The effects of using sense relations in learning english vocabulary of 9th grade students in a secondary school in hanoi

DECLARATION I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “The effects of using sense relations on learning English vocabulary of 9 th grade students in a secondary school in Hanoi” is the

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

học sinh lớp 9 tại một trường THCS ở Hà Nội

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

học sinh lớp 9 tại một trường THCS ở Hà Nội

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

Supervisor: Dr Trần Thị Thu Hiền

DECLARATION

I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “The effects of using sense relations

on learning English vocabulary of 9 th grade students in a secondary school in Hanoi” is the result of my own research for the Degree of Master at the University

of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, and this

thesis has not been submitted for any other degrees

Ha Noi, August 2018

Dương Thị Hương

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to send my sincere gratitude to Dr Tran Thị Thu Hien for helping me finish this study This paper would not be finished without her sincere patience and encouraging guidance Her patience and helpful advice helped me confidently express my ideas into this paper

Furthermore, I would like to express my sincere thanks to all my lecturers at the Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies for their valuable lectures which have helped me a great deal in gaining a lot

of theoretical as well as practical knowledge

My special thanks are for the principal and teachers at a secondary school in Hanoi that helped me carry out the study and for 29 grade-9 students who took part

in the experimental teaching by using sense relations

Finally, I would like to express my deep gratitude and love to my beloved parents, my brothers, my husband and my friends who supported and encouraged

me to complete this thesis

ABSTRACT

Vietnamese students often face difficulties in learning vocabulary They fail

to remember words and to recall words when necessary because of their learning habits and learning strategies Based on literature review, it is found that sense relations can have positive effects on vocabulary learning This thesis is entitled

“The effects of using sense relations on learning English vocabulary of 9 th grade students in a secondary school in Hanoi” which aims to find out the

improvement of the use of sense relations in teaching vocabulary This research was

a quantitative and qualitative method To obtain the data, test, the questionnaire and the interview were used In selecting the sample, the writer used purposive sampling The sample was the students in class 9A1 of a secondary school which consisted of 29 students The result of test showed that using sense relations could improve the students‘ ability in English vocabulary mastery In addition, based on the analysis of the interview, the English teacher gave some suggestions for the application of sense relations in teaching vocabulary It can be concluded that sense relations have a positive effect on students‘ vocabulary acquisition

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ELT : English Language Teaching

Q : Question

SR : Sense Relations

LIST OF FIGURES, CHARTS AND TABLES

Figure 1.1: Example of hyponymy relation

Chart 3.1: Frequency Distribution of Pre-test

Chart 3.2: Frequency Distribution of Post-test

Table 2.1: Summary of the questions in the students‘ questionnaire Table 2.2 : Data collection procedure

Table 3.1: Students‘ habits of vocabulary learning at home

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

LIST OF FIGURES, CHARTS AND TABLES v

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale for the study 1

2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

3 Research Questions 2

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Significance of the study 3

6 Methods of the study 3

7 Organization of the study 3

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Vocabulary 5

1.1.1 Definition 5

1.1.2 The importance of vocabulary 6

1.1.3 Types of vocabulary 6

1.2 Vocabulary teaching 7

1.2.1 Vocabulary teaching process 7

1.2.2 Techniques in teaching vocabulary 8

1.2.2.1 Visual techniques 9

1.2.2.2 Verbal techniques 9

1.3 Vocabulary learning 11

1.3.1 Vocabulary acquisition process 11

1.3.2 Vocabulary learning strategies 12

1.4 Sense relations 13

1.4.1 Types of sense relations 13

1.4.1.1 Synonymy 13

1.4.1.2 Antonymy 13

1.4.1.3 Hyponymy 14

1.4.1.4 Polysemy and homonymy 15

1.4.1.5 Meronymy 16

1.4.1.6 Attributive relation 17

1.4.1.7 Instrumental relation 17

1.4.1.8 Place relation 17

1.4.1.9 Other kinds of sense relations 17

1.4.2 Advantages of using sense relations in teaching and learning vocabulary17 1.5 Previous studies 18

1.6 Chapter summary 19

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 21

2.1 The research setting 21

2.1.1 Research site 21

2.1.2 English textbooks 21

2.2 Participants 22

2.2.1 The teacher 22

2.2.2 Students 22

2.3 Methods of the study 22

2.3.1 Action research 21

2.3.2 Action plan 21

2.4 Data collection instruments 27

2.4.1 The tests 27

2.4.2 The questionnaire 28

2.4.3 The interviews 30

2.5 Data collection procedure 31

2.6 Chapter summary 31

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 32

3.1 The tests 32

3 2 The questionnaire 34

3 3 The interviews 36

3.3.1 The pre-interview 36

3.3.2 The post-interview 37

3.4 Chapter summary 40

PART THREE: CONCLUSION 41

1 Recapitulation 41

2 Pedagogical implications 41

3 Limitations of the study 43

4 Suggestions for further studies 44

REFERENCES

APPENDICES

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the study

In the modern world, people need to know more than one language to communicate with others Vocabulary plays an important role in learning any foreign language because it can encourage students to improve four basic skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing Language ability of learners will be improved overall

by vocabulary improvement (Linse, 2006) However, many learners face a lot of challenges to learn and memorize new words Therefore, language teachers are searching for useful methods which can be used to help their students acquire vocabulary well In fact, there are various techniques and methods that can be used

to present vocabulary; however, there are some factors that should be taken into consideration concerning the manner of presenting new lexical items Furthermore,

if teachers want learners to retain new words, they should present them in suitable contexts, practice them, and revise them in order that their learners cannot forget them As a result, learning vocabulary items depends on the way they are presented and the way they are revised

It is clear that finding out the suitable techniques of vocabulary teaching plays a crucial role in helping students acquire vocabulary Therefore, teaching vocabulary has become one of the common research subjects in English language studies recently These days, the academics are comparing the previous methods of teaching vocabulary with the latest ones to find more effective ways One of these popular comparisons has been made in the context of representing a new vocabulary item in semantically related and semantically unrelated sets Moreover, some studies indicate that learning vocabulary through using sense relations has become crucially important for foreign language learners because teachers can easily engage their students in the class and help them remember new words quickly As an English teacher, the researcher realizes that teachers often have difficulty in teaching their students to learn vocabulary effectively The fact is that the vocabulary acquisition of most Vietnamese students is quite low The reason for this

could be that in Vietnam, vocabulary is learnt with traditional methods such as writing new words in a notebook and learning them by heart, reading new words several times This can make students become bored and some students find it more difficult to remember words especially if they are young learners

Generally, teaching students to master vocabulary is not an easy task for all language teachers Therefore, the researcher thinks that using sense relations such as synonyms, hyponyms, etc., is one of the effective tools for teaching English in particular and teaching foreign languages in general This can help learners easily remember the words that they learnt Moreover, using sense relations could make lessons become more interesting and engaging From the reasons above, the author would like to carry out a research about ―the effects of using sense relations on vocabulary learning‖

2 Aims and objectives of the study

The study mainly aims at examining whether sense relations can improve students‘ English vocabulary knowledge at the 9th grade students at a secondary school Its inter-related objectives are:

- Determining whether sense relations can improve students‘ English vocabulary for the 9th grade students at a secondary school or not

- Providing some possible suggestions on the use of sense relations in teaching vocabulary

3 Research Questions

In this study, the researcher attempts to answer the following questions:

 Do sense relations improve students‘ English vocabulary at the 9th

grade students at a secondary school?

 What are possible suggestions on the use of sense relations in teaching vocabulary?

4 Scope of the study

The study was conducted at a secondary school, Thach That district, Hanoi city It only focused on investigating whether sense relations improve the 9th grade students‘ English vocabulary knowledge Other research aiming at studying on the

effects of sense relations on other aspects of English learning and other types of students in other institutions are out of the scope of the study

5 Significance of the study

The study aims at determining if sense relations improve learners‘ English

vocabulary Therefore, it can be useful for both theoretical and practical

contributions In terms of theoretical contributions, this thesis will be served as a reliable and useful reference material about using sense relations in teaching vocabulary for other readers and researchers in their further studies on related subjects For the practical contributions, the findings and results of the research are significant to both teachers and students because using sense relations helps learners acquire vocabulary effectively and easily This is one of the most useful techniques that teachers should make use of to facilitate their students‘ learning

6 Methods of the study

To achieve the aims of the study, action research was applied The study was conducted in 8 weeks In the first week, students‘ questionnaire and the teacher‘s pre-interview were used to investigate their opinions on ways of vocabulary learning and teaching At the same time, a pre-test was given to 29 students of a class to find out the students‘ vocabulary knowledge before the experiment was conducted Then, the researcher asked the teacher to implement sense relations to teach vocabulary from week 2 to week 7 After that, in the last week, a post-test was delivered to the same population to measure the improvement of the students‘ vocabulary after the treatment After the post-test, a post-interview was carried out with the teacher who participated in the experimental teaching in order to investigate the difficulties she had in applying sense relations to teach vocabulary as well as suggestions for the use of sense relations to teach vocabulary

7 Organization of the study

The study is divided into three parts as follows:

 Part 1: Introduction

This part is a brief description of the research including the rationale for conducting the research, the aims of the study, research questions, scope

of the study, significance of the study, and outline of the study

 Part 2: Development

 Chapter 1: Literature review

This chapter deals with the theoretical framework of the subject and related studies

 Chapter 2: Methodology

This chapter presents the research context and methodology of the study including the context, the subject, data collection instruments, data collection procedure and data analysis

 Chapter 3: Findings and discussions

This chapter presents the major findings and discussions from the students‘ pre-test and post-test, the questionnaire and interviews

 Part 3: Conclusion

This part provides a summary of the key findings, implications, limitations, and future suggestions for further study

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

Part 1 presented the overview of the study, its aim and structure To provide a background of the study, this part describes a theoretical framework for designing and analyzing data

1.1 Vocabulary

1.1.1 Definition

In everyday life, we say something, express our feelings and tell what we want to say All the things need the words, and these words are called vocabulary Vocabulary plays an important role in improving our skills in English It becomes one of aspects for improving communication skill Without having enough words, communication will end up in unpleasant situation and make the students difficult

to continue their sentences or ideas Therefore, it is highly essential for English teachers to help their students master vocabulary

There are a variety of definitions of vocabulary Pyles (1970) asserts that vocabulary is the focus of language with its sounds and meaning, which interlock to allow us to communicate with one another What is more, vocabulary can be defined as words in a specific language or freestanding items of language that have meanings (McCarthy, 1990) Ur (1996) defines vocabulary roughly as ―the words

we teach in the foreign language‖ Vocabulary was one of language components, which supports the teaching and learning of the four language skills of reading, listening, speaking and writing As the language component, vocabulary must be taught in a proper way Moreover, vocabulary can be broadly defined as knowledge

of words and word meanings (Lehr et al., 2004) Lehr and his colleagues state that vocabulary is more sophisticated than this definition Firstly, words not only come

in oral forms but also in print forms Secondly, vocabulary also comes in two forms: receptive and productive Receptive words refer to words that can be recognized in reading and listening Productive words are words used in speaking and writing

(Lehr et.al., 2004)

As discussed above, vocabulary can be seen in many different ways In this study, vocabulary refers to the words, compounds and idioms in a language that can be used to conveyed and received information in oral and written communication

1.1.2 The importance of vocabulary

When it comes to the importance of vocabulary, Krashen (1989) shows that ―a large vocabulary is, of course, essential for mastery of a language‖ as ―without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed‖ (Wilkins, 1972) Rubin and Thompson (1994) demonstrate that ―one cannot speak, understand, read or write a foreign language without knowing a lot of words.‖ Nguyen and Khuat (2003) also assert that vocabulary knowledge plays an important role in learning a foreign language

In fact, vocabulary is a means to help learners communicate well Thus, they should have an adequate numbers of words to support communication It is an important component of language instruction In order that learners can communicate with other people well in a certain foreign language, they should acquire an adequate number of words and know how to use them correctly When referring to the importance of vocabulary in communication, Della and Hocking (1992) also state that with a little grammar, learners can have a little smooth communication, but without vocabulary, it is difficult for others to understand the information that they want to express Therefore, knowing words and how to use them in suitable contexts are more important than grammar rules "When students travel, they do not carry grammar books, they carry dictionaries"(Krashen as cited in Lewis, 1993:25)

As discussed above, vocabulary plays a crucial role in language learning to sustain other language skills, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing

1.1.3 Types of vocabulary

According to Montgomery (2007), there are four main kinds of vocabulary: listening vocabulary referring to words we hear and understand when listening to a speech, speaking vocabulary including all words we use in our everyday conversations, writing vocabulary consisting of all words we use in writing, and

reading vocabulary involving all words in print that we recognize or figure out According to Elfreida and Michael (2005), vocabulary can be presented in different types according to different purposes In general, vocabulary is defined as the knowledge of word meaning in its different forms (oral or print) or types (receptive

or productive) Oral vocabulary includes the words used in speaking or oral reading, while print vocabulary refers to the words recognized or used in writing or silent reading Moreover, receptivity and productivity are another criterion of vocabulary distinction Receptive vocabulary consists of words whose meaning is known when

we listen or read Meanwhile, productive vocabulary refers to set of words used in speaking and writing Although vocabulary is differently defined, it commonly refers to the knowledge of word and its meaning

1.2 Vocabulary teaching

1.2.1 Vocabulary teaching process

In general, vocabulary is a matter of remembering, unlike e.g learning grammar, which is a system based mainly on rules Thornbury (2004) states that in order to teach vocabulary effectively as possible, it is important to know, how words are remembered and stored in students‘ minds and how long term memory is organized Some researchers agree that vocabulary is stored in the mind in a highly organized and complex web-like system, the so-called ‗mental lexicon‘ In the mental lexicon, words are stored, categorized and interconnected in many ways, according to their features such as meaning, form, collocation, syntactic properties, cultural background As a result, a word being retrieved is looked up through several pathways at once, which is extremely economical in terms of time needed (Gairns and Redman: 1992; McCarthy: 1992; Thornbury: 2004) One of the most important roles of language teachers is to help their students find the easiest way of conveying new information into the already existing system of the mental lexicon (Thornbury 2004: 93) Besides, students need to acquire the ability to store the information for

as long as possible

Teaching English is not easy task to do because it needs teachers who are aware of

the importance of target language aspects Teaching vocabulary is regarded as an important step in the process of teaching foreign languages

Sökmen (1997) listed some key principles of teaching vocabulary such as building a large sight of vocabulary, integrating new words with old one, providing a number

of encounters with a word, promoting deep level of processing, facilitating imaging, making new word "real" by connecting them to the student's word in some way, using various techniques and encouraging independent learning strategies Thus, teachers need to meet almost all the principles so as to get effective results

According to Marzano (2004), vocabulary teaching process can be organized into six instructional steps The first three steps are used to introduce a new vocabulary term to students The last three steps provide different ways that students should experience over time to help them shape their understanding of the terms In this study, teaching vocabulary by implementing sense relations also follows these steps The six steps are as follows:

Step 1: Explain—Provide a student-friendly description, explanation, or example

of the new term

Step 2: Restate—Ask students to restate the description, explanation, or example in

their own words

Step 3: Show—Ask students to construct a picture, symbol, or graphic

representation of the term

Step 4: Discuss—Engage students periodically in structured vocabulary discussions

that help them add to their knowledge of the terms in their vocabulary notebooks

Step 5: Refine and reflect—Periodically ask students to return to their notebooks

to discuss and refine entries

Step 6: Apply in Learning Games—Involve students periodically in games that

allow them to play with terms

1.2.2 Techniques in teaching vocabulary

There are a variety of techniques that can be used in teaching vocabulary and teachers need to know how to use various techniques in presenting vocabulary to

their learners Gairns & Redman (1986) mentioned the most common ways of presenting and explaining meanings of the new words These techniques are divided into two groups: visual techniques and verbal techniques

b Mime and gestures

These techniques are used additionally as another way of conveying meanings For

instance, when teachers explain an action like smoking, it is better to use mime than

draw a picture However, using mime and gestures is not always easy because the teacher should be a good ―actor‖ Sometimes, to have our presentation more precise, the mimes can be accompanied by blackboard drawings or showing pictures (Gairns and Redman, 1986: 74)

1.2.2.2 Verbal techniques

Verbal techniques are techniques that are presented orally or that have a written form Ur (1991: 64) stated that ―on the whole, definition, synonym and description tend to be most popular, perhaps because they are most obvious and conventional.‖

In this section, techniques such as using sense relations (synonyms, antonyms), definitions, collocations and translation are discussed as common verbal presentation techniques

a Synonyms

This technique can be used with students either at lower or at higher levels (Gairns and Redman, 1986: 74) The explanation for low level learners should be shorter and simpler than that for high level learners

b Antonyms

As with synonyms, antonyms are alternative techniques in presenting words and their meaning, so learners can grasp the sense of such items For example, when presenting the meaning of the word "big", we can illustrate it by contrasting it with

"small" Nevertheless, it is necessary to illustrate the contexts in which these items are took place

c Definition

Definition is another important technique in conveying meaning Harmer (1991: 162) pointed out that giving definitions when introducing new words might be very challenging for students at lower levels, while it can be very useful for more intermediate learners Gairns and Redman (1986: 74) advised that by using definitions the teacher should present a new word in context in order to avoid possible misunderstanding

d Collocations

Another technique used when presenting new words is teaching words with their collocations Generally, we should not teach individual words in the classroom As Hoey (1991) in Lewis (2000: 224) informed, ―learning individual words is relatively inefficient― Thus, for instance, when presenting the word

“disappointed”, the teacher should teach a common collocation “bitterly”

Furthermore, Lewis (Lewis, 2004: 14) believes that it is good for students to show them ―how words are actually used and how they collocate‖, rather than explain their meaning

e Translation

According to Catford (1985), translation is defined as ―an operation performed on languages, a process of substituting a text in one language for a text in another‖ Although translation does not make learners have the motivation to think about word meaning (Cameron, 2001), it could be an effective technique for teachers in some situations, such as when dealing with incidental vocabulary (Thornbury, 2002), checking students‘ comprehension, and pointing out similarities or

differences between first and second language, when these are likely to cause errors (Takač, 2008) There are always some words that need to be translated and this technique can save a lot of time However, teachers need to consider that translation should not prevail over other presentation techniques when teaching vocabulary in the classroom

1.3 Vocabulary learning

1.3.1 Vocabulary acquisition process

Acquiring the vocabulary of our first language is not an easy task However, acquiring the vocabulary of a second language especially if the second language learners are young is even more complicated Young learners of a second language are still building up their first language vocabulary, and this development is closely tied up with their conceptual development In fact, young language learners begin the task of first language acquisition without the cognitive maturity or metalinguistic awareness that older second language learners have Although young second language learners have begun to develop these characteristics, they still have far to go in these areas, as well as in the area of world knowledge, before they reach the levels already attained by adults Therefore, in planning and teaching a foreign language, we need to bear in mind this first language background to know what will work and what may be too difficult for children Vocabulary development is not just about learning words, it is also about learning more about those words, about learning formulaic phrases or chunks, or finding words inside them Learning words

is not an easy task that is done and finished in a short period of time It is complex since learning words is a cyclical process of meeting new words, followed by meeting those words again and again, each time extending knowledge of what the words mean and how they are used in the foreign language As Cameron points out

―every time children meet familiar words, they have changed and will bring new first language and conceptual knowledge to the vocabulary‖ (Cameron, 2001:74) According to Locke (1993), the acquisition of the word meanings takes much longer than the acquisition of the spoken form of the words so children use the words in

their speech long before they have a full understanding of them The vocabulary development is a continuous process in which, children do not only add new words

to their existing vocabulary bank but also build up knowledge about words they already know partially Learning a word requires a long time and plenty of exposure

to the word used in different situations

1.3.2 Vocabulary learning strategies

When it comes to vocabulary learning, Nation develops a general classification of vocabulary learning strategies (Nation, 2001) The first one is planning vocabulary learning, i.e to choose words Learners should know what their vocabulary goals are and choose what vocabulary to focus on in terms of their selected goals Moreover, they should also have a clear strategy for deciding what vocabulary to focus on and where to find this vocabulary When learning vocabulary, choosing certain aspects of a word (usually meaning but for listening and writing, the form of word is also essential to pay attention to) to focus on and using various strategies can make the learning process become better The second vocabulary learning strategy is sources In order to cope with new vocabulary when it occurs and to learn unfamiliar vocabulary, learners have to be able to get information about the words Analyzing word parts is a useful strategy, because being familiar with the stems and affixes can provide useful for seeing connections between related words, checking guesses from context, strengthening form and meaning connections, and

in some cases working out the meaning of a word Meanwhile, consulting reference sources properly and using parallels can also be helpful in vocabulary acquisition The third vocabulary learning strategy is processes, which is establishing vocabulary knowledge It involves ways of remembering vocabulary and making it available for use Noticing is a widely used way of recording vocabulary, and it can

be a very useful first step towards deeper processing of words Retrieving strengthens the connection between the cue and the retrieved knowledge It is superior to noticing Generating is the production of the word It is the further step

of learning process

1.4 Sense relations

Lexical semantic relations or ―sense relations‖ show the relationship between words and their meanings (one type of meaning with each other) According to the meaning we can differentiate between two distinctions: the first is the ―reference‖ which shows the external meaning of a word (what the word refers to in the physical world), while the other is the ―sense‖ that indicates the internal meaning of

a word (its content)

1.4.1 Types of sense relations

Sense relations show the relationship between words and their meaning According

to Kess (1992), Miller (1996) and Cruse (2004), sense relations can indicate many kinds of relations as follows:

can say that pairs of words such as ―alter/ change, big/ large, rich/ wealthy‖ are

synonyms because they have the same meaning Saeed (1997:65) stated that

―synonyms are different phonological words which have the same or very similar meanings

Although synonyms are defined as the ―sameness of meaning‖, they cannot be real synonyms Palmer (1976:89) stated that ―it can however, be maintained that there are no real synonyms, that no two words have exactly the same meaning would both

survive in a language For example, big and large are synonyms but they can have

different collocations, so they cannot interchangeable in some contexts

1.4.1.2 Antonymy

Antonyms refer to the oppositeness of meaning O‘Grady (1987:269) stated that

―antonyms are words or phrases that are opposites with respect to some components

of their meaning‖ Palmer (1976:94) stated that ―words that are opposite are

antonyms‖ Take some pairs of words such as ―long/short, old/young, husband/

wife‖ as striking examples of antonyms Saeed (1997:94) listed two types of antonyms: simple antonyms (dead/ alive) and gradable antonyms (young/ old) Another type of antonyms that Lyons (1968:467) mentioned was converseness, so

he stated that ― the third sense relation which is frequently described in terms of

―oppositeness‖ is that which holds between buy and sell or husband and wife‖ so the

word ‗buy‘ is the converse of ‗sell‘ and vice versa

1.4.1.3 Hyponymy

Hyponymy refers to the relationship of inclusion When the meaning of one form is included in the meaning of another, the relationship is described as hyponymy When we consider hyponyms, we should look at the meaning of words in some types of hierarchical relationship as in figure 1.1

apple orange banana grape pear mango

Figure 1.1: Example of hyponymy relation

Fruit

Looking at this diagram, we can say that words such as ‗apple’ and ‗banana are the

hyponyms of ‗fruit’, while ‗fruit’ is the superordinate term; words such as

‗orange’ and ‗grape‘ are called co-hyponyms

1.4.1.4 Polysemy and homonymy

Palmer (1976:100) stated that ―sameness of meaning is not very easy to deal with but there seems nothing inherently difficult about difference of meaning Not only

do different words have different meanings but it is also the case that the same words may have a set of different meanings‖ Therefore, the two terms are closed to each other therefore the learner should pay attention in distinguishing between them

Polysemy refers to a word that has two or more meanings McCarthy (2002:14) suggested that ―polysemy is concerned with the way words often have a number of different meanings‖ Look at the word ‗head‖ in the following sentences, we can know that the word ―head‖ has more than one meaning

- He shook his head (head = one part of the body)

- Dinner will cost $30 a head (head = a person)

- Mr Nam is the head of this department (head = a leader)

Another example of polysemy is the word ―fair‖ Some following examples will show many meanings of the same word ―fair‖

- I thought it was a fair price that my mother was offering {fair (adj) = reasonable}

- Fair weather was forecast for the following day {fair (adj) = dry and pleasant}

- Her knowledge of English is fair {fair (adj) = average, neither very bad nor very good}

- There is a fair on at the park {fair (n) = a public event with games}

Homonymy refers to a word that is written or pronounced in the same way as another, but it has a different meaning Saeed (1997:63) distinguished between homonyms (the same phonological word), homographs (senses of the same written word) and homophones (senses of the same spoken word) Knowing a

word means knowing its pronunciation and meanings It is obvious that some words have the same pronunciation and/or same spelling, but they have different meanings When different words are pronounced the same but have different meanings, they are called homonyms or homophones For example, the words

such as air and heir are called homophones because they have the same

pronunciation but different meanings

Moreover, Palmer (1976:101) suggested that ―there are some complications in the

fact that we do not make the same distinction in writing and speech Thus lead (metal) and lead (dog‘s lead) are spelt in the same way but pronounced differently, while site and sight /rite and write are spelt differently but pronounced in the same

way There is a problem with words having many meanings, for example: can we say that ―fan‖ is a one word having more than one meaning {polysemy} or there are two different words having the same form {homonymy}?

O‘Grady (1987:270) stated that ―polysemy and homonymy create lexical ambiguity

in that the single form has two or more meanings‖ For example, the word ruler in

this sentence ― The ruler is straight.‖ can create ambiguity because we do not know

whether ruler refers to an instrument used to draw a line or a leader Similarly, the word bank in the sentence ―I went to the bank with my boyfriend yesterday.‖ also

creates ambiguity

1.4.1.5 Meronymy

Another kind of semantic relations is that the relation between the parts of things and the wholes which they comprise Meronymy is a term used to describe a part- whole relationship between lexical items For example, ―cover‖ and ―page‖ are

meronymys of a book Relationships which are expressed either with the term part,

or which by their position in a part-whole expression signal part, are considered to

be meronymic and to ‗structure semantic space in a hierarchical fashion‘ (Winston

et al 1987: 417 & 418) Sometimes meronymy is a little similar to hyponymy, but they are different in transitivity Hyponymy is always transitive, but meronymy may

or may not be A transitive example is that nail is a meronym of finger, and finger

of hand We can see that nail is a meronym of hand, because we can say ―A hand

has nails‖ A non-transitive example is that pane is a meronym of window, and window of room; but pane is not a meronym of room, because we cannot say ―A room has a pane‖

1.4.1.6 Attributive relation

Attributive relations describe the words, for example, convenience describes chair

(Carroll, 2008: 108) One of the most significant subcategories of attributive

relation is being a relation On the basis of this relation, one of the words which

construct the pair is a noun (being) and the other one is an adjective which has been made through a derivational process, such as disappointment (being disappointed), largeness (being large), envy (being envious), friendship (being a friend)

1.4.1.7 Instrumental relation

This kind of relation describes one of the pairs is an instrument which is mostly put

in a specific place such as refrigerator/kitchen, or it is an instrument which is used

in an industry or any type of work such as hammer/carpentry.(Izanloo, 2006, 62 &

138)

1.4.1.8 Place relation

Place relation refers to the words that are related to each other on the basis of the place they occupy, for example, a chair is used to sit on Place relation has some subcategories such as high relation, inside relation, outside relation, beside relation, job relation and cycle relation

1.4.1.9 Other kinds of sense relations

Besides the relations above, there are some other kinds of sense relations such as material relation, causal relation, specific relation, time relation, negative relation, need relation, collocational relation, functional relation and social-cultural relation

1.4.2 Advantages of using sense relations in teaching and learning vocabulary

There are many researchers who stressed on the importance of sense relations in teaching and learning vocabulary Synonymy is described by Mora (2001) as being

a tool particularly useful to teach words that have multiple meanings In other words, synonymy is successful to convey the meaning of words using other words that have the same meaning Synonyms are especially useful in helping define

adjectives and adverbs, such as big and tall or badly and poorly Mora (2001) also states that antonymy is a powerful strategy to convey word meanings through the use of other words that have opposite meanings In addition, Elgizoli‘s (2014) study indicated that the use of lexical semantic relations had positive effects on promoting vocabulary instructions

Obviously, sense relations are of great importance in language teaching and learning For example, when teachers teach the word ―orange‖ students will know that orange is a fruit In the same way, ―dog‖ and ―cat‖ are animals Therefore, using sense relations can make a great contribution to the improvement of language teaching and learning Morever, when teachers use sense relations to teach vocabulary, the lesson can become more interesting and engaging For instance, teachers can use hyponyms as an useful technique to elicit new words when presenting vocabulary In this way, not only do teachers help their students memorize new words easily but they can also engage their students in the lesson In general, both teachers and students can benefit from the use of semantic field theory

in vocabulary teaching and learning

1.5 Previous studies

There is a controversy whether vocabulary should be taught through relations such

as synonymy, hyponymy, etc or not although sense relations are what are needed

for understanding new words

Tinkham (1993) suggested that learning semantically related groups of words (which directly descend from a common superordinate) together interfered with actual learning of the words He emphasized that when learners were given a list of words that share a common superordinate, they learned more slowly than words not sharing a superordinate Waring (1997) who replicated Tinkham‘s experimental study also obtained the same results

However, Hashemi and Gowdasiaei (2005) showed that the lexical sets students‘ gains in their vocabulary depth and vocabulary breadth knowledge were more satisfactory than the semantically unrelated ones Schneider, Healy, and Bourne‘s (1998) study also demonstrated that learning related words together was easier than

learning unrelated ones, although the retention test results showed difficulty in recalling them in the long-term

Moreover, there are some other researchers who have emphasized the importance of

using sense relations in teaching and learning vocabulary Elgizoli (2014) conducted

study on investigating the use of lexical semantic relations to promote vocabulary instructions at 3rd grade secondary school level in Sudan One of the most important findings that he suggested was that teachers tended to use some sense relations such as synonymy and antonymy more than some others Besides, most of the students claimed that ‗synonymy and antonymy‘ were the easiest part of the test although they achieved poorly in these two parts of the test A similar study was conducted by Mabrook (2011) The major and the most important findings of his research indicate that the students‘ textbook is lacking of lexis usage; therefore, the students are not able to distinguish between suffixes and prefixes, also they are weak at word relations such as synonyms and antonyms and the study proved their effectiveness He recommended that the teachers should provide students with multiple exposures to words meaning‘ in multiple contexts and the current curriculum in Saudi Arabia should consist of suffixes, prefixes, synonyms , antonyms , homonyms , to help the students to make coherent sentences In Vietnam, Ngoc Thuy (2014) conducted a study on the effects of semantic mapping

on vocabulary memorizing The results of this study indicated that semantic mapping can help to improve students‘ vocabulary retention and the students had positive attitudes towards semantic mapping

Generally, all of the studies above mainly examine the effectiveness of the use of lexical semantic relations compared to the use of semantically unrelated ones on teaching and learning vocabulary In the present study, the researcher wants to explore the effects of lexical semantic relations on students‘ vocabulary learning in her context and propose some possible suggestions on the use of sense relations to teach vocabulary effective

1.6 Chapter summary

In summary, this chapter reviews literature related to the subject It is an overview

of vocabulary teaching and learning: vocabulary definitions, its importance, types and techniques in teaching vocabulary Moreover, it also provides a review of sense relations that contains the definition and different types such as synonyms, antonyms or hyponyms, their advantages and a review of previous studies related to

the present study

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

Chapter 2 aims at providing a detailed discussion of methodological design of the study including research context and participants, methods, data collection instruments and data analysis

The overall aim of the chapter is how the study is designed to answer the research

The researcher chooses this secondary school because her friend teaches English here, so she finds it easier to conduct the experiment Moreover, thanks to the head master‘s permission and the help of the school teachers, the researcher can conduct the study

2.1.2 English textbooks

The textbook used in teaching and learning English is ―Tieng Anh 9‖ published by the Ministry of Education and Training The book is complied with theme-based approach with ten units which are taught in about 60 periods with two periods per week Each unit mentions one topic and it is combination of Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing, and Language Focus Four skills and language focus are often taught in five or six forty-five minute periods Grammar is often taught in language focus whereas vocabulary is not a particular lesson, but is taught within lessons of four skills (i.e., reading, speaking, listening and writing) Therefore, it often takes from 5 to 10 minutes to teach vocabulary in each lesson In the experiment of this

study, the students in the class were taught vocabulary in unit 5 and 6 in the textbook ―Tieng Anh 9‖ In addition, ―Bài tập Tiếng Anh 9‖ and ―Bài tập thực hành Tiếng Anh 9‖ are also used as workbooks for students

2.2.2 Students

In order to collect data, 29 students from class 9A1 in the academic year 2017-2018

at a secondary school were chosen based on non-random sampling method They were asked to take part in the process of experimental teaching which lasts for 6 weeks The student participants are learning English as a foreign language at this school They are fifteen years old, of both genders, with similar backgrounds and English proficiency Many of them come from poor families in rural areas, so they

do not have many opportunities to practice English; thus, their ability to use English

is limited

2.3 Methods of the study

In this research, both quantitative research and qualitative research are flexibly adapted in order to be suitable for context and target of this study The researcher uses the student‘s questionnaire and the teacher‘s pre-interview to investigate students‘ ways of vocabulary learning and the teacher‘s teaching techniques in order

to help her design the suitable activities for the experimental teaching A pre-test and a post-test are also used to determine whether students‘ vocabulary is improved after implementing sense relations to teach vocabulary In order to have in-depth information, the English teacher who took part in the experimental teaching in 6 weeks was interviewed after the experiment

2.3.1 Action research

The research method which is applied in this study is action research The reason why the researcher chose this approach is that the aim of the study was to improve the current situation - students‘ vocabulary knowledge and in order to give pedagogical implications for both teachers and students in their vocabulary teaching and learning Taking everything into consideration, it was believed that action research was the most appropriate approach in the study

In the recent time, action research has increasingly gained the popularity due to the belief that teacher would be the best assessor for his or her quality of teaching The definition and the aim of action research are provided by many scholars, and a selection of them is as follows:

Firstly, 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 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, it involves ―small-scale intervention‖ when a specific problem is identified; specific actions are implemented to bring about the changes and solutions to solve the problems The specific problem in this study is that the students have low vocabulary ability

Secondly, the main purpose of the study is to ―evaluate‖ the application of sense relations whether it is suitable and effective in enhancing grade-9 students‘

vocabulary “Action research is the name given to a series of procedures teachers can engage in either because they wish to improve aspects of their teaching, or because they wish to evaluate the success and/or appropriacy of certain activities and procedures” (Harmer, 2002:344-345) In other words, action research relates to

a ―self- reflective, critical and systematic‖ research method to identify and deeply understand the teaching and learning context Also, according to Tsui (1993), action research is a very effective way of helping teachers to reflect on their teaching and

to come up with their own alternatives to improve their practice‖

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

Lastly, Kemmis & Mc Taggert, (1982) state that action research is a combination of the terms ―action‖ and ―research‖ It puts ideas into practice for the purpose of self-improvement and increasing knowledge about curriculum, teaching, and learning Action research aims at improving what happens in the classroom and school

To sum up, an action research is carried out to improve the current affairs by identifying and addressing a problem in a specific context and with a scientific way Thus, the action research is a truly suitable research method for this study

Different authors and researchers have established and proposed different models of action research However, also discussing about action research, Nunan (1992) suggested 7 steps of a typical action research:

Figure 1: Action research cycle (Nunan, 1992)

As can be seen in the diagram above, the process starts with the initiation, means

collecting the concrete information so as to confirm the problem Then the researcher designs an activity to address the problem and gives hypothesis for the research The next step of this action research study is intervention It can be said that it is time for planning action The ongoing regular classroom activities will be interrupted and a new treatment will be applied to the class The main purpose of this is to bring change in the organizing state of affairs After that, the researcher evaluates the effect of the intervention by analyzing the changes Dissemination is the next activity of plan which is carried out after completing the study The researcher will share the findings of the study to other people The final step is that the practitioners follow up the findings of the study As a result, the regular way of teaching and learning is changed and the new method is adopted to introduce certain changes in the studying progress Addressing and solving the practical problems of

an academic context by bridging the gap between the theory and practice is the ultimate purpose of an action research

STEP 2: PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION

To investigate the causes of these above problems, the researcher based on her teaching experiences, the result of the students‘ questionnaire, the pre- test and the teacher‘s pre-interview From these results, it is indicated that students have low