Improving students’ vocabulary retention through content based instructions m a thesis linguistics 60 140 111

Statement of the problem In language learning, students need to have tools to learn new words as well as toprevent them from forgetting new words Pimsleur, 1967, cited in Nation, 2001.Th

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

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Cải thiện vốn từ vựng của sinh viên thông qua các hướng

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M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.01.11

HANOI – 2014

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

INSTRUCTIONS

Cải thiện vốn từ vựng của sinh viên thông qua các hướng

dẫn dựa trên nội dung

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.01.11

Supervisor: Dr Lâm Quang Đông

HANOI - 2014

Date:

NGUYỄN THỊ THANH HUYÊN

I am, first of all, particularly indebted to my supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr Lâm QuangĐông for his invaluable assistance, instructions and correction, excellentsuggestions and constant encouragement during the research period Without hisguidance and help, this work would not have been accomplished

Secondly, I am thankful to all the lecturers and staff of Faculty of Graduate andPostgraduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, VietnamNational University for their scientific knowledge, guidance and enthusiasm during

my course

My special thanks also go to the leaders and my colleagues at Ha Long College ofArts, Culture and Tourism for their support and encouragement I would like toextend my sincere thanks to the students who have participated in this research

I would like to send my sincere thanks to my friends and classmates for theirenthusiasm and advice while the work was in progress

Last but not least, I would like to convey my deepest gratitude to my dear familymembers, who are always besides me to support and encourage me to fulfill mystudy

NGUYỄN THỊ THANH HUYÊN

The observation was carried out in 06 weeks of the second semester of the first yearand was divided into 12 lessons The subjects were 45 students of a class of theHotel and Restaurant Department NVDL K13 The class received the treatmentinvolving content-based instructions and observed by the author, who entered everynecessary information in her diary Vocabulary tests, including pre-test, progress testand post-test, were administered The data collected from the test scores wereanalyzed to measure the size of vocabulary that students could retain.

The result showed considerable improvement in word memorization of the students

in the class The findings of the study also indicated that content-based instructionsshould be used for future vocabulary learning Some implications andrecommendations for the future studies were also included

TABLE OF CONTENT

CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENT iv

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1

1 R ATIONALE OF THE STUDY 1

2 S TATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 2

3 A IM OF THE STUDY 4

4 R ESEARCH QUESTION 4

5 S COPE OF THE STUDY 4

6 M ETHODS OF THE STUDY 5

7 O RGANIZATION OF THE THESIS 5

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT 6

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

1.1 V OCABULARY RETENTION 6

1.1.1 What is vocabulary? 6

1.1.2 What is involved in knowing a word? 6

1.1.3 Traditional vocabulary teaching 8

1.1.4 Current vocabulary teaching 9

1.2 V OCABULARY MEMORIZATION IN LANGUAGE LEARNING 11

1.2.1 Short-term and long-term memory 11

1.2.2 Major factors affecting word memorization 12

1.3 C ONTENT- BASED INSTRUCTIONS 13

1.3.1 What is Content-based instruction (CBI)? 13

1.3.2 Benefits of content-based instructions 15

1.3.3 Comparison with other approaches 15

1.3.4 What does a content-based instruction lesson look like? 16

1.4 P REVIOUS STUDIES 17

1.5 SUMMARY 18

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 20

2.1 R ESEARCH QUESTION RE- STATED 20

2.2 M ETHODOLOGY 20

2.2.1 An action research process 20

2.2.2 Participants 21

2.2.3 Treatment 21

2.2.4 The teaching context 22

2.3 SUMMARY 28

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS 29

3.1 S TATISTICS AND ANALYSIS OF DATA 29

3.1.1 Information from the observation 29

3.1.2 Result of the continuous monitoring 30

3.1.3 The results of the pre-test, progress-test and post-test 31

3.2 M AJOR FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 33

3.4 SUMMARY 37

PART THREE: CONCLUSION 38

1 C ONCLUSION 38

2 L IMITATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 38

REFERENCES 41 APPENDIX I

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

Among influential factors to learning English, vocabulary is an essentialcomponent, central to language, and is of great significance to language learners Itprovides us with materials to feed into the grammatical structures in order toproduce complete utterances It is one element that links the four skills of speaking,listening, reading and writing all together Without vocabulary, speakers cannotconvey meaning and communicate with each other in a particular language

Vocabulary as the major part of language learning has been the subject of numerousstudies which have made significant contributions to the field The prominenttheorists and researchers in the field have long recognized the role of vocabularyknowledge in second or foreign language learning Accordingly, new approaches,techniques, exercises and practice have been introduced into the field to teachvocabulary (Hatch & Brown, 1995) It has been suggested that teaching vocabularyshould not only consist of teaching specific words but also aim at equipping learnerswith strategies necessary to expand their vocabulary knowledge (Hulstjin, 1997)

At Ha Long College of Arts, Culture and Tourism (HCACT), which is known as agood education provider to students of Arts, Culture and Tourism, English has beenconsidered a compulsory subject and has attracted considerable attention from theManagement Board Teaching and learning English in general and vocabulary inparticular is the concern of both the teaching staff and the students

The most frequently-used method of teaching vocabulary in a class of English isgiving the explanations and Vietnamese equivalents of words, and then havingstudents do written practice exercises Several teachers have also tried to apply one

or two new ways of teaching vocabulary in their classes; however, the effect has notbeen significant enough Students just sit in silence, and then copy the corrected

answers that are given by their teachers They seem to get bored with this way oflearning every day, then they forget and cannot speak or make sentences with thewords they have learned Perhaps, there can be various reasons for this, includinglarge classes, psychological or cultural differences, teaching methods, teacher‟sknowledge, student‟s lack of ideas or language devices, etc More importantly,words cannot be memorized if introduced out of context in which they are used Inother words, if teachers wish that their students could retain new words better intheir memory, new words must be put into, or associated with, meaningful content.This is exactly the belief which drove me to conduct this action research entitled

“Improving students’ vocabulary retention through content-based instructions”.

2 Statement of the problem

In language learning, students need to have tools to learn new words as well as toprevent them from forgetting new words (Pimsleur, 1967, cited in Nation, 2001).This is true with students of Tourism at HCACT, who have to learn English as acompulsory subject at the college Nguyễn Thị Linh Lam (2004) and Đào Thị ThanhMai (2004) suggest that Vietnamese students need to be taught how to applyappropriate vocabulary learning strategies to acquire vocabulary in a more effectiveway

HCACT students of Tourism specializing in restaurant and hotel services are trained

to be waiters /waitresses or receptionists who are required to use English very often

in their jobs Therefore, a large proportion of the college‟s training curriculum isallocated for the English subject In the first year, they have 10 forty-five minuteperiods of English a week or 150 periods during the two terms of the year.Moreover, the majority of the students learnt English for 3 years and some for 7years before entering this college Despite this large amount of English learningtime, their vocabulary is still poor Many of them complain that they spend most ofthe time learning vocabulary, but the results are disappointing They cannotremember the words they learn Consequently, their lack of good vocabulary has

badly affected their writing, reading, listening and speaking proficiency They seem

to be not eager enough to learn vocabulary lessons in particular and the Englishsubject in general

The real situation leads to our assumption that the students may have problems intheir vocabulary learning techniques With years of teaching experience, the authorrealizes that the teaching of vocabulary for the first year students of Tourism atHCACT encounters a lot of trouble because they have to cope with a large number

of words specializing in restaurant and hotel services Although several techniques

in teaching vocabulary are presented, the effectiveness is not considerable

Teaching vocabulary through games is often recommended and also shows someadvantages For example, it can help students acquire English words quickly andcreate rather relaxing learning atmosphere for students However, it makes the classvery noisy and some games do not require students to speak any language duringthe games

Teaching vocabulary through word lists is also applied at HCACT, but it does notseem to be very effective for the first year students because it is said to be boring, so

it cannot help them to memorize words as effectively as they expect

The English teachers at HCACT are now faced with the challenge of finding wayshow to help their students memorize vocabulary effectively and how to motivatethem in the vocabulary lessons Following is a description how vocabulary of the

textbooks “May I help you” or “English for cooking” is taught There are many

ESP words presented in each unit of the book, but there is a lack of visualillustrations for students to imagine the things that they have never seen before.Pictures or photos, for instance, are hardly ever used in the vocabulary lessons Itcan be said that the teachers want to make changes neither to the course book nor totheir current teaching techniques They just present vocabulary by supplying thewords‟ meaning and phonemic transcription Their students repeat the words and

simply copy them into their notebooks This outdated way of teaching makes thelessons boring and fails to stimulate the learner‟s imagination and memorization.That is why it cannot motivate students to learn vocabulary and they consequentlyforget the words that they have just learnt.

In brief, the problems of teaching and learning vocabulary for the first year students

of Tourism are regarded as serious by both the teaching staff and students.Therefore, there is an urgent need for an alternative to the conservative way ofteaching vocabulary at HCACT

3 Aim of the study

The current situation has urged the author to apply the method of content-basedinstructions in teaching vocabulary for the first year students of Tourism at HCACT

in order to help her students learn new words more effectively and remember themlonger With the hope to help these students improve their vocabulary retention, thestudy was conducted to evaluate how content-based instructions could help students

to be better at retaining the meaning of the words Ultimately, this will help improveEnglish learning and teaching at the institution

4 Research question

The study was conducted based on the hypothesis that the use of content-basedinstructions in teaching vocabulary helps students memorize vocabulary and wordmeanings better and more logically It aims at answering the following question:

How do content-based instructions help students at HCACT improve the

effectiveness of their vocabulary retention?

5 Scope of the study

There are various language activities that help students to retain vocabulary.However, within the limit of a minor thesis, this study focuses on the impact ofcontent-based instructions on students‟ vocabulary retention

This study was implemented with first year students of Hotel and RestaurantDepartment at HCACT whose English is at the elementary level and who are

working with the course book “May I help you” written by Yates (1997).

6 Methods of the study

To obtain the aims of the study, qualitative methods are used The data serving theresearch analysis and discussion were collected by means of classroom observation,diaries and results of 03 vocabulary tests

The observation lasted 06 weeks along the presentation and practice of a series ofvocabulary activities, exercises, and 03 vocabulary tests were given to measurestudents‟ retention of vocabulary Students‟ memorization of vocabulary was alsocontinuously monitored when content-based instructions were being in progress so

as to gather further evidence of the intervention‟s impacts

7 Organization of the thesis

This minor thesis is divided into three main parts

Part one, INTRODUCTION, presents the rationale, statement of the problem, aims, scope, methods and organization of the thesis The single research question is also

clearly stated here

Part two, DEVELOPMENT, consists of three chapters, namely Chapter one:Literature Review, Chapter two: Methodology, and Chapter three: Findings andImplications Part three is the CONCLUSIONS

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Vocabulary retention

1.1.1 What is vocabulary?

Vocabulary – the total number of words of a language – has long been proved toplay an important role in language Researchers and linguists say that nothing can

be conveyed in language if there is no involvement of vocabulary “When most of

us think about language, we first think about words” (Pyles & Algeo, 1990) Thus, itcannot be denied that vocabulary is an essential component of language

There are different definitions of vocabulary Each linguist gives his/her owndefinition of vocabulary depending on the criteria that s/he considers the mostimportant in terms of linguistics, semantics and lexicology Ur (1996, p.60) definesvocabulary as “ a new item of vocabulary may be a single word or may be more

than a single word, a compound of two or three words such as post office, in-law; and multi-word idioms such as call it a day, like father, like son Tạ Quang

mother-Hưng & Nguyễn Văn Độ (1994, p.23) focus on word meanings when they definewords as “small pieces of language which carry bits of meaning” They state that

“knowing many words does not guarantee a person will be able to speak a language,but not knowing enough words can prevent a person from effectively speaking orunderstanding a language” It is agreeably logical to say that the vocabulary of alanguage is all its words, compounds and idioms used to convey and receiveinformation in oral and written communication

1.1.2 What is involved in knowing a word?

Words are not isolated units of language, but fit into many interlocking systems andlevels Because of this, there are many things one needs to know about anyparticular word and there are many degrees of knowing (Nation, 2001)

There have been many definitions as to what it is exactly to “know” a word.Establishing exactly what it means to know a word is no easy task “Knowing” aword does not simply mean being able to recognize what it looks and sounds like orbeing able to give the word‟s dictionary definition Knowing a word by sight andsound and knowing its dictionary definition are not the same as knowing how to usethe word correctly and understanding it when it is heard or seen in various contexts(Miller & Gildea, 1987).

According to Nation (2001), knowing a word incorporates a large amount ofinformation It involves not only knowing its spelling, morphology, pronunciation,meaning, or the equivalent of the word in the learner‟s mother tongue but alsoknowing its collocations, part of speech, frequency, whether it is a lexical orfunctional word, its connotation, register, and even its homonym There is also theissue of the precision that we use a word, how quickly we understand a word, andhow well we understand and use words in different modes (e.g receptive,productive) and for different purposes (e.g formal vs informal occasions) (Beck &

Mc Keown, 1991; Nagy & Scott, 2000) In addition, it is important to consider howwell the students need to know a particular word in relation to their needs andcurrent level

Nagy and Scott (2000) identify several dimensions that describe the complexity ofwhat it means to know a word First, word knowledge is incremental, which meansthat readers need to have many exposures to words in different contexts before they

“know” it Second, word knowledge is multidimensional This is because manywords have multiple meanings (e.g a wise person; an herb) and serve differentfunctions in different sentences, texts, and even conversations Third, wordknowledge is interrelated in that knowledge of one word (e.g urban) connects toknowledge of other words (e.g suburban, urbanite, urbane)

With such a great amount of information attached to each word, it is impossible tosupply the student with all the available information at once A more gradual

process would be preferable Discussing the process of acquiring word knowledge,Herman (2003) states that understanding of word meanings is a long-term process,one that involves many encounters with both spoken and written words in varyingcontexts For example, the first encounter with a new word, a student stores inmemory some information about how the word fits into what he is reading Thisinformation is reinforced each time he sees or hears the word With each newencounter, the student picks up more information about the word from its use invarious contexts As a result, the student gradually acquires the knowledge of theword.

1.1.3 Traditional vocabulary teaching

Traditionally, vocabulary has not been a particular subject for students to learn, buthas been taught within lessons of speaking, listening, reading or writing During thelesson, students use their own vocabulary or are introduced new words bytranslations, transcriptions, or looking up in bilingual dictionaries to find meanings

or definitions when they encounter new words For many learners of English,whenever they think of vocabulary, they think of learning a list of words withmeanings in their native language without any practice in real contexts They mayeven write down lines of new words without any ideas of how these words areactually used

Take translation technique as an example Learners tend to find the equivalentwords in their own language through dictionaries or asking for teacher for themeaning of the new words In terms of vocabulary teaching, the focus of thistechnique differs from modern approaches in many ways For example, verbdeclensions are set out in tables, vocabulary lists are to be learnt, leading totranslation from mother tongue into target language and vice-versa Unfortunately, it

is sometimes difficult to find the equivalent one for L2 words as not every word hasdirect translation In addition, when learners recall word meaning, they often think

of the L1 meaning first rather than the L2 words At the same time, it is

assumed that language consists of written words and words that exist in isolation, asthough they were individual bricks that could be translated one by one into theforeign language Thus, this method gives learners the thought that language is just

a collection of words that are isolated and independent and there must be acorresponding word in the native tongue for each foreign word they learn Workingthis way, after a short period, many learners may find out that learning vocabulary

in lists or through translation does not satisfy themselves, and they think the causefor it is just their bad memory

Traditional instruction in dictionary use focuses on having students to look upwords and use information from the definition they find to write sentences Thiskind of instruction appears to produce only a superficial understanding and rapidforgetting of words Students may have difficulty in interpreting the information indefinitions and in choosing the appropriate meanings from a dictionary entry forunknown words

In sum, with such viewpoints, traditional methods are not good for vocabularyteaching as it exerts bad impacts on students‟ motivation Actually, working all daylong with nothing more than lists of words may lead to frustration, boredom andindiscipline This way of teaching does not give students fun or bring joys andprides in achievement but turned students to be bookworms and made them tired.The students seem passive to receive word meanings Therefore, they havedifficulties in remembering and recalling the words

1.1.4 Current vocabulary teaching

Since memorizing vocabulary plays a significant role in learning a foreignlanguage, teachers as well as researchers experiment different techniques to getstudents more involved in greater depth of processing which would result in bettervocabulary learning There are now theories of L2 vocabulary acquisition, a wideand growing range of teaching techniques available, and a greatly increased

awareness on the part of most teachers and learners of the importance of vocabularydevelopment Sokmen (1997) states “vocabulary knowledge in English is the mostimportant aspect of oral English proficiency for academic achievement”.

According to Harmer (2001), what a word means is often defined by its relationship

to other words It means that when studying a word, learners should not study it inisolation Deccarico (2001) also shares the view with Harmer when suggesting thatnew words should not be presented in isolation and should not be learned by simplememorization It is important that new vocabulary items be presented in contextsrich enough to provide clues to meaning and convenient for learners to study

In addition, another new discovery that plays an important part in making changes

in vocabulary teaching methods is the students‟ interaction with words.Experiments on vocabulary seem to suggest that students remember best when theyhave actually done something with the words they are learning (Gairns & Redman,1986) Teachers should have students do things with words so that they becomeacquainted with them Instead of teaching them new words, teachers can show themexamples of words in actions or in pictures and ask them to use their priorknowledge to work out what words can be used In other words, if teachers providethe right kind of exposure of words to the students and if we provide opportunitiesfor them to practice these words, then there is a good chance that students will learnand remember some or all of them

The current techniques in teaching vocabulary require efforts of both teachers andtheir students in fulfilling vocabulary activities The role of the teachers has beenchanged They are not only the information provider but also the guider andcontroller They have to prepare lessons carefully and think how to present the newitems and how to integrate the vocabulary instruction into language skills Forstudents, they have many opportunities to analyze words, practice with words anduse words in different contexts They may be more motivated in learningvocabulary

In addition to such findings, researchers as well as teachers try to investigate andsearch for new techniques and tools to improve vocabulary teaching in languageclasses Among these, there are studies on the application of multimedia, pictures,videos, games or other tools done by teachers and researchers all over the world andbringing about lots of good results For example, a comparative study on the effect

of multimedia annotation on L2 vocabulary acquisition done by Akbari (2008) hasyielded the conclusion that a video clip is more effective in teaching unknownwords than the traditional way Needless to say, recent studies have offered a greatvariety of vocabulary teaching techniques and tools, which are the bases for theassertion that methodology in vocabulary teaching has been changing; the roles ofteachers and students in language classes are no longer the same and teachers havebeen trying to make students more active in learning vocabulary

1.2 Vocabulary memorization in language learning

In fact, understanding how the memory works might help language teachers createmore effective ways to teach vocabulary (Moras, 2001) There are two types ofmemory These will be discussed as follows:

1.2.1 Short-term and long-term memory

At the most simple level, learning vocabulary is all about memory-processing andremembering new combinations of meaningful sounds and symbols to communicatewith a new speech community (Tracy, 1996)

Cognitive psychologists divide memory into short-term memory and long-termmemory according to duration of memory retention and capacity of recallinginformation after the original input According to Grains &Redman (1986, p.86), theshort-term memory corresponds approximately to the initial moment that an item isperceived It is characterized by the duration of memory retention from seconds tominutes and generally characterized as of strictly limited capacity and duration.Stored information can also be retrieved in a period of time, which ranges

from days to years; that is called long-term memory Unlike short-term memory,which is limited in capacity, long-term memory is seemingly inexhaustible and canaccommodate any amount of new information.

When learning L2, learners often have problems trying to retain words for a longtime They fail to put the words into long-term memory So, what could be done toenhance long-term retention? According to Jeffrey and Henry (2006), repeatedretrieval is considered “the key to enhancing later retention” Linda (2006) alsoshares the same view when she points out that “the most powerful and simpletechnique to improve retention is repetition” Decay theory has long constituted thatinformation will lose if it is not regularly activated, just as new words are forgotten

if they are not recycled in some way and made into long-term memory

In short, it is the memory process to receive, store and retrieve the new information.For language teachers, the main concern is to ensure that what is taught will bepermanently retained in long-term memory Therefore, classroom activities shouldtake these memory theories and facts into account in developing and facilitatingefficient retrieval systems

1.2.2 Major factors affecting word memorization

The findings of the cognitive research of Sharifian (2000) can provide teachers withinsights about the nature of memory and memory enhancement Sharifian states thatlearners are more likely to remember the items that they have generated in one-way

or another, either totally or partially, that the items they have just read ormemorized The retention for an item is also improved in memory when it is placedamong set of items that are semantically homogenous with each other but odds withthe new item Research has shown differences in comprehension and generalmemory for a text at different times of a day, too In that point, immediate recall andrecognition of sentences and texts involved more maintenance of superficiallinguistic forms in the morning and elaborative and integrative process in the

afternoon This means that in the morning the surface linguistics forms, which areusually retained in short-term memory for a limited period, are remembered better,while in the afternoon the semantic features, which are mainly retained in long-termmemory.

Grains and Redman (1986) show that learning new items involved storing them first

in the short-term memory and then in the long-term memory, and the long-termmemory can hold any amount of information They also suggest that “our mentallexicon” is highly organized and efficient, and that semantic related items are storedtogether Word frequency is another factor that affects storage, as the mostfrequently used items are easier to retrieve We can use this information in order toattempt and facilitate the learning process by grouping items of vocabulary insemantic fields such as topics” (p.37)

Research shows that if there is elaboration on the meaning, for exampleencountering the item in different contexts, subsequent retrieval is enhanced.Shallower processing is more sensory than semantic, remembering by seeing orhearing the item only This means the learner meets the item in only one contextthat is much more forgettable in the long term

1.3 Content-based instructions

1.3.1 What is Content-based instruction (CBI)?

The term content-based instruction is commonly used to describe approaches to

integrating language and content instruction, but it is not always used in the sameway For example, Crandall and Tucker (1990) define it as “ an approach tolanguage instruction that integrates the presentation of topics or tasks from subjectmatter classes (e.g., math, social studies) within the context of teaching a second orforeign language” (p 187) Curtain and Pesola (1994) use the term in a morerestricted way, limiting it to only those “ curriculum concepts being taught throughthe foreign language appropriate to the grade level of the students ”

In addition, Brinton, Snow, & Wesche (1989) claimed that content-based instruction(CBI) is a significant approach in language education It is designed to providesecond-language learners instruction in content and language Historically, the word

content has changed its meaning in language teaching Content used to refer to the

methods of grammar-translation, audio-lingual methodology and vocabulary orsound patterns in dialog form Recently, content is interpreted as the use of subjectmatter as a vehicle for second or foreign language teaching/learning

According to Brinton (2006) discipline-based language instruction, and the broader

"content-based" approach to which it belongs, are part of a trend at all educationallevels aiming at the development of use-oriented second and foreign language skills.Content-based language teaching is distinguished first of all by the concurrentlearning of a specific content and related language use skills in a "content driven"curriculum, i.e., with the selection and sequence of language elements determined

by the content

Content-based instruction (CBI) is a teaching method that emphasizes learning

about something rather than learning about language In recent years, content-based

instruction has become increasingly popular as a means of developing linguisticability Although CBI is not new, there has been an increased interest in it over thelast ten years, and it has proven very effective in ESL immersion programs Thisinterest has now spread to EFL classrooms around the world where teachers arediscovering that their students like CBI and are excited to learn English this way

Content-based instruction focuses not on the language itself, but rather on what isbeing taught through the language; that is, the language becomes the mediumthrough which something new is learned In the CBI approach the student learns thetarget language by using it to learn other new content The language being learnedand used is taught within the context of the content The theory behind CBI is thatwhen students are engaged with more content, it will promote intrinsic motivation

Students will be able to use more advanced thinking skills when learning newinformation and will focus less on the structure of the language This approach isvery student-centered as it depends entirely on the students‟ ability to use thelanguage.

1.3.2 Benefits of content-based instructions

Learners are exposed to a considerable amount of language through stimulatingcontent They explore interesting content & are engaged in appropriate language-dependant activities As a result, learning language becomes automatic CBI alsosupports contextualized learning; learners are taught useful language that isembedded within relevant discourse contexts rather than as isolated languagefragments Hence students make greater connections with the language & what theyalready know In content-based instructions, complex information is deliveredthrough real life context for the students to grasp well & leads to intrinsicmotivation Moreover, CBI information is reiterated by strategically deliveringinformation at right time & situation compelling the students to learn out of passion.Besides, greater flexibility and adaptability in the curriculum can be deployed as perthe student‟s interest

1.3.3 Comparison with other approaches

The CBI approach is comparable to English for Specific Purposes (ESP), whichusually is for vocational or occupational needs or English for Academic Purposes(EAP) The goal of CBI is to prepare students to acquire the language while usingthe context of any subject matter so that students learn the language by using itwithin the specific context Rather than learning a language out of context, it islearned within the context of a specific academic subject

As educators realized that in order to successfully complete an academic task,second language (L2) learners have to master both English as a language form

(grammar, vocabulary, etc.) and how English is used in core content classes, they

started to implement various approaches such as sheltered instruction and learning

to learn in CBI classes Sheltered instruction is more of a teacher-driven approachthat puts the responsibility on the teachers' shoulders This is the case by stressingseveral pedagogical needs to help learners achieve their goals, such as teachershaving knowledge of the subject matter, knowledge of instructional strategies tocomprehensible and accessible content, knowledge of L2 learning processes and theability to assess cognitive, linguistic and social strategies that students use to assurecontent comprehension while promoting English academic development Learning

to learn is more of a student-centered approach that stresses the importance ofhaving the learners share this responsibility with their teachers Learning to learnemphasizes the significant role that learning strategies play in the process oflearning In content-based instruction, motivation and interest are crucial insupporting student success with challenging, informative activities that supportsuccess and which help the student learn complex skills (Grabe & Stoller, 1997).When students are motivated and interested in the material they are learning, theymake greater connections between topics, elaborations with learning material andcan recall information better (Alexander, Kulikowich, & Jetton, 1994: Krapp, Hidi,

& Renninger, 1992) In short, when a student is intrinsically motivated, s/heachieves more This in turn leads to a perception of success, of gaining positiveattributes which will continue a circular learning pattern of success and interest.Krapp, Hidi and Renninger (1992) state, "situational interest, triggered byenvironmental factors, may evoke or contribute to the development of long-lastingindividual interests" (p 18) Because CBI is student-centered, one of its goals is tokeep students interested and motivation high by generating stimulating contentinstruction and materials

1.3.4 What does a content-based instruction lesson look like?

There are many ways to approach creating a CBI lesson This is one possible way

* Preparation

-Choose a subject of interest to students.

- Find three or four suitable sources that deal with different aspects of thesubject These could be websites, reference books, audio or video of lectures oreven real people

* During the lesson

- Divide the class into small groups and assign each group a small research task and a source of information to use to help them fulfill the task

- Then once they have done their research, they form new groups with students that used other information sources and share and compare their information

- Next, there should be some product as the end result of this sharing ofinformation which could take the form of a group report or presentation of somekind

1.4 Previous studies

A number of studies on vocabulary retention have been conducted Jahangard(2007) suggests that there is no statistically significant difference between thestudents‟ ability to memorize the technical and the general vocabulary In fact,memory efficiency for both types of vocabulary was found to be equal It seems thatthe pace of forgetting for both types of vocabulary is almost the same

The experiment conducted by Đỗ Thị Thu Hà (2007) aimed to investigate theimpact of language games on students‟ retention of ESP vocabulary at Nam ĐịnhCollege of Construction The quasi-experiment was conducted in 10 weeks with 100students in the two randomly assigned groups Three tests were administered andthe results of the tests were analyzed by using Paired Samples T-test andIndependent t-test The findings of the study indicated that language games madecontribution to students‟ ESP vocabulary retention Also, there was a distinction

between the strong students and the weak ones in the experimental group: the strongbecame better whereas the weak remained the same without any changes Moreover,each language game had different effects on participants Finally, the ignorance ofthe phonetic transcriptions and word stress resulted in unsuccessful retention ofwords Thus, teachers should take this information into account when presentingnew words in class.

Sharing the same idea, Akbari (2008) investigated the effectiveness of teachingvocabulary items through contextualization and pictures to elementary Iranian EFLstudents The experiment was divided into three almost homogeneous groups andreceived different treatments Vocabulary items were presented through pictures onegroup and in the other group they were used in contexts and model sentences In thecontrol group, the new words were presented through definitions and synonyms.The pretest was administered to determine if there were any significant differencesbetween the three groups The results showed that both picture and contextenhanced vocabulary development of the learners better than definitions andsynonyms did

These outcomes of previous studies can be regarded as valuable source of academicreferences for language teachers They prove that pictures enhance the learners‟memorization in vocabulary learning However, there have not many studies tomeasure the effectiveness of using content-based instructions In fact at HCACT, theuse of the above techniques in teaching and learning vocabulary has never beentaken seriously Therefore, this study is expected to be to find out how theapplication of CBI can improve vocabulary retention of students at HCACT

1.5 Summary

This chapter is an overview of literature related to the study The first section of thechapter reviews the concepts of vocabulary memorization The second part

discusses vocabulary memorization in language learning such as short-term and long-term memory, major factors affecting word memorization.

This chapter also briefly presents the definitions of content-based instructions, itsbenefits and a comparison with other approaches While CBI can be bothchallenging and demanding for the teacher and the students, it can also be verystimulating and rewarding The degree to which this approach is adopted may welldepend on the willingness of the students, the institution where the teacher worksand the availability of resources there

This chapter also presents a quick sketch of some previous related studies Themethodology and outcomes of previous studies concerning the use of pictorialillustration and language games in enhancing learners‟ vocabulary retention and arereviewed However, there have not many researches on the effectiveness of usingcontent-based instructions in teaching vocabulary Therefore, in this study, theauthor tries to do that work to add more information and result to confirm theeffectiveness of this method

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

This chapter is concerned with the methodology employed in the study, anddescribes the subjects and the data collection instruments

2.1 Research question re-stated

As stated in “Introduction”, the purpose of the study is to find out whether teachingvocabulary through content-based instructions helps the second year studentsmemorize vocabulary better The study aims to address the following question:

How do content-based instructions help students at HCACT improve the

effectiveness of their vocabulary retention?

2.2 Methodology

2.2.1 An action research process

According to Parsons and Brown (2002), an action research is a form ofinvestigation designed for use by teachers to attempt to solve problems and improveprofessional practices in their own classrooms It involves systematic observationsand data collection which can be then used by the practitioner-researcher inreflection, decision-making and the development of more effective classroomstrategies In Miller‟s point of view (2007), she claims that an action research is anatural part of teaching Teachers are continually observing students, collecting dataand changing practices to improve student learning and the classroom and schoolenvironment Action research provides a framework that guides the energies ofteachers toward a better understanding of why, when, and how students become

In generally, there are fives phases in an action research; First of all the researcherhas to select an area of focus or identify an area of interest The issue must beimportant to him/her, the program, his/her students The issue will be a problem thatneeds to be solved In the thesis, the author found that her students‟ vocabularyretention was always a problem, she thought deeply and wanted to take an action to

make the situation improving Next the researcher himself/ herself gives an actionplan which shows what strategies he/ she will implement and when he/she will dothem To the problem here the author observed the class and wrote a diary then shehad three vocabulary tests to check students‟ vocabulary size after the treatment in

06 weeks Collecting the data is the next phase Good data are directly related to thequestion, use more than one strategy or source of information for each question Thedata should be collected and monitored regularly When you are no longer learninganything new about your questions, it‟s time to stop collecting and start analyzingand interpreting data While doing this phase, the researcher has to analyze andinterpret these materials for understanding and action then determine the mostpromising actions The last stage of the research process is to share your findingsthat the researcher has found while doing the research Here the author shared fourfindings about the using content-based instructions in teaching vocabulary

In short, the author seeing that the design of an action research is the most practicaland feasible for her to conduct the present study

2.2.2 Participants

Participants in the study are 45 first-year students aged between 19 and 22 from theclass of NVDL K13, who major in Hotel and Restaurant studies at HCACT Theyhad completed the General English course and were learning ESP The textbook

used for this course was “May I help you”, a pre-intermediate course book, which

was written by Yates (1997)

2.2.3 Treatment

Words were presented to the classes for 6 weeks (60 periods in total) by means ofcontent-based instructions The presentation paid more attention to their contentthan the meaning, grammar, transcription and pronunciation of the vocabulary fromthe context For example, the author could give the class a text about herbs andspices, then divide the class into 4 groups and assign each group a small research

task to understand the 4 paragraphs of the text When finishing the task, studentsformed new group to share and compare their information After each lesson, thestudents had time to do activities and exercises guided by the teacher to check theirword memorization Three tests of vocabulary after every 2 weeks wereadministered in order to measure the improving students‟ vocabulary retention.

2.2.4 The teaching context

2.2.4.1 The teaching material

The teaching material is “May I help you”, a pre-intermediate course book, whichwas written by Yates (1997) In this book, speaking, listening skills and vocabularyare designed to be taught in an integrated manner in each lesson Vocabulary sectioncomprises approximately twenty percent of the whole lesson The teachers oftenspend from 25 to 35 minutes teaching vocabulary

The course book consists of 12 units In the second semester of the first year,students are scheduled to complete six units in 60 forty-five-minute periods Eachunit is organized and named after a particular topic such as jobs, food and drinks,kitchen utensils, etc

As stated above, the intervention involved vocabulary teaching to 45 students fromclass of TCNVDL K13 The vocabulary teaching plan was set up on the basis of thetextbook in use There were 12 vocabulary lessons which were scheduled asfollows: