Teachers’ beliefs and practices regarding vocabulary teaching: A qualitative study at Nguyen Thi Minh Khai high school

to explore teachers’ beliefs about the role of vocabulary in learning English as a foreign language; 2 to examine their practices concerning vocabulary teaching; and 3.. The teachers‟

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



TRẦN THI ̣ KIM OANH

TEACHERS’ BELIEFS AND PRACTICES REGARDING VOCABULARY TEACHING: A QUALITATIVE STUDY AT

NGUYEN THI MINH KHAI HIGH SCHOOL

(Niềm tin của giáo viên trong việc dạy từ vựng và thực tiễn

áp dụng trong lớp học : Nghiên cứu định tính tại trường trung

học phổ thông Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai )

M.A Minor programme thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 601410

Hanoi - 2012

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



TRẦN THI ̣ KIM OANH

TEACHERS’ BELIEFS AND PRACTICES REGARDING VOCABULARY TEACHING: A QUALITATIVE STUDY AT

NGUYEN THI MINH KHAI HIGH SCHOOL

(Niềm tin của giáo viên trong việc dạy từ vựng và thực tiễn

áp dụng trong lớp học : Nghiên cứu định tính tại trường trung

học phổ thông Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai )

M.A Minor programme thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 601410 Supervisor: Dr LE VAN CANH

Hanoi - 2012

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale for the study 1

1.2 Aims of the study 1

1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 Significance of the study 2

1.5 Organization of the thesis 2

PART II: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Role of vocabulary in second language teaching 5

1.2 Approaches to vocabulary 6

1.3 The teachers‟ belief 8

1.4 Teachers‟ beliefs about second language teaching 11

1.5 Convergence and divergence 13

1.6 Teachers‟ beliefs about vocabulary 14

1.7 Previous studies 15

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 17

2.1 Data collection instruments 17

2.1.1 The interview 17

2.1.2 The observation 18

2.2 Participants of the study 18

2.3 Data collection procedures 19

2.4 Technique of data analysis 20

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CHAPTER III: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 22

3.1 Preliminary results 22

3.1.1 Teachers‟ beliefs about the importance of vocabulary 22

3.1.2 Teachers‟ beliefs about approaches to vocabulary presentation 23

3.1.3 Relationship between beliefs and practices 26

3.1.3.1 Time given for vocabulary teaching 27

3.1.3.2 Approaches to vocabulary teaching 29

3.1.4 Convergences and divergences between beliefs and practices 34

3.1.4.1Convergences 34

3.1.4.2 Divergences 34

3.2 Discussion 35

PART III: CONCLUSION 38

1 Summary of the major findings 38

2 Implications 38

2.1 Improving the teaching/learning environment 38

2.2 Solutions for changing students‟ learning attitudes 39

2.3 Teachers‟ training 40

3 Limitations of the study 41

4 Recommendations for further research 41

REFERENCES 42 APPENDICES I

APPENDIX 1: Interview Questions I APPENDIX 2: Classroom observation sheet II APPENDIX 3: Observation data IV

ELT English Language Teaching

ESL English as a Second Language

EFL English as a Foreign Language

T Teacher

Ss Students

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 2 Amount of time devoted to vocabulary with reference to

language skills and grammar (% of total class time)

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Table 3 Practical approaches of teaching vocabulary (teacher A) Appendix Table 4 Practical approaches of teaching vocabulary (teacher B) Appendix Table 5 Practical approaches of teaching vocabulary (teacher C) Appendix Table 6 Practical approaches of teaching vocabulary (teacher D) Appendix Table 7 Practical approaches of teaching vocabulary (teacher E) Appendix Table 8 Practical approaches of teaching vocabulary (teacher F) Appendix Table 9 Practical approaches of teaching vocabulary (teacher G) Appendix Table 10 Practical approaches of teaching vocabulary (teacher H) Appendix

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PART I: INTRODUCTION

This part introduces the study, which starts with the reasons for carrying out the research This is followed by the aims, the research questions, the significance of the study and, finally, the structure of the thesis

1.1 Rationale for the study

Since the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) was adopted at Nguyen Thi Minh Khai High School, English teaching practice has also changed gradually However, students‟ ability to use English for communication was quite limited There are many reasons for this problem, but teachers believe that one of the reasons is students‟ vocabulary deficiency Although there have been some studies

on vocabulary techniques, very little has been researched about teachers‟ beliefs and practices regarding vocabulary If teaching is shaped by teachers‟ beliefs (Borg, 2003) it is necessary to research their beliefs and the relationship between their beliefs and practices Therefore, this study is aimed to explore this issue in one high school in Vietnam

1.2 Aims of the study

The study is aimed at investigating the beliefs and practices of a group of high school teachers in second language vocabulary and vocabulary teaching This aim is specified by the following objectives:

1 to explore teachers’ beliefs about the role of vocabulary in learning English as a foreign language;

2 to examine their practices concerning vocabulary teaching; and

3 to identify the relationship between their beliefs and practices regarding vocabulary teaching

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1.3 Research questions

In order to achieve the above stated aim and objectives, the study is designed to find answers to the following research questions:

1 What are teachers’ beliefs about vocabulary?

2 To what extent are those beliefs translated into their vocabulary teaching?

1.4 Significance of the study

The study will mainly focus on analyzing eight English teacher‟s beliefs, examining whether or not these beliefs are aligned with teachers‟ actual instructional practices and identifying the factors that influence teachers‟ beliefs and practices The teachers‟ beliefs concerned regard to vocabulary teaching only and the actual instructional practices refer to principles, techniques and time given for teaching vocabulary, which were conveyed through class observations and the answers for the interviews of eight English teachers of Nguyen Thi Minh Khai high school

1.5 Organization of the thesis

This thesis is divided into three parts as follows:

Part I , „Introduction‟ presents the reasons for carrying out this study and states the

aims of the study The research questions, the significance and the outline of the study are also discussed in this part

Part II , „Development‟ includes the following chapters:

Chapter 1, „Literature review‟ summaries the view of related literature –

including the role of vocabulary in second language teaching, approaches to vocabulary, teachers‟ beliefs and those relating to vocabulary teaching

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Chapter 2, „Methodology‟ describes the methodology applied to this study

and the procedures for carrying out the research such as instruments for data collection, subjects, procedures, and methods of data analysis

Chapter 3, „Results and discussion‟ conveys survey results and discussion

on the possible reasons for the divergences between teachers‟ beliefs and actual classroom practice

Part III , „Conclusion‟ states a brief summary of major findings, proposes some

recommendations arising from the study findings, reveals the limitation of the study

and offers some suggestions for further researches

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PART II: DEVELOPMENT

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CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter reviews the literature on second language vocabulary as well as teachers‟ beliefs and practices regarding vocabulary teaching The chapter begins with a brief review of the role of vocabulary in second language learning Then approaches to vocabulary will be reviewed This is followed by a review of studies

on teachers‟ beliefs and practices, particularly with reference to vocabulary teaching

1.1 Role of vocabulary in second language teaching

Conventionally, educationists have undervalued the role of vocabulary in second language teaching and learning for quite a long time This was the reason why in linguistic course, curriculum and programs, little attention was paid to vocabulary teaching (Richards & Renandya, 2002, p.255) Fortunately, things have been changed since the mid-1980s Second language vocabulary acquisition has grown into an increasingly interesting topic of discussion for many researchers and educationists working in the field of second language teaching (Coady & Huckin,

1997, p.ix)

From then on, the role of vocabulary in second language teaching has been reconsidered According to Richards and Renandya (2002), the first step to learn how to communicate in the second language was learning lexical phrases and routines They explained vocabulary as the foundation of students‟ language proficiency Learners, who did not neither have a wide range of vocabulary nor know how to learn new words, failed to utilize all learning opportunities offered to them For instance, they could not listen to the radio, listen to native speakers, and watch television in the language they learnt That led to the results that they were discouraged and could not learn as much as possible (p.255) In addition, Nation (1990) confirmed that there were restrictions of “incidental learning” of second language learners due to their limited vocabulary Thus, a second language program

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should involve vocabulary teaching (cited in Richards & Renandya, 2002, p.256)

In conclusion, developing vocabulary not only encourages but also facilitates second language learners to achieve as much as their potential allows Therefore, it

is recommended that teachers should consider the important role of vocabulary for effective teaching as well as learning

1.2 Approaches to vocabulary

Boyle and Scanlon (2009) claimed that “there is no single method for teaching vocabulary; instead, teachers should combine methods and techniques” (p.142) Below are some principles belonging to inferring from context, implicit teaching and explicit teaching, the three methods that were concerned by many researchers such as Nagy (1988), Graves (2006), Meunier and Granger (2008), Baumann and Kameenui (2004), Ma (2009), Sokmen (1997), Schmitt (2000), and so on

Inferring from context

Belonging to the idea of Context Alone, “Inferring from Context”, also named as

context method, or contextual approaches is the method of using context to clarify the meanings of the words that students need to learn For instance, when students are asked to guess the meaning of the words through one or some given sentences, they are learning vocabulary by inferring the meaning of words from the context (Nagy, 1988, p.7) Graves (2006:35) suggested several principles of teaching vocabulary in context method: Students should learn the words in meaningful contexts; Students should see words in variety of contexts; Depth of meaning should be fostered; Learners should be able to access the texts‟ meaning in the target language and learning a word involves pronuncication, spelling, morphology

and syntax

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Implicit teaching

In implicit teaching, students are given oppotunities to do a great deal of reading Meunier and Granger (2008:226) claimed that implicit teaching was an indirect method of teaching vocabulary For example, implicit learning happens when students read some texts and encounters a new word; they stop and ask for its meaning themselves Thus, this approach can be called extensive reading Same to its name, the most important principle of this approach is having students read extensively (Baumann & Kameenui, 2004, p.108) It was explained that the more students read, the more vocabulary terms they acquire Additionally, Ma stated that through implicit teaching, new vocabulary can be acquired incidentally by letting the students encounter with the word several times in different contexts (2009, p.108) On the other words, teachers dealing with implicit teaching always try to minimize the use of the students‟ mother tongue by asking the students not to define every word with their first language The students can infer the meaning of words through their reading and from the contextual clues Consequently, some signals that prove teachers applying implicit teaching can be the use of various contexts or monolingual dictionaries

Explicit teaching

Explicit teaching is considered as the traditional approach to vocabulary teaching (Schmitt, 2000, p.146) Sokmen (1997) discovered some principles which teachers teaching vocabulary in explicit approach had to follow as such: “Build a large sight vocabulary; Integrate new words with old; Provide a number of encounters with a word; Promote a deep level of processing; Facilitate imaging; Make new words

“real” by connecting them to the student‟s world in some way; Use a variety of techniques; Encourage independent learning strategies” (cited in Schmitt, 2000, p.147) However, in addition to these principles, other points are worth noting Firstly, the second principle, integrating new words with the known ones, required teaching some groups of similar words Teacher should be careful on doing so

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because it might be more difficult for learners to remember two or more similar words together Secondly, because of polysemy in language, there was another principle that demanded teachers to teach the underlying meaning of a word (Schmitt, 2000, p.147) On doing so, teachers could maximize effectiveness of the teaching when they enabled their students to understand the word in a much wider range of contexts Moreover, teachers could also maximize vocabulary learning support by teaching word families instead of individual word forms Explicit teaching and activities includes translation, definitions, putting words in context, picture/drawings, real objects and actions/gestures

1.3 The teachers' belief

The definitions

Belief

There were many authors studying different subjects such as philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, and so on tried to define the term “belief” In order to clarify what “belief” is, there might be a need to refer to some Weaver and Farrell (1997), for example, explored belief as “what people think is true, what is their reality” (p.12) More specifically, based on American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition, 2000, Raths, and McAninch (2003), belief is defined as the “mental acceptance and conviction in the truth, actuality or validity of something, or something believed or accepted as true, especially a particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons” Summarily, a belief is what people accept to

be true, which defines people as the person they are and likewise, their attitude

Belief system

Pajares (1992:325) stated that understanding belief foundations must involve their connections to each other and to other beliefs in system (cited in Loughran, 2006, p.115) That means when examining people‟s belief, researchers have to examine

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their belief system According to Thompson (1992:130), belief system is “a metaphor for examining and describing how an individual‟s beliefs are organized” (cited in Lester, 2007, p.260) Teachers‟ belief systems were believed to influence teachers‟ classroom practice (Cameron, 2001, p.41)

Teachers’ belief

In the field of education in general and second language teaching in particular, beliefs are ideas that teachers accept to be true, which define teachers‟ attitude As a result, all that teachers believe and understand will be brought into their teaching and influence their teaching practice Pajares (1992) believed that teachers‟ beliefs affected their judgment and classroom practice (cited in Smith, Skarbek & Hurst,

2005, p.214) In addition, Grant (2003) also contributed another point that beliefs could regard to any aspect of teachers‟ professional development In accordance with Borg (2003) explanations, “teachers are active, thinking decision-makers who make instructional choices by drawing on complex practically-oriented, personalized, and context-sensitive networks of knowledge, thoughts, and beliefs” (p 81) Studying about impacts of teachers‟ beliefs and interaction, Rohs (2007) claimed three forms of beliefs in terms of pedagogical beliefs, expectancy beliefs and teaching efficacy beliefs He explained teachers teaching in different levels could have different beliefs that formed pedagogical beliefs Teachers who held expectancy beliefs considered more about the importance of students‟ habits then made different decisions on learning environment Teaching efficacy beliefs were the beliefs found in case teachers could affect students‟ behaviors (p.23)

The source of teachers’ beliefs

Richards and Lockhart (1996) pointed out teachers‟ belief systems were formed little by little through the time and derived from various sources (p.30) These sources could be: (1) “teachers‟ own experience as language learners”; (2)

“experience of what works best” (3) “established practice”, for example, different

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teaching style belonging to different school; (4) personality factors; (5) educationally based or research-based principles; (6) principles derived from an approach or method

Why study teacher's belief

The interest in belief about second language teaching has emerged in mid 1980s Thus, like other fields such as sociology, psychology, education, etc beliefs about second language teaching have become a topic of research but increased lately (Kalaja, 2003, p.7) Researchers and educationists worked in this field for many reasons As formerly mentioned, beliefs may involve any aspect of teachers‟ professional development Beliefs may guide teachers‟ decision about subject matter, teaching method, learning environment, students‟ behavior, etc Consequently, understanding the belief structures of teachers could help to improve their professional development and teaching practice (Ashton, 1990, cited in Gonzalez, 2006, p.58) Moreover, Grant (2003) assumed that “as a lens on teachers‟ thinking and practice, beliefs represent a powerful influence” Similarly, Loughran (2006) found that “beliefs play a critical role in defining behavior and organizing knowledge and information” (p.115) Obviously, studying teachers‟ beliefs that investigates the way beliefs are shaped and formed may help researchers to clarify the way teachers think, what goes on in teachers‟ minds to propose changes to improve their teaching In addition, Pajares (1992: 329) showed that there were a need of focusing on teachers‟ beliefs in education research

“When [beliefs] are clearly conceptualized, when their key assumptions are examined, when precise meanings are consistently understood and adhered to, and when specific belief constructs are properly assessed and investigated, belief can be… the single most important construct in educational research” (cited in Smith, Skarbek & Hurst,

2005, p.214)

In conclusion, beliefs were considered as the most important conception in educational research However, beliefs cannot be observed or measured It can only

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be inferred from what teachers say, intend and do Thus, there is a need to understand how teachers‟ beliefs are constructed and how their beliefs affect their decision making Consequently, studying and discovering teachers‟ beliefs and attitudes are necessary for educators to design subsequent professional development and experiences to address the issue in language teaching (Kaptain, 2008, p.22) Understanding teachers‟ beliefs will give insights into their classroom behaviors

1.4 Teachers' beliefs about second language teaching

Teachers' beliefs about second language teaching

As having been discussed, there are three forms of teachers‟ beliefs in terms of pedagogical beliefs, expectancy beliefs and teaching efficacy beliefs Nonetheless,

in the fields of second language teaching, only two main forms of beliefs were concerned by language teachers

First, in second language learning and teaching, researchers did not focus too much

on examining teachers‟ beliefs However, some studies were conducted and led to the result that teachers‟ actual practices were formed from their own experiences as learners (Sheorey, 2006, p.52) Somehow, it can be said that teachers‟ beliefs about language learning guide the way they teach Likewise, Gass and Selinker (1994) proved that when training and developing language teaching methods, teachers had

to have a steady foundation for their methods in language learning Gass and Selinker gave an example in which some language teaching methods were based on rule memorization and translation exercises On doing many studies and recognizing communication needs of students when learning a language, language teachers and educators were aware of new conceptualization and made changes to teaching methods that emphasized communication in language teaching rather than just rule memorization Consequently, the process of learning has resulted in teaching methods and influences teachers‟ pedagogical beliefs as well as teachers‟ pedagogical decision-making (p.3)

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Second, another main form of belief was expectancy beliefs Teachers who held expectancy beliefs considered more about the importance of students‟ habits then made different decisions about learning environment Gass and Selinker claimed some situations in which teachers‟ expectations could be impacted For example, after learning process, regardless to the proper applicability of students, teachers might not be satisfied In this case, teachers‟ expectations belong to how they assessed the success or failure of their teaching (p.3) Gass and Selinker also demonstrated that when people communicated in a second language, they had certain expectations (p.4) Similarly, Sheorey (2006) realized some studies proving that students and teachers belonging to different cultures had different expectations about learning a second language (p.54) In addition, it was undeniable that expectancy beliefs could affect students‟ learning Bamburg (1994) represented 3 types of teachers‟ expectations that might lead to different learning results of their students: (1) Teachers‟ attitude towards teaching process was affected by their first impression about students Then bright students might receive more positive attitude than slow students (2) When teaching the students who are expected to be bright, they used more difficult materials than those for the ones considered as slow

As a result, gradually, teachers' expectations about students would become actual students‟ achievement (3) Normally, teachers having this type of expectations used

a test which they believed to be suitable to assess students‟ ability That resulted in over or under-estimating of teachers for their students‟ level (p.1) Thus, examining expectancy beliefs is essential in the field of second language teaching

In addition, Richards and Rodgers (2001) claimed some noteworthy summaries about teachers‟ belief about second language teaching as follow:

- “The most resilient or “core” teachers‟ beliefs are formed on the basic of teachers‟ own schooling as young students while observing teachers who taught them Subsequent teacher education appears not to disturb these early beliefs, not least, perhaps, it rarely addresses them

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- If teachers actually try out a particular innovation that does not initially conform to their prior beliefs or principles and the innovation proves helpful or successful then accommodation of alternative belief or principle is more plausible than in other circumstance

- For the novice teacher, classroom experience and day-to-day interaction with colleagues has the potential to influence particular relationship among beliefs and principles, and, over time, consolidate the individual‟s permutation of them Nevertheless, it seems that greater experience does not lead to greater adaptability in our beliefs, and thereby, the abandonment of strongly held pedagogical principles Quite the contrary, in fact The more experience we have, the more reliant on own core principles we have become and the less conscious we are of doing so

- Professional development that engages teachers in a direct explanation of their beliefs and principles may provide the opportunities for the greater self-awareness through reflection and critical questioning as starting points of later adaptation

- The teacher‟s conceptualizations of, for example, language, learning, and teaching are situated within that person‟s wider belief system concerning such issues as human nature, culture, society, education and so on.” (p.252)

1.5 Convergence and divergence

When studying teachers‟ beliefs, the researcher intended to examine what are their beliefs regarding to vocabulary in language teaching and the extent to which teachers‟ beliefs were translated into actual practice Therefore, the analysis of the convergence and divergence of teachers‟ beliefs and actual practices is presented and discussed Unfortunately, it was witnessed that teachers‟ beliefs did not always converge with their practices and that many divergences, also called as “tensions” were identified (Phipps & Borg, 2009, p.380) Hence, they recommended “that it is not enough for language teacher cognition research to identify differences, or tensions, between teachers‟ beliefs and practices; rather attempts need to be made to explore, acknowledge and understand the underlying reasons behind such tensions” (Phipps & Borg, 2009, p.388)

There are two main reasons that led to the divergences including research instruments and contextual factors For example, the first reason lies in the methods used to explore teachers‟ beliefs Barnard (2011) claimed that research instruments

to study teachers‟ beliefs should be adopted In other words, divergences could be found in studying because of individual report research instruments Secondly, the divergences are influenced by contextual factors such as curriculum, learners‟ language proficiency, time constraints, and examinations (Borg, 2003, p.81).

1.6 Teachers' belief about vocabulary

“If an English teacher believes that the best way to improve one‟s proficiency in English is by increasing one‟s vocabulary, he is likely to emphasize the study of words as an important part of his teaching” (Sheorey, 2006, p.51) Otherwise, as mentioned above, teachers‟ knowledge of learning has some impacts on their belief then influences their ways of teaching Similarly, L2 teachers‟ understanding of how to learn vocabulary also affects their ways of teaching vocabulary Thus, when concentrating on vocabulary teaching, it is essential to study teachers‟ beliefs about vocabulary Examining teachers‟ belief about vocabulary by conducting questionnaire, Ma (2009) got several important results that revealed some teachers‟ beliefs about vocabulary They can be summarized as follows: students acquire vocabulary mostly through extensive reading; a large amount of teachers believed that vocabulary should be taught explicitly in class; doing exercises can help to

learn vocabulary; vocabulary should be learn through communicative activities;

vocabulary should be introduced in different contexts (p.279)

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1.7 Previous studies

In the recent years, teaching has been considered as a cognitive activity and teachers‟ beliefs can have many important effects on teacher‟s instructional decisions (Borg, 2003, p.81) Thus, the studies on the connections between teachers‟ beliefs and their actual practices have attracted more and more attentions

in the academic circles Many researches have been carried out on the relationship between teachers‟ beliefs and their actual classroom practices because of its importance and prominence in teachers‟ professional development Therefore, a lot

of great works came into being during the study of teachers‟ beliefs and their practices, which lays a foundation for further research The following are several representative researches

Firstly, one representative study to get extra information is: “Commonalities and

Discrepancies in L2 Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices about Vocabulary Pedagogy:

A Small Culture Perspective” This study worked out some related aspects to

teachers‟ beliefs and practices about vocabulary teaching in China The problem arising was the fact that teachers‟ beliefs and practices about vocabulary instruction did not always parallel Niu and Andrews (2012) reported that “the institutional culture might have mediated the teachers‟ pedagogical practices and hence their beliefs about vocabulary instruction, creating the consistencies between them” including the importance of vocabulary teaching in language teaching, teaching vocabulary in communication, and the use of L1 (p.149) On the other hand, some inconsistencies were illustrated They were different ideas about using dictionaries

in class, teachers‟ beliefs about word meaning guessing and word self-study were not observed All in all, Niu and Andrews concluded that “teachers‟ beliefs guide their practices with the mediation of small cultures, resulting in both consistencies and inconsistencies between their beliefs and practices; on the other hand, teachers‟ practices, under the influence of small cultures, contribute to the formulation of both shared and discrepant beliefs” (p.150)

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Furthermore, it is a lack not to mention the study namely “Investigating

Connections between Teacher Beliefs and Instructional Practices with Struggling Readers” of Powers, Zippay and Butler (2006) which including different

summaries about the relationship between teachers‟ beliefs and their actual practices The first statement was that teachers‟ beliefs and practices were influenced by many different factors including “practical realities of the classroom”,

„areas‟ educational policies and the variety in teachers‟ views about their role and teaching methods Some factors might lead to the divergences between teachers‟ beliefs and practices in terms of teacher training originated from the behaviorist tradition, the limitations imposed by educational policies, lack of professional development and administrative support, issues of classroom control and limited resources Moreover, a teacher might give instructions in the way that fit with her beliefs More time might be spent on instructional practices and classroom activities that teachers believed were more important or more valid (p.122)

Farrell and Lim (2005) come up with the study: “Conceptions of Grammar

Teaching: A case study of Teachers’ Beliefs and Classroom Practices” in which the

authors investigated and compared the beliefs and actual classroom practices of two experienced English language teachers in Singapore In this study, Farrell and Lim pointed out Singapore teachers shared the similar situation in which there were convergences and divergences between teachers‟ beliefs and practices The existing divergences were said to be resulted from the “time factors” and influences of the traditional approach

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CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

This chapter consists of four main sections Section 2.1 presents the data collection instruments used to collect information for the study Section 2.2 describes the subjects taking part in the study The procedures are presented in the next section, 2.3 The way of analyzing the data is presented in the last one, 2.4

2.1 Data collection instruments

Using different methods of data collection in study can “provide a more holistic and improved understanding of phenomenon” (Streubert & Carpenter, 2011, p.356) Thus, the researcher decided to use both interview and class observation as the instruments to collect data in this survey All of those works aim to explore the teachers‟ beliefs about vocabulary teaching as well as to investigate whether those beliefs were taken into their practice or not

2.1.1The interview

Using in-person interview is helpful in gaining the data In Schutt‟s words, person interviews have several advantages over other types of survey: they allow longer and more complex interview schedules, monitoring the conditions when the questions are answered, probing for the respondent‟s understanding of the question, and high response rate” Schutt also point out one-to-one interviews is the strongest survey design (2006, p.281) Moreover, another advantage of using interview is that the researcher can explain directly for the respondents about the information they do not understand (Wood & Kerr, 2011, p.183) From these points of view, the interview data helped to gain deeper insights regarding the teachers‟ beliefs about vocabulary teaching at Nguyen Thi Minh Khai high school Furthermore, the interview data complemented and expanded on the observation data as it enabled the researcher to get follow-up information in the case of analyzing the gaps between teachers‟ beliefs and their practice

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2.1.2 The observation

As being claimed in a book named “Classroom Observation: The Basic”,

“Classroom observation is a quantitative method of measuring classroom behaviors

of both teachers and students” (Holdaway, Henderson & Cameron 2009, p.4) Also, when doing interview, the object may not answer as truly as they thought (Karunaratne, 2009, p.88) Hence, a class observation would provide more valid and reliable information about what teachers and students actually do in their English class The observation was conducted to investigate two main aspects They are:

 Time given to vocabulary

 Techniques of teaching vocabulary that the teachers used

All of the eight teachers joined the observations Each of the teachers was observed

in two consecutive lessons with their own class Each class has about 50 students

A lesson observation sheet (Appendix) was developed and used during the class observation With the aims of the observation mentioned above, the observational notes were mainly about principles and techniques of teaching vocabulary used in observed class As the results, these class observations were to reveal the practical vocabulary teaching of the observed teachers

2.2 Participants of the Study

The participants for this study were eight teachers of English at Nguyen Thi Minh Khai high school (0 males and 8 females) They are at the age of 28 – 52 Out of 8 teachers, 7 teachers have BA degrees in English, 1 teacher has Master degree All of them have from 5 to 24 years of experience in teaching English for Vietnamese students in different contexts These eight teachers were asked to participate in an interview, which is described in details in the above section Then, they were chosen as the subjects for a classroom observation This table below would clarify the participants of this survey

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Table 1: Participants profiles

Participant Sex Age Teaching experience

2.3 Data collection procedures

Firstly, the eight survey participants were chosen randomly for the interviews The interviews were audio-recorded As Powney and Watts (1987) pointed out, interviews could supply accurate information for the study (p.vii) Thus the result from this interview was used to combine with the observation for a reliable data Secondly, the class observations were carried out in eight classes, named 10A2, 10A3, 10A4, 11A1, 11A3, 11A7, 12A2 and 12A4 for four weeks, lasting from March 3rd, 2012 to March 31st, 2012 The researcher attended each target class twice

as per its timetable During the class time the researcher: made field notes on classroom layout, class profile, teachers and students‟ actions and reactions; audio-recorded the lesson and activities of particular groups within the classroom; collected samples of materials used during the lesson; photographed classrooms The purpose of classroom observation has been presented earlier in 2.1.2 The result from these observations was used to compare with the result of interviews and presented in the section of Results and Discussion

Finally, the data collected were analyzed thoroughly so that problems can be clearly identified and recommendations can be developed on a steady basis

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2.4 Techniques of data analysis

After each round of data collection, the researcher re-read the fulfilled observation notes and notes made while listening to audio-recordings of interviews in the light

of prior objectives The analytical procedures were done by the following steps,

with the data reviewed many times

Firstly, in analyzing the qualitative interview data, the researcher identified patterns

of the different categories of beliefs that the interview participants reported in terms

of beliefs about role of vocabulary, how to teach vocabulary and why teachers think they teach vocabulary that way After having categorized and sorted the data, all key points and important findings discovered were interpreted Other information from the interviews such as quotes of teachers‟ responses were used as supporting evidence and analyzed in combination with the observation Themes were also worked out regarding the possibilities, means and degrees to overcome the reported shortcomings

Finally, information from classroom observation was analyzed The researcher used both quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze the data collected from the classroom observations then interpreted it by attaching significance to the observed themes and patterns In addition, for specific analysis of vocabulary teaching methods, Likert-type scale was adopted In a Likert scale, some statements were designed to assess teachers‟ teaching methods The observer responded to these statements in terms of five degrees of application For example, when observing one teacher teaching vocabulary and the observer could see that new vocabulary was presented in meaningful context, the observer could tick on any one of the following way: strongly not applied (1), not applied (2), undecided (3), applied (4), strongly applied (5) According to Likert-type, each point of scale carries a score (Kothari, 1985, p.85) Response indicates the least applicable degree was given the least score (1) and the most applicable was given the highest score (5) As a result, the researchers could compare the applicable degree of the observed teachers for the

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principles and techniques of teaching vocabulary presented in the part of

“approaches to vocabulary” in the observation sheet which comprised statements of teaching principles and techniques The results showed how many and which of systematic principles and techniques were implemented by the observed teachers and whether it was applied strictly or not

To sum up, the whole study was based on the analysis of observations and documents from interviews The cycle of the research process moved from gaining

an initial picture through this material to exploring themes and writing up Borg (2006) stated that studying teachers‟ belief by different instruments could bring about different results (cited in Phipps & Borg, 2009, p 381) For more explanation, they pointed out:

“For example, beliefs elicited through questionnaires may reflect teachers‟ theoretical or idealistic beliefs – beliefs about what should be – and may be informed by technical or propositional knowledge In contrast, beliefs elicited through the discussion of actual classroom practices may be more rooted in reality – beliefs about what is – and reflect teachers‟ practical or experiential knowledge We believe that a more realistic understanding of the relationship between teachers‟ beliefs and practices can emerge when the analysis of what teachers do is the basis of eliciting and understanding their beliefs.”

(p.382)

Following that idea, the individual interviews designed focused on the topics of teachers‟ beliefs about vocabulary teaching The observation, on the other hand, revealed the actual practices of the teachers As the results, when comparing and contrasting the results received from both instruments, researchers could find out the practical situation of teaching vocabulary in Nguyen Thi Minh Khai high school, whether teachers‟ beliefs were translated into their practice or not and to what extend teachers‟ beliefs converged with and diverged from their actual classroom practices

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CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Initially, this chapter deals with the information that the interviewees supplied, as well as lays out the data received from the observation After concerning with survey‟s results, there is a section, namely, findings and discussions which exposes the problems arisen in the survey

3.1Preliminary results

3.1.1Teachers’ beliefs about the importance of vocabulary

Teachers‟ beliefs about the importance of vocabulary in learning English as a foreign language were elicited through face-to-face interviews

According to the interview data, most of the teachers acknowledged the importance

of vocabulary However, they all believed that vocabulary was as important as language lessons such as listening, speaking, reading, writing and grammars

“Learning vocabulary helps our students to understand the lesson If they know most of the new words in the unit, they will interact more often in class Learning vocabulary is so important but my lesson do not usually have enough time to involve much vocabulary teaching, so, students should learn vocabulary as much as possible at home” (Teacher A and H)

“It would be easier for students to know vocabulary while studying language skills such as listening, speaking, reading or writing For me, I know the importance of teaching vocabulary so, I teach vocabulary in a separate part.” (Teacher B)

“A large vocabulary is the necessary tool for second language learners to succeed in acquiring the target language It needs a separate teaching.” (Teacher E)

It appeared that these teachers highly value the role of vocabulary to students‟ learning They also believed that vocabulary should be integrated in skills lessons For example, teacher G explained more clearly:

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“It is important to teach vocabulary in parallel with other language skills For example, when listening to the tape, students could not finish the exercises if they did not know the key words in the sentences they had just heard The same situation happened as with speaking, reading and writing.”

This belief was also shared by other teachers in the school For teacher E

“vocabulary is an indispensable part of language teaching.” She continued to state that she “integrated vocabulary” in other lessons such as listening, speaking, reading, writing and grammar

For teacher D, vocabulary is even more important than grammar:

“Vocabulary is the most important part in English learning because if you are good at grammar but don‟t have much vocabulary, you cannot communicate with anyone However if you have a good vocabulary but some problems with grammar, you can still express your idea and be understood.” This teacher believed that unless students had a good vocabulary, they would be unable to get the meaning across even if their knowledge of grammar was satisfactory

3.1.2 Teachers’ beliefs about approaches to vocabulary presentation

Most of the teachers in this study adopted an explicit approach to vocabulary First

of all, they try to teach a certain number of words to the students For example, while teacher A reported that she had her students learn 20-25 words each week, both teacher B and C said that they asked their students to learn around thirty words

a week Teacher H who encouraged her students to use computer to learn vocabulary confirmed that:

“By doing vivid vocabulary quiz, exercises or games, my students learned vocabulary actively and they could remember more than thirty words per week.”

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To add more, teacher E said:

“My students learn five to ten more words after each class I can see students‟ knowledge of vocabulary improving every week showed in their writings and reading comprehension”

Secondly, most of the teachers tried to make new words real by connecting them to the student‟s world in some ways As an example, teacher A reported that she had her students read texts from newspapers, TV-shows or movies Teacher B told that she let her students play words game every week Teacher D thought that communicative activities which consist of activities from real world could be helpful in teaching vocabulary

“I want my students to perceive the need of learning vocabulary As a result,

in the separate part of vocabulary teaching, I tried to organize communicative activities which contained new vocabulary introduced once before and let all the students stand up and take part in.”

Teacher H believed computer is an effective tool to connect new words to the students‟ world

Thirdly, the teachers supposed to use quite various techniques The common techniques the teachers used included making a word list, presenting new words in sentence examples, asking the students to make up their own sentences with the newly presented words For instance, in teacher A‟s words:

“Learning vocabulary needs a variety of techniques so that the new words actually become students‟ vocabulary If I tell the meaning of the new words directly to the students, they will understand immediately but forget as soon

as they finish the class Then I let my students encounter with the words using actions, picture and verbal contexts."

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Teacher B said:

“My techniques to vocabulary include using word series, putting new vocabulary into sentences or trying to understand them in context.”

Other teachers also implemented different techniques to teach vocabulary

“I believe using word lists is really effective in vocabulary teaching.” (Teacher C)

“When teaching vocabulary, I use several techniques such as actions, verbal context and illustrative sentences.” (Teacher D)

“I usually ask my students to write the new words in the notebooks and make some sentences or write a paragraph using these words.” (Teacher E)

“Communicative activities not only help students to learn new words together but also give them a meaningful context in which they can learn many words Then, I usually present new words all related to a particular topic together.” (Teacher G)

On the other hand, there are some teachers having different beliefs about an effective approach to vocabulary Teacher B, unlike other teachers, often gave students a mini vocabulary test by the end of the lesson She said that this was to create competition among students

Teacher C emphasized the need for students to use dictionary to learn words She gave the students a table or a grid and the students had to use the dictionary to complete the table/grid by filling in the synonyms/autonyms or other parts of speech (noun, adjective, etc.) of the newly presented words

In addition, regarding teachers‟ beliefs, the approach of vocabulary teaching was mostly explicit teaching, five, out of the eight teachers also hold the belief that vocabulary instruction should combine with communicative language teaching For example, teacher B said that: