The effects of mind mapping on the 6th graders’ vocabulary retention an action research project at thanh my junior high school

The findings of the data analysis showed that 1 Mind-mapping can help the students to improve their abilities in memorizing English vocabulary items; 2 the students had positive attitude

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

POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*****************

TRẦN THỊ VÂN NGA

GRADERS’ VOCABULARY RETENTION: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT AT THANH

MY JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

( Nghiên cứu ảnh hưởng của việc sử dụng bản đồ tư duy đến khả năng nhớ từ vựng của học sinh lớp 6, trường THCS Thanh Mỹ )

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 60140111

HANOI - 2016

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

POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*****************

TRẦN THỊ VÂN NGA

GRADERS’ VOCABULARY RETENTION: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT AT THANH

MY JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

( Nghiên cứu ảnh hưởng của việc sử dụng bản đồ tư duy đến khả năng nhớ từ vựng của học sinh lớp 6, trường THCS Thanh Mỹ )

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr NGUYỄN VĂN TRÀO

HANOI - 2016

I hereby declare this thesis is the result of my own research and that the substance of the thesis has not, wholly or part, been submitted for a degree to any other university or institution.

Hanoi, October 2016

Trần Thị vân Nga

I would like to express my special gratitude to my advisor, Mr.Nguyen Van Trao, Assoc.Prof.Dr for his patience in guiding and supervising me during the process of this thesis writing.

My special thanks go to my colleagues from Thanh My Junior high school for their cooperation and support during this study.

The writer would also like to express appreciation to the staff menbers and the teachers of post-graduate department of University of Languages and International Studies-Vietnam National University for giving me favourable to completing the thesis.

Finally I would like to dedicate my big appreciations to my family who have support me a lot during my study.

The aims of this research are to find out the effects of mind-mapping on

6th graders‟ vocabulary retention at Thanh My junior high school To limit the aspects to be analyzed in this study, I formulate two research questions: (1) To what extends does the use of mind-mapping affect the students‟ vocabulary retention? (2) What are the students‟ attitudes toward vocabulary learning?

In the study, I carried out an action research with the 6A1 students of Thanh My junior high school Data of this study were obtained from the results

of questionnaires and from pre-test and post-test results Two instruments for collecting the data were (1) questionnaires toward vocabulary learning before and after applying the mind -mapping in teaching vocabulary and (2) the pre- test and post- test.

The findings of the data analysis showed that (1) Mind-mapping can help the students to improve their abilities in memorizing English vocabulary items; (2) the students had positive attitudes toward the mind-mapping Mind-mapping

is hoped to be a promising technique to teach and learn vocabulary.

I.LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

1.Table 1: Research schedule

2.Table 2: Result of questionnaire 1

3 Table 3: The causes of the problems encountered by the 6A1 class students

4 Table 4: The activities applied in the study

5 Table 5: Relationship between causes of the problems and the activities

6 Result of questionnaire 2

II LIST OF FIGURES

Figure I: First step in creating mind-mapping: „drawing a central image‟ Figure II: Second step in creating mind mapping: „drawing main branches‟ Figure III:Third step in creating mind mapping: „drawing second branch‟ Figure IV: Environment diagram

Figure V: Sports and games diagram

Figure VI: Completing the mind-mapping diagram

II LIST OF CHARTS Chart 1: Result of the pre-test Chart 2: Result of the

post-test

Chart 3: Comparison between the pre-test anhd the post-test

1.2.6.The application of mind-mapping to teaching a foreign language 13 1.2.7.The use of mind-mapping in vocabulary learning 14

2.5.Data collection instruments 23

3.2.2.Relationship between the causes of the problems and the action 34 3.2.3.The implememtation of mind-mapping in vocabulary learning 37

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

In terms of students‟ competences, the teaching of English at the sixth grade hasthe aim at developing the four language skills: speaking, listening, reading, andwriting This means that the students are expected to practice these language skillsthrough the activities given in the class In supporting the development of the fourlanguage skills, it is necessary to learn language components In the sixth gradeclasses, the language components include pronunciation, grammar, spelling, andvocabulary

Vocabulary is one of the language components that play a significant part in thedevelopment of the language skills In the sixth grade, building up a useful vocabulary

is important to the teaching of a foreign language (Cameron, 2001: 72) It shows thatEnglish materials for sixth grade students focus on enriching the students‟ vocabulary

To have a good memorization on vocabulary, the students are expected to be able touse the language successfully and efficiently including using it to develop theirlanguage skills in class activities

Nevertheless, learning English vocabulary is challenging for the sixth gradestudents at Thanh My Junior High School (TMJHS) After observing and conducting

an interview at the school, the teacher found that there were two problems thatinvolved the learning English vocabulary of the TMJHS Firstly, the students feltdifficult to memorize and recall English vocabulary items including theirpronunciation, their spelling and especially their meaning The students usually cannotremember the words for long and recall them when needed Secondly, the teachingtechnique was not very interesting and motivating The students got bored with theway of teaching the teacher used The teacher often asked the students to find the newwords then he or she explained the meaning of the words After that the students had

to write the list of the new words in their notebook and learn them by heart

To learn English vocabulary, memorization is very important In masteringEnglish vocabulary, the students do not only need to learn a lot of English words butalso to remember them (Thornbury, 2002: 23) Accordingly, low proficiency makesstudents find an obstacle in acquiring the language knowledge and taking part in classactivities It is clear that they could not communicate well because they lack wordsthey need

One of the causes of the students‟ low vocabulary retention is likely theirlearning habits The ways they learn new words are various: such as writing down

words on a piece of paper, learning words by heart, heavily depending on wordlists intextbook, passively waiting for teacher‟s explanation for new words These ways donot seem to be effective and make them bored with learning vocabulary So as tomemorize new items, students often use rote memorization techniques As some of thestudents said, they used to write down the words for several times, to speak aloud thewords and to make sentences with words They admitted that they could not recallmost of the words they had learnt before because there were no clues It can be seenthat the students‟ bad memory is due to the lack of appropriate vocabulary learningtechnique They are not given different ways of learning vocabulary and are notencouraged to use them as a strategy of learning vocabulary Therefore, learning newwords is not very enjoyable for the learners.

This study aims to help the students to be more successful in English

vocabulary retention and to motivate them in learning words For this purpose,

mind-mapping is used as a technique to improve the students’ vocabulary retention and motivate them in learning vocabulary.

2 Aims of the study

The aims of this study are to find the way to improve vocabulary retention of the 6A1 students of TMJHS and to motivate them in learning English vocabulary

3 Research questions

To obtain the stated aims, the following research questions are formulated:(1) To what extent does the use of mind-mapping affect the students‟

vocabulary retention?

(2) What are the students‟ attitudes toward vocabulary learning?

4 Scope of the Study

In this study, the researcher uses one class and the research is done at the sixthgrade of Thanh My junior high school The researcher hopes that the findings of thisstudy will give benefits and contribution for some parties Firstly, for the Englishteachers, the results of the study can be applied for the betterment of the Englishteaching and learning process especially in presenting English vocabulary to thestudents The study will be considered as the first step to improve the effectiveness ofthe teaching learning process by using mind-mapping to introduce lesson materials atTMJHS Secondly, for the sixth grade of TMJHS students, they are expected to enjoylearning vocabulary with mind-mapping The use of mind-mapping as the technique inlearning English vocabulary can be considered as an effective way of note-taking to

memorize English words easily The last is for other researchers The study can givegeneral knowledge of materials that can be done for research studies in relation tovocabulary learning in the secondary level of education.

5 Design of the study

The thesis consists of three main parts:

Part A: Introduction introduces the rationale, the aims, the research questions, the

scope and the design of the study

Part B: Development is divided into 3 chapters.

Chapter 1: Literature Review presents theories related to vocabulary, mind-mapping.

Previous studies on mind-mapping are also reviewed

Chapter 2: Methodology presents the research methods, the setting of the study, the

participants, the research data and the research procedures

Chapter 3: Findings and Discussion presents the analysis of initial collected data to

determine the problems, then the action plan The analysis of post-treatment data wasthen presented along with which the discussions were given

Part C: Conclusion provides the pedagogical implications, some limitations of the

study and suggestions for future study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHARPER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Vocabulary

1.1.1 Vocabulary definition

McCarthy (1990: 32) defined vocabulary as words in a specific language orfreestanding items of language that have meaning According to Penny Ur (1996: 122)vocabulary is defined roughly as “the words we teach in the foreign language” She alsostated that “a new item of vocabulary may be more than a single word, a compound oftwo or three words (e.g., bus stop, father -in-law), and multi-word idioms (e.g., call it aday)”

As can be seen, vocabulary is defined in many different ways It refers to words or

a group of words in a language and knowledge of words regarding its meanings, forms,and how to use it correctly in the context In this study, vocabulary refers to the words,compounds and phases in a language that could be use to exchange information in oraland written communication

1.1.2 The importance of vocabulary

Vocabulary plays a significant role in language learning activities It consists of allthe words that we usually used when the other language skills are studied Learningvocabulary does not mean learning word isolation We should learn words in contextbecause a word may have different meanings in different contexts According to French(1983: 1), the meaning of the word will be dependent on the context itself and word inisolation usually does not associate with the intended meaning The English words andtheir meaning should not be useful unless we know how to organize the wordsmeaningfully in a sentence However, vocabulary growth depends on the students‟experiences Words must match with the meaning so as to be useful for communication.Vocabulary has an important role in mastering a language Whoever wants to master well

a language needs to have good vocabulary retention Memorizing vocabulary is the firststep to master English well Therefore the students will have problems in masteringEnglish when lacking the vocabulary They find it hard to express their idea clearly andalso they could not understand the teacher‟s explanation because they do not know themeaning of words used by the teacher Moreover, they have difficulties in understandingbooks, newspapers, magazines written in English, or even in understanding the radio

broadcast or television programs So the retention of a great number of vocabularies isnecessary to use English In other words, vocabulary as an important tool helps thestudents to understand when they listen or read something in English Harmer (1991: 23)said that we should ensure that our students memorize the vocabulary they need for theirlevel and that they can recall them when needed The vocabulary is one of the languageaspects along with grammar and pronunciation which is considered a tool to support theability to communicate in English.

1.1.3 Kinds of vocabulary

In vocabulary learning, the words to be learned can be classified into two categorieswhich are content words and function words Content words carry a lexical meaning, andfunction words cover grammatical meaning In language, to understand functions ofwords students can arrange words in a correct sentence and analyze the sentence(Cameron 2001: 82) Based on the meaning of words, content words are the word classes

of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs In teaching content words, the teacher canexplain the words and their meanings in a direct and explicit way (Cameron 2001: 82) Onthe other hand, function words are the classes of articles, prepositions, conjunctions, andpronouns In teaching function words, the teacher teaches words incidentally and usesthem continuously in a range of different discourse contexts (Cameron, 2001)

However, according to Nation (2001: 78), groups of English vocabulary have beencategorized by frequency of overall occurrence in order to determine which words aremost necessary for students to learn There are two common divisions: high-frequencywords and low-frequency words High-frequency words which, include function wordsand content words, account for a very large proportion of the running words in spokenand written texts and occur in all kinds of uses of the language Low-frequency wordscover over 5 percent of the words in an academic text In fact, English students try theirbest to master a large amount of vocabulary Based on the learners‟ English level and thediscussed issue, vocabulary and its compounds and idioms focused in the present studywill be chosen basing on frequency and usefulness to the need of the learners

1.1.4 Vocabulary teaching

According to Thornbury (2004), vocabulary is usually a problem of memorizing

In order to teach it effectively, it is important for the teacher to know how to makestudents remember words and store them in students‟ mind for long-term

Some writers (Thornbury, 2004; Mccarthy, 1992; Gairns and Redman, 1986) claimthat the vocabulary is well stored in the mind, in a complex web-like system called

“mental lexicon” In this regard, words are stored, classified and interconnected indifferent ways accordance with their features such as form, meaning, collocations,properties, cultural background As a result, a word can be looked up through somepathway at once

Therefore, the language teacher plays an important role in helping their studentsdetermine the easiest way to convey new words into the already existing web of themental lexicon (Thornbury, 2004) In addition, it is necessary for the students to acquirethe capacity to store the information for long-term

Research into memory of Thornbury (2004) suggests principles to support theprocess of permanent remembering In this research, he listed some techniques to makevocabulary teaching effective

The first technique is repetition for example in reading Moreover, he also focuses

on the importance of use and retrieval of the new words: eg, use the new words tocomplete the sentences

Furthermore, Thornburry thinks that the presentation of new words should bedivided into separated sequences that are followed by repeated revision later in the nextsections or periods

Motivation, which is another helpful element, is closely linked with attention.Thornburry states that an arousal (a very high degree of attention) seems to relate withimproved recall

Finally, according to Thornburry (2004), visualization of a picture for a newvocabulary item or link an abstract word with several metal images should be done by theteacher Images can help students draw themselves the best outcomes Thornburry claimsone more time that the students‟ own images give the best influence on memorizing

To concern this problem, Gairns and Redman (1986) emphasized the significance

of activities in the classroom They thought that the activities need to be presented indetail so information is more likely to be remembered in long-term memory Moreover,they together Thornburry presented the positive influence of imaging, repetition…Theyalso suggest a good technique “word diagram” to support retention which might be usefulfor “storage of lexis”

Traditionally, students have not been taught vocabulary in a particular lesson butalong with lessons of listening, speaking, reading or writing Some learners make a listthen put into it the meaning of new words in their mother tongue without any real context.Learners often look up the meaning of the words in the dictionary or ask the teacher to

translate the words and try to learn them by heart There are some other traditional

techniques such as illustration, mime…For those techniques, the learners are usuallypassive and the lessons center on the teachers Consequently, the students usually havedifficulties in memorizing and recalling the words

The current trends in teaching vocabulary stress on helping learners memorizingthe words that they have learn and relate words with others or in different contexts.Learners should not learn words in isolation (Harmer, 1991)

Mind-mapping is considered as an example of current trends in teachingvocabulary Mind-mapping is a visual organizer that promotes vocabulary development.Mind-mapping is a creative note-taking strategy which makes us easy to memorize theinformation Buzan (2009) thinks that mind-mapping is a powerful technique graphic,which provides universal key to unlock the potential of brain Mind-mapping techniqueimitates the thinking process, makes it possible for us to move from one topic to anothertopic back and forth A pattern with pictures, color, symbol not only makes the learnersunderstand the vocabulary knowledge but also makes them feel good and enjoyable and itcan attract them to pay attention to the vocabulary knowledge then retain the words Incontrast with the traditional technique, the current ones are considered the positive changefor a new teaching and learning process The teachers are now not only the knowledgeprovider but also the initiator, the guider and the controller The students also get engagedwith the learning process They could discuss and interact with their teachers, exchangeinformation with their classmates

Despite the advantages it can bring, mind-mapping exhibits some limitations.Mind-mapping can give the danger of introducing closely related new vocabulary items atthe same time Learners find troubles in relation with too many vocabulary items Thismakes learners‟ task more difficult

1.1.5 Vocabulary retention

1.1.5.1 Vocabulary retention

The Longman dictionary defines retention in some way It is also the condition ofbeing retained or the act of retaining It is the power and capacity of retaining and ability

to recognize or recall what has been experienced or learned

According to Oxford dictionary, vocabulary retention is the fact of keepinginformation in one‟s memory or is the power or capacity of holding and absorbing acertain number of words in their memory Vocabulary retention can refer to short-termmemory and long-term memory retention

1.1.5.2 Short-term and long-term memory

Memory is divided into short-term and long-term memory base on duration ofmemory retention and capacity of recalling information after the original input Long-term memory is used to retain information in anything but the immediate future Short-term memory is to store or keep information while it is being processed The object ofvocabulary learning is to transfer the lexical information from the short-term memory tothe more permanent long-term memory (Schmitt, 2000) However, we can not distinguishclearly short-term retention and long-term retention Information entering short-termmemory may pass quite effortlessly into long-term memory, and some learners may findrepetition a very effective way of transferring information into long-term memory

When learning vocabulary, learners often have difficulties in retention of words for

a long time They do not usually succeed in putting the words into long-term memory Inthe present study, short-term memory is referred as the initial memory of the wordmeaning at the end of the lessons whereas the number of words can be recalled at the nextlessons or at the end of the study is considered as one form long -term memory becausethe participants in the study have only three forty-five-minute lessons per week

1.5.3 Major factors affecting word retention

There are many reasons why students remember words better than others Forexample, nature of the words themselves, situations under which the words are learnt,how the words are taught to students and so on affect word retention Gairns and Redman(1986) pointed out that learning new items involves storing them first in the short-termmemory and afterwards in the long-term memory, and the long-term memory can holdany amount of information They showed that our “mental lexicon” is highly organizedand efficient, and that semantic related items are stored together Another factor affecting

storage is word frequency because the most frequently used items are easier to retrieve.

We can facilitate the leaning process by classifying items of vocabulary in semantic fieldssuch as topics

Besides, retrieval is another difficulty faced by the learners when learningvocabulary According to Nunan (1990) learners can be motivated to develop their ownpersonal learning styles for vocabulary, in such areas as memorizing and retaining newwords However, Cater et al (1989) showed that the storage of information does notguarantee its retrieval Learners need to increase the effectiveness of retrieval probabilitybecause they need techniques to recall appropriate words for particular occasion Cateralso pointed out that the meanings of words are focused rather than on their forms toenhance production, as most of our production has to do with searching for an appropriatemeaning to fit the specific situation The most effective is to associate bonds forproduction, therefore, connect the words with their meanings

1.5.4 Indicators of students’ vocabulary retention

In vocabulary teaching learning, both teacher and student will happy if teachinglearning process gains good result Teacher can be said to be successful in his teachinglanguage if the students can mastery four skills in language, they are listening, reading,speaking, and writing, of course vocabulary retention become a basic aspect to supportthat skills

These are some indicators of vocabulary retention suitable with the schoolcurriculum especially for Junior High School They are:

* Students can identify, understand, grasp and remember the meaning of words in thetext

* Students can pronounce the words correctly

* Students can use and write the words correctly, so they can write a compositionwell

* Students have high score in the vocabulary test

According to (Nation, 2001), vocabulary learning strategies are one part oflanguage learning strategies which in turn are part of general learning strategies Gu, Y(2000, p.85-86) cites some vocabulary learning strategies such as cognitive,metacognitive memory and activation strategies

Metacognitive strategies entail selective attention and self-initiation strategies.Cognitive strategies consist of guessing strategies, skillful use of dictionaries and note-taking strategies Memory strategies are grouped into rehearsal and encoding categories.Word lists and repetition are instances of rehearsal strategies Encoding strategies includesuch strategies as association, imagery, visual, auditory, semantic, and contextualencoding as well as word-structure Activation strategies encompass those strategiesthrough which the learners actually use new words in different contexts.

With regard to word meaning and retrieval, many researchers (Hague, 1987; Cater,1989; Amer, 2002) agreed that mind-mapping is effective for long-term memory andsupport the recall Therefore, in this study, the mind-mapping technique will be presented

in the next section

1.2 Mind-mapping

1.2.1 Definition of mind-mapping

Mind-mapping is a creative note taking technique in a visualization and graphicform that is used to make people feel easy in entering information into their brains,keeping information in a long term memory and taking it out from their brains easily byengaging imagination and association (Buzan 2006: 6; Buzan 2009: 10) In this definition,there are five important concepts of mind-mapping Firstly, mind-mapping is one ofcreative note taking techniques used by people to represent ideas into visualization andgraphic forms where one idea is connected to another idea by using branches Secondly,

by using mind mapping, it is easy for people to enter the information into their brains.Also, mind-mapping supports to put information into their memory Thirdly, mindmapping helps people to keep information in the long term memory Fourthly,information can be easily taken out from their brain when using mind-mapping Finally,mind-mapping involves the use of imagination and association in its application Thismeans that in presenting ideas into mind-mapping diagrams, people enclose imaginationstimulators such as pictures, symbols, and colors to present ideas clearly and useassociation techniques to help them build their senses to the new concepts These newconcepts are connected to the known concepts having a tight relationship with the newconcepts

According to Buzan (1993: 1) mind-mapping is a great graphic technique, whichgives a general key to unlock the potential of brain Mind-mapping technique copies thethinking process, which enable us to move from one topic to another topic back and forth

Recording the information through symbols, pictures, emotional meaning and colors,exactly the same like our brains process it A pattern which at least consists of symbol,picture, and color will not only help the students to understand the vocabulary knowledgebut also makes the students feel interesting, enjoyable In addition, it can encourage thestudents‟ brain and leads them to have interest in retain vocabulary knowledge.

1.2.2 Functions of mind-mapping

According to Buzan (2009:6), mind-mapping have the following functions:

* To make active all parts of brain

* To make people (learners) be focus in the main topic

* To help show the relation among parts of information

* To give a certain illustration in the whole and detail

* To help group the concept and compare it

1.2.3 Characteristics of mind-mapping

The mind map has four essential characteristics:

* The subject of attention is crystallized in a central image

* The main themes of the subject radiate from the central image on branches

* Branches hold a key image word printed on the associated line-details radiateout

* The branches form a connected structure

1.2.4 Procedures in making a mind-mapping

The procedure in making a mind map consists of seven steps:

* Start from the centre of paper that put horizontally

* Use images for the central ideas

* Use color By coloring, it can improve the energy toward creative thinking

* Connect the main branches to the central image; connect the second and third branches to the first and second branches and so on

* Make a curve line as connected line among branches It will be more interesting Use a key word in each line It useful to give the mind map more energy and flexibility

* Use image is like on central image (Buzan, 2009: 15-16)

1.2.5 Steps to read a mind-mapping

The steps to read a mind map, as follows:

* Start in the centre that is the focus of the mind map.

* Words/images closest to the central image show the main themes of the map This is the start of the radiant hierarchical structure

mind-* Select one main theme and read out from the centre along the branch This provides greater levels of associated detail

* Notice links between the branches

1.2.6 The application of mind-mapping to teaching a foreign language.

It is obvious that memory plays an important role in learning and mastering aforeign language In the communicative approach, learners need to retain words and usethem effectively

Mind-mapping is a helpful memory technique which makes it easier to remembernew materials and to visualize the thinking process, so mind-mapping proves to be a veryhelpful tool to master a foreign language Although it may cost time to use the technique,

it will eventually speed up the learning process when learners know and understand how

to use it

Casco (2009) suggests some applications of mind-mapping in teaching a foreignlanguage which can be presented as follows:

Engage the learners:

Thanks to the map, the learners know easily what comes next and focus thelearners‟ attention on the topic Moreover, the map supports a structure to reduce thelearners‟ anxiety when they receive input through listening and reading when they speak

Active prior knowledge

The use of keywords stimulates memory of what the student know about the topic

Encourage the learner to ask questions:

The map shows clearly what the students know and what they do not know aboutthe topic Image and interrogation marks widen the information gap and encourage thelearners to find out what they do not know

Scaffold reading and listening comprehension:

The map is an efficient tool to facilitate comprehension because it offers thestudents a globe view of listening or reading contents Furthermore, the cues showing inthe map helps the learner to form inferences as an aid to understanding

Scaffold speaking

The map helps the learner to organize their thought and speech Thanks to thedifferent linked and cross-referenced elements of the map allow the learner to create avarious discourse each time he/she use the map.

Assess oral production

The map can assess the students‟ oral production by explaining the link of themaps The learner has to use new structure and lexical items to introduce the content ofthe map

Scaffold written production

The map can be considered the starting point or the outline to write a paragraph or

an essay on the topic explored

Casco (2009) showed that mind-mapping has a lot of benefits in teaching a foreignlanguage in many aspects consisting of reading, writing, reading skill as well as inmotivating the learners and activating the prior knowledge

1.2.7 The Use of Mind Mapping in Vocabulary Learning

In vocabulary learning, mind-mapping can be used in some activities: presentingand reviewing English vocabulary In this study, for example, the English teacher can usemind-mapping diagrams to help the students to understand English words and theirmeaning, and make the words easier to be memorized (Buzan, 2006: 201)

Mind-mapping is a creative note-taking form which applies visualization andgraphic forms To create mind-mapping diagrams, the teacher or students need to followsome steps Below, Tony Buzan presented four steps in creating the mind-mappingdiagram as examples of the use of mind-mapping in vocabulary learning (Buzan, 2006:21-23) However, the teacher can use the software to create the mind-mapping diagram.The software which is quite convenient and easy to operate, also help the teacher to savethe time

 Creating mind-mapping diagrams

A frame of mind-mapping diagram is made by using color pencils, a piece of plainpaper in a landscape position, pictures, key words, and association A frame of the mind-mapping diagram can be made by doing the steps below

To make a frame of mind-mapping, we should use color pencils, paper, pictures,keys words and association in traditional way but in this study I will introduce another

way to create mind-mapping diagram by using the software iMinMap7 A mind-mapping

can be easily made thanks to the support of this software by doing the following steps

Firstly, the teacher draws or chooses a picture as a central image in the middle part

of the paper (Buzan, 2006: 21) The page should be placed in a landscape position Here,the central image is used to describe the main idea or to be more understandable, weshould write key words along with the image It is to activate the learners‟ right brains,strengthen the learners‟ memory, and make the learning enjoyable The steps in creating

of “Sports and Games” diagram are presented as an example The first step is shown inFigure I below

Figure I: First step in creating mind-mapping: ‘drawing a central image’.

Secondly, the teacher draws curve lines and boxes around the central image tobuild main branches or basic ordering ideas (Buzan, 2006: 24-25) The main brancheshave tight relationship with the topic idea Then, a picture or symbol and keyword inevery main branch tip is made to strengthen the writing of keywords and make it easy to

be understood (Buzan, 2006: 26).The pictures in the mind-mapping diagram (Figure II)below show the kind of sports as branch keywords

Finally, the teacher makes the second and the third branches and so on The secondbranches are radiated from the main branches The second branches are created to presentideas related to ideas in the main branches At the tips of second branches, the teacheradds pictures or symbols and keyword Figure III below is an example

Figure II: Second step in creating mind mapping: ‘drawing main branches’.

Figure III: Third step in creating mind mapping: ‘drawing second branch’

 Presenting vocabulary by using mind-mapping

The teacher presents the vocabulary items by using the frame of the mind-mappingdiagram which has been prepared and places it on the blackboard or screen of projector.The teacher can do some steps before when vocabulary items are introduced The teacherpresents materials in mind-mapping based on the sequences of the steps in creating mind-mapping These steps are described below:

First, a frame of the mind-mapping diagram should be placed on the middle of theblackboard or screen to make sure that all students could see the content of the mind-mapping diagram Second, the teacher introduces the lesson topic by using the centralimage of the mind-mapping diagram (Buzan, 2006: 21) Then, the teacher starts to presentEnglish words in the main branches one by one based on the pictures in the branches(Buzan, 2006: 24-25) Then, she asks students to guess a word from each picture Then,she writes the word in the available branch (Ellis, 1993:88) In presenting the words in thesecond branches, the teacher does the same way as the step in presenting the ones in themain branches After the teacher finishes in completing the mind -mapping diagram, sheasks the students to pronounce all or some important words presented in the mind-mapping diagram to check whether or not the students pronounce correctly the words

With the support of color and images illustrated in Figure III, mind-mapping couldhelp students a lot in learning words and organizing the ideas systematically In fact, thestudents have to usually take a lot of effort to retain words and sentences; whereas byvisualizing them, it makes us much easier to memorize and recall the words

1.3 Previous studies

1.3.1 Review of related studies worldwide

Looking for studies related to using mind-mapping technique in teaching language

in the world, the researcher found several ones The study Teaching vocabulary through

MM technique to the ten grade students of SMA Negeri 15 Palembang was written by Effendi (2004) Through the analysis of the data collected during the study, the researcher

concluded that it existed a significant difference between the students‟ process in theexperimental group (using mind-mapping technique) and the control group (using traditionalmethod) and it can be concluded that mind-mapping is an effective technique to teachvocabulary to ten grade students of SMA Negeri 15 Palebang

A research on semantic mapping was conducted by DeCarrico (2001) She statedthat semantic mapping helps to make conscious about relationship among words in a textand helps to understand deeply by making an associative networks for words The teacherasked the students to draw a diagram of the relationship between particular words fromthe text chosen She said in her conclusion: “especially at the beginning levels, theteaching of wordlists through word association techniques has proven to be successfulway to learn a large number of words in a short period and retain them over time”.(DeCarrico (2001; 288-289).

Beside the above studies, the researcher can find the study related to using

mind-mapping in teaching language The finding of the study Introducing mind map in

comprehension by Moi and Lian (2007) was that students are able to understand and

remember the comprehension passage better in establishing meaningful links, pattern,relationship among concepts and information Visual mapping also help them to developtheir thinking skills, sorting of information and ideas, thus developing betterunderstanding in a topic area Students gain confidence in attempting comprehensionquestions

1.3.2 Review of related studies in Vietnam

It was quiet difficult to look for the studies related to the topic of this study inVietnam After a long time searching, several related studies–the graduation paper-which

were found, names Using MMs and diagrams to teach vocabulary for the first year

mainstream students, faculty of English language teacher Education by Dang (2011) She

concluded that there was a different achievement on the experimental group and controlgroup, which means, using mind-mappings and diagrams to teach vocabulary can helpstudents have better and longer memory of word items taught Moreover, students afterattending a lesson with mind-mapping and diagrams really wanted to have chance to learnwith those techniques

Besides, the study The Effects of Semantic Mapping on Vocabulary Memorizing by

Nguyen Ngoc Thuy, Viet Nam pointed that the semantic-mapping was an effective way

of enabling the students to achieve greater progress in vocabulary learning As a result,the students had positive attitudes towards this method The findings were not onlyconsistent with the literature review but also supportive of the research on using thesemantic-mapping made before This leads to the implication that the semantic mapping

can improve high school students‟ vocabulary retention and is promising to vocabularyteaching and learning.

Another study Using mind mapping to teach vocabulary to the first year

non-English major students at Bac Giang university of Agriculture and Forestry by Nguyen

Thi Thuy Lan found out the many advantages and effectiveness of using mind-mapping toteaching vocabulary to language learner First, min-mapping can help students tobrainstorm a new topic and activate the prior knowledge Besides, it can be a tool tofacilitate students to summarize lesson effectively Last, students can apply mind-mapping

to take note during the lessons

In this chapter, the researcher has been concerned with a review of mind-mapping

as a technique model At the first stage, an overview of vocabulary was presented withvarious aspects of vocabulary: definitions, vocabulary learning and teaching, strategies forvocabulary retention Next, an overview of mind-mapping was exposed with thedefinition of mind-mapping, the parts and the criteria and the classification of mind-mapping Besides, the implication of mind-mapping in teaching foreign language andvocabulary was also introduced Lastly, some related studies worldwide and in Vietnamwere presented with clear description of their findings

CHAPTER II METHODOLOGY

2.1 Action research

Harmer (2002:334-345) stated that action research is the name given to a series ofprocedures teachers can engage in their classroom either because they wish to improveaspect of their teaching or because they wish to evaluate the success and orappropriateness of certain activities and procedures

Action research is a form of collective self-reflective inquiry undertaken byparticipants in a social situation in order to improve the rational and justice of their ownsocial or educational practices, as well as understanding of this practices and the situation

in which the practices are carried out The researcher used classroom action researchbecause of some reasons, firstly: this research is to find out the causes of poor Englishvocabulary retention of the 6th students of TMJHS, in the academic year 2015/2016.Secondly: to find out the extent of using the mind-mapping toward the improvement ofstudents‟ vocabulary retention and thirdly: to describe the process of teaching vocabularyusing mind-mapping

This action research study aims to show the effects of mind-mapping on thestudents‟ vocabulary retention In this process, the researcher worked together with thestudents to identify and investigate the problem which occurs in the vocabulary learning.Then, the researcher applied the suitable solution to solve the problem, carried out theaction in the class, and finally, analyzed the effects of mind-mapping on the students‟vocabulary retention The steps taken in this action research include: identifying theproblem, planning the solution, doing the action in the class, and reflecting the use ofaction done (Burns, 1999: 30)

problems that occurred In the preliminary step, the teacher focused on analyzing theproblems which related to the students‟ ability in retaining the English vocabulary Theteacher based on the results of the observation to develop the research actions.

2.2.2 Planning

Before implementing the action, the teacher had to make preparations First of all,the students were asked to take the pre-test of target words to check the unfamiliarity ofvocabulary items learnt during the action Then, the teacher presented the students how tocreate or read a mind-mapping diagram in order that the students could be familiar to thetechnique

In this step, the teacher worked to plan some actions to be carried out in theEnglish teaching-learning process based on the problems determined in the previous step.The actions aimed to improve the students‟ vocabulary retention by using mind-mappingtechniques The actions planned to be carried out were presented below:

The first was to select the vocabulary items tested in the pre-test and post-test Inthis action, the teacher formulated the test items chosen from the students‟ workbook andtextbook that focused on the topics „sports and games‟, „cities in the world‟, „our house

in the future‟, and “ our green world” Moreover, the teacher tried to design the test itemsbased on the syllabus of English for the sixth grade of the secondary school in the secondsemester

The second was to provide mind-mapping diagrams In this action, the teachercreated mind-mapping diagrams used to introduce and revise vocabulary items with thetopics of „television‟ in unit 7, „sports and games‟ in unit 8, „cities in the world‟ in unit

9, „our houses in the future‟ in unit 10 and “our green world” in unit 11 of “Tieng Anh 6”textbook To make sure that every student could observe clearly the diagrams, the teachershowed some mind-mapping diagrams in the big size Every time, the English teacherpresented a new material topic, she would provide a mind-mapping diagram suitable tothe topic

The third was to set up the class activities In this action, the teacher planned someinteresting activities to encourage the students to use their English vocabulary in the classactivities in order that they could remember the words Some activities were implemented

as follows: The first activity was to memorize vocabulary items in the mind-mappingdiagram with the aim to help the students recall all the words mentioned earlier The

second one was to fill out an incomplete mind-mapping diagram with the correct words so

as to make the students write the words with the correct spelling To explore the students‟vocabulary knowledge when practicing language skill activities such as matching, role-playing, doing the teacher‟s instruction, describing pictures…etc are the third activities.These activities were carried out to make the students use the words learned in theEnglish language either in spoken or written forms

2.2.3 Implementing the Actions

In this step, the teacher carried out the planned actions in the previous step Theactions were implemented in fifteen lessons of five units or one research cycle In the firstlesson of each unit the English teacher conducted the teaching learning process bypresenting new topics and having the students revise the words related to the topics Inthe three first lessons, the teacher presented the topic of “television” in unit 7, then thetopics of „sports and games‟ in unit 8, in the three next lessons, the topic of „Cities in theworld‟ in unit 9 was given In the three next lessons, she presented the topic of „Ourhouses in the future‟ in unit 10 The last topic was “our green house” in unit 11 Tocomplete the diagram of mind-mapping, the teacher asked the students to work together

by having them guess the words through pictures or other clues given The students couldexplain their knowledge in Vietnamese when they had difficulties in using English Theyhad to participate in building the diagram of mind-mapping in order to remember the newwords more effectively After finishing the diagram of mind-mapping, the students wereasked to pronounce and memorize the words before completing the incomplete mind-mapping diagram by writing the words near the key pictures in correct spelling In thenext activity, the teacher gave tasks or exercises that have the students use newvocabulary items The tasks or activities involved all four language skills: listening,speaking, reading, and writing In the following lessons of the same unit, the students had

to revise the vocabulary learned in the previous lessons and the teacher supplied morenew words about the same topics In addition, the teacher discussed the developedmaterial from the topics presented in the previous lesson

After each lesson, the teacher observed and evaluated the activities in the class tofind problems during the class and find how effective the action was

2.2.4 Reflection

In this step, the action conducted in the implementation cycle was evaluated Theteacher evaluated the action by herself after each class and by interviewing the students

about the teaching and learning process To evaluate the action, the researcheremphasized on the successful activities or failed activities After determining the problemthat happed in the class, she would change some techniques of teaching by mind-mapping

to improve the results For example, the teacher should improve the diagram of mapping by adding letter cues in every branch of the mind-mapping diagram to help thestudents write the English words in the correct spelling Another change was exchangingthe role-playing with the speaking activity by focusing on the students‟ readiness inconveying the expression when the English teacher pointed at them at random

mind-2.3 Setting of the Study

This study was conducted in the second semester in the academic year of

2015-2016 in TMJHS in the suburb of Son Tay Town, Hanoi It started on January 5th 2015 andended on April 28th, 2016 The research was conducted according to the Englishteaching-learning schedule on weekday morning at 7.15 a.m with time duration of 45minutes in every session The schedule of the study in the English class can be seen in theTable 1 below:

Table1 Research schedule

January 4th Pre-test Before conducting the treatment, the teacher

has the students do the pre-test of targetwords and tell them about the materialslearnt

1st two weeks Unit 7 The topic was “television”

of words, they felt scared and discouraged In addition, they are given only three Englishlessons per week with a big amount of knowledge This makes them under pressure sotheir English level is supposed to be pre-intermediate.

The researcher is an English teacher at TMJHS She has worked there for 9 yearsand is now taking a Master course TESOL at ULIS

2.5 Data collection instruments

This study adopted questionnaires and tests as instruments for data collection

2.5.1 Questionnaires

Questionnaires were used to evaluate teaching and to collect information fromevery student and helped the teacher to collect quickly a large amount of relatedinformation in a short time at a very low cost Two questionnaires were designed, one atthe pre-action stage and another at the post-action stage

Questionnaire 1 (Appendix1A)

In order to identify the actual situation of the students‟ learning vocabulary and

find out the causes of the students‟ low vocabulary retention Questionnaire 1 consisted

of seven questions Question 1 identified the students‟ attitudes towards learning Englishvocabulary Question 2 determined the level of the students‟ vocabulary retention.Question 3 identified the students‟ attitudes towards the English 6 vocabularies Question

4 asked about the classroom atmosphere at vocabulary lessons Question 5, 6 and 7 weredesigned to get the students‟ attitudes toward the teacher‟s vocabulary technique

Questionnaire 2 (Appendix 2)

This questionnaire was given at post-action stage to evaluate the students‟attitudes towards the effects of mind-mapping on the students‟ vocabulary retention.Question 1 was set up to determine the level of the students‟ vocabulary retention afterthe action stage Questions 2-4 aimed at the students‟ attitudes toward the classroomatmosphere when mind-mapping was applied Question 5 was designed to pose thestudents‟ attitudes towards mind-mapping about the feasibility, usefulness, interests,application, and suggestion for the future use

2.5.2 Tests

With the intention to find out the effects of mind-mapping on vocabulary retention,the teacher designed three kinds of test: a pre-test of target words, a pre-test and a post-test to compare the students‟ progress before and after applying mind-mapping inteaching vocabulary

Tests measure a person‟s ability, knowledge, or performance in a given domain(Brown, 2004:3) The purpose of a vocabulary test is to measure the comprehension andproduction of words used in speaking or writing There are four general kinds ofvocabulary tests which include:

* Limited respond, is for beginners These test items require either a simple physical

action like pointing at something or a very simple verbal answer such as “yes” or “no”

* Multiple-choice complete, is a test in which a sentence with a missing word is

presented; students choose one of the four vocabulary items given to complete the sentence

* Multiple-choice paraphrase is a test in which a sentence with words underlined is

given Students choose which of the four words in the closest in meaning to the

underlined item.

* Simple completion (words) has students write in the missing part of

appear in sentences (Madsen, 1983: 12)

words that

Pre-test of target words (Appendix 3A)

In order to test the students‟ vocabulary knowledge, the Vocabulary Knowledge Scaledeveloped by Paribakht and Wesche (1997) was used to measure vocabulary knowledge andretention This instrument uses a score of one to the five points for each subject‟s self-analysis of each target word The scoring criteria were explained as follows:

(1) One point is given for words reported both unfamiliar and unknown

(2) Two points are given for familiar words with unknown meanings

(3) Three points are given if a synonym or translation of the target word is correct

(4) Four points are given when the use of a word is semantically correct

(5) Five points are given when the use of a target word is both grammatically and

semantically correct, even if other parts of the sentence contain errors

To sure of the students‟ unfamiliarity with the target words, a test of vocabulary wasused at the pre-action stage This test was a check list of one hundred items The wordswere chosen from “Tiếng Anh 6” by Hoang Van Van (2013) In selecting the words, twocriteria were considered:

1 All the words were unknown to the learners

2 The words presented in this study had different parts of speech

The check list was handed to the participants The learners had to tick one of the fivegrades for each given word with the points of Vocabulary Knowledge Scale above:

After the pre-test, 8 familiar words were excluded Hence, a list including 92

(Appendix 3B) new words about which the learners did not have any previous knowledge

contains the target words in this study

Pre-test (Appendix 4A)

The test was used to check the students‟ knowledge of vocabulary at the action stage The duration of the test was 45 minutes under the supervision of the teacher.The results of the pre-test and the post-test were compared to check the students‟progress The vocabulary items were chosen from the words they had learnt in theprevious lessons The test comprised 3 sections with the total score of 10 marks:

pre-Section 1 aimed to check the students‟ knowledge of a word‟s meaning: Matching the

words with its definition or meaning

Section 2 stressed on the lexical relation: Odd one out

Section 3 aimed to check both the syntactic pattern of the words and contextual meaning:Fill in the passage with the suitable words

Post-test (Appendix 4B)

A ninety-two item recognition vocabulary–in- short- context test was also constructed

to measure the learners‟ lexical acquisition and recall The post-test which was given fourmonths after the treatment to test the retention of the learned words in long-term memoryincluded three parts: multiple choice, Odd one out and a short text completion

CHAPTER III RESEARCH FINDINGS

This action research was in a natural setting The aims of the study are to findways to help the 6A1 students TMJHS improve their vocabulary retention One of theways is using the mind-mapping technique The results in two main sections of dataanalysis and research findings are presented in this chapter In data analysis, the possiblesolutions to solve the problems are reviewed In the research findings, the researchershows the report of the actions done, the effects of mind-mapping on students‟vocabulary retention

The researcher presents the reports of the process of the study in relation to theimplementation of mind-mapping in vocabulary learning and teaching and the use ofvocabulary items in the class activities The result of the implementation of mind-mapping in vocabulary learning and teaching is discussed in relation to the effects ofmind-mapping on the students‟ vocabulary retention

3.1 Initial data analysis

At the beginning of this study, the researcher conducted two types of collectinginitial data: Questionnaire 1 and pre-test The result of the questionnaire at the pre-actionstage presented the students‟ opinions about English vocabulary, their self-evaluation ontheir ability of vocabulary retention and also showed their opinion about some factorswhich had bad effects on their vocabulary retention Through the pre-test, the researcherassessed students‟ vocabulary knowledge

3.1.1 Data from questionnaire 1 (Appendix 1B)

Questionnaire 1 consisted of 7 questions Question 1 identifies the students‟attitudes towards the importance of learning vocabulary The students were asked iflearning vocabulary was important and their opinions were presented in Table 2 below

As can be seen from the table, 58% (26 students) of the students agreed that vocabularylearning was important; 31% (14 students), which were neutral, believed that it wasneither important nor unimportant; whereas only 11% (5 students) disagreed with theimportance of learning vocabulary These above statistics showed that almost all studentsunderstood the significance of learning vocabulary in foreign language learning

Question 2 asked the students to evaluate themselves about their vocabularyretention level To look at the table, the data for this question was not very optimistic:Only 11% (5 students) thought that they had a good memory on vocabulary while up to73% (33 students) found they had bad vocabulary retention The rest, 16% (7 students)are neutral.

Question 3 explored the students‟ opinions on English 6 vocabulary whether it

was easy to memorize About a haft of the students (53%=24 students) expressed theirdisagreement, only 29% (13 students) agreed and 16% (7 students) were neutral.According to the figure, the English 6 vocabulary was not easy to remember Therefore,

it was supposed that the new learning syllabus was considered as one of challenge for thestudents‟ vocabulary retention

Question 4 showed the students‟ attitudes towards the classroom atmosphereduring vocabulary class The figure from the table 2 was quite worrying: 20% believedthat the vocabulary lessons were interesting; 64% found it boring and 16% (7 students)neither agreed nor disagreed As a result, vocabulary teaching technique must to bechanged and varied to motivate the students in the lessons

The three last questions 5, 6 and 7 asked the students to give their opinion onvocabulary teaching techniques The result did not gain positive attitude: Up to 82% ofthe students showed their disagreement to their variety Just 22% thought that theteaching techniques were useful and not many students (13%) liked those techniques

Table2 Result of the questionnaire 1

Questions Students‟ opinion on Disagree Neutral Agree

1 the importance of learning 5(11%) 14 (31%) 26(58%)

5 the variety of the teacher‟s 37(82%) 3(7%) 5(11%)

vocabulary teaching techniques

6 the usefulness of the teacher‟s 31(69%) 4(9%) 10(22%)

vocabulary teaching techniques

7 the interest of teacher‟s 30(67%) 9(20%) 6(13%)

vocabulary teaching techniques

3.1.2 Result of the pre-test

60

50

40

marks 9-10 marks 7-8 30

marks 5-6

20

marks 3-4

marks 1-2 10

0

marks 9-10 marks 7-8 marks 5-6 marks 3-4 marks 1-2

Chart1 Results of the pre-test

As can be clearly seen from that the number of the students (45%) get below average marks while 15% gets good marks

-In conclusion, the result from the analysis of questionnaire 1 and the pre-testrevealed that almost all the students were aware of the importance of learning vocabularybut they met problems in learning vocabulary They did not get good grade because theyhad low motivation in learning vocabulary These are several reasons for this situation:The students had difficulties in vocabulary retention because the teacher did not useappropriate technique which can motivate them or help them learn words moreeffectively Therefore, the teacher had to intervene to improve the situation