Improving students’ vocabulary use through using word lists an action research project with 7th grade students at gia vuong secondary school

The findings, suggestion, suitable and effective ways for teachers in applying word lists in class to make certain positive changes in their teaching methodology as well as to help stude

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

-

TRẦN THỊ TRANG NHUNG

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY USE THROUGH USING WORD LISTS AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT WITH 7 th GRADE

STUDENTS AT GIA VUONG SECONDARY SCHOOL

(CẢI THIỆN KHẢ NĂNG SỬ DỤNG TỪ VỰNG CỦA HỌC SINH THÔNG QUA VIỆC SỬ DỤNG NHỮNG DANH SÁCH TỪ VỰNG NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG VỚI HỌC SINH KHỐI 7

TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC CƠ SỞ GIA VƯỢNG)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology I

Code: 60140111

Hanoi – 2016

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

-

TRẦN THỊ TRANG NHUNG

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY USE THROUGH USING WORD LISTS AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT WITH 7 th GRADE

STUDENTS AT GIA VUONG SECONDARY SCHOOL

(CẢI THIỆN KHẢ NĂNG SỬ DỤNG TỪ VỰNG CỦA HỌC SINH THÔNG QUA VIỆC SỬ DỤNG NHỮNG DANH SÁCH TỪ VỰNG NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG VỚI HỌC SINH KHỐI 7

TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC CƠ SỞ GIA VƯỢNG)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Dương Thu Mai, Ph.D

Hanoi - 2016

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DECLARATION

I certify that this minor thesis entitled “Improving students’ vocabulary use through using word lists An action research project with 7th grade students at

Gia Vuong secondary school” is the study of my own research and the substance

of this research has not been submitted for a degree to any other university or institution

Ninh Binh, November, 2016

Signature

Tran Thi Trang Nhung

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my gratitude to all those who have given me great assistance

in the completion of my research work

In the first place, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Duong Thu Mai, Ph.D, who has provided me with insightful discussion, helpful comments, valuable support in the preparation and completion of this thesis Without her guidance and help, this work would not have been accomplished

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 7thstudents at Gia Vuong secondary school in contributing to the data collection presented in this study

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

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ABSTRACT

This present study aims at investigating improvement of students‟ vocabulary use through teaching with word lists To reach this aim, an action research was conducted with forty 7th grade students at Gia Vuong secondary school in the first semester of the year 2016- 2017 They were chosen from the same class to participate in learning vocabulary with the different word lists for eight weeks The data were gathered through qualitative and quantitative data The qualitative data were gained by analyzing the class observation result and quantitative data were obtained from the students‟ vocabulary scores of pretest, posttest and questionnaire for students Based on the result of this research which showed that there was a development on the students‟ vocabulary use Besides, from the result of questionnaires, it showed that there was improvement of positive response in the teaching- learning process of vocabulary with word lists Furthermore, the results of observation showed that the students were interested in the teaching- learning activities during the implementation of word lists The findings, suggestion, suitable and effective ways for teachers in applying word lists in class to make certain positive changes in their teaching methodology as well as to help students improve their English vocabulary

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii

LIST OF FIGURE, TABLES AND CHARTS viii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of study 2

3 Research questions 3

4 Scope of the study 3

5 Methods of the study 3

6 Design of the study 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1 1 Definition of Vocabulary and Vocabulary use 5

1 2 Classification of vocabulary 5

1.2.1According to meaning 5

1.2.2 According to frequency of use 6

1.2.3 According to language teaching methodologies 6

1 3 The role of vocabulary in language teaching and learning 7

1.4 Aspects of word knowledge included in vocabulary teaching 8

1 5 Principles of vocabulary teaching 11

1.6 Approaches to vocabulary Instruction 13

1 7 Teaching with word lists 14

1.7.1 Definition of word lists 14

1.7.2 Selection of vocabulary items in word lists 15

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1.7.3 Related Studies to word lists 16

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 18

2.1 Research design: Action Research 18

2.2 Background of the study 20

2.2.1 Context of the study 20

2.2.2 Participants 21

2.3 Data Collection Instruments 21

2.3.1 Pretest and Posttest 21

2.3.2 Questionnaires 22

2.3.3 Class observation checklists 23

2.3.4 Research Lesson Plan 23

2.4 Data Collection Procedure 24

2.5 Data analysis 25

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 27

3.1 Research question 1: What is students‟ vocabulary use proficiency before the implementation of the research? 27

3.2 Research question 2: What is students‟ vocabulary use proficiency after the implementation of the research? 28

3.3 Research question 3 What is the difference in students‟ vocabulary use before and after teaching with word lists? 29

3.3.1 The overall descriptive data of the pre-test and the post-test scores 29

3.3.2 Descriptive statistics of sections in the tests 30

3.3.3 One Sample T-test Results: 32

3.4 Research question 4 What are students‟ attitudes toward using word lists in the language classroom? 32

3.4.1 Findings from Students‟ questionnaires 32

3.4.2 Findings from class observation 39

3.5 Discussion of all findings 41

PART C: CONCLUSION 43

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1 Summary of the findings and discussion 43

2 Gained research experience; research evaluation 43

3.1 For other English teachers 45

3.2 For other researchers 45

3.3 For students 46

4 Limitations of the study 46

5 Suggestion for further studies 47

REFERENCES 47

APPENDIX A I APPENDIX B IV APPENDIX C VII APPENDIX D IX APPENDIX E XI APPENDIX F LXIV

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LIST OF FIGURE, TABLES AND CHARTS

Figure 2.1 Action Research Cycle

Figure 3.1 Result of the Pretest

Figure 3.2 Result of the Posttest

Figure 3.3 The appropriateness the number of words

Table 2 The study procedures

Table 3 The reliability of the tests

Table 4 The overall descriptive data of the tests

Table 5 The overall descriptive data of collocations

Table 6 The overall descriptive data of Uncommon lexical items Table 7 The overall descriptive data of Word formation

Table 8 The overall descriptive data of part of speech

Table 9 One sample T- test

Chart 3.1 Contents of word lists

Chart 3.2 Skills of word lists

Chart 3.3 The WL introduction and teaching activities

Chart 3.4 The WL practice activities

Chart 3.5 Time among parts and teacher‟s feedbacks

in all levels There is a rapidly growing tendency for English to be adopted as the medium of communication, even when a majority of the population speaks a local language

In order to support the mastery of English, it is essential to learn vocabulary Underscoring the importance of vocabulary acquisition, Schmitt (2000, p.55) emphasizes that “lexical knowledge is central to communicative competence and to the acquisition of a second language” Nation (2001) further describes the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and language use as complementary: knowledge of vocabulary enables language use and, conversely, language use leads

to an increase in vocabulary knowledge British linguist Wilkins (1972: 111) once said, “Without grammar, little can be conveyed; without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed” Truly thanks to vocabulary, sentences, texts and language can be made and become richer

Today, there are research-based data on how best to provide students with effective vocabulary instruction And using word lists in class is considered as a new method which offer a systematic, teacher-directed approach to improving students‟ vocabulary use For teachers, using word lists offers research-based instructional resources that require minimal time Teachers also have benefits from the program‟s flexible instructional model, which allows them to customize instruction to fit their classroom schedules and meet individual student needs Besides, other benefits of word lists are: (1) Word lists are written in a very simple form, one word – with the single, most frequent meaning (2) Word lists are portable so students can look at them anytime and anywhere they want (3) Word lists reduce students‟ stress from

In the context of Gia Vuong secondary school, Ninh Binh Province, vocabulary has been taught for students for a long time basing on textbooks From the researcher‟s observation and professional experience as a teacher of English, teaching and learning vocabulary has still faced some difficulties and the students‟ ability to use English has not improved significantly Many students cannot make sentences or dialogues; over 90 % among them even cannot communicate basically in English because of insufficient vocabulary Students even do not know how to use the vocabulary they have learned They only understand a text and do exercises easily when they know what most of the important words mean In a word, this lack of adequate vocabulary knowledge is an obvious and serious obstacle for many students in learning English and improving their skills

All the conditions above have offered me a chance to conduct a study on:

“Improving students’ vocabulary use through using word lists An action research project with 7th grade students at Gia Vuong secondary school” The

study is conducted to test the continuing applicability of this method in the certain context of Vietnamese rural areas where there are not enough facilities for the leaners to learn a foreign language

2 Aims of study

Surveying the 7th grade students, who are directly involved in the program, the research firstly aimed at investigating their improvement in vocabulary use through teaching with prepared word lists and find out the effectiveness of this method Secondly, the researcher explores students‟ attitude towards using word lists in

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teaching vocabulary Based on the findings, recommendations are made to promote

student‟s proficiency and improve the implementation of this method

4 What are students‟ attitudes toward using word lists in the language classroom?

4 Scope of the study

The scope of this study is about the use of word lists in teaching vocabulary so as to help students get understanding about words and their meaning Besides, is the core of using word lists better for students to learn vocabulary and improve their vocabulary use? The researcher uses one class and the research is done at the seventh grade of Gia Vuong secondary school Then, the researcher compares the results of the pre- test and post- test that giving before and the last meeting Using the results from class observation, this study helps everyone see positive aspects/ strengths of using word lists in vocabulary teaching - learning process However, the result of this study may not be generalized to all Vietnamese students in rural areas

5 Methods of the study

To achieve the aims of the study, a mixed method was applied Eight lesson plans were designed and taught at one class in grade 7 at Gia Vuong secondary school so that the researcher can investigate the effectiveness of teaching vocabulary with word lists Then, a quantitative method technique was applied as a survey questionnaire was administered for 40 students there in order to get a more detailed and comprehensive picture about what is investigated for the research Other

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research instruments were also designed and applied

A pretest and a posttest were given in order to evaluate the vocabulary use proficiency improvement The students‟ scores in the post- test will be compared with the scores of students in the pre-test to determine the effectiveness of the use of word lists in teaching vocabulary

The qualitative research method is involved in conducting and analyzing the class observation which is needed to find out how effective this method is

Then, the data were collected, sorted and analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively

to obtain the results

6 Design of the study

This study is composed of five following parts:

Part A :“INTRODUCTION” presents the background, aims, research question,

the significance, the scope and the design of the study

Part B : DEVELOPMENT is organized in three main chapters:

Chapter I is “Literature review” which conceptualizes the framework of the study

through the discussion of issues and ideas on theories of teaching vocabulary in the implementation of word lists

Chapter II is “Methodology” which presents the context, the methodology used in

this study including the context, the subject, the data collection instruments, data collection procedure and data analysis

Chapter III is “Findings and Discussions” which consists of a comprehensive

analysis of the data and a discussion on the findings of this study

Part C “CONCLUSION” offers a summary of the findings, gained research

experience, recommendations, limitations and future directions for further study

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter discusses some definitions of vocabulary, vocabulary use, its classification, its role in EFL teaching and learning, approaches in vocabulary instruction, word lists,

using word lists and the related literature review of the research

1 1 Definition of Vocabulary and Vocabulary use

There are many definitions of vocabulary proposed by some experts It is very important for one to know what vocabulary is before discussing vocabulary use In the field of linguistics, Nash and Snowling (2006) describe vocabulary as “the knowledge of words and their meanings (p.336) Another definition came from Sheehan (2002), who states “vocabulary is the ability to understand and use words

to acquire and convey meaning” (vocabulary, Para 1) Meanwhile, as Bromley (2007) reported, “Vocabulary is a principle contributor to comprehension, fluency and achievement” Without an extensive vocabulary, most language learners will not be able to use the structures and functions they may have learnt for comprehensible communication In sum vocabulary can be understood as the words

of language, including single items and phrases or chunks of several words which convey a particular meaning, the way individual words do

Vocabulary use, Nation (2001) noted, involves the grammatical function of the word or phrase, collocations that normally often go with it, and finally any constrains on its use, in terms of frequency, level, and so forth Therefore, using a large vocabulary accurately is very important for foreign language learners Without mastering it, of course, foreign language learners will get some difficulties in developing the four language skills

1 2 Classification of vocabulary

1.2.1 According to meaning

Semantically, vocabulary is divided into notional words and functional words Notional words are words with clear lexical meaning They are indefinitely extendable, open classes- new items can be added to them The main notional words

1.2.2 According to frequence of use

It is possible to distinguish two kinds of vocabulary: high- frequency words and low - frequency words

High- frequency words are the words that appear most often in oral

communication and printed materials of different fields of life Learning to recognize high- frequency words by sight is critical to developing fluency in reading Considerable researchers been done to generate lists of the 1,000, 2,000 or 3,000 most frequently- used word in English Recognizing these words gives students a basic context figuring out other word

Low- frequency words are of a very large group of words that occurs very

infrequency and cover only a small proportion of any text The younger the learner, the fewer words they are likely to have in their low- frequency bank

For a teacher, it is very important to distinguish between high and low – frequency vocabulary in order to decide which words to teach and how much class time should

be spent on them

1.2.3 According to language teaching methodologies

Methodologically, a foreign language learners‟ vocabulary is divided into active vocabulary and passive vocabulary Active vocabulary is the words which students can understand and use effectively in speaking and writing, whereas passive vocabulary is the words which the student can recognize and understand when they occur in a context, but he cannot remember or use in their own speaking and writing ( Nguyen Bang & Nguyen Ba Ngoc 2002: 36) However, the active and passive vocabulary of language learners changes constantly They start using words, try new

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meanings, forget words, and abandon words that have no use or revise words, etc Lewis and Hill (1885, p 100) suggested that it was helpful to guide students towards the words which it would help them to add to their active vocabulary

In this study, the researcher classified the vocabulary according to meaning and frequency of use Both of them are useful for choosing wordlists and implementing them in class

1 3 The role of vocabulary in language teaching and learning

Vocabulary is an important aspect of EFL teaching and learning, the one that has called for a great attention from researcher, teachers and students Traditionally, second language instruction has focused on teaching grammatical knowledge However, vocabulary is very crucial in language teaching and learning because people cannot understand others and express their own ideas without sufficient vocabulary Some authors, led by Lewis (1993, p 51) argue that vocabulary should

be the center of language teaching since “language consists of grammaticalised lexis, not lexicalised grammar” Hunt & Beglar (2005) go on to say that effective second language vocabulary acquisition is particularly important for EFL students, who frequently have impoverished lexicons despite years of formal study

Learners seem to recognize the importance of vocabulary for their learning as Schmitt (2010, p 4) notes, “learners carry around dictionaries and not grammar books” This is also echoed by Laufer who stated: “solid vocabulary is necessary in every stage of language learning, as is now being openly stated by second language acquisition researchers” (1997, p.147) Besides, many other researchers conducted plenty of studies and pointed out that improving vocabulary makes student‟s ability

to use foreign language better and more fluently The bigger vocabulary size language learners get, the better they understand and use Vocabulary learning is, therefore, one of the specific goals in a language classroom and the acquisition of an adequate vocabulary is essential for successful second language use In conclusion, vocabulary plays a key role in any EFL course, for any language students

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1.4 Aspects of word knowledge included in vocabulary teaching

One of the greatest concerns of a language teacher is selecting what aspects of vocabulary to be taught in a language classroom In general, when teaching a new English word, a teacher should by all means provide students with its meaning, form and use simultaneously Selecting what to teach, based on frequency and usefulness to the needs of the particular students is therefore essential In the book

“A course in Language Teaching” (1999, p 23), Ur suggested the four aspects of vocabulary as Form: Pronunciation and spelling, Grammar, Collocation, Aspects of meaning (1): denotation, connotation, appropriateness, (2): meaning relationship, Word formation need to be taught about vocabulary According to Nation (2001, p 27), to know everything about a word, one needs to know the word‟s:

Form: spoken form, written form, and word parts (e.g., prefix/ root/ suffix )

Meaning: meaning(s), concepts/referents, and associations (positive )

Use: grammatical functions, collocations, constraints (register, frequency )

Word form: Pronunciation ad spelling

In learning and teaching vocabulary process, it is commonly observed that students must know how to write the words and how to pronounce it correctly As Ur (1996,

p 60) said, there are some important points that should be considered when teaching vocabulary that is form (pronunciation and spelling) in which pronunciation of a language is the main components of speech which combine together (Hewings, 2004, p.3) It is defined as the way in which a word is pronounced Rules of pronunciation vary widely from language to language

Spelling is the writing of a word or words with letters and diacritics Spelling is the arrangement of letters or putting letters together Spelling is important because it aids in reading and writing It helps cement the connection that is shared between sounds and letters

There is a relationship between spelling and pronunciation According to O‟neil (1969), the spelling does not directly reflect the way in which a word is pronounced, but “the pronunciations of words are quite generally predictable in their spelling

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This relationship often causes trouble for students, so a teacher needs to make sure that both these aspects are accurately presented and learned According to Davies (2000, p 61), it is usually best to present new items orally first and in written form later, especially at lower level As a result, students can avoid getting the habit of using “spelling pronunciation”

Grammar

Language teachers need to introduce the grammar of a new vocabulary if this is not obviously covered by general grammatical rules Specially, it is important to provide students information in case the item has an unpredictable change of form

in certain grammatical contexts or may have some unusual ways of connecting with other words in sentences For instance, when teaching a noun, we may wish to present its plural form if irregular (man, men) or draw students‟ attention to the fact that it has no plural at all (beauty, knowledge)

Use

According to Nation (2001, p.1), teachers are able to direct students‟ attentions to the use of words with several techniques such as quickly showing the grammatical pattern the word fits into (countable/uncountable, transitive/intransitive, etc), giving

a few similar collocates, mentioning any restrictions on the use of the word (formal, informal, impolite, only used with children, etc), and giving a well- known opposite

or a well- known word describing the group or lexical set it fits into

Collocation

A collocation is a combination of two or more words together in a language They can be nouns and nouns, nouns and verbs, adjectives and nouns, adverbs and verbs, verbs and prepositions etc… According to Firth (1957, p.181), “collocations of a given word are statements of the habitual or customary places of that word” It does not mean every word can be used together In other words, the combination of words must follow certain rules, peculiar to each language For example, we have collocations “do homework” or “make a bed”, and we cannot put “make homework‟

or “do a bed”

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Word meaning

The meaning can be classified according to the form they attach to It can be classified into three forms: lexical meaning, morphological meaning, and syntactic meaning Lexical meaning is the meaning of a word considered in isolation from the sentence containing it, and regardless of its grammatical context For example, the lexical meaning of learn in or as represented by learns, learned, learning, etc Morphological meaning is the meaning that attaches to morphemes In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of a language

Grammatical meaning is the meaning that is conveyed by word order and other grammatical signals For example question attaches to the word arrangement in the sentence is he a student (Lado, 1964, p 209-212,)

Word meaning has four components, two of which are denotation and connotation Denotation is conceptual meaning and dictionary meaning (Tarigan, 1985,p 58) and she states that connotation is feeling and emotion that occurs within a word How the meaning of one item relates to the meaning of others is important in teaching There are different relationships Some of the main ones are synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms, co- hyponyms and superordinnates

 Synonyms: are actually words of the same parts of speech that have similar

or identical denotation, speech but differ in shades of meaning, connotation

or combinability with other words

 Antonyms: words of the same part of speech that are opposite in meaning are called antonyms Usually adjectives denoting quality, verb denoting actions

or states and abstract nouns have antonyms

 Hyponyms: is a word or phrase whose semantic field is included within that

of another word They are decided based on the viewpoint of intension and extension

 Co- hyponym or co-ordinates: other items that are the “ same kind of thing”

 Superordinates: general concepts that “cover” specific items

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Word formation

According Bauer (1983,p 1), word formation is of central interest to theoretical linguistics of all persuasions because of light it throws on other aspects of language

We may consider word formation the creation of a new word

When talking about word formation, affixation is the first sector that is mentioned about Affixation is, thus, the linguistic process speakers use to form new words by adding morphemes (affixes) at the beginning (prefixation), the middle ( infixation) or

the end (suffixation) of words, for example: redo, sickness New combinations using

affixes are usual and the reader or hearer would be expected to gather their meaning from understanding of their components Besides, there are various other ways of forming new words such as compounding ( house+ work -> housework, etc)

All in all, words can be formed in different ways Students should know well about word formation and the way to use words in appropriate grammatical contexts Therefore, this study focused on all aspects mentioned above

1 5 Principles of vocabulary teaching

According to Armbruster, Lehr, & Osborn (2001), vocabulary can be learned in the following ways:

Directly: Students can learn vocabulary directly when they are explicitly taught

both individual words and word-learning strategies

Indirectly: Students can learn the meanings of most words indirectly, through

every day experiences with oral and written language, through conversations with adults, through being to read and through reading extensively on their own However, this kind of learning is difficult and not very sufficient

Rubin & Thompson (1994) also characterize two general approaches as follows: with direct vocabulary learning, students focus their attention on learning words in lists or completing various vocabulary exercises; whereas, with indirect vocabulary learning, learner‟s attention is focused on conveying or understanding a spoken or written message, in the process of which they are likely to learn new vocabulary The two approaches vie for superiority and have created much controversy So

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while criticisms of the direct approach abound, many studies do support the decontextualized style of the direct approach as an effective way of learning vocabulary

To help students learn vocabulary, Nation (2008) suggests using four strands for teaching: 1) meaning-focused input for listening and reading practice, particularly with graded readers, 2) meaning-focused output for speaking and writing, 3) language-focused learning through deliberate vocabulary teaching, using rich vocabulary instruction, raising students‟ word consciousness, and teaching vocabulary learning strategies, and 4) developing fluency with vocabulary across language skills (practice, making connections with vocabulary) Besides, Nation( 2005), Hubbard et al ( 1989) ( cited in Bui Thi Kim Cuc, 2012 , p 12) proposed general principles that are significant for anyone who concerned teaching English vocabulary:

Firstly, teachers quickly give the meaning of the word by ( a) using an L1 translation, ( b) using a known L2 synonym or a simple definition in the L2, (c) showing an object or picture, (d) giving quick demonstration, (e) drawing a simple picture or diagram, ( f) breaking the word into parts and giving the meaning of the parts and the whole word ( g) giving several examples with the word in context, ( h) commenting on the underlying word meaning and other referents Then, teachers can direct students‟ attention to the form of the word by (a) showing how the spelling of the word is like the spelling of unknown words, ( B) giving the stress pattern of the word and its pronunciation, (c) showing the prefix stem and suffix that make up the word, (d) getting students to repeat the word pronunciation, (e) writing the word on the board, ( f) pointing out any spelling irregularity in the word Finally, teachers can explain the use of the word by ( a) quickly showing the grammatical pattern the word fits into ( countable/ uncountable, transitive/ intransitive, etc), (b) giving a few similar collocates, (c) mentioning any restrictions

on the use of States, only use with children, old fashioned, technical, infrequent), (d) giving a well-known opposite, or a well-known word describing the group or lexical set it fits into

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To sum up, students had better be taught with various learning strategies for effective self- study In this study, direct vocabulary learning has been chosen to help students get their improvement best in learning vocabulary

1.6 Approaches to vocabulary Instruction

Definitional Approaches

Traditionally, much vocabulary instruction has involved some variety of a definitional approach: students learn definitions or synonyms for instructed words In other word, it requires students to find word meanings independently There are obviously better versions of this approach Although it helps the teacher save time and enable them to progress to content matter, definitions alone can lead to only a relatively superficial level of word knowledge However, using the definitional approach should not be avoided Rather, learning definitions of words can be effective when students already have an understanding of the underlying concept of the term

Contextual Approaches: Another common approach to teaching vocabulary is the

use of context When determining the meaning of an unfamiliar word, it is often helpful to see the word used in a sentence and to find clues within the sentence that suggest the word's meaning There is no question that learning from context is an important avenue of vocabulary growth and that it deserves attention and practice in the classroom But context, used as an instructional method by itself, is ineffective

as a means of teaching new meanings, at least when compared with other forms of vocabulary instruction

Combining Definitional and Contextual Approaches

A combination of definitional and contextual approaches is more effective than either approach in isolation; such mixed methods do, in general, increase reading comprehension (Stahl and Fairbanks, 1986) Indeed, it would be hard to justify a contextual approach in which the teacher did not finally provide an adequate definition

of the word or help the class arrive at one Likewise, a good definitional approach includes sentences that illustrate the meaning and use of the words defined Therefore, both definitional and contextual approaches have chosen in this study

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1 7 Teaching with word lists

1.7.1 Definition of word lists

A word list is a list of words, for example words that someone has to learn or words explained in a dictionary According to Hatch and Brown (1995, p 1), the term vocabulary refers to a list or set of words for a particular language or a list or set of words that individual speaker of a language might use Nation(2001) mentioned four different lists of vocabulary categorized by high-frequency words, academic words, technical words, and low-frequency words These wordlists provide students with a useful solution to a problem in the naturalistic acquisition of the vocabulary needed for academic studies Besides, Millington and Siegel (2010) states, “the creation of vocabulary lists should be taken as an important duty that can have profound implications, assuming that students will invest time and effort attempting

to acquire these lexical items, in addition to being evaluated on vocabulary tests” and they will probably acquire more knowledge about the target words since they spend considerable time engaged with new vocabulary Therefore, teaching specific words before doing tasks may help both learning vocabulary and practicing other skills

Coxhead ( 1998, 2000) at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand also

studied academic word lists ( AWL) as a list of words which appear with high

frequency in English - language academic texts The list was compiled following an analysis of over 3,500,000 words of text which come from academic journals, textbooks, course workbooks, lab manuals, and course notes and occur frequently in a range of academic subjects, including the Arts (including history, psychology, sociology, etc.), Commerce (including economics, marketing, management, etc.), Law and the Sciences (including biology, computer science, mathematics, etc.) This means that the AWL is helpful and necessary to all second-language learners who wish to study in an English-speaking institution no matter what their field of study

The difficulties that students have in mastering the vocabulary necessary for written test are obvious In order to read and write successfully, students need to be able to

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recognize as many words as possible in the textbooks and use as many as possible

in their assignments Teaching vocabulary through word lists is useful because most

of the words in lists are quite common and students can frequently see in newspapers, magazines, and novels, and hear on television, movies or in conversation As a result, they can improve vocabulary size by themselves For beginners, the basic wordlists are great guides to master essential words for general English use For students with academic needs, the academic word list is an excellent source of words which will be useful in a wide range of academic fields and topics There is, however, a need for a new word list, catering to the needs of advanced students, who require additional words for daily use in English-speaking contexts In this study, word lists are defined as lists of words related to specific topics for the purpose of daily life use

1.7.2 Selection of vocabulary items in word lists

One guideline for effective vocabulary teaching is careful selection of words to learn or

to teach and frequency has been the most common principled way of selection of vocabulary in second or foreign language learning For middle school a key website is Word Generation, based on a large research project: http://wg.serpmedia.org Hiebert and Lubliner (2008) discuss academic vocabulary in schools (including Hiebert‟s Core Academic Word List), as does Marzano (2010) See also Harmon, Wood, and Hedrick (2008) for middle and secondary content vocabulary and its instruction Kinsella‟s (2013) text is also geared toward middle school students Teachers who teach English

as a foreign language need to help students build up a large vocabulary of useful words during the course However using word lists for rural students is not easy Before setting a criteria for deciding which vocabulary items should be chosen, teachers have

to be clear about their aim to decide on what is involved in word lists They also have

to know what kind of words and how many words that students should master in a course The reasonable quantity of new words which teacher decides to use in a lesson

is also important because if there are too many words, the students may be confused or stressed They feel difficult to remember all

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In this study, word lists which were drawn up include target words chosen from the chapters of the course books Research recommends that students learn fewer words (about 8 to 10 lexical items/a word list) and the English language work so that they can infer the meanings of new words The teacher designed these word lists in term

of topics The target words will be presented in such a way that their meanings are perfectly clear and unambiguous Then, the students will be practiced using those words through different types of exercises and there are frequent opportunities for students to interact with the words in meaningful contexts Interacting with words in multiple ways and in varied contexts result in durable word learning

1.7.3 Related Studies to word lists

The effectiveness of vocabulary lists has been given importance and has been advocated by so many linguistics (Millington and Siegel, 2010; Sokmen, 1997; Schmitt and Schmitt, 2012) The studies below have been mentioned to the use of

vocabulary lists

In EFL classroom research at a university in Japan, Hoshino (2010) worked with 46 students who were to learn 20 pairs of words for each of five types, namely synonym, antonym, categorical, thematic, and unrelated, divided into lists of 5 or 10 word items Students received the various lists of English words and their Japanese translations and could study them for several days In class, they went through the various lists before they were tested on them using an English-to Japanese translation task Hoshino‟s findings were clear, with statistically significant results: these EFL students learned the words on the lists quite well, and although student learning style did not appear to determine which type of list participants learned best, the test scores and further analyses indicated that the categorical words were apparently “a more effective type of list for L2 vocabulary learning than other lists” (p 310) Hoshino (2010,p 310) thus concluded, “Presenting new vocabulary in categorical lists promotes vocabulary learning” in the classroom, and “learning from related word lists … should be encouraged”

TakahashiSo (2009,2010) introduced vocabulary instruction through using original

of this instruction was to establish students‟ study habits and help them get higher scores on the chapter tests The instruction involved the following four procedures: (1)10-minute classroom learning using original word lists, (2) 5-minute Feedback testing followed by 10-minutes of study, (3) Clarifying objectives, (4) Emphasizing the importance of repeated study the outside classroom He asked students to review each word list 10 times before the test He made a check box on the top right corner

of each word list and had them to mark every time they finished 10-minute vocabulary learning As a result, most individual students improved their test scores This study show that word lists worked well for the students And after the proof, the efficiency of using word lists should be further investigated

In brief, this chapter introduces an informative and theoretical understanding of vocabulary and their relevant aspects This part also presents how to teach word lists in teaching vocabulary All of them were considered the basic background for the current study The next chapter gives a fully detailed description of the methodology to carry out the present study

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CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Research design: Action Research

This study was carried out as an action research project The aim of action research

is to improve the current state of affairs within the educational context in which the research is being carried out To put in another word, action research is a “small- scale intervention in the functioning of the real world and a close examination of the effects of such intervention.” (Cohen & Manion, 1994)

The reason why the researcher chose this approach is that the aim of the study was

to improve the current situation - students‟ vocabulary use and in order to investigate how well the students and teachers judge the teaching word lists designed and draw the pedagogical implementation for both teachers and students in their teaching and learning Taking everything into consideration, it was believed that action research was the most appropriate approach to this thesis

It is significant to recognize action research‟s procedure which needs to be followed from one step to another In order to carry out an action research, Ferrance ( 2000, p.18) suggested an action research cycle as follows:

Figure 2.1: Action Research Cycle

As can be observed from this cycle, to carry out an action research, in the first step, the researcher must identify the problem Then the data is collected for a more

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detailed diagnosis After that, the researcher has to design a plan of action to make change and to study that change Data on the results of the intervention are collected and analyzed, and the findings are interpreted in light of how successful the action has been At this point, the problem is re-assessed and the process begins another cycle This process continues until the problem is resolved

However, when applying the action research approach, this study follows the general of

an action research cycle suggested by Nunan (1992) because it is more specific

Step 1: Identifying the problem

Before conducting this action research, the researcher basing on her experience as an English teacher at a secondary school and talking to students gained understanding of their problem in vocabulary learning Some students said that they tended to forget words quickly after class; some know words but do not know the pronunciation and others still remember words, yet they do not know how to use them appropriately It was proved from their English scores which were still low On the other hand, the teacher did not try to improve the situation by applying or using other methods or techniques in order to gain students curiosity, participation and activeness relating to present and practice new vocabulary The teacher liked to have less noisy students, so that there would be less disturbance in teaching-learning activity

Step 2: Preliminary investigation- the researcher based on data which are collected

to help understand the nature of the problem: students lack of vocabulary items and they are bad at using vocabulary

Step 3: Hypothesis- A hypothesis is formulated after reviewing the initial data

After having the information from informal chat with students, the researcher developed the following hypothesis for this action research: Using word lists to teach vocabulary is effective It helps students learn, retain and use vocabulary better Besides, this approach provides the teacher an effective way in order to motivate their students in vocabulary learning

Step 4: Intervention- A number of strategies are devised and applied

The researcher designed word list activities and exercises which were believed to be

Step6: Dissemination- A report of the research is published Ideas emerged from the research are shared The results of this action research are clearly reported in this thesis Step7: Follow – up: Alternative solutions for the problem are continually investigated

Having completed the first cycle of this research, the advantages and the limitations

of “Using word lists to teach vocabulary” were realized This understanding will be the foundation for the next cycle of the action research, which will be shown in the next chapter

In conclusion, considering that action research is the best choice for the purpose of improving students‟ vocabulary acquisition, and that the action research design is the most practical and feasible for the researcher, the author made decision to conduct an action research which followed the seven- step model suggested by Nunan ( 1992)

2.2 Background of the study

2.2.1 Context of the study

The study investigates the implementation of using word lists in teaching vocabulary to improve students‟ vocabulary use and it was conducted at Gia Vuong secondary school which is located in Gia Vien district, Ninh Binh province There is only one class in grade 7 including 40 students learning there They started learning EFL in the third grade in public elementary schools The researcher chooses this

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secondary school because she gets easy to do research at there Moreover, this school does not have permanent English teacher, the researcher can explore using word lists in teaching vocabulary by various methods with the head master‟s permission

2.2.2 Participants

The study involves 40 students in grade 7 They were chosen from the same class to participate in a 10- week research study to access to learning vocabulary with word lists Those students (both males and females aged twelve) are studying at Gia Vuong secondary school in Ninh Binh province Most of the students come from the poor families in rural area where their living conditions are low and teaching as well as learning conditions in English are limited Although most of them have learnt English for four years, their English knowledge is not good, especially about vocabulary Nearly no students has any kind of English reference at home, except “

Để học tốt tiếng anh 7” which gives the translation of the new word items and the answers to any exercises in the textbook The lazy ones do nothing just copy and write down in the textbook In addition, most of them are not interested in learning English, and they are not motivated in learning this kind of language I found that necessary to apply a different method to help them have more interesting and get a better result

2.3 Data Collection Instruments

In order to collect data for the study, the following instruments were employed: pretest, posttest, questionnaire, class observation and lesson plans

2.3.1 Pretest and Posttest

A pretest and a posttest are the instruments given in order to evaluate the vocabulary use proficiency The students‟ scores on post- test will be compared with the scores of students on pre-test with the same level to determine the effectiveness of the use of word lists in teaching vocabulary The pretest and the posttest in this study were designed equivalently and checked by the experts who are known to have deep understanding about testing Most of the vocabulary items

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in the tests were selected from the new lexical items in the text book and related to

the contents of the topics that students learned before The pretest was conducted

before the treatment, which was at the beginning of the term No special technique and language practice were applied in teaching vocabulary before In the pretest, students assigned to answer 40 questions to evaluate their competence in English vocabulary and students‟ understanding on collocation, part of speech especially noun, verb, adjective and adverb, word formation as well as realizing uncommon lexical items All

of questions were designed like multiple choice questions which are composed of one question (stem) with multiple possible answers (choices), including one correct answer and several incorrect answers (distractors) 40 questions are divided into four parts: collocation ( 10 questions), uncommon lexical items (15 question), word family (10questions) and part of speech (5 sentences) Students select the correct answer by circling the associated number or letter on the response sheet Each correct answer was given 0,25 point and the maximum score is therefore 10 The test duration was 30

minutes The post test was conducted 8 weeks later with the same design as the

pretest, lasting 30 minutes This test involved the lexical items from unit 1 to unit 8 The aims of this test was to assess students vocabulary size and their level of vocabulary use after 8 weeks of the study as well as to make a precise evaluation to see how much they acquired after the process

2.3.2 Questionnaires

The questionnaires have become the world of experience for both researcher and professionals They are also common instruments to collect data in educational researches With the purpose to seek the answer to the fourth research question of the study, the researcher designed a survey questionnaire for the students to investigate their evaluation on the vocabulary teaching activities which were designed based on word lists and their attitudes to learning vocabulary through this method It contains 19 questions in Liker scale (ranging from “strongly disagree” to

“strongly agree” The questionnaire was conducted after the posttest and delivered

to students It consists of three main sections:

2.3.3 Class observation checklists

The aim of the classroom observation is to evaluate the effectiveness of this method

in teaching vocabulary for the 7th graders from the teacher and students‟ view in comparison between what they said and what they performed In order to meet that aim, the class observation was conducted basing on three primary criteria (The form of class observation can be found in Appendix F)

• Preparation

• Teachers and teaching methods

• Students and learning

In this observation, the activities were observed by the teacher such as student‟s response during teaching- learning process, students‟ pay attentions toward teacher‟s explanation, students‟ participation to teacher‟s questions, students‟ interest in doing exercises, management of the class, giving the motivation to the students and so on The result of the observation was the as field notes From the field notes, the researcher found some weaknesses and strengths during the implementation of direct instruction of word lists

2.3.4 Research Lesson Plan

Lesson plans were also chosen as a useful intervention instrument to find out the effectiveness of using word lists on vocabulary use development for the 7th graders The other purpose of lesson plans is to realize the student‟s perception about the teaching activities using that method In order to meet this aims, eight lesson plans were designed by researcher The researcher planned the teaching techniques that would be implemented in teaching vocabulary Eight lesson plans were taught

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during 8 weeks In each lesson, a word list related to a topic (At school, Food and Drink, Jobs, Health, Music and Art, Film, Travelling and Festival, Traffic) was introduced Each word was presented individually by using different techniques such as using an L1 translation, using a known L2 synonym or a simple definition in the L2, showing an object or picture, giving several examples with the word in context, commenting on the underlying word meaning and other referents Then, the word, definition, word formations, parts of speech, synonyms/antonyms and an example sentence were provided Lastly, sentence production tasks were taught and assigned After teaching the words, the instructors made the students practice words in the exercises

2.4 Data Collection Procedure

The following section presents the data collection procedure of the study

The study was conducted in 10 weeks beginning in August of 2016 In the first week, the pretest was administered to the students After all the test papers were finished, they were collected by the teacher From the 2nd to 9th week, prepared lesson plans were used in class for the students who received the word lists instruction In each lesson, the teacher provided a word list including from 8 to 10 target words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and phrases) related to a topic chosen from the chapters of the textbooks or reference book Further, in order to improve students‟ vocabulary use, they were asked to do different activities and exercises through those word lists In the 10th week, the post -test which is used to measure students‟ understanding of the concepts that they were taught and after all the test papers were finished and collected, the subjects were asked to fill in the attitude questionnaire To ensure that the students have obtained adequate understanding of the questions, the researcher translated the questions into Vietnamese After each question was translated, students were instructed to complete the questionnaire The researcher was willing to answer any questions of the respondents All the study procedures are shown in Table 2

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Week 1 Subjects were administered the Pre Test

Week 2 Lesson plan implementation

Week 3 Lesson plan implementation

Week 4 Lesson plan implementation

Week 5 Lesson plan implementation

Week 6 Lesson plan implementation

Week 7 Lesson plan implementation

Week 8 Lesson plan implementation

Week 9 Lesson plan implementation

Week 10 Subjects were administered the Post Test

Subjects were asked to fill in the questionnaire

After week 10 Data were collected, scored and analyzed

Conclusions, implications and suggestions were developed

Table 2: The study procedures 2.5 Data analysis

It took 10 weeks to collect all the data for the research before they were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively To analyze the teaching and learning process, the writer based on the scores of tests which were conducted at the beginning and at the end of the course The data were entered into the SPSS statistics software, version 20 which addresses the entire analytical process to see the changes in the student‟s result Descriptive statistics were analyzed to answer the research question

1, 2 and 3 in this current study The writer compared the student‟s vocabulary achievement in the pre- test and the post- test to know whether there is improvement of students‟ vocabulary use or not The mean of scores from the pre test was compared to the mean of the post test scores to know how far the progress

of students in this research is

In terms of the answer for the research question 4, the researcher drew from the data collected from the questionnaires to the students After all the questionnaires were

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returned, they were consolidated, analyzed and presented in Excel program in forms of bars, charts and figures Besides, the classroom observation notes were written down and summarized qualitatively to provide the findings in comparison with the data collected from the students‟ questionnaires so that the researcher could elicit accurate answers to four research questions Finally, the analyses of the classroom observation data were shown to provide empirical information of how well the students evaluate the vocabulary teaching activities in this method

In summary, this chapter has presented in detail the context, the subject, the instruments, and the procedure of collecting data and analyzing data of the whole study In the next chapter, chapter three, the findings and discussions will be presented

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CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

The previous chapter, Methodology, has described and justified the context, the participants, the data collection instruments and the procedures of the data collection and analysis of the study This chapter presents and discusses the findings drawn from the data which were collected to reveal the answers to the research questions of the application of using word lists in teaching vocabulary The data collected from scores of the pretest, the posttest, questionnaires as well as class observations will be analyzed to give answers for the four research questions

3.1 Research question 1: What is students’ vocabulary use proficiency before the implementation of the research?

The result of the pretest of 40 students was shown as followed:

50%

35 %

10 % 5%

0%

Result of the Pre Test

bad average quite good good excellent

Figure 3.1: Result of the Pretest

The pie chart illustrates five types of scores of students in the pretest: Bad ( below

5 mark); average ( from 5 to 6.4); quite good ( from 6.5 to 7.9); good ( from 8 to 9.9) and excellent ( 10) As can be seen from the figure 3.1 above, 35% for the average group while half of the students ( 50%) fell below mark 5 and only 10 % for the quite good group A small percentage of students who have good marks

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accounted for 5 % and no students got excellent mark In addition, based on the result of the pretest, the data showed that the mean score of pretest is 4.7/10 From that analyzing, it could be seen that almost of the first grade of students‟ vocabulary was still very low It means that they had small vocabulary size and low understanding on using those vocabulary

3.2 Research question 2: What is students’ vocabulary use proficiency after the implementation of the research?

Figure 3.2: Result of the Posttest

Figure 3 2 is truly pleasing in that “excellent” score made their first appearance with 2.5% although there was a small increase of 10 % for the good group and 22.5% for the quite group As observed from the pie charts, 18 out of 40 students (45 % ) for the average group and 20% students fell below mark 5 Besides, the data showed that the mean score of post test was 5.9/ 10, there was an increase of students‟ mean score from students‟ vocabulary achievement on the preliminary study to that on the posttest In general, many students has improved their vocabulary

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3.3 Research question 3 What is the difference in students’ vocabulary use before and after teaching with word lists?

3.3.1 The overall descriptive data of the pre-test and the post-test scores

The researcher used the results of the pretest and posttest to determine their vocabulary improvement after taking part in the study Descriptive data were collected from student‟s tests to determine if there was noted student improvement

in this research First, before the main analysis, the internal reliability of the pretest and the posttest was calculated to see whether the items in the tests were reliable for students and they were acceptable instruments in the study or not

The reliability of the tests can be seen in Table 3 :

Reliability Statistics Reliability Statistics

Cronbach's Alpha N of Items Cronbach's Alpha N of Items

Table 3: The reliability of the test

As can be seen from the tables, the reliability statistics obtain two Cronbach‟s Alpha values of 0 688 for the pretest and 0.662 for the post test Based on this reliability test, it can be concluded that these research instruments are of acceptable internal reliability

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It can be seen from Table 4, the mean of the pretest for this group is 4.7 and the mean of the posttest for this group is 5.9 For the pretest, the minimum score is 1 and the maximum is 8, whereas for the posttest, the minimum score is 3.25 and the maximum score is 10

Also according to frequency analysis, the number of the participants with the scores below 5 in the pretest was nearly 50 %, whereas in the posttest, this accounted for

20 % Also the percentage of the participants with really impressive scores (ranging from 8 to 10) in the pretest was only 5 %, but in the posttest, the number was nearly

10 % in total That showed a difference in the results from the two tests in which the later ones are higher

3.3.2 Descriptive statistics of sections in the tests

Collocations : Pretest analysis: Collocations: Posttest analysis:

Table 5: The overall descriptive data of collocations

As can be seen from this table, for the first section of the pretest and the posttest about collocations, the mean for the first part of the pre test is 1.20 while that of the post test is 1.64 The minimum score of this part in the pretest is 0.25 and the maximum is 2.25 whereas the minimum score of that for the posttest is 0.75 and the maximum score is 2.50

As a result, there is a small increase in student‟s collocation use ability

Uncommon lexical items : Pretest analysis: Uncommon lexical items: Posttest analysis: