Primary teachers’ perceptions of teaching vocabulary to young learners

The findings of the research hopefully not only creates interactive and dialogic discussions for reflective teaching but also provides information to bridge the missing gaps between university curricula and the young learning communities for quality enhancement, as well as to facilitate well–informed decisions regarding teacher training and language policies of Vietnam.

BƯỚC ĐẦU TÌM HIỂU NHẬN THỨC CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TIỂU HỌC

TRONG DẠY TỪ VỰNG CHO HỌC SINH

Võ Th Thanh Dip Trường Đại học Quy Nhơn

tiểu học ñã trở thành một trong những yêu cầu giáo

dục ngày càng cao ở các nước thuộc khối ASEAN nói

chung và ở Việt nam nói riêng Kể từ năm 2008 ñến

nay, một trong những trọng ñiểm ñề án ngoại ngữ 2020

hướng ñến là phổ cập thành công chương trình tiếng

Anh ở cấp tiểu học Đây là một trọng trách lớn vì hiện

nay chương trình ñào tạo giáo viên dạy tiếng Anh ở

cấp tiểu học chưa ñược phổ biến, phần lớn giáo viên

phải sử dụng kiến thức và kỹ năng sư phạm dành cho

ñối tượng học sinh ở cấp trung học cơ sở và trung học

phổ thông ñể giảng dạy cho ñối tượng nhỏ tuổi Việc

tìm hiểu những nhận thức của giáo viên trong việc dạy

từ vựng tiếng Anh cho học sinh tiểu học sẽ giúp hiểu rõ

hơn, thu hẹp những khoảng cách trong chương trình

ñào tạo giáo viên ở cấp ñại học và tại các trường tiểu

học ñồng thời nâng cao hơn nữa chất lượng dạy và học

tiếng Anh nói chung

Abstract: Nowadays English to primary pupils

has become one of the increasing educational

demands in ASEAN nations Vietnam is no exception

Since 2008, a large-scale project of the Vietnamese

government, directed by the Ministry of Education and

Training (MOET), has aimed at the teaching and

learning of English in the national educational system,

at all levels from primary to tertiary for the 2008-2020

period One of the prioritized goals of Project 2020 is to

successfully introduce a foreign language, mainly English into primary curriculum This is a challenging task as the majority of in-service teachers of English at primary schools in Vietnam have not been officially trained to teach English to young learners, as reported

by the MOET The missing link in language teacher education between universities with schools in Vietnam lies in the fact that teaching primary English has not been present in most university-degree curricula of universities across Vietnam, so elementary teachers have had to apply their own learning experience, the methodological knowledge and teaching practical skills for secondary or high school adolescents to teach English to young classes Therefore, through this quantitative – qualitative research, an inquiry into how primary English teachers in Vietnam perceive vocabulary teaching and learning in their classroom settings aims at shedding light on how in-service English primary teachers should apply into young language learners The findings of the research hopefully not only creates interactive and dialogic discussions for reflective teaching but also provides information to bridge the missing gaps between university curricula and the young learning communities for quality enhancement, as well as to facilitate well–informed decisions regarding teacher training and language policies of Vietnam

PRIMARY TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS

OF TEACHING VOCABULARY TO YOUNG LEARNERS

1 Introduction

English has played a very vital role among

nations as it is the bridge that connects the world

together The fact that the scope of its users has

been expanded to young learners has brought both

opportunities and challenges for not only learners,

teachers but teacher trainers, researchers and educational administrators as well There have been a great number of studies in primary English education worldwide (Gewehr, 1998; Mallett, 2008; Menyuk & Brisk, 2005; Moon, 2005; Moyles & Hargreaves, 2003; Rocca, 2007; Shintani, 2011; Slattery & Willis, 2014; Troen &

Boles, 2009), especially in Asia, where English is

regarded as the common foreign language for

world integration (Chan, Chin, & Suthiwan, 2011;

Feng, 2011; Mallett, 2002; Qiang; Silver, Hu, &

Iino, 2001; Wang, 2008); however, according to

the 2013 databases of research theses in Hanoi,

Hue, Danang and HoChiMinh City Universities,

primary English learning and teaching in Vietnam

seem to be open It is the recent official

introduction of English as a foreign language into

Vietnamese primary schools that has increased a

crucial need for understanding how to support

Vietnamese young children learning English

effectively

2 Children learning English

2.1 The characteristics of young English

learners

For an in-depth exploration into primary

English teaching and learning, it is very important

to study the characteristics of the primary English

learner According to Broughton, Brumfit, Flavell,

Hill, and Pincas (1980), McKay (2008), Willmott

(2003), the nature of the young learner seems not

to differ noticeably from nation to nation Brown

(1987) made a very thorough comparison between

young learners and adult learners with variables

such as cognition, sensory input, attention span,

abstract thinking ability (p 87-92) Instead,

children often bring their personalities into their

language classes varying individually across

Howard Gardner’s eight types of intelligence –

linguistic, musical, logical-mathematical, spatial,

bodily kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal

and naturalistic Furthermore, their differences in

their socioeconomic, cultural and home

background add another layer of complexity in

their foreign language learning Meanwhile, Moon

(2000) briefly portrayed the profile of the young

language learner with the following seven features

- using language creatively, going for meaning,

using ‘chunks’ of language, having fun, joining in

the action, talking their heads off and feeling at

home (p 10) From another psycholinguistic lens,

Gordon (2007) employed the Natural Approach to

trace back language instinct - an innate ability for L1 learning in order to psycho-linguistically explain children’s natural abilities with a second

or foreign language because at the primary school age, young pupils are competent users of their mother tongue Simultaneously, Gordon pointed out from the light of the Communicative Approaches that children who are more incidentally exposed to close-to-life contexts can pick up everyday vocabulary better than those who do not Scott and Ytreberg (1990), while grouping children into their two age groups, mostly shared the above common characteristics during their growth along with their own

assumption that children are likely to understand situations more quickly than they understand the language used so they use language skills long before they are aware of them in their language development (p.10) (MacNaughton and Williams (2004)) showed that young language learners are motivated, imaginative and curious in learning, which means that they need assistance, encouragement and praise from primary teachers Similarly, Halliwell (1993) looked at child foreign language learning in terms of their ability to grasp meaning indirectly, creative use of limited language resources, instinct for play and fun, imagination and interaction and talk Turnbull and Dailey-O'Cain (2009) indicated the use of first language as a mediator for interaction is a must in young classes; however, the further their L2 learning progresses, the less L1 can be used

2.2 Children’s foreign language learning

From such characteristics of the young language learner, several attempts have been made

to provide a theory or model that can explain child foreign language For instance, Broughton et al (1980) searched for the answers to the questions about the optimal age and language content for learning English as a foreign language Helena Mitchell and Jenny Monk (Ashcroft & Palacio, 2003) focused upon teaching literacy in the primary curriculum Unlike Michell and Monk, Grugeon, Dawes, Smith, and Hubbard (2005)

stressed on developing children’s speaking and

listening at Key Stages 1 and 2 In a more detailed

analysis, Moon (2005) offered a guidebook to

teach children learning English in which Moon

took four elements into consideration – contexts

for learning English, children’s typical features,

teachers’ beliefs about children’s learning and

ways of observing children’s language learning

Nikolov (2009) explored into the processes of early learning of modern foreign languages in which young language learners’ cognitive, affective, socio-economic and classroom-related factors interact with one another In the light of applied linguistics, Cameron also suggested a

model of the construct language for child foreign language learning as follows:

Source: (Cameron, 2003) Child foreign language learning is divided into

two processes – learning oral skills and learning

literacy skills The former skills initially outdo the

latter ones so listening and speaking usually come

before writing and reading In oral skills, Cameron

(2003) explained:

Oral skills can best be thought of as ‘vocabulary’

and ‘discourse’, with both of these being

constructs centered on use and meaning, to

reflect children’s learning Vocabulary skills

involve the understanding and productive use not

just of single words but of phrases and ‘chunks’

of language Discourse is language as use, and

often, but not always, occurs in stretches longer

than the sentence In contrast to these extended

stretches of talk, conversational skills involve

understanding and using phrases and sentences in

interaction with other children and with adults

2.3 Children’s foreign vocabulary learning

One of the milestones of early foreign language

development is the production of children’s first

words which reflect their cognitive skills and

understanding of a new language Stephanie and

Villiers (1997) defined vocabulary as the most

basic building blocks for learning English Words are also basic meaning carriers that young learners initially employ to express what is going on in their minds However, words only do not meet communicative needs M Lewis (2008) emphasized on chunks of language or stretches of words in meaningful contexts that enable young learners to be naturally involved in conversations and lead them from words to sentences and then grammar Cameron (2003) and Pinter (2014) shared the belief that school-aged children pick up words before they are aware of grammatical rules

as their limited capacity to generalize or analyze structures keeps them from grammatical explanations at the onset of child foreign language learning, which agrees with the dotted boundary between vocabulary and grammar in Cameron’s

model of the construct language for child foreign language learning Actually, even to adults, learning a sufficient amount of vocabulary is one

of the biggest challenges because grammar is a closed system but vocabulary is an open system The linguist David Wilkins summed up the importance of vocabulary learning (Thornbury,

2002, p 13):

“Without grammar very little can be conveyed,

without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed.”

2.4 Children’s word learning mechanisms

The status of vocabulary has become

reconsidered in foreign language teaching, backed

by increasing significant research (Bogaards &

Laufer, 2004; Carter, 2002, 2012; McCarthy,

2010; Morgan & Rinvolucri, 2011; P Nation,

2005; N Schmitt, 2000; Takac, 2008) For

effective communication in young language

classes, Cameron (2003) reconfirmed that building

up useful vocabulary at primary level is the

principal focus of the learning of a foreign

language (p.72) Then how do children learn

vocabulary? A lot of scientists have been

interested in the area For example, Grauberg (1997) suggested when a word is introduced for the first time, its meaning, pronunciation and spelling are what primary pupils should be instructed As young learners’ experience of words and lexical knowledge widens and deepens, their lexical knowledge grows in various ways Gil Diesendruck (Hoff & Shatz, 2007) tried to seek for the answer with his suggested model of child word learning mechanisms in which children learn words through six mechanisms: input, lexical constraints, syntax, conceptual bias, pragmatics, attention and learning in the two dimensions of specificity-cognition and exogenous (external) endogenous (internal) source

Position of the various word learning mechanisms in relation to the dimensions of specificity and source

Source: (Hoff & Shatz, 2007, p 258)

The chart shows that the mechanism of

attention and learning lies between the external

and internal source dimension, decided by both

the learner and the teacher The other four

mechanisms, lexical constraints, syntax,

conceptual bias and pragmatics, process within the

learner during their cognitive development from

concrete to abstract The only external mechanism

is input Native or bilingual children acquire

vocabulary input from parents or family members

and develop it naturally without formal instruction,

but second or foreign language learners apparently

do need vocabulary instructions in the necessary

knowledge and the skills required to use it mainly

from their teachers

3 Teaching vocabulary to children

Learning and teaching always go along together From the characteristics of young English learners, their language learning in general and vocabulary learning as well word learning mechanisms in particular, to bring vocabulary to life in young English classes, it is essential to review the following fundamental teaching principles

3.1 Principles of teaching vocabulary to

children

In tune with Gil Diesendruck’s lens on the

mechanisms of word learning, taking the factors

of the nature of vocabulary into account, Cameron

(2001) analyzed children vocabulary learning in

their conceptual development and suggested the

principles for teaching vocabulary as follows (p 91):

- The types of words that children find

possible to learn will shift from concrete to

abstract

- Vocabulary development is not just learning

more words but is also importantly about

expanding and deepening word knowledge

- Words and word knowledge are linked in

networks of meaning

- Basic level words are likely to be more

appropriate for younger children while older

learners can benefit from building up

superordinate and subordinate vocabulary linked

to basic level words they already know

- Children change in how they can learn words

Meanwhile, from another skill-based

perspective, E H Hiebert and M L Kamil (2005)

distinguished two sets of word concepts: print/oral

vocabulary and receptive/productive vocabulary

In the learner’s angle, I S P Nation (1990)

recognized the learning burden pupils encounter

when they learn vocabulary involves meaning,

form and usage along with three challenges – the

learner’s previous experience of English and their

mother tongue, the way in which the word is

learned or taught and the intrinsic difficulty of the

word With the similar focus on the vocabulary

principles but from the teacher’s views, Linse and

Nunan (2005) suggested (p 123-127):

• Emphasize both direct and indirect teaching

• Teaching vocabulary words before a new

activity

• Teach how to use context clues

appropriately

• Present multiple exposures to new vocabulary items

• Give opportunities for deep processing of vocabulary items

• Teach students to use dictionaries

• Have students keep vocabulary notebooks

3.2 Vocabulary teaching stages

In a more detailed perspective in connection with young learners’ ages, familiarity with vocabulary concepts, similarity between L1 and L2, Stephanie and Villiers (1997) addressed child vocabulary learning by seeking for answers to frequently asked questions such as word teaching load per session, word choice and word learning They also convincingly clarified the six stages of learning a word for the correspondent teaching implications (p 6):

1) Recognition 2) Repetition 3) Controlled usage 4) Reading

5) Write and spell 6) Independent usage Grauberg (1997) suggested a four-stage teaching process for young learners including discrimination, understanding meaning, remembering and consolidation and extension of meaning (p 15) First, discrimination involves distinctions of sound, letters, sound clustering, oral vocabulary or print vocabulary Next comes understanding meaning Besides, word learning depends on learners’ preferences Instead of focusing on vocabulary principles or teaching stages, in order to find how children could find their ways to learn vocabulary, Takac (2008) employed a quantitative research in which 675 elementary learners of English as a FL aged between 11 and 14 with the implication that the position of the FL in the learning context does affect the selection and use of the vocabulary learning strategies He eventually reached a

conclusion that to beginning pupils, learning

vocabulary is crucial so teaching vocabulary to

young language learners effectively is of greater

importance especially in FL learning

environments where Nikolov (2002) considered

teachers of young learners key players (p 5) It’s

primary teachers’ deep insights of child learning

that will lead to success in young language classes

3.3 The teacher’s role in children’s

vocabulary learning

Any decisions about classroom practice made

by a language teacher originate from professional

perceptions a language teacher have about the

nature of a target language, language learners and

the context in which the teacher works Fives and

Gill (2015) highlighted teachers’ beliefs were “at

the very heart of teaching” and explained some

reasons why it is very important to understand

how and what teachers view about learning and

teaching (p 85):

One reason may be that beliefs held by teachers

influence how and why they may or may not

change their practice to incorporate new

curriculum, adopt new instructional strategies

or take up new initiatives Understanding the

beliefs that guide teachers’ decision making and

actions in their classrooms could help educators

at all levels adjust how they work with teachers

to provide more targeted feedback to support

teachers’ professional growth and development

throughout their career

In English language teacher education, Borg

(2006), one of the leading researchers in teacher

cognition in language education, recommended a

wide range of research methods such as

questionnaires, self-report instruments, interviews,

classroom visits, scenario-rating tasks of

pre-service and in-pre-service teachers because teachers

are active, thinking decision-makers who play a

central role in shaping classroom events with the

convincing assumption that what teachers do in

the conduct of their professional activities is

shaped, though not entirely determined, by what

they believe and know Barnard and Burns (2012)

stressed (page 3):

Although teachers may have strongly held beliefs, they do not always put these into practice The reasons need to be understood by exploring the specific contexts in which they work, each of which is itself a complex and dynamic system in which physical, temporal, cognitive, social and cultural factors interact to provide affordances for,

or constraints on, the practical application of beliefs about teaching and learning, which in turn influence what teachers believe and know

Cohan and Honigsfeld (2011) stated that reactivating teachers’ classroom experience reflectively in connection with the well-grounded theoretical teaching foundation and the influential factors of their real teaching settings helps teachers break the teaching routine for changes and development Therefore, the deeper understanding a primary language teacher has in vocabulary teaching principles, teaching stages and teaching techniques, the more insightful he or she becomes into obstacles or challenges throughout teaching practice, the more likelihood the teacher can have to develop tactics and overcome the challenges, the more effective vocabulary learning and teaching gets To expand the research paths, apart from questionnaires, interviews, observation, other methods such as narrative frames, focus groups, think aloud, stimulated recall, oral reflective journals are the research instrumentations the leading researchers

in teacher cognition such as Judy Nguyen, Nguyen Gia Viet, Andrew Gladman, Le Van Canh, Simon Humphries, Jinrui Li, Jonathon Ryan prolonged the method list Listening to primary teachers’ voices or classroom visits for observations and dialogic enquiries to know about their theoretical understanding they gain, challenges they encounter as well as the factors that may affect their teaching behaviors are to pursue children’s achievements, to facilitate teachers’ tasks and promote teaching competencies

4 The emergent studies on Asian children’s

English learning

From the theoretical backgrounds and research

methods ignited by the experts in the area, a lot of

studies about child English learning have been

conducted For example, through a collaborative

effort of an international comparative research of

the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School

of Education, Silver et al (2001) portrayed a

picture of English language education in China,

Singapore and Japan raising one of the hottest

debated concerns that is elementary English

education in China, Singapore and Japan

Tılfarlıoğlu and Öztürk (2007), employing a

descriptive research method, explored into the

implementation issues of ELT curricula reflected

by in-service primary teachers in Gaziantep,

Turkey through a 45 item questionnaire,

interviews and self-reports In Taiwan, Wang

(2008) surveyed the concerns relating to teaching,

teacher education, teaching materials perceived by

teachers of English through a questionnaire and

semi-structured interviews which ended with

video recordings of classroom practices Fallon

and Rublik (2012) carried out a qualitative study

focusing on the policy implementation, teachers’

perceptions on students’ attitudes toward English

and on the basic literacy skills through recorded

interviews in which the research respondents were

ESL primary teachers, resource teacher trainers

and two school boardbased officials In Vietnam,

two researchers – Pham and Nguyen, drew their

attention to EFL at the primary level on the macro

scale; however, their research paths were not the

same Through a questionnaire and in-depth

interviews, Pham (2013) quantitatively and

qualitatively analyzed Hue primary English

teachers’ responses for the influencing obstacles

and factors in implementing - methodological

innovations at schools while H.T.M.Nguyen

(2011) conducted a comparative case study with

the data collected from classroom observations

and interviews with both teachers and school

administrators at two primary schools, public and

private, for the influential factors in the implementation of primary English education Unlike the above researchers whose interests were

at a high administrative level in the primary English language education implementation, Le and Nation (2011) developed their methodological research in measuring the English vocabulary size

of Vietnamese learners of English Through another analysis of the data collected from three groups of young beginning-level learners in the experiential approach, Shintani (2012) shifted to a more specific concern by comparing the linguistic effect of focus on form and focus on forms instruction on children’s acquisition of productive knowledge of L2 vocabulary

5 Research

The above research studies have opened a new direction for this research – primary teachers’ perceptions of vocabulary teaching and learning Before proceeding to the research scope, it is necessary to clarify some basic terms of the research focus First, in the Dictionary of Applied

Linguistics, perception is defined as the recognition and understanding of events, objects, and stimuli through the use of senses (sight,

hearing, etc.) while teachers’ beliefs are thought to

be stable constructs derived from their experience, observations, training and other sources and serve as a source of reference in encountering new ideas Only when teachers are professionally well-trained and they can bring their teaching training into classrooms effectively are their teaching beliefs are built Contrarily, when teachers teach with experience after no or little formal training, perceptions, not beliefs, are built Teachers’ cognition develops from perceptions through self-reflections upon failure or success in classroom practices to beliefs for effective teaching In the book “Perceptions of teaching and

learning”, Hughes (1994) defined perceptions are individual mental phenomena, yet the data can be drawn from linguistic images of these phenomena Also Davis (2003) clearly indicated that perception research investigates stimulus-driven

processes influencing behavior From the lights, in

this research primary teachers’ perception is

defined as primary teachers’ understanding or

recognition of teaching and learning vocabulary

in theory and practice Their perceptions can be

observable through their linguistic images in the

forms of verbal responses and teaching behaviors

to vocabulary instruction Their perceptions may

change overtime due to various sociocultural

influencing factors as teaching English to young

learners is not popular in English teacher

education The next linguistic terms that need

addressing are vocabulary and word According to

several leading scientists in vocabulary research

such as Carter (2012), Morgan and Rinvolucri

(2011), Bogaards and Laufer (2004), N.Schmitt

(2000), E.H.Hiebert and M.L.Kamil (2005) and

P.Nation (2000), vocabulary learning and teaching

has attracted sophisticated attention for its

complexity Yet, when English is introduced to

young learners, vocabulary is seen in simpler and

child-friendly approaches According to Linse and

Nunan (2005), vocabulary is the collection of

words an individual conceptually develop and

knows through formal and informal instruction

Read (2000) referred the term word to a variety of

lexical units ranging from single words to

multi-word items such as polymulti-words, institutionalized

expressions, phrasal constraints or sentence

builders (p 16-24) Hirsh (2012) stated that, to

young learners, vocabulary is the knowledge of

meanings of words that come in at least two

forms: oral and print Knowledge of words also

comes in at least two forms, receptive—that which

we can understand or recognize—and

productive—the vocabulary we use when we write

or speak

5.1 Research scope

In Binhdinh, the fact that primary English

teacher education has not been present in English

language teacher education along with the

officially introduced language policy in primary

classes has created both new learning experience

and pressure According to the statistics from the

Binhdinh Education and Training Department, there have been 319 primary teachers of English at

237 primary schools where the majority of the teachers graduated from universities and colleges

In response to the increasing learning demands and decreasing learner-age range, MOET and DOET are very concerned about training quality Therefore, short-term training courses in primary English learning and teaching have been constantly organized in conjunction with British Council The training program includes 540 periods in total in which 360 periods is for English proficiency and 180 periods for teaching practical skills

5.2 Research methods and participants

From the emergent research studies, the aforementioned rationale and the experience in teaching at some local primary schools, a survey

of primary English teachers’ competence in Binhdinh was conducted to probe for teachers’ perceptions as well as difficulties in teaching vocabulary at primary schools through a vocabulary-based questionnaire and structured interviews The question items were oriented to three aspects:

Perceptions of the importance of vocabulary

in child foreign language learning

Perceptions of the nature of vocabulary child foreign language learning

Perceptions of vocabulary teaching methods

6 Findings 6.1 Primary teachers’ perceptions of the importance of vocabulary in child foreign language learning

Vocabulary is one of the first aspects

of a foreign language for young learners

to learn for communication

Strongly Agree Agree Sure Not Disagree Strongly Disagree

45% of the primary teachers strongly held the

perception that vocabulary is one of the first

aspects of a foreign language for young learners to

learn for communication 50% of them were in

favour of the assumption whereas 5% doubted the

key role of vocabulary As Stephanie and Villiers

(1997) defined vocabulary the most basic building

blocks for learning English and vocabulary cuts

across listening, speaking, reading and writing

Most of the respondents shared such high

appreciation of vocabulary Unlike adult learners,

building up early vocabulary offers young learners

not only first new experience in foreign language

learning, initial success in communication but also

motivation to explore foreignness for curiosity and

imagination, which is in line with Vivet’s

assumption, pointing out how foreign languages

can introduce children to a world of sounds,

positive sensations, new discoveries and

stimulating acquisitions (Ellis & McCartney,

2011) In response to the interview questions

about what important roles vocabulary played in

child foreign language learning, the teachers’

responses were not specific as to detail

Teachers should teach all the words

as they appear in the glossary list

at the end of the textbook

Strongly

Agree Agree Sure Not Disagree Disagree Strongly

A good understanding of the implications of

textbook structures leads both teachers and

learners to an effective exploitation of the

textbook In response to the pedagogic values of

glossary, 64% of the respondents thought that the

teacher should instruct the list of words while 25%

of them disagreed and 11% were unsure Actually,

to meet diverse learners of mixed abilities, any

textbook contains a wide range of vocabulary

which is generally either alphabetized or arranged

in the order of units and frequently found in the

back of a book Yet, no matter how much a

teacher tries in class, she or he can not deal with

all new words in a textbook Teaching does not

mean learning though teaching and learning is

closely attached to each other Then what should learners do? The term "glossary" originates with the Latin word "glossarium," which means

"difficult word requiring explanation In this case, learners can refer to glossary when they want to know new words Glossary in L2 is for proficient learners and glossary in L1 is for less proficient learners According to N Schmitt (2010) and Nation (2010), glossing is one way of focusing explicit attention on lexical items during reading where otherwise only incidental learning would occur Glossing words sets out to offer immediate support to pupils with accurate information about unknown words while learners are reading By doing it, glossary offers minimal interruption to reading and keeps learners from making erroneous guesses about unknown words

Pupils should learn every new word

whenever they see

Strongly Agree Agree Sure Not Disagree Disagree Strongly

11% cast doubt on whether young learners should learn every new word whenever they see, 84% disagreed while 5% agreed During the interviews with the surveyed participants, the concepts – incidental and intentional vocabulary learning – seemed to be quite new Actually, incidental learning or ‘by-the-way’ learning occurs in natural exposure to vocabulary while intentional learning results from systematic and explicit vocabulary instruction that leads to the depth of word knowledge and enhances word learning, word memory, and word recall for later use If word learning is understood in the way Nation pointed out in terms of word learning burden comprising its meaning, form and use, it is not an easy task for young learners to take in every word whenever they see the words Only when words are learnt meaningfully, orally in fun ways with high frequency can words stay in pupils’ minds for natural use Richards and Renandya (2002) said (p.71):

“Processing the meaning of words involves

explicit knowledge, whereas recognition and

production of word forms take place through an

unconscious process, using implicit

knowledge.”

Therefore, the data revealed that Binhdinh

primary teachers may not have had to juggle

intentional vocabulary learning with incidental

vocabulary learning in primary classes as various

forms of incidental vocabulary learning may not

have been detected (i.e vocabulary-oriented

websites for recommended homelinks, classroom

vocabulary posters, photocopiables, projectors,

flashcards, puppets, etc.) Chacón-Beltrán,

Abello-Contesse, and Torreblanca-López (2010) indicated

that intentional learning enables faster learning

and deeper engagement for vocabulary retention

when young learners notice well or pay good

attention to vocabulary learning burdens and

active vocabulary should be taught before passive

vocabulary (p 49) On the other hand, incidental

vocabulary learning provides integration

vocabulary in skill practice naturally or creates

recycling for words to be incidentally learnt, for

example, gloss or glossary, words with picture

illustrations, storytelling, puzzles, word plays,

songs, drama, picture description, etc The fact

that textbooks are designed with glossary,

accompanied imagery flashcards, songs or project

– based activity books provide more vocabulary

retention could learn is a good example of a

combination of intentional and incidental

vocabulary learning

6.2 Primary teachers’ perceptions of the

nature of vocabulary in children’s foreign

language learning

Pupils benefit from the spoken production of vocabulary

during vocabulary learning tasks

Strongly

Agree Agree Sure Not Disagree Strongly Disagree

82% of the teachers believed that spoken

production of vocabulary did help young learners

to enhance their lexical ability while 18% were undecided about children’s benefits from oral skills Four fifths of the teachers thought that spoken production of vocabulary could facilitate word learning burden Sylva, Malaguzzi (Reggio Emilia) and Whitehead (Dunn, 2011) explained that children acquire and find out about language

‘through doing’, experimenting and imitating because they are born natural language acquirers and users Their oral skills are always developed before literacy skills Halliwell (1993) employed their instinct for play and fun, imagination and interaction and talk to reconfirm the emphasis on teaching vocabulary through oral skills Moon (2000) pointed out one of the unique features of young learners is talking off their head and feeling

at home The more orally they produce a word, the more they remember, the more they recognize it when exposed to it later The above features highlighted by the leading psycholinguistic and methodological experts strengthen the findings of the data that vocabulary learnt by young learners

is more oral in nature, which is quite in line with what Cameron visualized in the model of child foreign language learning Yet, the interviews with several teachers revealed that the ability to write words was expected to accompany with oral skills, however, it painstakingly took young learners so much time out of a 45-minute class to get vocabulary copied right in their notebooks that some classes had vocabulary translated and computerized on cut-outs All what pupils did was reading along and sticking the cut-outs to their notebooks Phonetic transcriptions along with vocabulary was also the respondents’ concern Learning English is difficult and learning phonetics as metalanguage is more difficult so teaching phonics is a solution to their concerns instead of phonetic transcriptions

To young learners, teaching vocabulary should go along with teaching grammar Strongly

Agree Agree Sure Disagree Not Disagree Strongly