most common ways of classifying vocabulary

In terms of morpheme, words can be divided into three kinds: simple words,

derived words and compound words Simple words are ones that consist of a root

morpheme like like, car Derived words are those that consist of a root and one or

more derivational morphemes such as interested, actor

In terms of meaning, vocabulary is classified as lexical meaning and grammatical meaning Therefore, vocabulary can be divided into notional and functional words

In terms of function, with different functions of words in a sentence, vocabulary can be divided into different terms as parts of speech such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions and pronouns Each part has to comply with grammatical rules and relates to one another This kind of vocabulary can be called

Firstly, many scholars believed that learning foreign language at early age is

easy for learners to achieve better results than adults Lenneberg (1976) explains

that the flexibility of learning language decreases over time in the process of puberty Hence, post-adolescent language acquisition becomes more difficult The

participants of this thesis were teenagers Adolescents are at a stage in life when

they increasingly want to start taking responsibility for their own lives, including forming views about their own education, and the manner in which it is conducted (Ur, 1996) Hence, it is suggested giving learners more chances to learn by themselves rather than instruction, and avoiding scolding them

Moreover, it is believed that the learners can get better results if they are well facilitated by the environmental factors Asgari et al (2011) concluded that when home environment supports the learners, they will be strongly pushed to learn It is suggested that encouragement is more useful to make learners learn with fun Asgari et al (2011) also emphasizes the teacher role It is believed that teachers have an important role of providing their students with different strategies and training them to practice these strategies with useful tasks and assignments As Oxford (1990) remarked, the students having suitable learning strategies have more advantages and make the progress by themselves But they often have lack of knowledge and experience related to learning strategies

Noticeably, the learner motivation is highly appreciated It is believed that motivation is a key factor to bring the progress to the foreign language learners (Reece & Walker, 1997; Shulman, 1986) Crookes and Schmidt (1991) define the motivation in terms of choice, engagement and persistence, as determined by interest, relevance, expectancy and outcome Especially, it is remarked that the students should be aware of learning by themselves because their attitude is just the key to everything (Asgari et al (2011)) The learning strategies can be successfully implemented only when learners are aware of doing it actively

In summary, the influential factors mentioned above should be considered to avoid their bad impacts on the results of this research Hence, the information related to the learning environment, the learner attitude and motivation as well as the learner age was collected to provide the research background for designing the teaching content

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Rationale for the use of action research

Mills (2003) defines action research as "any systematic inquiry conducted by teacher researchers to gather information about the ways that their particular school operates how they teach and how their students learn The information is gathered with the goal of gaining insight, developing reflective practice, effecting positive changes in the school environment and on educational practices in generals, and improving student outcomes."

This research method is believed to bring benefits to the teaching and learning process, which promote both personal and professional growth of a teacher and help him solve his problem on his own or in collaboration with other teachers if he is trained to conduct action research (Johnson, 1995; Burns, 2010)

In summary, action research has a lot of advantages in comparisons with other types of research, and it is highly practical (Burns, 2010)

2.2 Background of the study

2.2.1 Participants

Fourteen participants in this study were the students in the researcher„s private class They attended this class once a week However, the information of twelve participants were analysed in this research because two of the fourteen participants did not attend all lessons during the research The participants were the students from Lam Thao Lower Secondary School, which the researcher did not teach for Consequently, the researcher had no impact on their grade formally This was the case where the students only learned when they needed and really wanted

It was impossible to force them to learn anything they did not want to Some of them were rather naughty or had strong ego, which sometimes made the instruction

of the researcher and their parents useless Most of the participants in this study showed that they did not like learning English And they learned it because it was a compulsory subject

All of participants learned at Lam Thao Lower Secondary School, but they came from different classes None of them majored in English Hence, they did not focus on learning English in general and learning English vocabulary in particular Especially, four of the participants often majored in other subjects such as chemistry, geography and biology; hence, they had less time to learn English than the others All of the participants started to learn English at the age of eight Besides, none of them had ever learned any other foreign language Consequently, there was no influence of previous foreign language learning experience on their process of learning English

Especially, the learning environment was not favourable to the participants They did not have opportunities to communicate in English outside their English class And they did not have many chances to communicate even at their English class because their teacher had too many students to take care of In addition, the participants did not have the frequent useful support outside the class or learn with technological supports Although they had good financial background and were provided with these appliances, they were seldom allowed to use them because their parents wanted to prevent them from entertaining with these tools Noticeably, the participants did not like learning English They felt tired of learning English, especially vocabulary

In brief, the participants in this study did not spend an appropriate amount of time learning vocabulary and have a good attitude to learn vocabulary although they had a limited amount of English vocabulary Besides, their learning environment was not good enough for them to improve their English, especially their vocabulary

2.2.2 Data collection instruments

2.2.2.1 Tests

Tests are often used to check students' vocabulary ability and knowledge in language acquisition study The instruments used in this study twelve progress tests which were designed following the text of each lesson and given to the learners once a week (See Ap 7, p XL, for more information) It is expected to test how the students remember the new vocabulary of the lesson on place From week 1 to week

4, oral tests were applied with word cards; however, paper-tests were used from week 5 to week 13 Each progress test included twenty tested items

A posttest and a delay test were used to measure how students changed over time under the effects of EVT The posttest was conducted in the fourteenth week The delay test was conducted after the posttest twelve weeks to test the learners‟ vocabulary retention following the target retention after an interval The posttest and delay test were vocabulary tests prepared carefully by the researcher The posttest and the delay test had the same model Because both posttest and delay test were long, the students were allowed to complete their part A in sixty minutes, have

a ten- minute break, and then continue completing part B in sixty minutes The allowed time of the tests were measured based on the average time that two grade-9 students from Van Lang Lower Secondary School spent doing these tests in a pilot study One of the two students often got bad marks while the other often got good marks Their ability was also believed to be relatively equal to that of the participants They were not informed to take both the tests previously to have the reliable results related their vocabulary retention These two lessons were ten minutes longer than usual

The tests had two parts In part A, the learners were required to write the Vietnamese meaning and the word family of the given words which were all the new words or phrases noted in their lessons This was expected to ensure the transparence of their understanding and bore the characteristic of EVT Besides, they were supplied with the text where the words or phrases appeared in case they encountered the ambiguity and the bad influence of homonym In part B, the learners were required to answer multiple choices with four options (A, B, C, or D) The learners were required to answer twelve phonetic questions, twenty four word formation questions and sixty vocabulary questions

After the tests were graded, they were analysed with mean and standard deviation

2.2.2.2 Questionnaires

Four questionnaires were used in this research (See Ap.3, p XI, for details) Questionnaire 1 was based on the suggestion of designing questionnaires given by Burns (2010) It was conducted to investigate the learning and teaching environment of the participants, their foreign language learning experience and attitude of learning English before this research was carried out Questionnaire 2 was conducted in week 5 to discover how the learners evaluated the effects of teaching vocabulary with word cards and how they reviewed vocabulary after class Quesitonnaire 3 was given to the learners after the posttest to find how the learners evaluated the effects of EVT, especially the comparison among the used teaching techniques Questionnaire 4 was conducted after the delay test to find the answer to how the learners reviewed the taught vocabulary after the posttest and what the researcher should improve in the next cylce of the research In these questionnaires, the questions related to the learners‟ learning and teaching vocabulary environment were repeated to reinforce the reliability of the information and avoid the bias prone

to occur due to the environment changes

The questionnaires were designed mainly to get quantiative data The qualitative data was mainly taken via interviews which will be mentioned in details below

2.2.2.3 Focus group interview

It was realized that the information collected in the questionnaires was insufficient This resulted in the interview conduction on the purpose of collecting insightful data

Three students were invited to participate in the interviews They were the representatives of three students groups classified following their average marks One had the average mark of 4; one had the average mark of 6; one had the average mark of 8 The interviewees were separated to answer the questions which are listed

in Ap 5 (p XXVII) This made sure that the students were affected by the opinion

of the others Questions and answers were given in Vietnamese to avoid the

misunderstanding due to the students‟ limited English using ability All interviews were recorded and transcribed for translation

After five weeks of training, the first interview was conducted to obtain more in-depth data to find the answers in terms of how students assessed their progress when applying the techniques of teaching with cards and why the students had not been learning vocabulary before class The full translated transcript of the first interview is given in the Aps

Ten weeks after the first interview, the second interview was carried out to find out how they evaluated the effects of EVT techniques Especially, this interview was expected to explain why the students continued not to learn vocabulary before class The full translated transcript of the second interview is given in Ap 5 (p XXVII)

Thirteen weeks after the second interview, the final interview was conducted

to explain the conflict points between their results of learning vocabulary and their evaluation related to the effects of EVT

2.2.2.4 Observation

Observation is very important to carry out in an action research It can help researchers to find the problem based on the unusual performance (McKay, 2006, cited in Richards, 2003) Consequently, observation was used to collect both the qualitative and quantitative information in this research

Burns (2010) suggested some techniques of observation known as using audio or video-recordings of classroom interactions, transcripts of classroom interactions between teacher and students or students and students, photographs of the physical context, brief notes or recorded comments, etc The participants in this research showed their shyness and anxiety in front of the camera, which had been revealed in the previously conducted research They disagreed to work with the appearance of camera strongly Hence, the only observation technique in this research was using teaching diary with careful and systematic notes The aim was collecting the information in terms of vocabulary teaching activities in the class,

especially the informal chats between the researcher and the students, the students and students

A peer observation had been conducted before this study started Hence, it was realized that observation required a careful plan and conduction The researcher

in the peer observation tended to forget to take notes She focused on making her presentation and explaining the students‟ questions Hence, important information was not noted Based on the experience, taking notes about teaching history was carried out each fifteen minutes in every lesson Especially, V-space observation was used to watch the interaction of many students at the same time This observation technique was suggested by the researcher‟s Kungfu master A person tended to focus his look on a specific object, which makes the object notice him and start to behave less naturally However, a person does not focus on a specific object but weep a V-space in front of him while using V-space observation technique By this way the observer can watch more objectives simultaneously without attracting any object‟s attention The students might not tell the researcher the truth in the interviews because of their anxiety caused by the social status But they tended to confess with their classmates Hence, the observation played an important role of finding the truth Besides, the students might cheat in their test Observation helped the researcher stop the rule breaking timely

Besides, the researcher strongly agreed with Burns (2010) that analysing the observation data should be focused to answer the questions in terms of what the data supplies for us, what the main messages are, and what gaps of knowledge we need

In conclusion, the information withdrawn from the observation gives the noticeable contribution to the reliability of the research result

2.3 Data collection procedure

According to Nunan (1992), there are seven steps of action research This

study was implemented based on these steps as below

Step 1: Initiation (Identify the problem)

Before carrying out this action research, it was noticed that the students tended not to give their correct answers to their exercises due to their limited vocabulary When they were supplied with new words in the exercises they did wrong, they often gave the correct answers immediately without more explanation of the researcher

Step 2: Preliminary investigation (Collect data through a variety of means)

From the further observation, the students were realized not to understand many familiar words appearing in the previous grades Hence, they could not guess the meaning of new words based on the vocabulary in the textbook of the previous grades Besides, it was found that the new words outside their textbook were not reminded to learn by their teachers at school

Step 3: Hypothesis (Develop research question)

Explicit teaching method is believed to be favourable to learners whose English level, especially vocabulary, is limited Due to the students‟ limited vocabulary which prevented them from learning vocabulary in implicit teaching method, EVT method was expected to work well in this case Consequently, the hypothesis was given for this action research as below

“EVT method helps students learn and retain vocabulary better.”

Step 4: Intervention (Devise strategies and innovation to be implemented)

In this research, EVT method played the important role to improve my students‟ vocabulary Based on the theoretical background with regard to EVT, some techniques of teaching English vocabulary were planned to use in the teaching process The criteria to choose the suitable technique for each lesson were changed following the changes of the teaching process This follows the characteristics of an action research, which observes the changes in the teaching and learning process for the later necessary changes

Games and gifts were used to motivate the learners in all the lessons for the purpose of avoiding the negative effects of learning without motivation on the results of EVT Hence, evaluating this teaching method would be more reliable Because the English class worked once a week, vocabulary of each lesson was reviewed within two lessons in row Besides the vocabulary in the grade-9 textbook, all new words and phrases in extra exercises asked by the learners were listed on the board Teaching content of each lesson was given in Ap 1 (p I)

Step 5: Evaluation (Collect data again and analyse it to work out the findings) The instruments used in this study included twelve progress tests of vocabulary; a posttest and a delay-test were used to measure how students changed over time due to EVT The posttest and delay test were vocabulary tests prepared carefully by the researcher The posttest was carried out in the fourteenth lesson Twelve weeks after the posttest, the delay test was conducted to evaluate the learners‟ vocabulary retention based on the target time of three months

Step 6: Dissemination

The results of the action research in terms of the effects of explicit English VT are reported in this thesis

Step 7: Follow-up (Find alternative methods to solve the same problem)

Having completed the first cycle of this action research, the advantages and the limitations of explicit English VT were revealed This achievement will help the researcher to build the foundation for the next cycle of the action research, which will be presented in part C of this thesis

CHAPTER 3: FINDING ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 The results of the posttest and the delay test

3.1.1 The results of the progress tests

The progress tests were carried out each lesson to find out how the learners remembered the vocabulary which was taught in the current lesson The performance of the learners during the research is shown in Table 1 below (See Ap

7, p XL, for more information)

Table 1: The results of the progress tests

deviation

The scores of

The results shown in Table 1 pointed out that EVT turned out effective to the learners‟ vocabulary retention in short term The mean for all the progress tests reached 6.85 while the standard deviation for them was 2.479 Particularly, the means for the results which they achieved right after learning fluctuated from 5 to 8 However, the standard deviation of the lessons indicates that this method can help students embed the vocabulary rather fast but the effect was not similar to all the students It might be good to one group of the students, but it might be ineffective to the others

Noticeably, the results for the lessons taught with pictures were very different among the students The means of these lessons fluctuated between 5 and 8 while their standard deviations fluctuated from 1.181 to 5.272 (See Ap 7, p XL, item 3)

It was explained that some of students found it difficult to guess the meaning of the pictures because of their ambiguity based on the findings of interview 3 (Ap 5, p XXVII, item 22) These pictures were only shown in images, which also prevented the students from remembering the writing form of the vocabulary taught in this

way Besides, listing words turns out the least effective technique when the means

of the lessons taught with it fluctuated from 5 to 6.5

3.1.2 The results of the posttest and delay test

a The results of part A in the posttest and the delay test

In part A of the posttest and the delay test, the participants were required to write the Vietnamese meaning and the word family of the given words They were provided with the text where the tested words or phrases were taken from to avoid the bad influence of homonym However, none of them could give any the word family Hence, the mark for the ability of identifying the word family of all participants was zero The scores in Table 2 show the students‟ Vietnamese meaning retention The detailed information is shown in Ap 8 (p XLI)

Table 2: The results of part A in the posttest and the delay test

Firstly, the standard deviations showed the wide spread of ability difference They were 1.287351 and 1.410996 in the posttest and in the delay test respectively This means that the students‟ vocabulary retention ability was really different Some learners could embed the vocabulary better than the others Remarkably, it was found that the mean of the posttest which was 6.7 was higher than that of the delay test which was 4.6 Furthermore, the standard deviation of the posttest was lower than that of the delay test This means that the learners showed the better ability of retaining the vocabulary and less difference in their vocabulary retention in the posttest Hence, some learners were believed to forget more than the others when time passed, which requires more frequent revision activities for learners

2 Delay

test

Secondly, it is realized that the results for the lessons taught with pictures were the best technique in terms of short-memory when its mean in the posttest was the highest at 7.45 (Ap 8, p XLI) However, the result for teaching vocabulary with word cards in the delay test was the best technique in terms of long-memory when it reached at 5.4 Listing words turned out the worst technique in terms of short-memory In relation to both short and long memories, teaching with word cards is proved to bring the best effects to the learners

Noticeably, the posttest result for the lessons where learning with pictures was used was not directly proportional with that of the delay test The posttest mean which was 7.45 was much higher than the delay test score was 4.1 Besides, the standard deviation of the delay test for these lessons was much wider than that of the posttest The standard deviations were 1.698 and 2.569 for the posttest and the delay test respectively This is very problematic because the results in the posttest showed that the students embedded the vocabulary of these lessons well, even much better than those of the other lessons; however, the students had a dive in their performance in the delay test

b The results of part B in the posttest and the delay test

In part B of the posttest and the delay test, the students were required to do the vocabulary exercises The results are showed in Table 3 below

Table 3: The results of part B in the posttest and the delay test

for the post test and the delay test in part A respectively while they were 6.7 and 5 for the post test and the delay test in part B respectively Minimum and maximum for the equivalent parts of these tests were rather close The directly proportional relation between the vocabulary tests and the synthesis tests indicates that good vocabulary has a big impact on the consequences of other linguistic skills

However, although the results show that the EVT is relatively effective, the standard deviations shown in these two tests were rather wide This coincides with the results of part A

3.2 The results of the observation

The students were observed based on the criteria suggested in “Doing Action Research in English Language Teaching: A guide for Practitioners” (Burns, 2010) However, according to the specific purposes of this research, the observation was carried out to find the answers to the following questions:

Question 1: Do the students remember the new words of the previous lesson? Why?

Question 2: Do the students take part in the lesson eagerly? Why?

Question 3: How is the students‟ ability of remembering the new words on place?

Question 4: How do the students do their synthetic exercises exactly after being provided with new vocabulary?

The questions given above will be answered below The observation notes were written once every twenty minutes in each lesson The inference and the conclusion based on these notes were done at the end of each lesson

a Do the students remember the new words of the previous lesson? Why?

The students were required to give the answer to their homework including the new words of the previous lesson They had to translate the given text into Vietnamese to ensure that they really comprehended

The findings showed that the learners did not review the vocabulary of the previous lessons carefully or hardly did it before class They often said to each other

in their informal talks that they had not reviewed because they forgot to do it or had

to do too many exercises of other subjects (Ap 2, p III) They bore anxious faces Hence, the interviewees in the first interview were required to explain this situation (Ap 5, p XXVII, items 4&5) It was pointed out that the students only reviewed when being reminded and tested by the teachers Therefore, the learners‟ parents were informed whenever their children did not review the lesson before class Nevertheless, the observation results revealed that the vocabulary learning results were only a bit better in weeks 6 and 7 (Ap 2, p III, items 6&7), but they were not improved remarkably in the later weeks The students even reacted rather negatively when they talked to each other aloud and arrogantly that they did not feel scared (Ap 2, p III, item 8) The cause for their reaction was believed to be under the impact of their strong ego and puberty, which reminds teachers to consider choosing suitable interfering activities Hence, the researcher increased the time of reviewing the vocabulary in each lesson and stopped calling the students‟ parents too much

b Do the students take part in the lesson eagerly? Why?

It is very important for learners to join in the lesson excitedly Hence, this was one of the observation items The students were scrutinized if they volunteered to answer the questions, if their eyes focused on the lesson, if they implemented the researcher‟s request They were motivated with games and gifts The gifts were food or drink This kind of gift seemed suitable because the learners turned out very satisfied when receiving It was explained via informal talks that they felt hungry because this private class started after they had finished their extra class at school, and food and drink were wonderful to reduce their hunger Besides, the researcher tried to keep calm to avoid scolding the students

The first finding is that the students joined in most of the lessons eagerly They tried to compete with other students to get the gifts They even showed their pride in front of the losers (Ap 2, p III) They laughed very happily Nevertheless, the students were badly impacted in lesson 7 because they felt dissatisfied with their teacher at school They were so shocked that they could not focus on the

researcher‟s lessons, and even had negative reactions although the cause was not related to the researcher After discovering the cause, the researcher showed that she sympathized with them and gave them some advice She let them some minutes to give their opinion This way proved to work well because the learners started to join

in the lessons more excited It can be concluded that the students‟ attitude tends to change easily under the environmental changes The lesson results can be improved

by solving these conflict problems which are sometimes unrelated to the teaching activities

Finally, the observation results pointed out that the students joined more eagerly in the lessons where they were taught with cards and pictures than in the lessons where they learned with word listing (Ap 2, p III) Teaching vocabulary with cards and pictures helped students concentrate on the lesson longer before and attracted them better In contrast, the students turned out more conserved when learning with word lists

c How is their ability of remembering the new words on place?

The different methods of testing were applied to find out how the students remembered the new words of the contemporary lesson

Within the first four weeks, testing with word cards was used The results were exact with this method (Ap 2, p III, items 1-4) The tests were conducted as a game to motivate the learners Hence, the learners turned out eager to join in the lesson However, testing with word cards was time-consuming and difficult to control time The average time for it was about twenty minutes each lesson To have more time for other activities, the paper tests were used in the rest of the research Most of the learners preferred testing with word cards However, two of them seemed shy to be tested with cards They could not answer although they knew it Hence, this kind of testing is not suitable for this group of learners, which implies

the application of different testing methods for different learners

In general, it was found that the students could remember the new vocabulary very fast The means of these tests changed from 5 to 8, and the mean of the

progress tests were 6.89 (Ap 7, p XL) However, the scores for lessons where listing word was used were not as high as other lessons This showed that this technique was less effective to help the students remember the new vocabulary on place But the means of these lessons did not fall too low and still fluctuated between 4.2 and 7.5 (Ap 7, p XL, item 2) This result proves that explicit English

VT turned out relatively effective to help the learners to assume the new vocabulary very fast

According to the observation notes, four of the learners had stable performance They proved to be better at remembering the new vocabulary than the rest They often took the tests confidently and finished them perfectly although they did not always like the technique so much It can be explained that they have ability

of assuming the vocabulary quickly

d How do the students do their synthetic exercises exactly after being provided with new vocabulary?

The purpose of teaching learners vocabulary is enhancing their vocabulary retention to understand the text and do their exercises better However, to evaluate how the vocabulary assumption of the learners influenced on the exercise results was rather difficult because it depended on many different factors such as grammatical assumption, strategies of doing exercises, etc Generally, it was found that the learners could do exercises relatively correctly when they were supplied with the information related to the vocabulary appearing in the text The observation notes showed that most of the mistakes the learners made were prone to grammatical mistakes, unawareness of word family and using wrong learning strategies (Ap 2, p III)

Firstly, the learners were often required to translate the text into Vietnamese to identify how they understood the text In common, most of the students proved not

to face the obstacles in terms of vocabulary after being given the new vocabulary in the text They faced grammatical obstacles instead

Strangely, the learners often gave the lexical meaning of the words and phrases in the text correctly; however, they did not always understand the text meaning After observing carefully, it was found that the learners were stuck with translating complex sentences and noun phrases The researcher could not explain why it happened because she explained to her students how to translate these patterns and supplied the information of the word family for them It was only answered after the posttest and the delay test In the posttest and the delay test no one gave the word family of the given words and phrases despite being required This habit was so difficult to change that they continued not to learn it after the posttest despite being reminded to do it; consequently, they still gave no the information of word family to the given words as required (Ap 2, p III, items 6-9;

Ap 5, p XXVII, item 19) All of the learners only focused on learning the lexical meaning of the vocabulary, but did not concentrate on their word family This is the reason why they often have difficulty translating noun phrases and complex sentences because they did not recognize them in the process of translating the text Following the notes, whenever the learners were helped to recognize the noun phrases or complex sentences, they could understand the text meaning immediately

In brief, the mentioned findings mean that explicit English VT turned out effective to help the participants to improve the accuracy of the results for synthetic exercises Besides, it indicates that the learners still face the problems related to their learning strategies and grammatical knowledge

3.3 The results of the questionnaires

a Results of questionnaire 1

The first questionnaire was conducted on the purpose of finding out the influential factors which resulted in the students‟ vocabulary learning performance The questions were designed with the aim at discovering the students‟ vocabulary learning habits, their learning environment conditions, and their learning attitude to English in general and learning English vocabulary in particular (see Ap 3, p XI, for details)

Firstly, the first nine questions were designed to investigate the learners‟ vocabulary learning habits The findings of the first questionnaire pointed out that the learners did not have a suitable learning strategy and have inactive learning style (Ap 3, P XI, items 1-9)

It is revealed that 66.7% of the learners did not learn new vocabulary on place and review them frequently at home (Ap 3, p XI, item 1) 75% of them turned out inactive learners because they confessed only to learn when being warned to have a test or required by their teachers (Ap 3, p XI, item 2) Their learning strategy seemed inefficiency when 75% of them often watched new words until they remembered (Ap 3, p XI, item 3) Especially, 33% of the learners usually ignored the new vocabulary they encountered (Ap 3, p XI, item 4)

Noticeably, 41.7% of the respondents shared that they sometimes noted the new vocabulary they encountered in the exercises (Ap 3, p XI, item 6) Moreover, the results of the questionnaire pointed out that 75% of them did not learn this group

of the vocabulary after noting and remembered just by encountering with them many times in exercises (Ap 3, p XI, item 7) It was explained in the informal talks between the researcher and the student that the answer for question 3 (Ap 3, p XI, item 3) was only for learning the textbook vocabulary This is one of the main causes for their limited vocabulary and the trend of forgetting the new vocabulary Besides, most of them cared about the Vietnamese meaning and pronunciation, but none of them wanted to know their word family (Ap 3, p XI, item 9) This might result in that none of them gave the word family of the given words in the posttest and the delay test later

Secondly, part 2 of the first questionnaire was designed to find out the learning environment conditions of the learners (Ap 3, p XI, items 10-17)

The findings showed that their most common supporters to learn English outside class were their friends However, 100% of the respondents believed that this source of support was not frequent (Ap 3, p XI, item 11)

Besides, the result pointed out that the learners were applied with the necessary tools to learn Noticeably, 66.7% used computers or laptop to learn while 41.2% had mobile phones set up with English dictionaries (Ap 3, p XI, item 12) Their parents have the good financial background to afford their studying expenses (Ap 5, p XXVII, item 3) This means that the learners also have advantages to learn English if they are active to do it

Especially, aware of the big impact of the teacher on the student performance, questions in part 2 were designed to scrutinize the English VT method of the teachers who taught the respondents at Lam Thao Lower Secondary School It is revealed that 83.3% of the teacher taught all the vocabulary in the textbook (Ap 3,

p XI, item 13); however, it is found that 100% of the teachers did not teach the learners all new words they encountered in the extra exercises (Ap 3, p XI, item 17) Remarkably, these teachers did not test the vocabulary frequently, and did not test the outside-textbook vocabulary (Ap 3, p XI, items 15 and 18) In brief, the teacher finished their task in explaining the basic knowledge of the textbook; however, they did not focus on teaching the learners extra vocabulary outside the textbook, and care about how to motivate their learners In addition, the respondents shared that they did not have any chance to communicate in English, even with their teachers (Ap 3, p XI, item 20) And English is the first foreign language for all the learners (Ap 3, p XI item 26) Hence, they cannot be influenced by their previous foreign language experience Besides, most of the respondents found it difficult to remember the vocabulary without knowing the pronunciation It was discovered that 58.3% of the learners knew the IPA (Ap 3, p XI, item 24), but 25% of them could use it This means that most of the learners cannot learn the phonetics actively even with dictionaries

Finally, the purpose of part 3 in the first questionnaire is finding out the learners‟ attitude to learning English in general and English vocabulary in particular (Ap 3, p XI, items 27-34)

The result is rather intriguing Although 100% of the respondents found it necessary to learn new vocabulary, 50 % of them disliked learning English vocabulary (Ap 3, p XI, items 27, 28, 29) In the learners‟ opinion, the first-ranking causes for their limited vocabulary were their laziness, shortage of studying appliances and having strong motivation (Ap 3, p XI, item 31) Strangely, 83.3% thought that they did not have enough modern supporting although the results of part 2 pointed that 66.7% used computers or laptop to learn, and 41.2% had mobile phones set up with English dictionaries (Ap 3, p XI, item 12) The informal talks between the researcher and her students explained that their parents seldom let them use these instruments because they tended to overuse them for their entertainment purpose whenever they used Besides, the first motivation for all the learners was passing English exams (Ap 3, p XI, item 32) Moreover, according to the learners‟ demand, IPA is believed to be useful and should be taught

b The results of questionnaire 2

After the first five lessons, questionnaire 2 was conducted to investigate the learners‟ learning environment, find out how they review the vocabulary after class and how they evaluated the effect of the technique of using word cards to teach vocabulary (Ap 3, p XI, items 35 - 44)

The findings showed that 75% of the learners did not review the vocabulary outside class frequently (Ap 3, p XI, item 35) They said that they only learned when being reminded to have a test at school Especially, 83.3% of the learners confessed that they did not learn with cards as suggested The rest answered that they used it once in the first week and stopped using it later because of time-consuming and difficult storage (Ap 5, p XXVII, item 6) This discovery indicated that their practice was not as frequent as expected

Secondly, the findings pointed out that 75% of the respondents found learning with word cards effective while the rest found it normal (Ap 3, p XI, item 38) Hence, it can be concluded that most of them found this technique effective

Remarkably, 83.3% found it interesting while 16.7% found it normally interesting (Ap 3, p XI, item 39) This means that the learners appreciated this technique Furthermore, to avoid the environment changes influencing on the student performance, the questions were given to get the relevant information The findings showed that 75% of the students usually spent rather much time learning other subjects 41.2 % of the students spent less than one hour each week learning new vocabulary, and 42.1% of them did not learn anything while 16.7% of them spent from one to two hours doing it (Ap 3, p XI, item 43)

c The results of questionnaire 3

With the aim at evaluating the students‟ performance more objectively, the third questionnaire was conducted one week after the posttest

Firstly, the answers to the first question showed that 16.7% of the students learned the target vocabulary once a week while 83.3% answered that they

“sometimes” learned, especially their parents and their teacher warned them (Ap 3, item 45)

Secondly, the rest of the questionnaire was given to investigate how the learners evaluated the fascination and the effects of each VT techniques used in the research The findings showed that the students appreciated the technique of teaching with pictures the most highly 58.3% of the learners liked learning vocabulary with pictures shown on Galaxy tab 4 while 41.7% of them found its fascination normal (Ap 3, p XI, item 48) 83.3% of them found learning with paper pictures normally interesting while a low index of 16.7% did not like it (Ap 3, p

XI, item 47) However, learning with word lists turned out really boring in the learners‟ opinion 75% of them did not like learning with this technique, and 25% of them hated doing it (Ap 3, p XI, item 46) Remarkably, 66.7% of the students believed that learning with pictures was the most effective technique (Ap 3, p XI, item 49) Nevertheless, 100% of them considered learning with word lists as the worst one (Ap 3, p XI, item 49)

Especially, it was discovered in questionnaire 2 that most of the students did not review the taught vocabulary after class It was found that they still only learned

it when being reminded to have the tests Hence, some activities to remind and warn the students to train their discipline were applied 58.3% of the learners believed that the motivating activities had a little impact on them while 41.7% of them thought that it influenced on them at a normal level (Ap 3, p XI, item 50)

Finally, the observation showed that the students seemed to prefer the tests with cards to the paper tests Hence, question 8 was given to identify this point The finding showed that 83.3% of the learners preferred the tests with cards while 16.7% of them preferred the paper tests

d The results of questionnaire 4

Questionnaire 4 was carried out after the delay test, particularly twelve weeks after the posttest, with the purpose of finding out how the learners learned the target vocabulary after the posttest and identifying how they liked English at the beginning

The first finding revealed that the learners did not learn the target vocabulary despite being reminded by the researcher (Ap 3, p XI, item 53) The cause for this problem was thought that the students were not tested about this content by the researcher after the posttest, but they only learned when they were reminded or tested This showed that the learners were very inactive to learn vocabulary, and this habit turns out difficult to change

Interestingly, the learners seemed to have better attitude to learn English at the beginning It was found that 25% of the learners liked learning English at the beginning while 75% of them at least did not hate it (Ap 3, p XI, item 55) However, 41.7% of the learners said that they disliked learning English currently (Ap 3, p XI, item 28) Hence, it is concluded that the learners‟ passion of learning English has decreased over time