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

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

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

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

học sinh lớp 9 tại một trường THCS ở Hà Nội

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

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

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

học sinh lớp 9 tại một trường THCS ở Hà Nội

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

Supervisor: Dr Trần Thị Thu Hiền

Hanoi – 2018

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

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

of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, and this thesishas not been submitted for any other degrees

Ha Noi, August 2018

Dương Thị Hương

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

Furthermore, I would like to express my sincere thanks to all my lecturers atthe Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, University of Languages and InternationalStudies for their valuable lectures which have helped me a great deal in gaining alot of theoretical as well as practical knowledge

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

in the experimental teaching by using sense relations

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

me to complete this thesis

Vietnamese students often face difficulties in learning vocabulary They fail

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

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

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

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

LIST OF FIGURES, CHARTS AND TABLES

Figure 1.1: Example of hyponymy relation

Chart 3.1: Frequency Distribution of Pre-test

Chart 3.2: Frequency Distribution of Post-test

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

Table 3.1: Students‘ habits of vocabulary learning at home

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

LIST OF FIGURES, CHARTS AND TABLES

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the study

2 Aims and objectives of the study

3 Research Questions

4 Scope of the study

5 Significance of the study

6 Methods of the study

7 Organization of the study

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW .

1.1 Vocabulary

1.1.1 Definition

1.1.2 The importance of vocabulary

1.1.3 Types of vocabulary

1.2 Vocabulary teaching

1.2.1 Vocabulary teaching process

1.2.2 Techniques in teaching vocabulary

1.2.2.1 Visual techniques

1.2.2.2 Verbal techniques

1.3 Vocabulary learning

1.3.1 Vocabulary acquisition process

1.3.2 Vocabulary learning strategies

1.4 Sense relations 13

1.4.1 Types of sense relations 13

1.4.1.1 Synonymy 13

1.4.1.2 Antonymy 13

1.4.1.3 Hyponymy 14

1.4.1.4 Polysemy and homonymy 15

1.4.1.5 Meronymy 16

1.4.1.6 Attributive relation 17

1.4.1.7 Instrumental relation 17

1.4.1.8 Place relation 17

1.4.1.9 Other kinds of sense relations 17

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

1.6 Chapter summary 19

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 21

2.1 The research setting 21

2.1.1 Research site 21

2.1.2 English textbooks 21

2.2 Participants 22

2.2.1 The teacher 22

2.2.2 Students 22

2.3 Methods of the study 22

2.3.1 Action research 21

2.3.2 Action plan 21

2.4 Data collection instruments 27

2.4.1 The tests 27

2.4.2 The questionnaire 28

2.4.3 The interviews 30

2.5 Data collection procedure 31

2.6 Chapter summary 31

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 32

3.1 The tests 32

3 2 The questionnaire 34

3 3 The interviews 36

3.3.1 The pre-interview 36

3.3.2 The post-interview 37

3.4 Chapter summary 40

PART THREE: CONCLUSION 41

1 Recapitulation 41

2 Pedagogical implications 41

3 Limitations of the study 43

4 Suggestions for further studies 44

REFERENCES

APPENDICES

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the study

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

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

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

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

It is clear that finding out the suitable techniques of vocabulary teaching plays acrucial role in helping students acquire vocabulary Therefore, teaching vocabularyhas become one of the common research subjects in English language studiesrecently These days, the academics are comparing the previous methods of teachingvocabulary with the latest ones to find more effective ways One of these popularcomparisons has been made in the context of representing a new vocabulary item insemantically related and semantically unrelated sets Moreover, some studiesindicate that learning vocabulary through using sense relations has become cruciallyimportant for foreign language learners because teachers can easily engage theirstudents in the class and help them remember new words quickly As an Englishteacher, the researcher realizes that teachers often have difficulty in teaching theirstudents to learn vocabulary effectively The fact is that the vocabulary acquisition

of most Vietnamese students is quite low The reason for this

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

Generally, teaching students to master vocabulary is not an easy task for alllanguage teachers Therefore, the researcher thinks that using sense relations such assynonyms, hyponyms, etc., is one of the effective tools for teaching English inparticular and teaching foreign languages in general This can help learners easilyremember the words that they learnt Moreover, using sense relations could makelessons become more interesting and engaging From the reasons above, the authorwould like to carry out a research about ―the effects of using sense relations onvocabulary learning‖

2 Aims and objectives of the study

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

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

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

3 Research Questions

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

 Do sense relations improve students‘ English vocabulary at the 9th grade students at a secondary school?

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

4. Scope of the study

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

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

5 Significance of the study

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

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

contributions In terms of theoretical contributions, this thesis will be served as areliable and useful reference material about using sense relations in teachingvocabulary for other readers and researchers in their further studies on relatedsubjects For the practical contributions, the findings and results of the research aresignificant to both teachers and students because using sense relations helps learnersacquire vocabulary effectively and easily This is one of the most useful techniquesthat teachers should make use of to facilitate their students‘ learning

6 Methods of the study

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

7 Organization of the study

The study is divided into three parts as follows:

 Part 1: Introduction

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

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

 Part 2: Development

 Chapter 1: Literature review

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

 Chapter 2: Methodology

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

 Chapter 3: Findings and discussions

This chapter presents the major findings and discussions from the

students‘ pre-test and post-test, the questionnaire and interviews

 Part 3: Conclusion

This part provides a summary of the key findings, implications,

limitations, and future suggestions for further study

4

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

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

1.1 Vocabulary

1.1.1 Definition

In everyday life, we say something, express our feelings and tell what we want tosay All the things need the words, and these words are called vocabulary.Vocabulary plays an important role in improving our skills in English It becomesone of aspects for improving communication skill Without having enough words,communication will end up in unpleasant situation and make the students difficult tocontinue their sentences or ideas Therefore, it is highly essential for Englishteachers to help their students master vocabulary

There are a variety of definitions of vocabulary Pyles (1970) asserts that vocabulary

is the focus of language with its sounds and meaning, which interlock to allow us tocommunicate with one another What is more, vocabulary can be defined as words

in a specific language or freestanding items of language that have meanings(McCarthy, 1990) Ur (1996) defines vocabulary roughly as ―the words we teach

in the foreign language‖ Vocabulary was one of language components, whichsupports the teaching and learning of the four language skills of reading, listening,speaking and writing As the language component, vocabulary must be taught in aproper way Moreover, vocabulary can be broadly defined as knowledge of wordsand word meanings (Lehr et al., 2004) Lehr and his colleagues state that vocabulary

is more sophisticated than this definition Firstly, words not only come in oral formsbut also in print forms Secondly, vocabulary also comes in two forms: receptiveand productive Receptive words refer to words that can be recognized in readingand listening Productive words are words used in speaking and writing

(Lehr et.al., 2004).

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

1.1.2 The importance of vocabulary

When it comes to the importance of vocabulary, Krashen (1989) shows that ―alarge vocabulary is, of course, essential for mastery of a language‖ as ―withoutvocabulary, nothing can be conveyed‖ (Wilkins, 1972) Rubin and Thompson (1994)demonstrate that ―one cannot speak, understand, read or write a foreign languagewithout knowing a lot of words.‖ Nguyen and Khuat (2003) also assert thatvocabulary knowledge plays an important role in learning a foreign language Infact, vocabulary is a means to help learners communicate well Thus, they shouldhave an adequate numbers of words to support communication It is an importantcomponent of language instruction In order that learners can communicate withother people well in a certain foreign language, they should acquire an adequatenumber of words and know how to use them correctly When referring to theimportance of vocabulary in communication, Della and Hocking (1992) also statethat with a little grammar, learners can have a little smooth communication, butwithout vocabulary, it is difficult for others to understand the information that theywant to express Therefore, knowing words and how to use them in suitable contextsare more important than grammar rules "When students travel, they do not carrygrammar books, they carry dictionaries"(Krashen as cited in Lewis, 1993:25) Asdiscussed above, vocabulary plays a crucial role in language learning to sustainother language skills, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing

1.1.3 Types of vocabulary

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

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

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

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

1.2 Vocabulary teaching

1.2.1 Vocabulary teaching process

In general, vocabulary is a matter of remembering, unlike e.g learning grammar,which is a system based mainly on rules Thornbury (2004) states that in order toteach vocabulary effectively as possible, it is important to know, how words areremembered and stored in students‘ minds and how long term memory is organized.Some researchers agree that vocabulary is stored in the mind in a highly organizedand complex web-like system, the so-called ‗mental lexicon‘ In the mental lexicon,words are stored, categorized and interconnected in many ways, according to theirfeatures such as meaning, form, collocation, syntactic properties, culturalbackground As a result, a word being retrieved is looked up through severalpathways at once, which is extremely economical in terms of time needed (Gairnsand Redman: 1992; McCarthy: 1992; Thornbury: 2004) One of the most importantroles of language teachers is to help their students find the easiest way of conveyingnew information into the already existing system of the mental lexicon (Thornbury2004: 93) Besides, students need to acquire the ability to store the information for

as long as possible

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

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

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

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

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

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

of the new term

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

their own words

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

representation of the term

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

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

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

to discuss and refine entries

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

allow them to play with terms

1.2.2 Techniques in teaching vocabulary

There are a variety of techniques that can be used in teaching vocabulary and

teachers need to know how to use various techniques in presenting vocabulary to

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

b Mime and gestures

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

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

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

1.2.2.2 Verbal techniques

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

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

a Synonyms

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

b Antonyms

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

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

c Definition

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

d Collocations

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

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

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

e Translation

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

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

1.3 Vocabulary learning

1.3.1 Vocabulary acquisition process

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

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

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

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

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

to the word used in different situations

1.3.2 Vocabulary learning strategies

When it comes to vocabulary learning, Nation develops a general classification ofvocabulary learning strategies (Nation, 2001) The first one is planning vocabularylearning, i.e to choose words Learners should know what their vocabulary goalsare and choose what vocabulary to focus on in terms of their selected goals.Moreover, they should also have a clear strategy for deciding what vocabulary tofocus on and where to find this vocabulary When learning vocabulary, choosingcertain aspects of a word (usually meaning but for listening and writing, the form ofword is also essential to pay attention to) to focus on and using various strategiescan make the learning process become better The second vocabulary learningstrategy is sources In order to cope with new vocabulary when it occurs and tolearn unfamiliar vocabulary, learners have to be able to get information about thewords Analyzing word parts is a useful strategy, because being familiar with thestems and affixes can provide useful for seeing connections between related words,checking guesses from context, strengthening form and meaning connections, and insome cases working out the meaning of a word Meanwhile, consulting referencesources properly and using parallels can also be helpful in vocabulary acquisition.The third vocabulary learning strategy is processes, which is establishingvocabulary knowledge It involves ways of remembering vocabulary and making itavailable for use Noticing is a widely used way of recording vocabulary, and it can

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

of learning process

1.4 Sense relations

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

of a word (its content)

1.4.1 Types of sense relations

Sense relations show the relationship between words and their meaning According

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

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

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

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

different collocations, so they cannot interchangeable in some contexts

1.4.1.2 Antonymy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1.4.1.3 Hyponymy

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

Fruit

Figure 1.1: Example of hyponymy relation

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

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

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

1.4.1.4 Polysemy and homonymy

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

do different words have different meanings but it is also the case that the samewords may have a set of different meanings‖ Therefore, the two terms are closed toeach other therefore the learner should pay attention in distinguishing betweenthem

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

written word) and homophones (senses of the same spoken word) Knowing a

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

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

pronunciation but different meanings

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

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

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

O‘Grady (1987:270) stated that ―polysemy and homonymy create lexicalambiguity in that the single form has two or more meanings‖ For example, the word

ruler in this sentence ― The ruler is straight.‖ can create ambiguity because we do not know whether ruler refers to an instrument used to draw a line or a leader Similarly, the word bank in the sentence ―I went to the bank with my boyfriend

yesterday.‖ also creates ambiguity

1.4.1.5 Meronymy

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

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

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

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

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

or may not be A transitive example is that nail is a meronym of finger, and finger ofhand We can see that nail is a meronym of hand, because we can say ―A hand

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

1.4.1.6 Attributive relation

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

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

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

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

1.4.1.7 Instrumental relation

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

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

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

138)

1.4.1.8 Place relation

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

1.4.1.9 Other kinds of sense relations

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

1.4.2 Advantages of using sense relations in teaching and learning vocabulary

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

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

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

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

in vocabulary teaching and learning

1.5 Previous studies

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

as synonymy, hyponymy, etc or not although sense relations are what are neededfor understanding new words

Tinkham (1993) suggested that learning semantically related groups of words(which directly descend from a common superordinate) together interfered withactual learning of the words He emphasized that when learners were given a list ofwords that share a common superordinate, they learned more slowly than words notsharing a superordinate Waring (1997) who replicated Tinkham‘s experimentalstudy also obtained the same results

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

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

Moreover, there are some other researchers who have emphasized the importance ofusing sense relations in teaching and learning vocabulary Elgizoli (2014) conductedstudy on investigating the use of lexical semantic relations to promote vocabularyinstructions at 3rd grade secondary school level in Sudan One of the most importantfindings that he suggested was that teachers tended to use some sense relations such

as synonymy and antonymy more than some others Besides, most of the studentsclaimed that ‗synonymy and antonymy‘ were the easiest part of the test althoughthey achieved poorly in these two parts of the test A similar study was conducted byMabrook (2011) The major and the most important findings of his research indicatethat the students‘ textbook is lacking of lexis usage; therefore, the students are notable to distinguish between suffixes and prefixes, also they are weak at wordrelations such as synonyms and antonyms and the study proved their effectiveness

He recommended that the teachers should provide students with multiple exposures

to words meaning‘ in multiple contexts and the current curriculum in Saudi Arabiashould consist of suffixes, prefixes, synonyms , antonyms , homonyms , to help thestudents to make coherent sentences In Vietnam, Ngoc Thuy (2014) conducted astudy on the effects of semantic mapping on vocabulary memorizing The results ofthis study indicated that semantic mapping can help to improve students‘vocabulary retention and the students had positive attitudes towards semanticmapping

Generally, all of the studies above mainly examine the effectiveness of the use oflexical semantic relations compared to the use of semantically unrelated ones onteaching and learning vocabulary In the present study, the researcher wants toexplore the effects of lexical semantic relations on students‘ vocabulary learning inher context and propose some possible suggestions on the use of sense relations toteach vocabulary effective

1.6 Chapter summary

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

of vocabulary teaching and learning: vocabulary definitions, its importance, typesand techniques in teaching vocabulary Moreover, it also provides a review of senserelations that contains the definition and different types such as synonyms,antonyms or hyponyms, their advantages and a review of previous studies related tothe present study.

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

Chapter 2 aims at providing a detailed discussion of methodological design of thestudy including research context and participants, methods, data collectioninstruments and data analysis

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

2.1 The research setting

2.1.1 Research site

The study was conducted at a secondary school, Thach That District, Hanoi City.This secondary school, which is situated in a rural district- Thach That- of HanoiCity, was established in 1960 There are about seventy teachers and staffs with fourEnglish teachers The school has over 900 students divided into thirty seven classes:nine six-grade classes, nine seven-grade classes, ten eight-grade classes and ninenine-grade classes

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

2.1.2 English textbooks

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

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

2.2.2 Students

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

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

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

is limited

2.3 Methods of the study

In this research, both quantitative research and qualitative research are flexiblyadapted in order to be suitable for context and target of this study The researcheruses the student‘s questionnaire and the teacher‘s pre-interview to investigatestudents‘ ways of vocabulary learning and the teacher‘s teaching techniques in order

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

2.3.1 Action research

The research method which is applied in this study is action research The reasonwhy the researcher chose this approach is that the aim of the study was to improvethe current situation - students‘ vocabulary knowledge and in order to givepedagogical implications for both teachers and students in their vocabulary teachingand learning Taking everything into consideration, it was believed that actionresearch was the most appropriate approach in the study

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

Firstly, action research is a ―small- scale intervention in the functioning of the realworld and a close examination of the effects of such intervention.‖ (Cohen &Manion, 1994) The aim of action research is to improve the current state of affairswithin the educational context in which the research is being carried out To put inanother word, it involves ―small-scale intervention‖ when a specific problem isidentified; specific actions are implemented to bring about the changes andsolutions to solve the problems The specific problem in this study is that thestudents have low vocabulary ability

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Figure 1: Action research cycle (Nunan, 1992)

As can be seen in the diagram above, the process starts with the initiation, meansthat the researcher attempts to identify the problem area This is followed by

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

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

STEP 2: PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION

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