An investigation into the effectiveness of vietnamese translation in teaching english vocabulary to the 10th form students at vung cao viet bac high school

b to explore the teachers and students‟ perceptions of the effectiveness of using Vietnamese translation in teaching and learning English vocabulary.. Chapter 1 is the literature review

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-

GRADUATE STUDIES

HOÀNG VIỆT HƯƠNG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EFFECTIVENESS OF VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION IN TEACHING ENGLISH

STUDENTS AT VUNG CAO VIET BAC HIGH

SCHOOL

(NGHIÊN CỨU TÍNH HIỆU QUẢ CỦA VIỆC DỊCH NGHĨA TỪ SANG TIẾNG VIỆT TRONG VIỆC DẠY TỪ VỰNG TIẾNG ANH CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 10 TRƯỜNG PHỔ THÔNG VÙNG CAO VIỆT BẮC)

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 601410

Hanoi – 2012

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration

Acknowledgements

Abstract

Table of contents

List of abbreviations

List of tables and figures

i ii iii iv vi vii

PART A: INTRODUCTION……… 1

1 Rationale for the study……… …….….…… 1

2 Objectives of the study……… ……… ….2

3 Research Questions……… …2

4 Scope of the study…… ……… …2

5 Methods of the study……… 3

6 Design of the study……….……… …3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT………… ……… …5

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND…… ……… 5

1 1 Introduction…….……… …5

1 2 Vocabulary and Its Roles in Second Language Acquisition……… … …5

1.2.1 What is vocabulary? 5

1.2.2 Roles of Vocabulary in Second Language Acquisition…… …6

1.3 Approaches to Vocabulary Teaching……… 7

1.4 Recent Research about Teaching and Learning Second Language Vocabulary……… ….9

1.4.1 Incidental learning……… …9

1.4.2 Explicit instruction……….……….9

1.4.3 Independent strategy….……… .10

1.5 Techniques in Presenting New Vocabulary……… 11

1.6 L1 and Translation in Vocabulary Teaching and Learning……….…12

1.7 Previous studies on L1 Translation in Teaching L2 Vocabulary….…… .13

1.8 The Role of L1 Translation in Vocabulary Acquisition… ………… ….14

1.9 Advantages and Disadvantages of Using L1 Translation in Teaching Vocabulary……… ……… .…15

1.10 Summary……… ….17

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY……… … 18

2.1 A quantitative and qualitative study……… ….18

2.2 Participants……… ……18

2.3 Data collection instruments……….……… … 19

2.3.1 The students questionnaire………….……… ……19

2.3.2 Class observation………… ……… …20

2.3.3 Interviews……… ……… …20

2.4 Data collection procedure……… ….21

2.5 Data analysis procedure……… …21

CHAPTER 3: ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION ……… … …22

3.1 Findings……… ……… … 22

3.1.1 The frequency of using Vietnamese translation in teaching English vocabulary to 10th form students……… …….22

3.1.2 Common classroom vocabulary activities………… ……….…25

3.1.3 The effectiveness of Vietnamese translation for learning vocabulary as perceived by students……….……… ………… 28

3.1.4 Teachers‟s perceptions of the effectiveness of using Vietnamese translation for presenting new vocabulary………….……… … …31

3.2 Discussion……… …….…35

PART C: CONCLUSIONS……….…….……… ………37

1 Conclusions……… ……… ……37

2 Implications……… … ……38

3 Limitations……… …39

4 Suggestions for further research……… ……… …39

REFERENCES

APPENDICES

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

Appendix 4

I V VI VII

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL: English as Foreign Language

ESL: English as Second Language

L1: The first language

L2: The second language

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

.PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the study

McCarthy (2001: 2, cited in Fan, 2003: 222) explained that “Vocabulary forms thebiggest part of the meaning of any language, and it is the biggest problem for mostlearners” McCarthy firmly believes that language is lexis-driven, and therefore,vocabulary learning is the real key to second language learning He claims thatlearners will be more successful if they can develop their own techniques anddisciplines for vocabulary learning Therefore, an effective approach to vocabulary

is always one of the great concerns of every language teacher The reason is thatlearning vocabulary is really challenging requiring many cognitive processes, andteachers have to make sure that students understand the word: the form of the word(pronunciation, spelling, derivations) and its meaning as well as how to use theword accurately and appropriately

There are many ways of presenting the meaning of a new word These include adefinition in the second language, a demonstration, a picture or a diagram, a realobject, L2 context clues, or an L1 translation (Nation, 2003) However, studiescomparing the effectiveness of various methods for learning always come up withthe result that an L1 translation is the most effective (Lado, Baldwin, Lobo andMishima 1967; Laufer and Shmueli, 1997) This is probably because L1 translationsare usually clear, short and familiar, qualities which are very important in effectivedefinitions (Mc Keown, 1993)

At Vung cao Viet Bac High school, with more than 2,000 ethnic minority studentscome from different minority groups, each ethnic group has its own language, butVietnamese is nominated the national language Thus, to students coming from theminority groups, English is their second foreign language As far as I can observe,these learners are much in favour of Vietnamese translation when learning English

vocabulary This has motivated me to carry out this study, which aims at finding the effectiveness of using Vietnamese translation in teaching vocabulary.

Hopefully, findings will reaffirm the use of mother tongue and translation as astrategic teaching method within the field of vocabulary acquisition.

Furthermore, it is to partially help English foreign language teachers have areflection on their teaching practice

2 Objectives of the study

The research is aimed to investigate the effectiveness of using Vietnamesetranslation in teaching vocabulary to the 10th form students at Vung cao Viet BacHigh School

The objectives of the study are:

a) to investigate how frequently Vietnamese translation is used as well as whatactivities are used to help their students consolidate words after using Vietnamesetranslation in teching English vocabulary

b) to explore the teachers and students‟ perceptions of the effectiveness of using

Vietnamese translation in teaching and learning English vocabulary

3 What is the effectiveness of Vietnamese translation for learning vocabulary

as perceived by the students?

4 What is the teachers‟ perceived effectiveness of Vietnamese translation used for presenting new vocabulary?

4 Scope of the study

The study limits itself to the effectiveness of using Vietnamese translation inteaching English Vocabulary The effectiveness of this technique would be exploredfrom the perception of the students and teachers The study was carried out onlywith tenth form students and the teachers who are in charge of English teaching tothose students at Vung cao Viet Bac High school in Thai Nguyen

One more noteworthy point about the scope of this study is that it focuses on the

effectiveness of using Vietnamese translation technique for presenting the meaning

of new vocabulary rather than the form.

5 Methods of the study.

Both qualitative and quantitative research methods are used in this study,

including questionnaire, classroom observations and interviews Questionnaire

Both open-ended and close-ended questions were administered to 152 students tofind out the students‟ perceived effectiveness of Vietnamese translationtechnique on vocabulary learning

6 Design of the study

The research includes three parts namely Part A, Part B, Part C

Part A is the introduction, which presents the rationale, the aims, the research

questions, the scope, the methods, and the design of the study Part B is the

development which consists of three chapters

Chapter 1 is the literature review which reviews theoretical issues related to thedefinitions of vocabulary, and its roles in second language acquisition, approaches

to vocabulary teaching, recent research about teaching and learning second languagevocabulary, techniques in presenting new vocabulary, L1 and translation invocabulary teaching and learning, previous studies on L1 translation in teaching

L2 vocabulary, the role of L1 translation in vocabulary acquisition as well as

advantages and disadvantages of using L1 translation in teaching vocabulary Chapter 2 is the study, presents the quantitative and qualitative study, the

participants, the data collection instruments, and research procedures of the study Chapter 3 is the analysis and discussion of the findings through an analysis of the data collected by means of questionnaire, classroom observations and interviews Part C is the conclusion of the study In this part, major findings of the study will besummarized to answer the research questions Some implications on use of

Vietnamese translation in teaching English vocabulary, the limitation of the study and suggestion for further research are presented

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1.1 Introduction

This chapter focuses on providing an overview of the theoretical knowledge

relevant to the study including vocabulary and its roles in second language acquisition, approaches to vocabulary teaching, recent research about teaching and learning second language vocabulary, techniques in presenting new vocabulary, L1 and translation in vocabulary teaching and learning, previous studies on L1 translation in teaching L2 vocabulary , the role of L1 translation in vocabulary acquisition, advantages and disadvantages of using L1 translation in teaching vocabulary.

1.2 Vocabulary and Its Roles in Second Language Acquisition

1.2.1 What is Vocabulary?

Vocabulary is a matter which many linguists and language teachers have beenconcerned for a long time Vocabulary is defined differently by different scholars.Below some definitions of vocabulary that are relevant to the present study areintroduced

In The American Heritage Dictionary, “vocabulary” is defined as:

1 All words of a language

2 The sum of words used by, understood by, or at the command of a particular person or a group

3 A list of words and often phrases, usually arranged alphabetically and

defined or translated; a lexicon or glossary

It‟s apparent that above definition show the relationship between vocabulary andwords In other words vocabulary is defined as words However, it seems important

to see clear definitions, a concise explanation as sited as follow:

"Vocabulary can be defined, roughly, as the words we teach in the foreign language However, a new item of vocabulary may be more than a single word: for example, post office, and mother-in- law, which are made up of

two or three words but express a single idea A useful conversation is to cover all such cases by talking about vocabulary “items” rather than

“word” which is made up of two or three words but express a single idea.’‟(p.60)

According to Penny Ur, vocabulary should be recognized as words we teach in aforeign language Ur argues a vocabulary item can be either a single word or amulti-word phrase

Similarly, Lewis, an advocate of the lexical approach to second language teachingviews vocabulary either as individual words or as full sentences, which he terms as

“institutionalized utterances, that convey fixed social or pragmatic meaning within agiven community” (Lewis, 1993:89)

1.2.2 Roles of Vocabulary in Second Language Acquisition

It is known that, in learning a foreign language in general, and English in particular,the knowledge and mastery of vocabulary play an extremely important role McCarthy (1990) stated that:

“No matter how well the students learn grammar, no matter how successfully the sounds of L2 are mastered, without words to express a wider range of meanings, communication in an L2 just cannot happen in any meaningful way”.

(Mc Carthy 1990:viii)

Pyles and Algeo (1970) noted that:

“When most of us think about language, we think first about words It is true that the vocabulary is the focus of language It is in words that sounds and meanings inter-lock to allow us to communicate with one another, and it is words that we arrange together to make sentences, conversations and discourse of all kinds”.

(Pyles and Algeo 1970: 96)

In fact, vocabulary is the element that links the four skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing all together In order to communicate well in a foreign

language, students should acquire an adequate number of words and should knowhow to use them accurately David Wilkin emphasized the importance ofvocabulary learning:

"Without grammar very little can be conveyed; without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed."

(Wilkins, 1972: 111).

Cook‟s (1991) conclusion is also consistent with Wilkins in that “Grammarprovides the overall patterns, vocabulary the material to put into those patterns” Orsome authors, led by Lewis (1993) argue that vocabulary should be at the centre oflanguage teaching, because „language consists of grammaticalised lexis, notlexicalised grammar‟ According to Meare (1995) central to learning tocommunicate in the target language are vocabulary and lexical units No amount ofgrammatical or other type of linguistics knowledge can be employed incommunication or discourse without the mediation of mediation of vocabulary.Folse (2004:3 ) claims that:

“The lack of grammar knowledge can limit conversation; lack of vocabulary knowledge can stop conversation”.

Learners can express themselves with poor grammar However, it is always achallenge to get the message across in a foreign language (Wallace, 1982), andbecause of this communication in foreign language is constrained considerably tothose with limited vocabulary

Thus, the importance of vocabulary in language learning cannot be denied.Vocabulary learning is obviously an essential part of language learning Learningwords can considered to be the most important aspect of second languageacquisition (Knight, 1994)

1.3 Approaches to Vocabulary Teaching

There are many different methods, approaches, techniques as well as strategies tovocabulary teaching In the early decades of the 20th century, vocabulary teachingbecame the focus of interest of many applied linguistic researchers and language

teachers In order to fully understand this development it is certainly worth giving abrief discussion of some major approaches in teaching vocabulary It can be easilyseen that several hundred years ago, bilingual teaching was favoured, with studentslearning through translation Howatt (1984) tells us that the idea of using L1 in theL2 classroom was a respected view during the era of The Grammar TranslationMethod The Grammar Translation Method had dominated late 19th and early 20thcentury teaching The aim of The Grammar Translation Method was to provide thestudents with a detailed literary vocabulary which is learned through long lists oftranslated items and a bilingual dictionary and practiced through sentencetranslation with little opportunity to try out pronunciation (Rivers, 1981: 28-30).The second major foreign language teaching approach is the Direct Method TheDirect Method stressed the ability to use rather than analyze a language as the goal

of language instruction or in other words, the main goal was to train students tocommunicate in the target language and to have an acceptable pronunciation Itintroduced vocabulary through classroom objects, mime, drawing and explanations(Rivers, 1981: 32-33)

The Reading approach attracted more importance than grammatical skill Thevocabulary used in the reading passages is controlled at beginning levels and ischosen according to their frequency and usefulness The acquisition of vocabulary isconsidered to be more important than grammatical skills and is expanded as fast aspossible through intensive and extensive reading The translation of vocabularyitems and sentences are permitted (Murcia and Prator, 1979: 3)

The Audio-lingual Approach which was dominant in the United States during the1940s, 1950s, and 1960s is known to be a major paradigm shift in foreign languageteaching (Larsen-Freeman, 2000) In this method, the amount of vocabularypresented was kept low (Thornbury, 2002:14) and was chosen for its simplicity(Schmitt, 2000:13) It was assumed that when grammatical fluency was present,exposure to the foreign language itself lead to vocabulary development (Coady,1993: 4)

The Communicative Language Teaching Approach is a renowned British Approach

to language teaching the emergence of which dates back to the mid-1960s Conceptslike context, use, effective communication, communicative function,comprehensible pronunciation, etc were given importance in this approach Senel(2002: 243) emphasized that new words were not presented in isolation, but in thecontext of a complete sentence, and in a meaningful situation This way, the wordsacquired meaning when they appeared in a particular definition in a determinedcontext Moreover, Thornbury (2002:14) stated that course books began toincorporate communicative activities specifically targeting vocabulary since themeaning-giving role of lexis was recognized in this approach

1.4 Recent Research about Teaching and Learning Second Language

Vocabulary

Recently, vocabulary teaching and learning has called for great attention fromresearchers Hunt and Beglar‟s statement that there are three approaches to teachvocabulary such as: incidental learning, explicit instruction and independentstrategy development

1.4.1 Incidental Learning

According to Nation (2001) the incidental vocabulary learning is one of theimportant strategies in vocabulary acquisition This method includes learning fromjoining conversations; listening to radio, stories, music; watching movies,television; especially extensive reading; or any other exposure of input and outputboth in and out of the classrooms (Nation, 2001) As such, incidental vocabularylearning is generally acknowledged as learning words mainly in context (Nation,1990) Therefore, Krashen (1989) suggests that incidental or uninstructedvocabulary learning takes place in both native and nonnative languages as well

1.4.2 Explicit Instruction

Explicit instruction involves diagnosing the words learners need to know,presenting words for the first time, elaborating word knowledge and developingfluency with know words Intentional learning through instruction also significantly

contributes to vocabulary development (Nation,1990; Paribakht and Wesche, 1996).And here the researchers agree that translation has a necessary and useful role invocabulary learning Translation makes vocabulary learning faster (Nation 1982)and once again Nation (1990) emphasized that “vocabulary lists can be effectiveway to quickly learn word-pair translation” However, it is more effective to usevocabulary cards because learners can control the order in which they study thewords (Atkinson, 1972) Prince (1996: 488) states that simply knowing translationfor L2 words does not "guarantee that they will be successfully assessed for use in

an L2 context” because knowing a word means knowing more than just itstranslated meaning or its L2 synonyms Consequently, to presenting a new word,teacher should also create opportunities to meet recently learned words in newcontexts that provide new collocations and associations (Nation, 1994) Forintentional learning of vocabulary it is required that the teacher provideopportunities for developing fluency with known vocabulary And here fluency-building activities play an important role as they recycle already known word infamiliar grammatical and organizational patterns, so that students can focus onrecognizing or using a word without hesitation (Hunt and David Beglar, 2001).Nation (1994: 208) also points out that developing fluency "overlaps most of allwith developing skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing" As a result,giving learners many opportunities to practice these skills is essential

1.4.3 Independent Strategy

Independent strategy development involves practicing guessing from context andtraining learners to use dictionaries Guessing from contexts is a complex and oftendifficult strategy to carry out successfully; to guess successfully from contexts,learners need to know about 19 out of 20 words (95%) of a text which requiresknowing 3,000 most common words (Liu and Nation, 1985; Nation, 1990) In facthelpful contexts are rare and difficult to guess the meaning of words in a long anddifficult context If students know more new words, they can understand the textand learn more new words If students' vocabulary is poor, they can not guess words

in a text containing too many unknown words In vocabulary learning process,foreign language learners should use dictionaries for vocabulary development InNation‟s (2001) opinion, dictionary use helps learning comprehension andparticularly useful for learners who do not cope well with guessing from context.Although dictionaries are important tool, learners should know how and when touse them to their advantages.

In conclusion, learning vocabulary through incidental, intentional and inindependent approaches requires teachers to plan a wide variety of activities andexercises “Teachers and programs decide to place on any given activity will depend

on the learners level and the educational goals of the teacher and the program”(Hunt and David Beglar, 2001) Extensive reading and listening, translation,elaboration, fluency activities, guessing from context and using dictionaries all have

a role to play in systematically developing the learners‟ vocabulary knowledge

1.5 Techniques in Presenting New Vocabulary

Actually there are numerous techniques concerned with vocabulary presentation.Some techniques are more popular and more often used than the others Also it is up

to teacher which techniques he or she decides to use but always the effectiveness ofteaching should be considered Nation, Paul (2005) suggested different techniquesthat teachers of English can implement in their teaching vocabulary

Firstly, teachers quickly give the meaning of the word by (a) using an L1translation, (b) using a known L2 synonym or simple definition in the L2, (c)showing an object or picture, (d) giving quickly demonstration, (e) drawing a simplepicture or a diagram, (f) breaking the word into parts and giving the meaning of theparts and the whole word (the word part strategy), (g) giving several examplesentences with the word in context to show the meaning, (h) commenting on theunderlying meaning of the word and other referents

Secondly, teachers can draw attention to the form of the word by: (a) showing howspelling of the word is like the spelling of known 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 the learners to repeat the pronunciation of the word, (e)writing the word on the board, (f) pointing out any spelling irregularity in the word.Finally, the use of the word can be explain by (a) quickly showing the grammaticalpattern the word fits into (countable/uncountable, transitive/intransitive, etc), (b)giving a few similar collocates, (c) mentioning any restrictions on the use of theword (formal, colloquial, impolite, only used in the United States, only used withchildren, old fashioned, technical, infrequent), (d) giving a well known opposite, or

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

1.6 L1 and Translation in Vocabulary Teaching and Learning

Translation is defined by Cartford (1965: 20) as “the replacement of a text in onelanguage by an equivalent text in another language” Newmark (1995: 5) simplydefines “translation as the rendering of a written text into another language in theway the author intended in the text.”

Translation is the technique of explain the new word by the learner‟s first language.This is considered the simplest and clearest way to show the meaning of a newword Moreover, it seems to be a favourable technique by teachers thanks to itstime-saving nature However, several authors suggest that first language does notplay an essential role in foreign language teaching (Tang, 2002) Hence, the use oftranslation as a teaching technique has been viewed with suspicion by manylanguage teachers, and many proscribe it altogether as a matter of principle It hasbecome a famous and well-accepted creed among language teachers that thetranslation hinders the acquisition of L2

Other professionals in the field of second language and foreign language acquisitionagree that mother tongue should be used with students who are not highly proficient

in the target language such as Nation (2001) or Atkinson (1987) Schmitt andMcCarthy (1997: 2) note that “… a learner‟s L1 is one of the most important factors

in learning L2 vocabulary.” Nation (1982) indicates that if we study the practice of

vocabulary learning and teaching also, we can see its use At least with advanced foreign language learners, translation of the new words (that areintroduced for the first time) is acknowledged as a preferable way to teach meaning(Nation 1982, referred to by Laufer 1990) This may suggest that mother tongueplays an important role in language teaching, especially for the low proficiencylearners like ethnic minority students of Vung cao Viet Bac High School.

non-1.7 Previous Studies on L1 Translation in Teaching L2 Vocabulary.

To investigate areas in which L1 translation is resorted to for teaching vocabulary,the researcher has reviewed a number of relevant studies conducted in differentparts of the world and at different times

Laufer and Shmueli (1997) compared 4 ways of presenting the new vocabulary, that

is, words presented in isolation, words in a meaningful sentence, words in a textcontext and words in an elaborated text context Each of these ways contains half ofthe target words in the students‟ L1 and the other half was explained in English.The results indicate that the words with the L1 translation were retained better thanthose with the L2 explanation

In their study, Ramachandran and Rahim (2004) attempt to investigate theeffectiveness of using the translation method in recalling the meaning and retention

of the words with elementary level ESL Their results indicated that the translationmethod through using L1 was more effective than the non-translation method inenhancing ESL learners‟ vocabulary learning ability, and it could improveelementary ESL learner‟s ability to recall the meaning of the word learnt

In her paper on using translation method in teaching vocabulary, Abdul Rahimdemonstrates the effect using translation method in teaching vocabulary Sheconducted her study among elementary level EFL learners in Malaysia In thisstudy, learners‟ L1 was used as the medium of instruction The results showed thatthe translation method has a positive impact on learners recall and retention of themeaning of words that they had learned

The last study to be reviewed here is a case study conducted by Bouangeune (2009)

at the National University of Laos The study makes an important contribution toEFL teaching, particularly in the area of vocabulary for students with a lowerproficiency level It shows the effectiveness of using L1 in teaching vocabularythrough translation exercises and dictation The findings indicate that theexperimental group achieved better performance in both vocabulary in directtranslation and vocabulary in context In fact, the results could provide empiricalsupport for the application of L1 in the FL classroom The researcher concludes that''in order to prevent the misunderstanding of the meaning of the new word, teachersshould provide clear, simple, and brief explanations of meaning, especially in thelearners' first language'' (Bouangeune, 2009:189)

1.8 The Role of L1 Translation in Vocabulary Acquisition

Nowadays, vocabulary acquisition is one of the main aspects of students‟ attentionwhen it comes to language learning They stress the necessity to learn vocabularythrough various exercises: reading, repetition, using words in context,conversations, and most certainly, translations

Using L1 translation accelerates students‟ L2 acquisition process Students learnnew vocabulary faster through L1 Laufer and Shmueli claim “studies comparingthe effectiveness of various methods for learning always come up with the resultthat an L1 translation is the most effective” (as quoted in Nation, 2001) If studentsare aware of similarities and differences between L1 and L2, they can avoid errorswhich could be derived from the transfer of their L1

Rana Raddawi (2005:75) shows that “there was one factor that was tested andproved that translation is effective when used in vocabulary acquisition, and thatwas the time factor” He concludes that in the vocabulary learning process, instead

of using various contexts, definitions in L2 and sometimes visual aids, the instructorcan utilize translation as a way of teaching the words especially in conveying themeaning of abstract and unclear concepts like: happiness, sadness, success, failure,health, luck, depression, etc Providing the equivalent words in L1 is proven to be

less time consuming to both the instructor and student as far as comprehension isconcerned As to quantity and recall process of word acquisition, previousexperiments (Prince, 1996 and Grace, 1998) have proven word learning throughtranslation to be superior to word inference from L2 contexts.

Saggara and Alba (2006), in their research the effectiveness of using translationwith elementary level learners was assessed They investigated the implication ofthree methods of learning vocabulary among 788 second language learners Themethods include: rote memorization, semantic mapping and key word method Theresults show that: using key method and L1 translation of the new L2 word wouldled to better L2 vocabulary learning at the early stages of acquisition

There is a research which supports the idea that an L1 translation of a word isbeneficial in vocabulary learning For example Grace (as cited in Folse 2004)investigated the role of L1 translation in computer-assisted language learning(CALL) She concluded that students who were provided with L1 translationsperformed better than those who did not have access to L1 translations Her findingssuggest that L1 translations enabled students to be ensured about the correctmeanings and the students who had L1 translations reached a higher retention rate.Sze (1998) compared the influence on retention of three conditions of vocabularypresentation, namely with Chinese (L1) equivalents, with context, and withassociation, on tertiary students She reported that the most common method inremembering vocabulary was using Chinese equivalents Subjects from the L1translation group remembered significantly more words than the other two groups.She inferred that the reason for the reliance on L1 translations is that students canconceptualize the meanings more easily and can make more associations with theirprior knowledge about the concept or the language they are familiar with

1.9 Advantages and Disadvantages of Using L1 Translation in Teaching

Vocabulary.

According to Doff (1988:12):

“Translating a new word is in itself a useful technique- it is often the simplest and clearest way of showing what a word means’’

Liu (2009:68) sees the use of L1 in L2 vocabulary learning, or providing translationequivalents have several advantages They are an easy and efficient way ofdepicting the core meaning of a word Knowing the L1 equivalent also gives thelearner a sense of certainty about the meaning of a word, a certainty that is a vitalfirst step for reinforcing the form-meaning connection and retaining the new word

in long tern memory As Grabe and Stoller (1997: 114) put it, “Perhaps, for adults,there are times when it is important to know that a word is understood accurately”.What‟s more, using L1 translation may link a L2 word with well-establishedsemantic and linguistic structure which help the learner retain the word better,because the L1 and its semantic structures are no doubt the steadiest “cognitivehook to hang the new item on”(Fraser,1999: 238)

Translation has also advantage of being the most direct route to a word‟s meaning

It is therefore economical and especially suitable for dealing with incidentalvocabulary that may crop up in a lesson Many teachers find it extremely effective

in case the new words are too complicated or difficult to explain in English, forexample: to deal the word “patriotism” The teacher can say “patriotism có nghĩa là:lòng yêu nước”

One of the advantages is that it is not time-consuming and leaving more time for thestudy of some other important language aspects Using translation is the surest andmost economical way to convey the meanings during the lesson Thus, translatingnew words into Vietnamese can save the teachers‟ time of unsuccessful explanation

in English Instead of going through a long explanation in the target language, itwould sometimes be easier and more efficient to give a translation of a vocabularyitem

However, this way is not considered as creative way because it makes students fail

to develop an independent L2 lexicon, with the effect that they always access L2words by means of their L1 equivalent rather than directly

1.10 Summary

In this chapter, some theoretical background knowledge and view on vocabularyand the roles of vocabulary in second acquisition, an overview of approach toteaching vocabulary, recent research about teaching and learning second languagevocabulary, techniques in teaching vocabulary, a summary of previous studies onL1 and translation in vocabulary teaching and learning, L1 translation in teachingL2 vocabulary, the use of L1 translation in vocabulary acquisition, advantages anddisadvantages of using L1 translation in teaching vocabulary However, this issueremains under-researched in the context of boarding high school in the mountainousprovince This small study is an attempt to fill this gap The following chapterpresents the study

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 2.1 A Quantitative and Qualitative study

Qualitative research, broadly defined by Strauss and Corbin (1990: 17), means "anykind of research that produces findings not arrived at by means of statisticalprocedures or other means of quantification" Strauss and Corbin (1990) also claimthat qualitative methods can be used to better understand any phenomenon aboutwhich little is yet known They can also be used to gain new perspectives on thingsabout which much is already known, or to gain more in-depth information that may

be difficult to convey quantitatively

The quantitative approach, as defined by Burnes (1999: 21), “values objectivitythrough the discovery of facts or truths” and “tests pre-established hypothesesthrough the collection and measurement of data” Creswell (2003:18) states,quantitative research “employ strategies of inquiry such as experimental andsurveys, and collect data on predetermined instruments that yield statistical data”.The findings from quantitative research can be predictive, explanatory, andconfirming

This study used both qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection,including classroom observation, interviews and questionnaire The reason of usingboth qualitative and quantitative methods is minimize the weaknesses of singlemeasuring instruments to achieve greater reliability and validity (Johnson andOnwuegbuzie, 2004) Quantitative research using questionnaire is able to producequantifiable findings form of quantified figures Qualitative research usinginterview yields descriptive information of greater depth of the problem.Observation was used in each incident to record the actual behaviour display inactual situation They enable gathering data on events that are exceptionallysignificant Triangulated sources of data collected provided more accurate resultsand would be more reliable and valid Triangulation is “one of the most commonlyused and best known ways of checking for validity” (Wallace, 1998:163)

2.2 Participants

The participants of the research were 152 students from grade 10A1, 10A2,10A3 atVung cao Viet Bac High school, Thai Nguyen The researcher is also an Englishteacher of this school My school is a boarding school with more than 2,000 ethnicminority students Most of the students in the school come from farmer families inthe remote mountainous villages in the northern provinces They are pure ethnicstudents, they have their own first language; they often use it to communicate withtheir parents and other friends of their communities They use Vietnamese atschools or at public places, so they seem to have two foreign languages You aresure to imagine all sorts of difficulties those ethnic students have to overcome whenthey learn English Most of the participants are at the age of 16 Nearly half of themare male and more than a half of them are female All these students are ethnicminorities, they belong to different ethnic minorities namely: Tày, Thái, Mường,Dao, Hmong, Nùng, Sán Dìu, La Hủ, La Chí, Cao Lan, Hoa They have beenlearning English for four years in junior schools but their knowledge of Englishvocabulary is at a low level.

Three English teachers were the target population of the study The teacherparticipants have graduated from universities for teacher of foreign languages Theirexperience of teaching English varies from 6 years to 17 years

2.3 Data Collection Instruments

Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used, including classobservations, interviews and a student questionnaire to collect relevant informationfor the study

2.3.1 The student questionnaire

The questionnaire was administered to students It contains nine items includingboth close and open-ended items in Vietnamese so that the students can fullyunderstand the questions (See appendix 1) Questionnaire is preferred to interviews

to reduce the possible anxiety brought to the ethnic minority students

The questionnaire emphasizes on: The students‟ preference and perceived towardsthe use of Vietnamese translation in teaching English vocabulary and the usefulness

of this vocabulary teaching technique on students‟ vocabulary learning The strongpoint of questionnaire is the ability of collecting data from a wide group ofparticipants and it has fairly reliability (Mackey and Gass, 2005: 29).

2.3.2 Classroom observations

Six classes conducted by 3 teachers were observed to find out frequentlyVietnamese translation is used for presenting the meaning of new vocabulary andactivities are used to help their students consolidate words after using Vietnamesetranslation The lessons were not video-taped Instead, the researcher observed andnoted the moments when the teacher used techniques and activities As noted byMackey and Gass (2005:175), observations are advantageous in that they providethe researcher with the opportunity to collect large amounts of rich data on theparticipants‟ behavior and actions within a particular context Thanks to its benefits,

in this research, class observation was utilized together with the above methods

2.3.3 Interviews

Interviews are a research tool in which a researcher asks questions of participants;interviews are often audio or video-taped for later transcription and analysis Theinterviews may take one of several forms: open-ended, focused, structured orunstructured In an open-ended interview, the researcher could ask for theinformant‟s opinion on events or facts In a focused interview, the respondent isinterviewed for only a short time, and the questions asked could have come from thecase study protocol The structured interview is particularly useful in studies ofneighborhoods where a formal survey is required The unstructured interview waspreferred because it is thought that it gives a wider freedom to the interviewees toexpress their views and beliefs (Wallace 1998) For this advantage, the researcherchose unstructured interview as an instrument to get data for her study

Unstructured interview questions were set to solicit pertinent data from the 3 differentteachers whose classes were observed and noted The purpose of the interview was toobtain a better understanding of the teachers‟ perceptions about the

benefits of using Vietnamese translation in presenting new vocabulary Theinterviews were conducted after the lessons.

2.4 Data collection procedure

The required data were collected in the second term of 2011-2012 school year First,the questionnaire was given to students Next, 6 classes of three teachers wereobserved Finally, each teacher was interviewed right after they had taught the twoclasses around 15 minutes They were based on the following key questions:

1 Do you use Vietnamese translation technique to present new vocabulary to your students? Why?

2 What activities do you often use to help your students to consolidate and remember the taught words after using Vietnamese translation?

3 What effects does Vietnamese translation have on your vocabulary teaching?

4 How motivated do you think your class is when you use Vietnamese

translation to teach vocabulary to them?

5 Do you think that the exclusive use of Vietnamese translation in teaching English vocabulary has problem(s)? If yes, what are they?

2.5 Data analysis procedure

The procedures of collecting data took me nearly three months and about one month

to analyze the data Data collected from the above different sources werecategorized in to: i) The frequency of using Vietnamese translation in teachingEnglish vocabulary to 10th form students, ii) Common classroom vocabularyactivities, iii) The effectiveness of Vietnamese translation for learning vocabulary asperceived by students, iv) Teachers‟ perceptions of the effectiveness of usingVietnamese translation for presenting new vocabulary

The data was categorized this way simply for seeking answers to research questionsraised for this study The quantitative data from questionnaire and classroomobservation were collected, analyzed and classified to synthesize in the tablestatistics The results were shown in the figures The qualitative data from theinterview were presented by quoting relevant responses from the respondents

CHAPTER 3: ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter presents and discusses the findings that arise from the data which werecollected to answer the intended research questions

First, answers to question 1 in the questionnaire sets for students; and data fromclass observations will be presented and analyzed to answer the first researchquestion: i) What is the frequency of using Vietnamese translation in teachingEnglish vocabulary to 10th form students?

Second, the data collected from classroom observation and answers to question 2from the interviews with the teachers will give answers for the second question ii)What are the common vocabulary activities the teachers use to help their studentsconsolidate words after using Vietnamese translation?

Finally, the two last research questions iii) What is the teachers‟ perceivedeffectiveness of Vietnamese translation used for presenting new vocabulary?; iv)What is the effectiveness of Vietnamese translation for learning vocabulary asperceived by the students? will be answered by questions 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 inquestionnaire sets for students and from the data collected in the interviews with theteachers

3.1 Findings

3.1.1 The frequency of using Vietnamese translation in teaching English

vocabulary to 10th form students

Table 1 shows the number of times that techniques was used in presenting the

As can be seen from the table 1, the frequency of techniques use varies from teacher

to teacher However the common technique was that teachers used Vietnamesetranslation most frequency for presenting the meaning of new words to the students.Translation seemed to be one common technique teachers used to teach vocabulary.From the observations, the researcher found that there was a strong trend towardsthe techniques of saying the word clearly one by one, writing them on the boardthen explaining the meaning This is necessary for the students to recognize the newwords in form of pronunciation and spelling To explain the new words‟ meaning,using Vietnamese translation was applied most by the participants

Using Vietnamese translation was the most frequently used strategy adopted byteacher 1 She employed it 17 times For instance, students did not understand aword “horror, thriller, detective…” in task 1 She used Vietnamese translation toexplain the word

Extract 1: Speaking lesson

T: Below is some kind of films You are going to read silently in 1 minute, then underline the new words

T: 1 minute later Reads aloud kind of film, writes new words on the board, and explains their meaning in Vietnamese

T: horror film : phim kinh dị

detective film : phim trinh thámcartoon film : phim hoạt hình

……

T: reads the new words and asks Ss to repeat in chorus and individually While teacher 1 did the task 2 with students, she gave sentence

translation after reading each sentence.

T: I find horror films really terrifying

( Mình thấy những bộ phim kinh dị thực sự khiếp sợ)

(Observation 1: Unit 13, Grade 10)

Teacher 2 used Vietnamese translation in teaching vocabulary She employed it 16times But she could not give Vietnamese translation immediately right afterstudents saw the word Instead, she often used the word to make sentences forstudents to guess the word meaning After they got it, she would use Vietnamese toexplain it again since there were some students who had really low standard ofEnglish.

Extract 2: Writing lesson

T: What is the meaning of postpone?

Ss: …in silent

T: The football match between Hanoi and Hai phong has been postponed because of the bad weather

Ss: hoãn

T: Ok ( write on the board) to postpone means: trì hoãn.

T: Now repeat, postpone St: repeat in chorus

(Observation 3: Unit 14, Grade 10)Teacher 3 showed in the observation that she usually used Vietnamese translationafter she explained the word meaning in English It could ensure that every studentgot the meaning This strategy was used 18 times

Extract 3: Reading lesson

T: „jointly‟ means: involving two people or groups

Ss: in silent

T: What do you say „jointly‟ means in Vietnamese

Ss: in silent

T: „jointly‟ means : liên kết

T: Now, repeat, jointly Ss: repeat in chorus

(Observation 2: Unit 14, Grade 10)

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With the data collection from questions 1 in the questionnaire, figure 1 illustrates

the frequency of using Vietnamese translation in presenting the meaning of new

words as perceived by students:

Figure 1: Students’ perceptions of the frequency of their teachers’ using

Vietnamese translation in presenting the meaning of new vocabulary

The students‟ perceptions of the frequency of using Vietnamese translation in

vocabulary classes are clearly shown in figure 1 As can be seen, as perceived by

the students, though the category “rarely” received few votes, “always” seems to be

in the same situation No one thought that their teachers never used Vietnamese

translation for presenting new vocabulary Thus, that is to say “sometimes” and

“usually” are the two categories of frequency that many students have chosen 92.11

% of students reported that Vietnamese translation was used to teach vocabulary

54.61 % of students claimed that their teachers sometimes used Vietnamese

translation and the minority of students (7.89%) thought that their teachers rarely

used Vietnamese translation to teach vocabulary

3.1.2 Common classroom vocabulary activities

With regards to vocabulary consolidation, 3 teachers agreed on the necessity of

designing exciting and practical activities to help students strengthen their word

memory Teacher 1 proposed that “vocabulary consolidation can be supported by

tests” Teacher 2 said that “vocabulary consolidation should be regular check of the

taught words” Teacher 3 proposes that students should be given a variety of

exercises to help them review the previously learnt words and remember the words

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