Supporting young learners’ vocabulary through pictures an action research approach

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES *********************DƯƠNG THU TRANG SUPPORTING YOUNG LEARNERS’ VO

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

DƯƠNG THU TRANG

SUPPORTING YOUNG LEARNERS’ VOCABULARY THROUGH PICTURES: AN ACTION RESEARCH

APPROACH

(Hỗ trợ việc học từ vựng của học sinh bằng tranh ảnh)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

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

DƯƠNG THU TRANG

SUPPORTING YOUNG LEARNERS’ VOCABULARY THROUGH PICTURES: AN ACTION RESEARCH

APPROACH

(Hỗ trợ việc học từ vựng của học sinh bằng tranh ảnh)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Lê Văn Canh

HANOI - 2019

I would like to express my gratitude to all people who gave a hand withgiving me the chances to complete this thesis

First of all, I would like to show my deep appriciation to my supervisor, Prof

Lê Văn Canh for his worth advice, careful instruction and endless encouragementduring my time of conducting this thesis

Secondly, it is my lecturers in the Faculty of Post – graduate Studies, theUniversity of Foreign Languages and International Studies that gave me variousbeneficial lecturers motivating me to investigate my own teaching situation to reach

a more professional level

Thirdly, I would like to send my thanks to all the teachers and students at thechosen English center in hanoi for being willing to join my research for eightweeks

Finally, my family and friends are the people I would like to show mygenuine appriciation Without their support and encouragement, I could not havecompleted this thesis due to daily life routine

Vocabulary is one the most important elements in English acquisition.Without words, human cannot express their ideas, feelings or thoughts In thechosen English center in Hanoi, teaching and learning is paid attention to with aview to improve the students‟ English acquisition and one of the major concernhere is vocabulary teaching and learning through images of young learners Toexplore how images support young learners‟ vocabulary acquisition, the study wascarried out among forty 2th grade students for eight weeks with six units in theirbooks They were divided equally into two groups and each one was taught in twodifferent ways of vocabulary teaching: one with traditional method – the translationmethod while the other by using pictures The classroom observations and testswere instruments to collect the data for the research After the treatment time, theresults showed that the experimental group gained higher scores by using pictures tolearn vocabulary and the classroom atmosphere was vey comfortable and ludicwhile the control group obtained not as good results as the experimental one It can

be inferred from the results that images make a greater dedication to enhancing notonly young learners‟ vocabulary acquisition but also their motivation in Englishlearning than not using them

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF CHARTS vi

LIST OF TABLES vii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Method of the study 2

4 Significance of the study 2

6 Structure of the thesis 2

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

2.1 Vocabulary knowledge 4

2.2 Approaches to vocabulary learning and teaching 4

2.3 The role of images in vocabulary learning 6

2.4 Teaching vocabulary to young learners 9

2.4.1 Characteristics of young learners 9

2.4.2 Techniques of teaching vocabulary to young learners 12

2.5 Studies on teaching vocabulary to young learners through pictures 15

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 19

3.1 Action research in language teaching 19

3.1.1 Purposes of action research 19

3.1.2 Features of action research 20

3.1.3 Steps in action research 21

3.2 Why is action research chosen? 21

3.3 The context of the study 22

3.3.1 The current situation of teaching and learning English at the center 22

3.3.2 The teaching program and materials 23

3.4 Research procedures 23

3.4.1 Research question 23

3.4.2 The participants 24

3.4.3 Design of the procedures 24

3.5 Data collection instruments 28

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 30

4.1 Analysis on classroom observations 30

4.1.1 Interest 30

4.1.2 Interaction 33

4.2 Analysis on test results 35

4.2.1 Analysis on immediate tests 35

4.2.2 Analysis on delayed tests 38

4.3 Discussion of the findings 39

CHAPTER 5: RECAPITULATION 42

1 Conclusion 42

2 Implications 43

3 Limitations and recommendations for further studies 43

REFERENCES 45

APPENDICES I APPENDIX 1 I APPENDIX 2 IV APPENDIX 3 VIII

APPENDIX 4 IX APPENDIX 5 X APPENDIX 6 XII

LIST OF CHARTS

Chart 4.1: Students‟ interest in learning activities 30Chart 4.2: Classroom interaction 34Chart 4.3: The students‟ mean score of immediate tests‟ average mark 37

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Characteristics of young learners……… 12Table 3.1 Design of the study……… 33Table 4.1: The two groups‟ results of six immediate tests Error! Bookmark not defined.

Table 4.2:The two groups‟ results of two delayed tests 38

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

English is playing a more and more major role in various sectors in native speaking English countries Therefore, it is not hard to realize that it is nowone of the most widely – learned foreign language which is taught in Vietnam As it

non-is noted, Englnon-ish teaching and learning include four skills: speaking, lnon-istening,reading and writing, and of these mentioned skills, Vietnamese students are making

an endeavor to master communicative competence – which is “speaking” Language

is a tool for communication Communication exists where there appears speech.Without speech, a language will have an intention to become a mere script.According to Chaney, speaking is “"the process of building and sharing meaningthrough the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts" (Chaney,1998: 13) To master speaking is to put words under control, which helps listenerscompletely understand what speakers mean “If language structures make up theskeleton of language, then it is vocabulary that provides the vital organs and theflesh.” (Harmer 1993: 153) The acquisition of an adequate vocabulary is necessaryfor successful second language use because without an extensive vocabulary, it isdifficult to apply the structures and functions into comprehensible communication

It leads to the fact that vocabulary is regarded as a cornerstone which contributes tothe existence of a language Speaking will become senseless if it has only structures

„„When students travel, they don‟t carry grammar books, they carry dictionaries‟‟(Krashen, as cited in Lewis, 1993, p25) Many researchers argue that vocabulary isone of the most important-if not the most important- components in learning aforeign language, and foreign language curricula must reflect this Nowadays, therehave existed more and more concerns about vocabulary acquisition, even thoughthese two (acquisition of grammar) are independent Vocabulary is like vital organs,and grammar skeleton of a language For this reason, English teachers have to beable to put teaching and learning activities in the right order and use materials withappropriate technique to help learners master the lesson expertly, especiallyvocabulary in long – term memory

As an English teacher in 2nd grade at an English center using English textbook written by Ministry of Education and Training, the author considers teachingvocabulary as a major concern because at the age of seven, students are not able toremember all the words they have learned in class by writing and reading Theeasiest way I have experimented for them to put new words in mind is visualization,especially pictures Hence, it is urgent for me to understand how much pictures canbring a good result for students in learning vocabulary.

2 Aims of the study

The goal of this study is to find out how using pictures in teaching influencesyoung learners‟ learning English vocabulary at an English center

The results of the research will suggest practical tips for English teachers inteaching vocabulary to young learners To get the above aim for the study, theresearcher attempts to give answers for the following research question:

How does using pictures in teaching vocabulary support the young learners‟vocabulary learning?

3 Method of the study

Given the purpose of the study, an action research design was used Theresearch was conducted with forty 2th grade students who were studying English in

my class

4 Significance of the study

The findings of the thesis may serve as useful information for applyingsuitable ways in teaching vocabulary fruitfully at primary school

5 Scope of the study

The study only focuses on the problem that my students have in absorbingand remembrance of new words in English Also, the participants are the students in

my 2nd grade at an English center in Hanoi

6 Structure of the thesis

Chapter I: Introduction presents the rationale, aims, methodology, significance and

scope of the study

Chapter 2: Literature review– The first part provides some theoretical aspects of

vocabulary teaching and the second part of this chapter is about teaching vocabulary

to young learners through pictures

Chapter 3: Methodology - in this chapter, the introduction of research method

including research questions, data collection instruments are presented

Chapter 4: Data analysis and discussion show the procedure of carrying on the

research and presents the data analysis result from classroom observation and tests will be analyzed and discussed to reveal the answers to the research question

Chapter 5: Conclusion, which is the last chapter, followed by references is the

summary of the whole study The limitations of the study and suggestions for

further studies are also recommended

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, relevant literature will be considered in an attempt to create atheoretical framework for the study

The first section of this chapter is aimed at theoretical aspects of vocabularyacquisition and the role of images in vocabulary learning while the second onefocuses on teaching vocabulary to young learners through pictures

2.1 Vocabulary knowledge

Knowing a word means knowing its form, meaning and use The form iscomposed of the spelling, the pronunciation, and the grammtical features or parts ofspeech (i.e., whether the word is a verb or a noun) of the word Law (2017) explainsthat that learning vocabulary is a sequence that moves from learning to recogniseand produce the sound of a word, to learning the meaning of the word, and thenhow to develop the representation of the word and generalise the word correctly.This is true to young learners‟ learning English vocabulary in an EFL context likeVietnam

2.2 Approaches to vocabulary learning and teaching

According to Nation (2007), there are four strands in vocabulary learning.The first strand is meaning-focused input In this strand, learners learn vocabularyincidentally through listening and reading (input) The second strand is calledmeaning-focused output, i.e learning vocabulary through speaking and writingtasks The third strand is form-focused instruction, and the last strand is fluencydevelopment In this strand, learners learn vocabulary either by repeating learnedwords or by usung the known words in a variety of contexts Details of these strandsare below

Firstly, meaning – focused input is the way of vocabulary learning throughlistening and reading and this is the most popular way accounting for first languagevocabulary learning Learning will be more effective if learners pay more attention

to unknown words on encountering them in deliberate learning strand (form –

focused instruction) or using dictionaries to look them up or highlighting them inthe text Learning incidentally by listening and reading is a cumulative process andrequires learners to meet the words many times to retain them.

Secondly, meaning – focused output is an essential way to put receptiveknowledge into productive knowledge There exist a lot of ways to help learnersgain successful vocabulary learning through productive skills such as activities ofstimulating to use new vocabulary (through pictures or definitions), speaking ingroups or using partly known words to speak and write

Thirdly, form – focused instruction (deliberate vocabulary teaching/learning)

is considered as the most effective way for the EFL learners to study vocabulary whilethe first strand – meaning – focused input is very popular for a native speaker With thisstrand, learners are advised to retrieve, not recognize, the words and strengthen therelation between the form and meaning of the word They can also learn by using agroup of 15 or 20 cards to recall the words or lexical chunks or avoiding interference(words that have similar spelling or have related meaning) or avoiding serial learning(cards of the words that are shuffled) If conducted properly, this strand will lead ro aquick and long – term expansion of vocabulary size

Fourthly, fluency – focused work with vocabulary means using the alreadyknown words to move them into reality in a faster way This strand believe that anumber of familiar material will be utilized to concentrate on the message andpreformance at a higher level at a faster speed There are two general paths tofluency development: the first one is repetition to set up good conditions to learn thewords and the second one aims at developing a well – ordered system of vocabularywhich means any words can be accessed in a variety of ways

Each of the above strands contributes to learners‟ various opportunities forstudying and establishes favorable environment for vocabulary learning However,form – focused instruction is the widely – used method by leaners and teachers andthis is used most in classroom In fact, learners themselves are not interested inlooking for chances to set up a firm ground of language proficiency by four basic

skills (listening, reading, speaking and writing) As a result, the level of fluencydevelopment might be a sad story because of the lack of practice In general,teachers‟ vocabulary learning program should be based on the four strands to ensurethat learners are able to grasp all the aspects of words in an explicit way.

2.3 The role of images in vocabulary learning

Vocabulary is very important because it is the basic unit of language Withoutvocabulary, one is not able to communicate effectively or express what he/shewants, which means a barrier to learners Therefore, to strengthen, retain andexpand one‟s vocabulary, there have existed various ways to learn vocabulary likeusing music for memorization, analyzing word‟s root, using context clues, etc.However, one of the most popular way is to use pictures in vocabulary learning.According to Andrew Wright (1989: 20), “picture is not just an aspect of method butthrough its representation of place, object, and people, it is essential part of theoverall experience” By seeing pictures, learners are able to see people, things andplaces from everywhere and at a lot of moments of time, from ancient times to thefuture‟s perspective The use of pictures can bring much more efficiency becauselearners are easy to recall and remember words through images

According to Andrew Wright mentioned by John Spead (1988: 12), there areeight types of pictures for vocabulary learning:

- Pictures of single object

- Pictures of person (picture of famous person or people in action)

- Pictures of places

- Pictures from history

- Pictures with information

- Pictures of fantasies

- Pictures of the news

- Pictures of maps and symbols

With the description of types of pictures above, teachers and learners will usethem in an effective way to gain large and long – lasting vocabulary Also, from themeaning and types of pictures, it is easy to find out their roles for vocabularylearning:

- Pictures can give learners motivation to pay attention to and participate inlessons They are useful for introducing grammatical and vocabulary items,allowing for meaning practice of vocabulary and structures presented by teachersand revising words form one lesson to another in the long – run Harmer (2001:

134) says that “Teachers have always used pictures or graphics – whether drawn,taken from books, newspapers and magazines, or photographs – to facilitate

learning” Both teachers and learners show their attitudes that using pictures canmake teaching and learning vocabulary more enjoyable and memorable Pictureshelp learners not only with concrete words but also with abstract in some cases byassociating the words with concrete things that make them easier to remember.Harmer (2001:135) notes that “one of the most appropriate use for pictures is forpresenting and checking of meaning An easy way of explaining the meaning of theword airplane, for example, is to have a picture of one.” On the other hand, imageslink learners to the mentioned topic by teachers and thanks to them, learners canidentify events, experiences, facts and connect them with their daily life

- Pictures make a dedication to the context where learners use the language.They provide a sense of the context of the language and give a specific stimulus forusing the language at the reproduction and manipulation phases in speaking, readingand writing According to Allford (2000), pictures supply information about targetlanguage society and culture or Nelson and Casatno (1984) stated that theemployment of images may be the same function as words – in – context As aresult, learners can choose suitable words for the context But in some cases, wordsand images are different from each other in “specific associative meaning” but theystill “share common representation at the conceptual level” (Nelson and Castano,1984:3) Therefore, the words should be integrated with other information andconnected to different contexts using their already knowledge to form connectionbetween the first language and the foreign one in order to construct and expressdiscourse (Allford, 2000; Mayer and Slims, 1994)

- Pictures can be described in an objective way (for example, “This is a car”),

or in an interpreted one (for instance, “This is an Italian car”) or responded tosubjectively (“I love going around by car”)

These roles of images in vocabulary learning are likely to match themultimodal perspective, which has been used a lot in language teaching andlearning Modality means interactive way between sense – organ and outsideenvironment Multimodality is an interdisciplinary approach, which includes verbaland written language, pictures, space, graphics and other resources constructingmeaning This leads to the evolution for establishing the ground for conductingresearch studies on the language‟s functions and study on vocabulary learningbased on images is one of them Language is a closed system which means languageitself can be explained by using other languages or explained with images that must

be explained with language (Smith, 2006) During the mid – 20th century, newtechnologies like photography, audiotape and video have made differences in theway information is conveyed, perceived and understood It has been proved thatusing various models will help learners make progresses in her/his perception onlearning process, which means they are more attentive towards the language.Sankey, Birch and Gardiner (2010: 853) stated that “"significant increases inlearning can be accomplished through the informed use of visual and verbalmultimodal learning" and "students may feel more comfortable and perform betterwhen learning in environments that cater for their predominant learning style" And

so can the vocabulary learning through pictures Mayer (2003:307) declares that

“students learn more deeply from a combination of words and pictures than fromwords alone; known as the, multimedia effect" In English vocabulary teaching withMultimodal Theory, teachers should focus on language, pictures, images, soundsand the alike when teaching new words If they are brought into use fully, thelearners‟ difficulty in learning new words will be lower The words are not onlypresented with written forms but also with illustrated supplements like images.Zarei and Khazaie (2011) studied on how Iranian learners of the English languagelearn English vocabulary using laptop based delivery of multimodal items All

participants were the ones enrolling in EFL classes and were divided into fourdifferent short term memory ability groups, using the Visual and Verbal Short TermMemory Test according to their low or high level of visual and verbal abilities Atthe end of the experiment, they were assessed on their recognition and recall ofvocabulary items In the end, the groups which were given words through pictures

or written annotations had better results on the tests Hall, Bailey, and Tillman(1997) conducted an experiment on three groups: one receiving text withillustrations, another with text alone and the last one with creating their ownillustrations After tested, the results turned out that there was no significantdifference between the first and the last groups which were provided withillustrations or creation of their own visual They even did better than the onehaving the text only

In general, learning vocabulary through pictures has brought a lot of goodresults to learners and it is also a part of the Multimodal Theory in improving theeffectiveness and efficiency of learners‟ mastering vocabulary in the trend ofmodern language teaching and learning

2.4 Teaching vocabulary to young learners

2.4.1 Characteristics of young learners

For a long time, children have been considered as natural language learners

in a good saying They have a lot of differences in absorbing language aspects incomparison with adults because of their language learning without any anxiety,especially when they learn English as a foreign language Therefore, it is veryimportant to fully understand the characteristics of young learners in order to drawout the appropriate methods for teaching them The characteristics of young learnersare classified into three aspects, including: physical aspect, social aspect andpsychological aspect

At the first glance, physical side emerges as the apparently – seen feature ofyoung learners Young learners usually possess limited motor skills, have fewlanguage capabilities and lack language analyses According to Piaget (1970),children are regarded as active learners and thinkers They build their knowledge

basing on the exploration of individual actions and active interaction with thephysical environment They can make sense of concrete aspects and topics thanabstract ones (Williams and Burden, 1991: 31) As a result, they will understand themeanings of the words which are concrete, not abstract ones, such as cat, flower,chair, etc., and the ways teachers can introduce this kind of words are to use action,cards, body language and some other suitable objects or apply some physicalactivities like drawing, coloring, touching, etc This helps young learners easilyattach the meaning of the words to the things or actions shown to them For abstractterms like words with abstract meanings or grammar, young learners will find ithard to take them in For example, Philips (1993: 74) notes that “This may bebecause words have tangible, immediate meanings whereas structures aer lessobviously useful – after all Pencil often obtains the same result as “Can I have apencil?” Bloor (1991: 129) states that young learners make more progress whenlearning in situations or contexts where they have to pay attention to meaning, not

to language itself

The second side of the characteristics of young learners is social side Socialdevelopment has a significant influence on their language learning Young learnersalways have a desire to be part of community In Vygotsky‟s opinion (1962),children build their knowledge on being exposed to other people and interactionwith adults They can learn better when put into social contexts or in groups Wendyand Yteberg (1990) say young learners will be happier when taking part in activitiesaccompanied by others and can be conscious of having relation with other people.They will stand a chance to overcome their self – centered phases if joining games

in order to reinforce their language capabilities Interesting activities will createpleasant atmosphere in class, which encourages learners to express themselves andhelp others better in group According to Williams (1998:7), “all learners are valued

as individuals; challenges and risks are supported; topics are relevant andinteresting; activities are meaningful and purposeful; praise is given where andwhen it is due; and disciplis is firm, consistent and fair As well as having a positive

effect on the learning environment in the classroom, this approach will alsoencourage learners to be more tolerant of each other and others they encounteroutside the classroom”.

The last one is psychological side containing five components First is younglearners‟ short attention span and easily getting bored according to Wendy andYteberg (1990) Lesson‟s activities should be designed interestingly and bountifully

to draw young learners‟ attraction In this field, Stephen Krashen‟s affective filterhypothesis should be recommended He states that a learner‟s result of learningprocess will depend partly on his/her feeling or emotions A high affective learnermay not become an efficient one because of his/her anxiety or inhibitions and viceversa, a low affective one has more chances to gain better results due to their feeling

of relaxation or well – being They should be involved in classroom activities topractice their English, gain better results from experience and absorb more input.Consequently, only a favorable environment may lengthen young learners‟concentration span and interest Secondly, young learners have no prejudice Theyare very logical as Wendy and Yteberg (1990) argue For instance, if the order is

“Before you go out, turn off the light”, they can understand it in this way: first step

is to turn off the light and the second one is to go out Thirdly, young learners arevery forgetful because of their short – term attention Therefore, it is very necessary

to have various activities to help them recall and retrieve their already known words

or language aspects Fourthly, they are very keen on imitation and repetition Thesekinds of activities help them feel secure about not making mistakes and teachersshould set a good example for them With repetitive and imitative activities, younglearners can follow the same thing or action whenever they want with littledifferences For instance, to teach the word “dance”, teachers can perform the action

of dancing and ask learners to do that along with saying the word “dance” It will bevery easy for them to remember and recall this word The last one is that younglearners are very serious because they always think what they are doing is “real”and when in favorable language learning environment, they will freely express

themselves and may figure out a more creative way of introducing a word or

sometimes a language aspect

Or more clearly about the characteristics based on the age of young learners,Slatterly, M., & Willis, J (2001) classify them as Table 2.1:

Very Young Learners (under 7)

- Gain knowledge through hearing and - Are learning to read and write in their experience of English in the same way mother tongue

they learn their mother tongue - Are developing their critical thinking

- Learn things through mostly physical - Able to distinguish the differenceactivities and some little mental ones in between reality and imagination

an incidental way - Able to set up a plan and organize

- Enjoy playing with language in the how to manage an activity

ways of making sounds, noises, - Able to work with and learn from

- Unable to read or write in their mother - Are responsible for classroomtongue as well as in the foreign language activities

so it is essential to recycle language

through talk and play

- Develop grammar in a gradual way due

to their exposal to the contexts in

English

Table 2.1 Characteristics of young learners

These above characteristics play an important role in helping teachers findappropriate methods for teaching their young learners and improving a welcomingenvironment of learning

2.4.2 Techniques of teaching vocabulary to young learners

According to Nunan (2003: 135 – 141), teachers should notice someprinciples that can be applied effectively to vocabulary teaching and learning

process These guidelines concentrate on high frequency words in a suitable wayacross the four strands of a course, which gives learners more motivation to be incharge of their learning results High frequency words are the ones that can be usedunder any circumstances – listening, speaking, reading, writing and communicatingmessages, so teachers are advised to give learners opportunities to be exposed tothese useful words and help them tell the difference between the high and lowfrequency vocabulary.

Besides, Schmitt (2006: 13 – 14) also figures out several fundamental rules

of vocabulary teaching, including creating a large size of vocabulary, connecting thenew words with the already known ones, giving learners various chances ofencountering a word, boosting learners‟ awareness of deeper learning, applying newwords into reality and guiding them to absorb independent learning strategies

From these above theories, teachers should design good strategies inteaching vocabulary to young learners According to Manandhar (2009: 1), there arevarious ones suitable for young learners‟ vocabulary teaching as below:

- Using real things (or called relia) or pictures or mime: one of the techniques

in the Direct Method This approach is suitable for teaching beginners or multilanguage classes where translation is not a good choice to make Moreover, itrequires learners‟ comprehensible input For instance, learners are expected toperform the same actions in order to respond to command like: “Touch the greenapple” or “Put the orange under the table” In this case, plastic fruit will be ideal

- Using picture: pictures in relation with the things mentioned in the lessonshould be shown to young learners to help them build the images of things, peopleand places in their mind

- Using matchstick: because of children‟ curiosity and interest in lovelythings, matchstick figure will draw their attention to what teachers want todemonstrate to them

- Using synonyms and antonyms: the former means the words having thesame meaning with them and vice versa, the ones that possess the oppositemeanings are called the antonyms

- Using definition: a way of obtaining the meanings of the words from a

dictionary One word may have its literal and figurative meaning Therefore, it is noteasy for both teachers and learners to look for words‟ meanings in a dictionary.However, dictionaries for learners usually give definitions which bring out reliablemodel In the case of young learners, some advanced words

- Using demonstration: actions are done by teachers to help learners connect them to words

- Using presenting Lexical Set/ Enumeration: words that have relation with others in the field of meanings or grammar can be taught at the same time

- Using games: games promote the classroom environment of learning Theycreate a more ludic atmosphere for children to make them feel excited and have adesire to be involved in classroom activities

- Using audio/ visual: a lot of words are easily presented to children through tape recording or video instead of using the above ways

Furthermore, Herrel in Henriksen (1999) also sets out some effective

techniques for young learners‟ vocabulary teaching such as

- Guessing meaning from contexts includes using definition, restatement, punctuation marks, examples, contrast and back ground knowledge

- Teaching collocations helps them know more about words occurring with high frequency like “strong coffee”, not “powerful coffee”

- Teaching word family will make it easy for young learners to remember andretrieve the words in the same topic, which develops their connection between lexicalsemantics and mental lexicon For example, topic “Family” may remind them aboutwords of the kinship like “mother, father, sister, brother, son, daughter”, etc

- Recycling content: teachers create meaningful contexts requiring young learners to reuse the already known words

- Keeping a vocabulary journal: learners have to take note or record thewords they encounter to accumulate a large size of target vocabulary, so it is easierfor them to remember and use the words

- Eliciting: learners can recall the words in the form of definition, synonyms

or antonyms, which enables them to know the target vocabulary deeply and use

them in a suitable way.

- Contextualization: words will be absorbed through learners‟ join in

activities of gap – filling, story - building or role – playing

- Labelling: they will write the names of things on papers and stick them to the mentioned objects

- Personalization: Learners imagine they are doing an activity related to new words like they are doing as if they were going to act out the word “row”

- Learning words through pre – fixes and post – fixes: this technique helpslearners study words in a logical way – they can make sense of a lot of words thatare built by word parts and connect them with other like “bi” means “2” or “anti”means “against”

- Association: learners are able to integrate new words with already known words to create something meaningful

- Semantic mapping: it promotes the development of young learners‟ reading,writing and thinking because they have to link new information with the previousone For instance, learners have to arrange the given words into a complete sentence

so they must find the words in suitable order of meaning and grammar

- Categorizing words: this kind of activity requires learners to classify words into same aspects For example, categorize words in the field of verbs or nouns

Some of techniques that are set up by Herrel in Henriksen (1999) are suitablefor young learners but the others are only for advanced young learners because theyrequire a lot of mental activities

Several techniques of teaching vocabulary to young learners have been setout by some researchers and used in a lot of classrooms so that they can achievetheir vocabulary acquisition at their best The more vocabulary learners know, themore excited they become to get involved in language activities and promote theirmotivation of language learning

2.5 Studies on teaching vocabulary to young learners through pictures

Vocabulary plays an important part in language learning because it appears

in every language skill Without words, human is not able to express emotion orthought On the part of adults, with the features of having critical thinking andexperiencing surrounding environment, they do not have any difficulty inexpressing themselves However, on young learners‟ side, it is a matter for them tofind ways to show what they would like because of their own characteristics.Consequently, there have existed various researches on teaching vocabulary toyoung learners by using images to find out how effective this technique is.

Firstly, a case – study research named “Teaching vocabulary through pictures

to the kindergarten students” was carried out by Leny of English DepartmentFaculty of Tarbiyah and Teachers Training Syarif Hidayatullah State IslamicUniversity, Jakarta (2006) The researcher desired to find out whether pictures couldattract young learners‟ attention to study in an easier way and give them motivation

in learning The researcher conducted the study by giving learners two kinds ofexercises, whose words related to a house, the first was that children had to draw apicture of a house by doing “dot to dot” and color the pictures and the second was toask them about parts of the house and tell about it These exercises made childrenable to have various answers by their imagination After that, to help childrenremember and recall parts of a house, teacher asked them to listen to a listening tapedescribing a house with its parts and gave a check mark on their pictures, then theywould sing about a part of the house using the song “that is a window” Based onthe results of the procedure, several conclusions were drawn Images helped younglearners make sense of difficult words easily by looking at them and make them feelenjoyable and excited at vocabulary learning Moreover, looking at pictures related

to the words made children able to memorize the words by singing along withlooking at the pictures, which gave them more chances to practice pronunciationand attract their curiosity in learning new vocabulary Also, it offered a set of advicefor having an enjoyable class situation: teachers should choose suitable techniquesand materials that met learners‟ needs, instructions should be given in a short andclear way and new words should be presented

through pictures, flashcards, games, etc to draw their attention.

Next, a pre – experimental research is “Teaching vocabulary by usingpictures to the third grade students” by Yohana Elsy (2013) In this study, theresearcher intended to find out the students‟ score of vocabulary learningachievement and whether teaching vocabulary by using pictures will bring anyeffects To conduct the study, the researcher collected 34 3rd grade students andemployed the measurement technique to measure the learners‟ vocabularyacquisition through pictures In the procedure, two tests were taken The first onecalled pre - test was aimed to gather the data before the experiment was conductedwhile the second called post - test was to gather the data after the experiment Thetest contained 30 items and time allowed was 60 minutes In the tests, learners had

to find the words by looking at the pictures and get the clues (letters presented inhyphen) with supported sentences The direct classroom observation technique wasutilized to record the observable phenomena towards the object At the end of theexperiment, the writer collected the data and analyzed it Based on the date, thestudy revealed that images gave learners higher interest in vocabulary learning andpromoted their ability of gaining the new words faster and memorizing the words inthe long run Besides, when the teacher asked learners to touch pictures like theteacher did, they expressed their enthusiasm From this, it is easy to see that theylove doing enjoyable and challenging things and being involved in cheerful learningprocess

Last but not least, a thesis, whose name was “the exploitation of pictures inteaching vocabulary according to communicative approach for first year students atVietnam National University, Hanoi University of Economics and Business”, wasconducted by Linh, Ha Khuong in 2011 Its goals were to figure out if using pictures

in teaching vocabulary had been made use of and the pros and cons of usingpictures in teachong vocabulary according to communicative approach

In a nutshell, various researches have been conducted to find out the effect ofusing pictures in vocabulary learning However, there also exists the limitation ofresearch on second grade students Therefore, in this thesis, the researcher has a

desire to make this matter clearer on 2nd grade students.

Summary

In general, chapter 2 is amied to build a theoretical framework for the study.The first section of this chapter is related to theoretical aspects of vocabularyacquisition and the role of images in vocabulary learning They both help readerscollect the background knowledge about the thesis in order to understand it moreproperly The second one focuses on teaching vocabulary to young learners throughpictures so that readers may have an overview of vocabulary teaching method toyoung students

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter is aimed at discussing the research methodology of the research

as well as its design This research was carried out in the form of an action researchthanks to the model by Kemmis and McTaggart (in Burns, 1999: 32) with foursteps The research question is also raised and the participants, along with the foursteps, are described in detail

3.1 Action research in language teaching

Action research in language teaching has traditionally been known as one ofthe tools to investigate or explore a teacher‟s own teaching contexts in order to findout the solutions to them and bring about changes, even better, improvements inpractice It is increasingly becoming one of the ways for school reform as itsindividual focus allows for a new engagement in educational changes According toBorg (1965: 313), “action research emphasizes the involvement of teachers inproblems in their own classrooms and has as its primary goal the in-service trainingand development of the teacher rather than the acquisition of general knowledge inthe field of education”

3.1.1 Purposes of action research

Action research can be an individual teacher, a group of colleagues with thesame concern or a school faculty However, whether in the form of individual orgroup, they have to organize research so as to serve these three main purposes:

- Building teachers as researchers: when teachers have a commitment toidentifying the problem of their classroom in language teaching and learning ontheir own, they start a process of fostering growth and development in theirprofession They are supposed to take an aspect into consideration that they thinkthey can do better, raise questions on it and then develop new ideas and alternatives

So in action research, teachers have a role as researchers, investigators or explorersdue to their own teaching contexts

- Making progress on school priorities: when a group of teachers have thesame concern, they will achieve excellence with particular focuses if investigating ittogether Their success will not only dedicate to the achievement of the commongoal but also have a significant influence on team building and programdevelopment, which means improvements will be made and school will become

“center of excellence” Consequently, all teachers will stand chances toenthusiastically take part in action research to make progress on the schoolwidepriorities

- Creating professional cultures: even if not all teachers in a school facultyshare same goals, a teacher can explore his/ her own situations in teaching and seekout the solutions to them After that, he/ she can tell their colleagues about they haveinvestigated and how they tackle them and vice versa, their colleagues will do thesame to them As a result, the environment of the school will be more conductivefor effective teaching and learning

3.1.2 Features of action research

According to Burns (2010:10), there are some main features of an actionresearch:

“First, it involves teachers in evaluating and reflecting on their teaching with theaim of bringing about continuing changes and improvements in practice Second, it

is small – scale, contextualized, and logical in character, as the participants identifyand investigate teaching - learning issues within a specific social situation, theschool or classroom Third, it is participatory and inclusive, as it gives communities

of participants the opportunity to investigate issues of immediate concerncollaborativelywithin their social situation Fourth, it is different from the

“intuitive” thinking that occurs as a normal part of teaching, as changes in practicewill be based on collecting and analyzing data systematically Finally, we can saythat AR (action research) is based on democratic principles; it invests the ownershipfor changes in curriculum practice in the teachers and learners who conduct theresearch and is therefore empowering”

3.1.3 Steps in action research

According to Kemmis and McTaggart (1988), action research includes fourstages in a cycle of a research The first cycle may be a continuing of cycles whichreturn until researcher becomes content with his/ her outcome and thinks it is time

to stop However, there are several other models of action research McNiff (1988)views Kemmis and McTaggart‟s model as “prescriptive” She argues that a flexibleapproach should be used so that action research teacher may be more creative andspontaneous Ebbutt (1985) states that Kemmis and McTaggart‟s model is a “one –way street In Ebbutt‟s opinion, action research cycles should be successive andopen to allow for much feedback and interaction between cycles as possible

However, the model by Kemmis and McTaggart is propably the most popularone It is classic and useful because of its short and clear summaries of basic phases

of action research process, including four steps as below:

- Planning: in this phase it is necessary to identify the issue and design a plan

of action to make improvements in a particular area of the research context

- Action: this stage involves some deliberate interventions into one‟s teachingsituation that one put into action in a scheduled period of time

- Observation: it is a data – collection phase in which on has to observesystematically the effects of the action and recording the context, actions andopinions of the involved

- Reflection: the last one is when one reflects on, evaluates and describes theeffects of the action to make sense of what has happened and the issue one hasinvestigated more clearly

3.2 Why is action research chosen?

A lot of teachers have to delay research and the language theories they know inteacher training courses because they find it hard to apply them to their teachingcontexts Therefore, action research seems like a time – consuming things to teachers

However, the writer decided to choose action research to investigate thesituation for the following reasons:

Firstly, the study was designed as action research because it is more of aproblem – solving than a single method to gather and analyze data It can be considered

to gain reflections on teacher‟s experience in teaching so as to become a basis forfurther professional development Action research encourages teachers who have adesire to be more professional in their career to become an “explorer” or an

“investigator” because it is so immediate to teaching contexts, which leads to positivealternatives and changes as well as shows them personal approaches to teaching

Secondly, action research is a practical research to obtain both action(changes) and research (understanding), so there will be a bridge to cover the gapbetween research and practice

In this study, the researcher applied Kemmis and McTaggart‟s model toinvestigate her own teaching situation

3.3 The context of the study

3.3.1 The current situation of teaching and learning English at the center

The mentioned English center in this study is located in the heart of Hanoi withtwenty - six classes in total varying from 1st grade to 9th grade Each grade has threeclasses, except for 2nd grade with two classes, and contains about twenty students

One third of these students have been learning English since they were four

at kindergartens but others have not; half of them stand chances to be exposed tonative speakers whereas the rest of them do not Therefore, the fact is that severalstudents will learn better than others because of having a long period of absorbingEnglish At their age, grammar structures are presented in a simple way and thepurpose of the center is to covey as many new words as possible, which createsmaterials for them to build meaningful sentences and express what they desireeffectively However, some children say they are shy when speaking a word outloud or feel bored when learning vocabulary, which leads to low efficiency as well

as degrades their motivation in vocabulary learning The main reason for that may

be the traditional way of teaching vocabulary with translation method As a result,techniques to improve their vocabulary learning are paid a lot of attention by the

teachers at the center A wide range of methods to teach new words are used and ofthese ones, and using pictures is considered being reseached in order to find outwhether it supports the students‟ vocabulary learning.

3.3.2 The teaching program and materials

In the center, English is the only subject due to the center‟s aim at improvinglearners‟ English skills The textbooks utilized are the ones in the set of standardbooks from class 2 to class 12, written by Hoàng Văn Vân, Nguyễn Quốc Tuấn,Nguyễn Thị Lan Anh, Đỗ Thị Ngọc Hiền, Nguyễn Bích Thủy, prescribed by theMinistry of Education and Training and published by Vietnam Education PublishingHouse Limited Company The English book “Tiếng Anh 2” (one of the above setstandard of books) was published in 2017

The book consists of twenty units for two terms They are designed undertheme – based approach with twenty different topics in twenty units After threeunits there will be a delayed test There are seven activities in each unit, including:

- Listen, point and repeat

- Point and say

Along with these activities, flashcards, tapes and games are provided to boost theefficiency of the activities to bring the best results as possible

3.4 Research procedures

3.4.1 Research question

This study was conducted to find out how images have influences in terms ofyoung learners‟ vocabulary learning The research question is:

How does using pictures in teaching vocabulary support the young learners’ vocabulary learning?

3.4.2 The participants

In this study, there were forty students in 2nd grade divided into two groups:the control group and the experimental group They were all studying English at anEnglish center in Hanoi Some teachers in this center gave me a hand with takingphotographs of them, testing and marking them in six immediate tests and twodelayed tests Most of the students learned English when they were five years oldand were provided a lot of chances to practice English, of course only within theirreach At the age of seven, they could read and write so it was easier for teachers toconvey new words in various ways to them At the beginning of the course, they hadbeen tested on their English ability and divided into class 2A and 2B and both ofthem were taught the same book The note was that they only took a test when theirparents enrolled the course to make sure that they had common knowledge aboutEnglish as others did, not for assessing whether they were at beginning, pre –intermediate, intermediate or advanced level Each class included 20 seven – year –old students Their current textbook used in the center was “Tiếng Anh 2” published

by Vietnam Education Publishing House Limited Company They studied oneperiod per week and did the tasks in the workbook at home (the workbook isincluded in the set of “Tiếng Anh 2” along with the textbook)

3.4.3 Design of the procedures

As illustrated in following table, the study was carried out in four phases inthe period of twelve weeks from 21st August to 20th November in a Hanoi – locatedEnglish center The phases were implemented as Table 3.1:

The first test was immediate tests right after each lesson The time allowedfor this test was five minutes at the end of the lesson Each one had only oneexercise because of the time required for per lesson and was designed in twodifferent ways to check students‟ retention of the words The first way was in the

form of a listen – and – tick exercise, including about two questions depending onthe required words of the lesson Students had to pay attention to the recorder andtick the square matching the words with the images The second form for theimmediate test was look – and – match or look – and – circle exercises As the firstform, this one contained only one exercise and had four questions In this task, thelearners were asked to link the words to the given images or circle the imagesmatching the meanings of the given words Both of the forms were aimed atchecking learners‟ words‟ meanings.

The second test was delayed test taken every three lessons The time for thisone was 30 minutes and consisted of four exercises: listen – and – tick, listen – and– tick – or – cross, read – and – tick and answer – the – question task The first taskconsisting of three inquiries asked the learners to listen and match the words withthe given images while the second with four questions provided the images andlearners listened to the recorder and decided whether the images were mentioned ornot Read – and - tick task with three questions gave the images and a sentence andthe learners were supposed to mark the pictures due to the meanings of thesentences And the last one was the teacher showed a picture to them and askedthem two queries which related to the words and simple grammar structures theyhad been taught in each lesson Students‟ long – term memory of vocabularyretention would be checked in this test

3.4.3.2 Acting

In this study, there were two different methods for teaching vocabulary tostudents The control group received the traditional method – translation methodwhile the experimental group received a using – picture – to – learn – vocabularyway Below is the investigator‟s action plan in teaching and testing the students: