A study on the use of visual aids in teaching English vocabulary for 3rd grade schoolers = Nghiên cứu về việc sử dụng giáo cụ trực quan trong việc dạy từ vựng tiếng Anh cho học sinh lớp 3. M.A Thesis Linguistics: 60 14 10

The result of the study was concluded that using visual aids in teaching English Vocabulary can improve students‟ vocabulary mastery and their interest in learning English... The scope o

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

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

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

A STUDY ON THE USE OF VISUAL AIDS IN TEACHING

Nghiên cứu về việc sử dụng giáo cụ trực quan trong việc dạy từ vựng tiếng Anh cho học sinh lớp 3

Hanoi, 2018

Supervisor: Dr Ha Cam Tam

Student: Tran Thi Nhung

Code: 14045084 Training code: 60140111 Date of birth: 02/26/1981 Class: K23C

DECLARATION

I certify that no part of the report has been copied or reproduced by me from

any other person‟s work without acknowledgement and that the report is originally

written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor, Dr Ha Cam Tam

Date submitted: 08/2018

Student

Tran Thi Nhung

Secondly, my sincere thanks also go to all lecturers and staff of the department of Post- Graduate studies for their valuable lessons and precious helps Thanks to their lessons as well as needed helps, I could overcome enormous obstacles when doing the study

I also wish to acknowledge the cooperation of my colleagues and the students from two primary schools, helping me doing the research

Last but not least, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my family for their encouragement and great support during my time of fulfilling this thesis

The result of the study was concluded that using visual aids in teaching English Vocabulary can improve students‟ vocabulary mastery and their interest in learning English

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Objectives of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 2

4 Research questions 2

5 Organization of the study 2

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1 Vocabulary 4

1.1 Definitions 4

1.2 The importance of Vocabulary 4

1.3 Teaching Vocabulary for children 6

2 Visual Aids 8

2.1 Definitions 8

2.2 Kinds of visual aids 8

2.3 The advantages of visual aids 9

3 Action Research 10

4 Characteristics of young students 12

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 15

1 Setting of the study 15

2 Participants 16

3 Steps of action research 16

4 Schedule of implementing the action 17

5 Research instruments 17

5.1 Planning the action 18

5.2 Implementing the actions 19

5.3 Observing the action 26

CHAPTER III: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 27

1 Data analysis procedure 27

2 Findings 28

2.1 Tests 28

2.2 Observation 31

PART C: CONCLUSIONS 35

1 Summary of the study 35

2 Some limitations of the study 36

3 Suggestions for practicing teachers 37

4 Conclusion 37

REFERENCES 38

APPENDIX 1: LESSON PLANS

APPENDIX 2: TESTS

APPENDIX 3: FLASHCARDS

APPENDIX 4: OBSERVATION SHEETS

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Nowadays, English has become the most popular foreign language not only

in Vietnam but also all over the world In many countries such as Canada, Germany, The Philippines, India, Pakistan … English has been the second language In Vietnam, English is not used in daily communication but it plays an important role

in Vietnam because many English-speaking foreigners from across Asia, Australia, America and Europe have come to invest in Vietnam This has motivated the people

of Vietnam to learn English to facilitate efficient and effective communication among their counterparts The importance of English was immediately acknowledged by the Vietnamese government, which has resulted in the outlook of the Vietnam Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) for teaching and learning English, which are much concerned by people from all walks of life in society; primary schools, parents, educational strategy planning managers…Therefore, the number of people learning and using English has been increased dramatically English is being introduced to ever more and younger children In which, there are children at kindergarten And, English is now one of the compulsory subjects in primary education in many countries around the world

The researcher has opportunities to work with students from some primary schools Most of them are in third grade level; learn English from first grade level

It means they have learnt two English books: one in first grade level and the other in second grade level However, when working with them, the author found some problems: the students don‟t remember much the vocabulary which they have learnt before; they can hardly write any English words, most of them pronounce the vocabulary incorrectly, they seem boring when talking about English Acknowledging the importance of learning English vocabulary and the students‟ problems in learning English, the researcher would like to find an effective and appropriate strategy to improve students‟ vocabulary retention and their interest in learning English The researcher has looked over the list of the major themes in

education in the book, published in 2009 and entitled „English Language Teaching (Major Themes in Education)‟, edited by Patricia Hedge, University of Warwick,

UK, Nick Andon and Martin Dewey, all at Kings College, University of London,

UK At the same time, the researcher has looked over the list of previous minor MA thesis topics in VNU – ULIS (from 1993 to 2012) but there is also no topic relating

to the use of visual aids in teaching English vocabulary for third grade students

Based on the reasons above, the researcher is interested in conducting a research entitled “A study on the use of visual aids in teaching English vocabulary for third grade students”

2 Objectives of the study

This study was conducted with the aim to find the impacts of using visual aids in teaching English Vocabulary for the third grade students

3 Scope of the study

The study is limited into English vocabulary for the students in the third grade The scope of this study is using visual aids in teaching to improve the students‟ vocabulary mastery and their interest in learning English

4 Research questions

With the objectives stated above, the following question was proposed for the study:

 To what extent does the use of visual aids in teaching improve the third

grade students’ English vocabulary mastery and their interest in learning English?

5 Organization of the study

The study is entitled with “A study on the use of visual aids in teaching

English vocabulary for the third grade students” and designed with three main

parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion

The first part - Introduction is a brief overview of the study with more details

of the rationale, the objectives, the research question, the scope, and the design of the study

The second part - Development consisted of three chapters:

- Chapter 1 is literature review which discussed the theoretical background of the

thesis, relating to the key terms: vocabulary, visual aids, action research, and characteristics of young students

- Chapter 2 is methodology, which discussed the setting of the study, participants,

steps of action research, schedule of implementing the action, and research instruments used in the study

- Chapter 3 deals with data analysis and the findings

The last part - Conclusion is devoted to the summary and some limitations of the study This chapter also provides some suggestions for further study The conclusion will put an end to this part

References will be in the end

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Vocabulary

1.1 Definitions

According to Webster Dictionary (1935:1073), vocabulary is “A list or collection of words usually alphabetically arranged and explained or lexicon, stock

of words use in language or by class, individual, etc.”

Brown and Hatch (1995:1), vocabulary is “a list or set of words for a particular language or a list or set word that individual speakers of language might use”

According to Oxford Leaner‟s Pocket Dictionary (2003:482), vocabulary is all the words that a person knows or uses; all the words in language; and all the words with their meanings, especial in a book for learning a foreign language Hornby (2004:1447) stated that vocabulary is a total number of words in a language that is used by a person It means vocabulary is all the words that people use in a language Word and language are set of symbols connected each other Therefore, learning a language also means researching a word While McMillan English Dictionary in Lucie Kristenova (2006) states that the word “vocabulary” means all the words in a particular language

From the definitions above, it can be concluded that vocabulary is the total number of words which are needed to communicate ideas and express the speakers‟ means

1.2 The importance of Vocabulary

Can we live in a frame of a house? Can we build a house without bricks, cement, sand and stone? Can we communicate without mastering any vocabulary of the language we use? These are the same with Harmer‟s statement (1991: 153) of the importance of vocabulary by saying, "If language structure makes up the skeleton of the language, then it is vocabulary that provides the vital organs and the flesh." Harmer further states that grammatical structure is important but vocabulary

is much more important It means we cannot master any language without vocabulary mastery Zimmerman in Coady and Huckin states (1998:5) vocabulary

is central to language and of critical importance to the typical language learning Without a sufficient vocabulary, one cannot communicate effectively or express his ideas in both oral and written form (Fauziyati, 2005: 155) It means that vocabulary

is very important in every aspect as a basic component of language Students who master more vocabulary will certainly have a greater chance to improve their writing, reading, speaking and listening skill That is why, mastering vocabulary is very important to help us learning language

Many scholars also pointed out the importance of vocabulary in communicating For instance, “No matter how well the students learn grammar no matter how successfully the sounds of L2 are mastered, without words to express a wide range of meanings, communication in an L2 just cannot happen in any meaningful way”, said McCarthy (1990: viii) It means having good knowledge of vocabulary of a language is the key to understand or convey message in communication Vocabulary is one of the most important factors that help students

to be successful in mastering any language The more vocabulary they know the better they will be at mastering English Actually, vocabulary is one of the vital elements in constructing meaningful communication Without the words needed to convey their ideas and feeling, the learners cannot speak and write well A student who masters a good structure seems to lose its function whenever it is not supported

by the abundance of words In other words, it can be said that no matter how well students learn grammar and sounds of words, without words to express wide range

of meanings, communication will become meaningless

Last but not least, when students have enough knowledge of vocabulary, they feel more self-confident, enjoy their classes and have fewer difficulties in learning English For example, when they read a certain text, they will easily get the information from it since they can understand every word in the text So vocabulary

is seriously important

1.3 Teaching Vocabulary for children

Having acknowledged the stated above importance, teachers of English have recently focused more on teaching vocabulary Bromley, K (Bromley 2007) states that “teaching vocabulary well is a key aspect of developing engaged and successful readers” In fact, there are many books, workshops, journals of research, relating to vocabulary teaching method For example, in the book named “the language teacher”, (Batia Laufer, Vocabulary et al July, 2005), three authors Batia Laufer, Paul Meara, and Paul Nation share their Ten Best Ideas for Teaching Vocabulary; the NRP‟s synthesis of vocabulary research identified eight findings that provide a scientifically based foundation for the design of rich, multifaceted vocabulary instruction and June Preszler (June Preszler and Nancy Hall) provides Strategies to build Student's Vocabulary, focusing on developing word awareness and love of words through word play; developing explicit, rich instruction to build vocabulary; building strategies for independence; engage students actively with a wide range of books In addition, there are so many other ways of enhancing word memorization; multiple exposure to words (Baker,Simmons&Kameenui www); activating words through use (Stevick in Nunan 1998:133); comparing new with known words (Brewster,Ellis&Girard 1991:90); suggestions to support retention and recall

This study focuses on teaching the young learners, the third grade students Thus, the methodology of teaching vocabulary is far different from that of the adult ones and the teacher should firstly acknowledge the fact that the ability to master vocabulary of students in the third grade is still in the level of receptive use They are able to identify the words when they meet them but they are not able to produce

or use the words speaking or writing Lado (1979: 121-126) gives some steps in vocabulary learning, namely: (1) listening the words, (2) pronouncing the words, (3) understanding the meaning, (4) making illustration in the form of sentence, (5) doing practice in expressing the meaning, (6) pronouncing the words in loud voice, and (7) spelling the words Based on this theory, the third grade students are able to

master vocabulary in listening the words, pronouncing the words and spelling the words

Along with the knowledge of the ability to master vocabulary of students in the third grade, the teacher should depend on the following criteria to choose the vocabulary to teach the young students:

- The vocabulary is familiar to the students: The teacher should teach the words that young learners are familiar with or they can stick to so that they can easily understand and can keep in mind for long Such words are often about people and things surrounding them and taught according to themes and topics Nowadays all the course books, especially for young learners are organized into themes and they provide vocabulary according to the themes If there is a theme “Animals”, then we can expect words like naming animals, also where they live, what they eat etc

- The vocabulary is needed in the students‟ daily life: It is essential for the teacher to focus on the vocabulary the students need in their daily life The teacher must be able to predict what words the students need, especially the words the students need to know of talking about daily life because “When such words are learnt, the new language can immediately be put to use” (Allen 1983: 108)

- The frequency of using the vocabulary: “The words which are most commonly used are the ones we should teach first.” (Hammer 1993: 82) It means the teacher should consider which words to teach on the basis of frequency, how often the words are used by the speaker of the language The term of frequency, especially the frequency in which the particular item is used in common language These criteria can be the consideration for every English teacher to set vocabulary items to be taught for young learners

Last but not least, teaching vocabulary for grade-schoolers will be more effective with meaningful activities to practice vocabulary, which help learners memorize words much better than practice orally or listen to them purely To meet

the needs, the meaningful activities should involve as many senses as possible including hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting and feeling

2 Visual Aids

2.1 Definitions

The aids which use the sense of vision are called visual aids In the context

of teaching, visual-aids are items that are designed (most by teachers) to support written or spoken information so that it can be understood more easily Visual aids include teacher‟s gestures, facial features, and movements, real objects, models, pictures, posters, postcards, flashcards, word calendars, chart, picture books, text books, e-books, slides, graphs, images, black/white-board, maps, etc They are all the means by which teachers bring life into the theoretical texts by bringing environment inside the classroom indirectly with the purpose of relating teaching with the environment that students live and communicate with Those kinds of visual aids help facilitating the processes of teaching and learning a foreign language because they help students acquire the language and might be used effectively to develop and sustain motivation, to produce students‟ positive attitudes toward English learning, and to reinforce language-learning skills

2.2 Kinds of visual aids

There are a range of types of visual learning aids which use different media Pictures are perhaps the simplest and commonly used Yet pictures are also very effective In the language learning of young children pictures are often used as to provide associations for the learning of new words It goes without saying that we cannot use pictures for every unknown word as some words are abstract and cannot

be illustrated easily The more concrete a word is, the easier it is to find and uses a picture for its illustration (Anderson & Shifrin, 1980) There has been much research

on pictures in learning generally, and a little also in the area of second language learning For example, Underwood (1989), as cited in Chun and Plass (1996), has concluded that -en ordinary principle and opinions for human learning is visual memory Likewise., Koren (1999) points out that learning foreign words with

associated of words alone can be easier than words without these associations Indeed many teachers of young children in the English language classrooms use photo dictionaries to increase the vocabulary and speaking skills of learners

Charts, maps and diagrams are other common visual tools used for learning purposes Kleinman and Dwyer (1999) examined the effects of specific visual skills

in facilitating learning Their findings indicate that the use of color graphics in instructional modules as opposed to black and white graphics promotes better achievement in the learning of concepts An earlier study by Myatt and Carter (as cited in Heinich et al, 1999) suggests that most learners prefer color visuals to black and white visuals, but that no significant difference in the amount of learning occurs except when color is related to the content to be learned

Due to the frame work of the study and the limitation of time, the researcher would like to apply some kinds of visual aids in the process of implementing the action research including flashcards, photo, audio, computer slides

Calder (1966), cited in Girma (1983), states that psychologists have found that 84% of what we learn we get from seeing; 13% of what we learn we get from hearing; and only 3% we learn in other ways This implies that most of what we learn we get through visual medium In the context of teaching English, especially teaching vocabulary for grade-schoolers, who are too young and their vocabulary in still in the level receptive use, visual aids can be good resources for teaching vocabulary It is always helpful to show the objects to the students with the words

so that they can have a better understanding of the objects and their meanings It helps them to recall the words easily If the learners only hear a new word meaning orally, it may not be remembered for long time However, if the vocabularies are presented with the pictures, it becomes more effective Moreover, visual aids help the teacher to give emphasis on what is being taught and presented Clear visual aids multiply the learners‟ ability of comprehension

According to Allen, Kate & Marquez (2011), “Visual aids impact and add interest to a presentation They can create excitement Visual aids enable students to

use more than one sense at the same time One picture can elicit unlimited words” (p.5) Visual aids can make the class lively for both students and teachers; increase the effectiveness of classroom teaching-learning process including attitude, motivation, and interest of the learners which are the factors of crucial importance

in determining their achievement Actually, visual aids are multifunctional tools when the teacher uses visual aids in teaching, students will access the language by hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting and feeling Visual aids are not only the foundation for students to understand deeply the knowledge but the effective medium to shape the concepts in their mind as well because the images are kept in long term memory through the sense of vision Visual aids assist teachers for many necessary classroom activities like drills, exercises, instructions and explanation Visual aids actually economize time; insure more effective learning of vocabulary and permanent retention than verbal instruction Visual aids hold the attention of the learners on meaning, and help them to make the language used in the class more real and alive Visual aids evoke an immediate response from learners in a class which is the vital seed of all meaningful language-learning in general and vocabulary in particular (Hill 1990)

Visual aids are interesting for the student‟s learning because they will give specific and lifelike illustrations, making the lessons so lively, interesting and attractive that students can absorb the knowledge easily and quickly and develop their visible ability, imaginary, thought and language They give necessary variation and provide the classroom change-of-pace, which is essential to maintain students‟ high level of interest They go beyond the limitation of the school and home environment of the students and allow discussion of a wide variety of situations and circumstances Visual aids help teachers present clearly and smoothly, without complications so that their students can understand and remember concepts more easily

3 Action Research

Action Research is a formative study of progress commonly practiced by teachers in schools Basically an action research is a spiral process that includes problem investigation, taking action & fact-finding about the result of action It enables a teacher to adopt/craft most appropriate strategy within its own teaching environment Action research is a popular research method in the current development of society Many well-known scholars have a number of different ideas regarding the action research

According to Nunan, D (1992, p.18), action research is “a descriptive case study of a particular classroom, groups of learners or even a single learner counts as action research if it is initiated by a question, is supported by data and interpretation, and is carried out by a practitioner investigating aspects of his or her own context and situations” This definition shows that in order to carry out an action research, the teacher must be a practitioner who must identify the problem that her/his class encounter, and then carry out a plan to solve the problem

Another definition given by Kemmis & McTaggart (1982): “action research can be defined as a combination of „action‟ and „research‟ Action research puts ideas into practice for self-improvement and increasing knowledge about curriculum, teaching and learning The ultimate result is improvement in what happens in the classroom and school” In other words, the research or the teacher must do the research – find out what the problem of the class and then take an action to overcome such difficulties

“Action research is a strategy for teacher to make changes and develop professionally by reflecting on their own everyday teaching” - (Wallace, 1998: 16) Wallace believed that via action research conducted by teachers, they will become expert gradually in their teaching area Although each expert has their own definition about action research, it can be concluded that action research is carried out with the aim of solving the practical problems in a classroom which will be suitable for this study

“Within the action research process, educators study students‟ learning related to their own teaching It is a process that allows educators to learn about their own instructional practices and to continue to monitor improved student learning” (Rawlinson & Little, 2004)

“The idea of action research is that educational problems and issues are best identified and investigated where the action is: at the classroom and school level

By integrating research into these settings and engaging those who work at this level in research activities, findings can be applied immediately and problems solved more quickly” (Guskey, 2000)

The researcher has chosen this method to conduct her study because it is a formative study of progress commonly practiced by teachers who want to improve their teaching as well as their students‟ learning outcomes Also, the researcher finds this model suitable for her individual action research because it involves working independently on a project, as a primary school teacher, conducting her own in-class research project with her students

The researcher has followed the model of Action Research of Kemmis and

Mc Taggart (1988) which is composed of four phases:

- Planning: a problem or issue is identified and a plan of action is developed in order to bring about improvements in specific areas of the research context

- Action: the plan is to put into action over an agree period of time

- Observation: the effects of the action are observed and data are collected

- Reflection: the effects of the action are evaluated become the basis for further cycles of research

4 Characteristics of young students

Being a teacher, we should grasp students‟ characteristics and ability The more characteristics teacher knows about his/her students, the better methodology he/she can find to apply to his/her students This is not always easy for any teachers because not only the children at different age are different in characteristic but different children at the same are ages are different as well The work deals with the

third grade students Thus, the researcher will focus deeply on the young learners (7

to 9 years old) Young learners mean children from the first year of formal schooling (6 years old to eleven or twelve year age) Young learners have own special characteristics that differentiate them from adult learners There should be known and understood by the teachers to give contribution to improve their quality

of teaching and learning process

According to Lenneberg, a linguist and neurologist who pioneered ideas on language acquisition and cognitive psychology, particularly in terms of the concept

of innateness, children are better at learning foreign language than adult This is because of innate gene in language acquisition It means a child was born with available innateness of mother tongue language acquisition However, this innate capability does not exist forever in his/her life It only exists in the period, which is

so called “critical period” For human beings, this period will end after puberty

(12-13 years old) (Lenneberg's 1964 paper "The Capacity of Language Acquisition," originally published in 1960, sets forth seminal arguments about the human-specific biological capacity for language,)

Young learner‟s sensory perception is holistic; they don‟t often go into details They also have a holistic approach to language, which means that they understand meaningful messages but cannot analyze language It is preferable to help young learners to memorize single words or whole chunks rather than go into detailed descriptions of structures Teaching chunks of language in context may be a great idea Children are already very good in interpreting meaning without necessarily understanding the individual word They have limited reading and writing skills even in their first language It is useless to teach them grammar since they still struggle with grammar in their mother tongue Teacher should focus on fluency rather on accuracy Their sense is in association with feeling, seeing, touching, hearing, interacting and other practical activities They need concrete experiences in order to understand Their sense and assessment of time and space are still limited Their sense does not develop by itself, it need teacher‟s instruction

Young learner‟s thought is concrete, formulaic concerned with real objects, visual things and situation, peripheral rather than focal attention whose reference is observable in immediate environment They cannot comprehend abstract ideas, so

go for concrete examples, practical instances of language in use to be able to understand them and reproduce them Children need physical movements and real activities to stimulate their thinking Their problem solving skills are underdeveloped, simple, and not deep They have difficulties in observing regularities and causal relations Young learners‟ imagination is patchy, simple, changeable and unorganized It is improving step by step through learning process

Young learners‟ attention is involuntary, unsustain They have short attention and concentration span They cannot control what they are taught; the younger they are, the patchier their storage and recall are They need a lot of recycling and repetition and much exposure to language Children get bored easily so class activities need to be as fun, interesting and exciting as possible Children will be enthusiastic if they are taught using fun activities or being involved in activities Children love to play, and learn best when they are enjoying themselves Children like to work together

Young learners‟ intuitively phenomenal memory is more developed than logically linguistic memory They don‟t know how to organize their meaningful memory They are likely to memorize mechanically, they learn by heart Pictures or posters should be colorful, clear and professionally drawn Photographs or the children‟s own drawings can be useful too For children, the dominant sense is the visual channel If young learners are not given something to look at that is relevant

to the learning task, they will get distracted by something else that is of more interesting to them A teacher should have a selection of activities can be changed every 5 to 15 minutes depending on the age group of the children Children have a great need to be motivated in order to learn effectively Children love prizes and rewards even if the prize is a key ring or box of Smartest They need support and encouragement while learning

Young learners‟ teachers need to understand the above characteristics of children because it will influence many aspects in teaching English for young learners in order to have effective teaching such as teaching style, methods, learning materials, lesson plan, and the way of getting along with them One of the common principles is the funny, interesting and natural learning environment because young learners‟ world is associated with games, visual phenomenon, having fun From this principle a language teacher may develop his or her own techniques with suitable activities to make their learning funny and natural

- Action: the plan is to put into action over 2 month period of time

- Observation: the effects of the action are observed and data are collected

- Reflection: the effects of the action are evaluated become the basis for further cycles of research

This chapter discussed the setting of the study, participants, steps of action research, schedule of implementing the action, and research instruments used in the

study

1 Setting of the study

This study was conducted at the researcher‟s home class on the fourth floor,

at No 81D, lane 59, Duong Khue street, Mai Dich ward, Cau Giay district The action research was conducted within 2 months from September 6th, 2017 until November 1st, 2018 The researcher conducted two interventions on an entity - a group of 9 students The first intervention was planned to teach vocabulary without visual aids and the second intervention was planned to teach vocabulary with some kinds of visual aids such as flashcards, photo, audio, computer slides Each

intervention lasted four weeks with three sessions, each 40 minute session per week with three topics including animals, shapes and colors After each session, there was a mini test and in the fourth week, there was a post-test After the two interventions, there were 8 tests in total including 6 mini tests and 2 post-tests The mini tests were conducted right after the session to assess the students‟ short term memory of vocabulary and the 2 post-tests were conducted one week after each intervention to assess their long term memory of vocabulary

2 Participants

The participants are 9 third grade students from two primary schools This is

an early stage of students‟ learning English Although they all have been taught English in grade 1 and 2, it is not a compulsory subject and it is based on the spirit

of their parents‟ voluntary agreement The textbooks of the two primary schools are the same Their titles are “UK English Program”: book 1 for the first grade and book 2 for the second grade Because English is not a compulsory subject for them

at their primary schools, it is not taken care of as Math and Vietnamese Both teachers and parents considered it the period for them to get familiar with a new language All the knowledge they need to get familiar with are listening and speaking simple words relating to things around such as colors, food, drinks The researcher chooses them as the subjects of the study because they remember little vocabulary or even hardly remember any vocabulary

3 Steps of action research

The researcher based on the four phrase model of Kemmis and Mc Taggart (1988) including (1) Planning the action, (2) Implementing the action, (3) Observing the action, (4) Reflecting the action The detail of each step is as following:

Observation - to observer all students‟ activities in two actions

Reflecting

- To find the the answer for the hypothesis “using visual aids in teaching vocabulary can improve the third grade students‟ vocabulary mastery and interest in learning English

4 Schedule of implementing the action

3 September 20th, 2017 Lesson 3 Mini test 3

5 Research instruments

To collect the data, 2 following instruments were applied (1) testing and (2) observation

(1) Testing: There are 3 mini-tests and 1 post-test in each intervention: The aim

of the mini-tests is to assess students‟ short term memory Thus, each mini-test is conducted right after the lesson; the content of mini-test is included in the content of the lesson only And the aim of the post-test is to assess their long term memory Thus, each post-test is conducted one week after the intervention ended; the content

of post-test is included in the content of whole intervention

(2) Observation: There are 6 observation sheets for 6 sessions, three sheets for intervention 1 and three sheets for intervention 2 In each observation sheets, there

are 11 criteria relating to students‟ interest in learning English The aim of the observation sheets is to assess their interest in learning English

5.1 Planning the action

Two interventions were planned to teach vocabulary for the third grade students The first intervention was planned to teach vocabulary without visual aids

in three weeks with three topics including animals, shapes and drinks After each session, there was a mini-test and at the end of the intervention, there was a post-test It was planned as following:

INTERVENTION 1: NO VISUAL AIDS

1 Animals Vocabulary: monkey, duck, chicken, mouse, rabbit, bird,

Sentences: What is it? => It is …

Vocabulary: Circle, square, rectangle, triangle, oval, diamond

Sentences: What is it? => It is …

What shape is it? =>It‟s …

Vocabulary: Water, beer, coffee, soda, milk, wine Sentences: What drink is it? =>It‟s …

What drink do you like? => I like …

The second intervention was planned to teach vocabulary with visual aids in three weeks with three topics including fruits, school facility and family After each session, there was a mini-test and at the end of the intervention, there was a post-test It was planned as following:

INTERVENTION 2: WITH VISUAL AIDS

Vocabulary: Apple, banana, carrot, cucumber, grapes, lemon

Sentences: What fruit do you like? => I like …

Do you like …? => Yes, I do/ No, I don‟t

Flashcards/ Real objects

5.2 Implementing the actions

The plan of the two interventions was put into practice In the first intervention, the researcher did not use visual aids in teaching students vocabulary All of the three sessions of the first intervention took place in the same steps as

- Looking at the board

Main

activity Listening - Saying the vocabulary - Listening to the teacher

(30ms)

Speaking

- Asking students to say after

in chorus 3 times and correcting them (if needed)

- Focusing students on the ending sounds and linking sound

- Asking students to say in chorus

- Asking students to say in group

-Asking students to say one by one

- Asking students to say in silent

- Guiding students to make sentence on board

- Saying after the teacher

in chorus 3 times and correcting them (if needed)

- Listening to the teacher

- Asking each student to read vocabulary and sentences on board

- Reading vocabulary and sentences on board in chorus

- Reading vocabulary and sentences on board

- Writing the content of the session on board

- Writing each word 2 lines

in notebook

Closing

In the second intervention, the researcher used visual aids in teaching vocabulary Each action has three sessions Each session took 40 minutes Each

session of the first intervention took place as following:

Session 1: Fruits Steps Skills Teacher’s activities Students’ activities

- Saying the name of fruits

- Asking students to say after

- Using audio to teach students

- Asking students to say after the audio

- Listening to the teacher

- Saying after the teacher

- Listening to the audio

- Saying after the audio

Speaking

- Using picture flashcards, saying the vocabulary and guiding the ending sound of

“carrot” and “grapes”

- Asking Students to say aloud after the teacher (3 times), listening, checking, and correcting student‟s errors (if needed)

- Asking students to say one

by one, listening, checking, and correcting student‟s errors

- Asking students to say and check each other in pair

- Looking at flashcards and listening to the teacher

- Saying aloud after the teacher

- Saying aloud in turn

- Saying and checking each other in pair

saying the words and guiding

- Looking at flashcards and listening to the

again the ending sound of

“carrot” and “grapes”

- Asking Students to say aloud after the teacher (3 times), listening, checking, and correcting student‟s errors (if needed)

- Asking students to say one

by one, listening, checking, and correcting student‟s errors

- Asking students to say and check each other in pair

teacher

- Saying aloud after the teacher

- Saying aloud in turn

- Saying and checking each other in pair

Writing

- Asking students to write the content of the session on board

- Asking students to practice writing each word 2 lines in notebook

- Writing the content of the session on board

- Writing each word 2 lines in notebook

- Playing - Each group has two baskets The task of the groups is to pick up the vocabulary

to put in to the right baskets

Closing Reviewing - Asking the students to repeat - Repeating the content

(5ms) the content of the lesson

pronounce and write the

- Asking students to say after

- Using audio to teach students

- Asking students to say after the audio

- Listening to the teacher

- Saying after the teacher

- Listening to the audio

- Saying after the audio

Speaking

- Using computer slides, saying the vocabulary and guiding the ending sounds

- Asking Students to say aloud after the teacher (3 times), listening, checking, and correcting student‟s errors (if needed)

- Asking students to say one

by one, listening, checking, and correcting student‟s errors

- Asking students to say and

- Looking at computer slides and listening to the teacher

- Saying aloud after the teacher

- Saying aloud in turn

- Saying and checking

check each other in pair each other in pair

Reading

- Using computer slides, saying the words and guiding again the ending sound

- Asking Students to say aloud after the teacher (3 times), listening, checking, and correcting student‟s errors (if needed)

- Asking students to say one

by one, listening, checking, and correcting student‟s errors

- Asking students to say and check each other in pair

- Looking at computer slides and listening to the teacher

- Saying aloud after the teacher

- Saying aloud in turn

- Saying and checking each other in pair

Writing

- Asking students to write the content of the session on board

- Asking students to practice writing each word 2 lines in notebook

- Writing the content of the session on board

- Writing each word 2 lines in notebook

pronounce and write the

- Repeating the content

of the lesson

- Listening and taking notes

sentence at home

Session 3: Family Steps Skills Teacher’s activities Students’ activities

- Asking students to say after

- Using audio to teach students

- Asking students to say after the audio

- Listening to the teacher

- Saying after the teacher

- Listening to the audio

- Saying after the audio

correcting student‟s errors (if needed)

- Asking students to say one

by one, listening, checking, and correcting student‟s errors

- Asking students to say and check each other in pair

- Looking at the photo and listening to the teacher

- Saying aloud after the teacher

- Saying aloud in turn

- Saying and checking each other in pair

Reading

- Using word flashcards, saying the words

- Looking at flashcards and listening to the teacher

- Asking Students to say aloud after the teacher (3 times), listening, checking, and correcting student‟s errors (if needed)

- Asking students to say one

by one, listening, checking, and correcting student‟s errors

- Asking students to say and check each other in pair

- Saying aloud after the teacher

- Saying aloud in turn

- Saying and checking each other in pair

Writing

- Asking students to write the content of the session on board

- Asking students to practice writing each word 2 lines in notebook

- Writing the content of the session on board

- Writing each word 2 lines in notebook

Practicing

- Asking students to introduce all the members in their family photo in turn

- Introducing all the members in their family photo in turn

pronounce and write the

5.3 Observing the action

Observing is an important aspect in a classroom action research The data resulted from observation would be on the basis to assess the students‟ interest in

learning English In this research, the researcher conducted two interventions on an entity - a group of grade-schoolers The researcher had to observe all the students‟ activities during the implementation of the two interventions

In the first intervention, the researcher observed the students‟ activities when the researcher did not use visual aids to teach the students vocabulary

And, in the second intervention, the researcher observed the students‟ activities when the researcher used some kinds of visual aids in teaching vocabulary

During her observation she took notes in her diary book all the students‟ activities, especially the activities expressing their interest learning English

Then, all the activities were interpreted carefully From the interpretation, the researcher could go to conclusion whether the hypothesis “using visual aids in teaching vocabulary improve students‟ vocabulary memory and their interest in learning English The result of the observation will be discussed in the next part chapter III: Data analysis and findings

CHAPTER III: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

In this research, the data was collected by using some techniques of qualitative and quantitative data collection The qualitative data were collected from observation The quantitative data were collected from tests (6 mini-tests, 2 post-tests)

1 Data analysis procedure

The data were collected by using two techniques, namely:

+ The Qualitative Data The classroom action research analyzes the qualitative data from the result of action 1observation and action 2 observation

According to Mc Kernan in Burns (1999: 156-160), there are five stages in analyzing the data, including:

a) Assembling the data,

b) Coding the data,

c) Comparing the data,

d) Building interpretations,

e) Reporting the outcomes; and

+ The Quantitative Data The researcher analyses the quantitative data from the tests (3 mini- tests and 1 post – test from action 1 and 3 mini-tests and 1 post-test from action 2) The result of the tests can answer the research question

Finally, by analyzing the qualitative and quantitative data, the researcher can make conclusion of the impacts of using visual aids in teaching English Vocabulary for the third grade students If the almost of the students‟ interest in learning increases positively during the process of using visual aids in teaching vocabulary and their score of tests in intervention 2 is higher than the ones in intervention 1, the technique is successful On the contrary, if the students‟ interest in learning decreases during the process of using visual aids in teaching vocabulary and their score of tests in intervention 2 is lower than the ones in intervention 1, the technique

The total mark of post-test is 20 The author chose this number because she wanted to test the 5 new words out of 18 words to be taught in each intervention The words were tested at random in listening, understanding, speaking and writing

After collecting the tests, the researcher marked the tests and following are the tables of students‟ score in 2 interventions:

Name Minitest1 Minitest2 Minitest3 Posttest1

Table 1: The scores of intervention 1

Name Minitest 1 Minitest 2 Minitest 3 Posttest 2

Table 2: The scores of intervention 2

Looking at the students‟ mini-tests of two interventions first and make a comparison so that we could assess the impacts of visual aids on the students‟ short-term memory

The scores of student 2, in the first intervention he got 14, 14 and 15 over 24 but in the second intervention he got 20, 20 and 18 over 24 In average, he got 5 scores better in each mini-test in the second intervention than in the first intervention

The scores of student 5, in the first intervention he got 15, 14 and 10 over 24 but in the second intervention he got 15, 17 and 16 over 24 In average, he got 2

scores better in each mini-test in the second intervention Student 5‟s improvement

is not as high as student 2 However, he had some improvement after the teacher used visual aids

At the beginning of the first intervention, both student 1 and student 8 were not good at English; they were nearly at the same level In the first intervention, student 1 got 10, 10 and 9 over 24, student 8 got 9, 11, and 9 over 24 However, in the second both of them got better scores; student 1 got 10, 9 and 12 over 24 and students 8 got 15, 18 and 16 over 24 In average, students 1 he got 1 score better better in each mini-test in the second intervention than in the first intervention, student 8 got 6 scores better in better in each mini-test in the second intervention than in the first intervention From student 1 and student 8, we could see that visual aids could impact much on student 8 but they could not impact much on student 1

Comparing the maximum score of the two interventions, out of 27 tests, there was no test with maximum score in the first intervention but there were 5 tests with maximum score This was really good impact of visual aids on students‟ improvement

In general, using visual aids in teaching English Vocabulary for the third grade students can improve their short-term memory

Looking at the students‟ post-tests of two interventions and making a comparison so that we could assess the impacts of visual aids on the students‟ long-term memory

The student 2 he got 15 over 20 marks in the first intervention but in the second intervention he got 18 It means he got 3 marks better than the first one

In the first intervention, student 1 got 9 over 20, student 8 got 11 over 20 and

in the second one student 1 got 12 over 20 and students 8 got 13 over 20 Although there was a big gap in the improvement between their result of mini-tests, their improvement of their post-tests were nearly the same

The same thing happened to the rest ones All of the students in the study got from 1 to 3 marks better in the second intervention than the first one

Comparing the maximum score of the two interventions, out of 9 tests, there was no test with maximum score in the first intervention but there were 3 tests with maximum score This was good impact of visual aids on students‟ improvement

In general, almost of the result of the tests in the second intervention was higher than the ones in the first intervention and there were more tests with maximum score in the second intervention than in the first intervention This result showed that using visual aids in teaching English Vocabulary for the third grade students can improve their short-term memory and long term memory

2.2 Observation

The aim of the observation was to observe all students‟ interest in learning English during the process of implementing intervention 1 and intervention 2 to find the answer for the research question: “To what extent does the use of visual aids in teaching improve the third grade students‟ English vocabulary mastery and their interest in learning English?” Depending on the researcher‟s subjective opinions, the researcher listed out 11 criteria, which proved that the students were interested

in learning English with visual aids All the criteria were tabulated and used to observe during 2 interventions Basing on the above results of the observation, the researcher synthesized the criteria and calculated the results to find the differentiations of the 2 interventions Following was the synthesis of the observation during intervention1 and intervention 2:

Session Happy Like

Go to class on time

Homework complete

Con fident

Listening carefully

to teacher

Looking attentively

at the board

Following teacher’s instruction immediately

Pair work

Group work

Individual work

Table 13: The synthesis of the observation during intervention 1

Session Happy Like

Go to class on time

Homework complete

Con fident

Listening carefully

to teacher

Looking attentively

at the board

Following teacher’s instruction immediately

Pair work

Group work

Individual work

Total 2 23 24 27 27 22 22 21 20 18 21 23

Table 14: The synthesis of the observation during intervention 2

The differentiations of the two interventions could give answer for the hypothesis

Total Happy Like

Go to class on time

Homework complete

Con fident

Listening carefully

to teacher

Looking attentively

at the board

Following teacher’s instruction immediately

Pair work

Group work

Individual work

Differen

Table 15: Differentiations between the 2 interventions

The table 15 showed that:

In “Happy” column, there were only 7 ticks in intervention 1 but there were

23 ones in intervention 2 This showed that students were happier when the teacher used visual aids in teaching English vocabulary;

In “Like” column, there were 7 ticks in intervention 1 but there were 24 ones

in intervention 2 This showed that there were 17 ticks in intervention 2 more than

in intervention or students liked learning English with visual aids more than without visual aids;

In “Go to class on time” column, there were 24 ticks in intervention 1 but there were 27 ones in intervention 2 This showed that in intervention 2 students were more punctual to go to English class

In “Homework complete” column, there were 13 ticks in intervention 2 more than in intervention 1 This showed more students finished homework in intervention 2 than intervention 2;

In “Confident” column, there were 16 sticks more in intervention 2 more than in intervention 1 This showed more students felt more confident in intervention 2 than intervention 1;

In “Listening carefully to teacher” column and in “Looking attentively at the board” column, there were 14 sticks in intervention 2 more than in intervention 1 This showed more students listened carefully to the teacher and more students looked attentively at the board in intervention 2 than intervention 1;

In “Follow teacher‟s instruction immediately” column, there were 11 sticks

in intervention 2 more than in intervention 1 This showed more students listened carefully to the teacher and more students looked attentively at the board in intervention 2 than intervention 1;

In “pair work”, “group work”, and “individual work” columns, there were 7 ticks, 21 ticks and 12 ticks in turn in intervention 2 more than in intervention 1 These showed that more students participated in activities in class in intervention 2 than in intervention 1

Conclusion

The result of the tests and the observation could answer the research question that “To what extent does the use of visual aids in teaching improve the third grade students‟ English vocabulary mastery and their interest in learning English?” as following

The result of most of the tests in the second intervention was higher than the ones in the first intervention and there were more tests with maximum score in the second intervention than in the first intervention This result showed that using visual aids in teaching English Vocabulary for the third grade students can improve their vocabulary mastery in listening, understanding, speaking and writing During the process of testing the students, the author found that in the second intervention the students‟ improvement was often in Part 1 of the test – Listening and number/choose It meant they often made improvement in listening and understanding than speaking and writing

The result of the observation showed that the visual aids helped students to pay attention to the lesson, to recognize the meaning of the vocabulary easily and to remember the vocabulary faster and longer Then, they felt happy, interested and comfortable to learn English with various kinds of beautiful and lively visual aids This was suitable with Allen, Kate & Marquez‟ statement that (2011), “Visual aids impact and add interest to a presentation They can create excitement”(p.5) It also means that visual aids make teaching vocabulary more interesting When the