Vocabulary teaching in young learners’ English classes in Vietnam nowadays – The what and the how

This paper aims at studying what to teach and how to teach vocabulary in young learners’ English classes in Vietnam at the present time. It is found that the children have been taught not only the meaning but also the form of the words (spelling and pronunciation). Certain grammatical features of them, for example regular and irregular plural forms of the nouns and past forms of irregular verbs have also been taught...

DẠY TỪ VỰNG TIẾNG ANH CHO TRẺ EM Ở VIỆT NAM HIỆN NAY

– DẠY GÌ VÀ DẠY NHƯ THẾ NÀO?

Hoàng Thanh Liên

Trường Đại học Hà Nội

dạy ngoại ngữ theo hướng giao tiếp và nhằm ñạt ñược

mục tiêu ñề ra trong Quyết ñịnh 1400/QĐ-TTg ngày 30

tháng 9 năm 2008 của Thủ tướng Chính phủ về việc

phê duyệt Đề án “Dạy và học Ngoại ngữ trong Hệ

thống Giáo dục Quốc dân, giai ñoạn 2008-2020”, việc

dạy tiếng Anh cho trẻ em ñã có những bước chuyển

biến ñáng kể trong những năm gần ñây Vì vậy, dạy từ

vựng tiếng Anh cho trẻ cũng khác nhiều so với trước

Bài viết này nhằm mục ñích nghiên cứu và tìm ra thực

tế hiện nay giáo viên ở Việt Nam dạy gì liên quan ñến

từ vựng và dạy từ vựng như thế nào trong lớp học tiếng

Anh trẻ em Nghiên cứu cho thấy trẻ em không những

ñược dạy nghĩa mà còn ñược dạy hình thức của từ

(cách viết và cách phát âm) Một số ñặc ñiểm ngữ

pháp của từ, ví dụ dạng số nhiều theo quy tắc và bất

quy tắc của danh từ cũng ñược giới thiệu Ngoài ra,

nghiên cứu còn cho thấy giáo viên sử dụng những

phương pháp khác nhau ñể dạy từ vựng cho học sinh,

bao gồm phương pháp sử dụng hình ảnh và nhắc lại,

phương pháp trực tiếp, phương pháp giao tiếp (CLT)

và sử dụng cử chỉ, ñiệu bộ (TPR) cùng với phương

pháp dịch Anh-Việt truyền thống

Abstract: Being affected by the development of

Communicative Language Teaching approach and the goal stated in Decision 1400/QĐ-TTg dated 30 September, 2008 of the Prime Minister on the Approval

of the Project entitled “Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages in the National Education System, Period 2008-2020”, English Language Teaching in young learners’ classes in Vietnam has undergone considerable changes for the past few years Teaching English vocabulary to young learners is, therefore, different compared to that in the past This paper aims

at studying what to teach and how to teach vocabulary

in young learners’ English classes in Vietnam at the present time It is found that the children have been taught not only the meaning but also the form of the words (spelling and pronunciation) Certain grammatical features of them, for example regular and irregular plural forms of the nouns and past forms of irregular verbs have also been taught In addition, the study reveals that teachers have used various techniques in teaching vocabulary to young learners, namely visualizing and repeating, direct method, Total Physical Response and Communicative Language approach along with the traditional method (English – Vietnamese translation)

VOCABULARY TEACHING

IN YOUNG LEARNERS’ ENGLISH CLASSES

IN VIETNAM NOWADAYS – THE WHAT AND THE HOW

INTRODUCTION

English has been considered an international

language because it is used in almost all ar eas of

life, such as education, business, tourism,

entertainment, and others English language, thus,

becomes the first foreign language that has been

taught in primary schools since the early 1990s in

many countries in the world Along with this

development, the National Foreign Language

2020 Project of Vietnam which demonstrates the

goal of the government to build the English capacity of its workforce in order to engage in the global economy and to compete and develop regionally and globally has been approved by the Prime Minister of Vietnam on September 30, 2008 One of the main objectives of the project is to thoroughly renovate English teaching and learning throughout the country and to implement a new program on teaching and learning English at every school level and training degree, so that by the

year 2020 most Vietnamese graduates from

vocational schools, colleges and universities will

be able to well communicate in written and

spoken English Teaching English in primary

schools, therefore, has undergone considerable

changes This also leads to an innovation in

English vocabulary teaching at this school level

This study aims at studying what to teach and

how to teach English vocabulary to young learners

at primary schools in Vietnam in recent years The

paper will cover two parts, namely literature

review of the study and findings of the research as

well as discussion of these findings

LITERATURE REVIEW

Young learners

A young learner can be anybody aged three to

eighteen What a three-year-old child can do is

much different from what a fifteen-year-old one

can Their development should be considered, too

Some children develop faster while the others

need more time It requires the teachers of the

knowledge of all the development differences of

the young learners Understanding these

differences can help a teacher to develop

appropriate methods and techniques in their

teaching for the right age group in general and a

certain child in particular (Přibilová, 2006)

Characteristics of young learners

In this paper, young learners can be understood

as those aged 6-10, that is the children at primary

school According to Přibilová (2006), this age

group has the following characteristics Firstly,

they enjoy playing while learning, so they are able

to use language skills not even realizing them

Second, they love to share experiences and to be

paid attention to Thus, they often “teach” each

other and are able to talk about what they are

doing They are also very imaginary and they can

not tell the difference between facts and fictions

It is very important to note that they love to be

praised for what they have done or learnt

However, they only have a certain span of

attention and often pretend they understand and

know everything

Young learners as language learners

Children learn a foreign language in a natural way like when they learn their mother tongue They also learn more quickly if they are motivated

by the teacher They learn by listening and repeating, imitating the teacher, doing and interacting with each other in a child-friendly atmosphere However, they often feel afraid of making mistakes (Moon, 2005)

It is also proved that “the children need opportunities to try out and experiment with language, but they also need feedback to confirm

or modify their hypotheses” (Moon, 2005, p 5) From the above characteristics of the children themselves and the children as language learners,

it is important to note that the teachers definitely have to be sensitive to the needs of the children and have to plan the lessons well, using the appropriate way of teaching

Vocabulary - Importance of learning vocabulary

“Without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed.”

David Wilkins, linguist

Vocabulary plays an essential role in expressing ideas and thoughts Widdowson (1978) thinks that native English speakers can understand language material with correct vocabulary but not

so proper in grammar rules rather than those with correct grammar rules but not so proper in vocabulary use A good range of vocabulary means better reading comprehension, ability in technical subjects and written ability

“Researchers have found that word knowledge in primary school can predict how well students will

be able to comprehend texts they read in high school” (Johnson C & Johnson D., nd, p.1)

Challenges when learning vocabulary

When learning the vocabulary of a second language, a learner can encounter such problems

as making the correct connections, when

understanding the second language, between the

form and meaning of words; or using the correct

form of a word for the intended meaning (i.e nose,

not noise) during the language production process

To these challenges, the learners are supposed to

get a high range of vocabulary for use in both

language understanding and producing and to

remember words over the time, to be able to recall

them readily, and to work out strategies for coping

with unknown words, or unfamiliar uses of known

words (Přibilová, 2006) In addition, the language

learners also have to be responsible for expanding

their vocabulary (Thornbury, 2002, p.31)

Particularly, for the young learners, learning

vocabulary is fun but is also challenging because

they can not absorb a certain number of new

words at a time without repetition Cameron

(2001) says that each non-native child in good

learning conditions must learn up to 500 words a

year, which means about 13-14 words a day “The

amount of mental work done by learners affects

how well a new word is engraved in memory, the

more learners have to think about a word and its

meaning, the more likely they are to remember it”

(Cameron, 2001, p.75)

Problems in vocabulary learning among

children may result from the fact that vocabulary

is not sufficiently connected to pupils’ real lives

Their vocabulary may be extended beyond the

textbook without taking their choices, interest or

incidental learning through stories into

consideration (Cameron, 2001)

Approaches of teaching vocabulary to young

learners

Accoriding to Přibilová (2006), there are a

variety of methods and approaches how to teach a

foreign language, including vocabulary, some of

which can be used for teaching young learners,

namely visualizing, the direct method,

suggestopedia, Total Physical Repsonse,

Communicative Language Approach

Visualizing

Přibilová (2006) states that it is important to

visualize the items and then to have the children

repeat or use them actively so that they can understand them Visualising means letting the children see or perhaps touch the vocabulary item

by using pictures, flashcards or real objects, which can help create a fun and natural learning environment The children should also be given chance to listen and repeat these words in different ways, probably by listening to the teacher or the

CD player and repeat as a class, in groups, in pairs

or individually

Direct method

In this approach, there is no mother tongue or translation from the target language into the first language Also, only complete sentences are used and culture is an important aspect

In this instruction, there are many specific exercises and activities that focus the learners’ attention directly on certain words in lists, learning word parts, and vocabulary games These techniques are beneficial to all learners, especially the ones with limited personal experience with words as well as limited knowledge of words (Vacca,Vacca and Gove, 2000; Omanson et al., 1984; Jenkins, Stein, and Wysocki, 1984; McKeown et al., 1983; Kameenui, Carnine, and Freschi, 1982)

This technique has also been known to do good

to all readers required to read a specific text and deal with vocabulary items that are necessary for the text comprehension (Herber and Nelson-Herber, 1993)

Suggestopedia

By applying this method, the teacher can inspire

a desire to learn the new words among children because the music is on while learning This is considered to be a successful way in assisting the learners in memorizing the words; however, it has become less common now in language classes (Přibilová, 2006) This can be explained by the possible distraction from the main focus of the class among learners of language

Total Physical Response (TPR)

This works best for young learners because many children are now very hyper and physically

active TPR works well with parts of the body, for

example Touch your head, shoulder, knees and

toes; actions (I’m washing my face or He’s

jumping high); and the imperative commands (Sit

down! Open your books!) The children’s short

span of attention can also be a reason for the use

of TPR The children have no time to get bored or

distracted when they are continuously put in

games or fun activities and the teachers change

topics or activities over the time (Přibilová, 2006)

Communicative Language Approach

Teaching (CLT)

The meaning of a language in context is the

focus of this approach Then the words are taught

in context It is the communicative competence

that is highly developed here and the learners are

encouraged to communicate in the target language

Vocabulary teaching approaches can also be

classified into formal or planned instructions and

formal instructions While the former means

teaching the meaning of the words and ways to

discover the meaning, with the latter instruction

there is no teaching with rule or systematic approach

Both of these ways help the children to engage

their cognitive skills and to create opportunities

for them to use the words (Linse, 2005)

For vocabulary development among children,

the teacher can also apply both “Direct instruction

(teaching the words and their meaning such as

pre-teaching vocabulary items) and Indirect instruction

(teaching strategies to help learners figure out the

meaning themselves such as teaching prefixes and

suffixes)” (Linse, 2005, p 120)

Words and word-related components to be

taught

Teachers of a foreign language in general and

those of English in particular may come up with

such questions as which words and what should be

taught to the learners of language in general and

primary school children in particular According

to Cameron (2001), the young learners aged 6-10

should be taught the followings

Basic level words

Unlike the older children who can have an access to superordinate and subordinate vocabulary linked to basic level words they already know, they younger children should only

learn the basic level words like table, classroom

which can be known as the most commonly used words or words of high frequency

Concrete words

While older children can cope with abstract words/ topics, the younger children need concrete vocabulary Course books for young children, therefore, often lay emphasis on nouns because

“they are easy to describe and often the children

do not have literacy skills, so the only words that can easily be featured are nouns” (Linse, 2005, p.120) Linse (2005) also states that it is also important to teach verbs, adjectives, adverbs and prepositions as well as various lexical fields (food,

jobs, drinks…) along with the nouns

Words in collections

The older children can learn words through pragmatic organization (style and register), but the younger ones learn words as collections That is why all the course books are now theme-based and they provide vocabulary according to it (Přibilová, 2006)

According to Cameron (2001), for young children, knowing a word also includes

Receptive knowledge: recognizing and

understanding its meaning when heard/ read

Conceptual knowledge: use it with correct

meaning

Grammatical knowledge: accurate use of the

words

Orthographic knowledge: spelling of the

words

Cultural content: what is significance of use

in the culture, for example giving presents on Christmas day or delivering milk

Ur (1996) states that the language learners

should be taught form of the words (spelling and

pronunciation), then grammar (singular or plural

form of the words), collocations (words that go

together), meaning and word formation (like

using prefixes and suffixes or hyphenated words)

However, for him, collocations and word

formation are either too difficult or not important

to the children Instead, it is more important to

inform them of the meaning as well as the form

and grammar of the words Nation (2001) also

states that knowledge of a word can be divided

into knowledge concerning its form

(spoken/written), its position (grammatical

patterns/collocations), its function

(frequency/appropriateness), and its meaning

(concept/associations)

Vocabulary presentation

In his bachelor work, Přibilová (2006) suggests

that the teachers should bear in mind the number

of words to be taught during the lesson, the

guidelines in presenting the words, and several

techniques of presenting the new vocabulary items

Number of words to be taught

In making decision about the number of words

to be taught in one lesson, the teacher should

consider the target language level of the students,

their familiarity with the words, the word

difficulty in terms of pronunciation, cultural

features, spelling or concrete or abstract meaning

of the words The teacher should also care about

ways in which the words can be easily

demonstrated or not (by using realia or pictures or

verbal explanation)

Vocabulary presenting guidelines

In Přibilová’s opinion, the vocabulary should

be taught in spoken form first so that the students

can avoid pronouncing the words in the form they

are written Then the new items should be placed

in context, and revised later

Vocabulary presenting techniques

In Přibilová’s (2006) study, the techniques are

classified into the followings:

Verbal techniques: using illustrative situations, descriptions, synonyms and antonyms, and using various forms of definition: for example, definition by demonstration, contextual definitions, and definition by translation It is more difficult to give explanation this way at beginner level

Visual and repetition techniques: using

pictures – flashcards, photographs and magazines pictures, wall charts, posters, blackboard drawings, word pictures, several realia that the teachers can hold up and point, and then they can say out the words for the children to repeat To present actions and feelings, mime, actions and gestures can be used Learners can then label the pictures

or objects or act

Regarding visualizing techniques, Allen (1983) also says that there are several ways to show the meanings of an English word, through such aids as: (1) real objects (umbrellas, scissors, tools, buttons of many colors and sizes, etc); (2) drawings by the teacher or by the students; (3) demonstrations to show actions He also recommends teachers to use the real objects whenever possible when presenting the meaning

of an English noun Real objects are better than pictures

Translation: This technique is quick and easy

but not commonly used recently because it is proved to be discouraging for the learners They can not interact with the words, and the learners will not have a habit of thinking in the target language and then producing the words and sentences in that language quickly

Choosing activities to teach vocabulary

There could be a variety of methods and techniques to choose from in teaching vocabulary

to young children; however, teachers should be realistic because of the possible noise of the language classrooms, the large size of the class, the shortage of teaching facilities like projectors

or visual aids in the language class As a result, it

is the teachers to choose the right activities for the right class at the right time The activities can be

categorized into “settle-down” (to keep the class

quiet and attentive) and “stir-up” activities (used

to wake up the class) Some examples of the

former are reading and drawing, whole-class

listening activities, using stories or storybooks,

arts and crafts activities Some examples of the

latter are oral work (songs, chants and raps),

mingles or surveys, movement games, using

drama or acting out, competitions which can

engage children’s minds and keep them physically

occupied (Clarke, 2008)

METHODS

Objectives, subjects and the instrument of the

study as well as procedure of conducting the

research will be described in this part

Objectives

This survey aims at seeking the answers to the

following questions:

1) What related to English vocabulary do

teachers of English teach at primary schools in

Vietnam?

2) In what way is English vocabulary taught in

English classes at primary schools in Vietnam?

Subjects

The ninety teachers involved in this survey are

all English teachers at primary schools in Vietnam

They all graduated from Foreign Language

Teachers Training Colleges throughout the

country and are teaching pupils aged 8 to 10 at

primary schools of different provinces or cities

They were chosen as the population of the study

based on convenience sampling Most of the

answerers (95%) stated they had taken training

courses on how to teach English to Young

Learners (YL) in the framework of the National

Foreign Language 2020 Project of Vietnam,

which works to renovate teaching and learning

English throughout the country and implement a

new program on teaching and learning English at

every school level and training degree Among

those teachers who were trained on YL teaching

methodology, only one person answered that he/

she had never applied these methods in his/ her English teaching Just over half of the study population stated that they were now teaching in classes of 35-50 students or more than 50 students each Only a mere 9% of those questioned were teaching in classes of under 25 students Their teaching experience at primary schools also varied,

as shown in the table below

Table 1: Participants’ years of teaching

English at primary schools in Vietnam Years of teaching Percentage

Instrument

To collect the data for the survey on how to teach and what to teach about English vocabulary among primary school children, a questionnaire (see Appendix 1) and an observation note form (see Appendix 2) were developed based on relevant literature review discussed above and consideration for this English learning and teaching context at primary schools in Vietnam It

is noted that the observation note form, which was used to seek further information about methods, techniques and words as well as word-associated components being taught in classes, serves the purpose of supplementing the questionnaire in gathering all the information needed for the data analysis The reason for this is the researcher wants to know if the answers from the questionnaire match with the information collected from the observation

Procedure

The questionnaire was designed, piloted and then delivered to 90 primary school teachers in different provinces of Vietnam who were selected based on convenience sampling Two of the teachers, however, did not give back the answers

to the questionnaire After that, the researcher also

observed ten classes in which vocabulary teaching

is the focus of the class, using the observation note

form Then the data were collected and analysed

on both qualitative and quantitative basis

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This part presents findings of the survey as

well as discussion of the findings The first part

gives information about the methods of teaching

English vocabulary, techniques of presenting

English vocabulary adopted by the primary school

teachers while the second part shows

word-associated components being taught by them

English vocabulary teaching methods at

primary schools

Figure 1: English vocabulary teaching

methods at primary schools in Vietnam –

frequency of use in percentage terms

Figure 1 shows how frequently teachers of

English at primary schools in Vietnam use

different methods of teaching vocabulary

As can be seen from the figure, CLT was the

most popular method with nearly half of all the

respondents using it often and about another half

using it at all time This can be explained by the

fact that the learners feel safe and motivated to

learn in a CLT classroom where less emphasis is

on error correction and the focus is on

communication and fluency (Pawan, n.d.)

TPR and visualizing were also chosen as

common ways of teaching vocabulary by 77.2%

and 67.7% of the study population respectively A

possible reason for using TPR is that the students

do not have the stress of producing the language and TPR allows for low anxiety learning (Asher,

1977, cited in Pawan, nd)) Likewise, visualizing

is a favourite method among teachers who believe that the young learners prefer having realia or pictures in learning vocabulary related to concrete meanings because of their being imaginative (Charteristics of Young Learners)

About half of the surveyed teachers said they often used direct method while teaching vocabulary and over 10% of them always used it

It can be also seen from the figure that suggestopedia was not favoured by many teachers Only one in three teachers often used it in their class This finding also goes with what stated by Přibilová (2006): suggestopedia has become less common now in language classes

English vocabulary presenting techniques at

primary schools Figure 2: English vocabulary presenting techniques at primary schools in Vietnam – frequency of use in percentage terms

Figure 2 gives information about frequency of using vocabulary presenting techniques at primary schools in Vietnam in percentage terms

It is clear that visualizing and repeating and TPR (acting, miming and drawing, colouring) attracted more of the teachers with a massive 90.6% and around 70% respectively Singing, chanting and contextual definition were also preferred by over half of the population These

45 45 63.6

13.6

50 59 4.5 13.6 27 13.6 18 13.6

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Always Often Some time s Never

45 50 50

40.9

31.8 22.7 13.6 27.2 40.9

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Always Often Sometimes Never

figures indicate that the teachers care more about

the children as well as their characteristics in

learning English now

Only a quarter of the surveyed people chose

translation as a frequent presenting technique

This helps to prove what Přibilová (2006) states

about translation technique (being not commonly

used recently because it is proved to be

discouraging for the learners)

English words and word-related components

being taught at primary schools

According to the responses from the

questionnaire and information from the

observation, it can be seen that just over half of

them chose grammatical features of the words and

nearly half picked words in collections in teaching

vocabulary To this, Cameron (2001) also presents

that the young learners should learn words as

collections From the survey, it can also be found

that the majority of the study population (from

90% to 95%) preferred meaning, spelling and

pronunciation of the words Likewise, Ur (nd)

states that the young learners need to be taught the

form of the word (spelling and pronunciation),

then grammar, collocations, meaning and word

formation Yet, he also adds that collocations are

still not very necessary and word formation was

too difficult to learn among young learners This

also goes with the findings of this study: style,

cultural aspects of the words, word formation,

word collocation, dictionary skills and vocabulary

learning strategies were only selected by small

proportions of respondents (around 10% to 30%)

CONCLUSION

This study deals with the subject of teaching

vocabulary to young learners in Vietnam at the

present time When teaching young learners, the

teacher has to understand their characteristics as

both children and language learners

In the first main part of the study, the

researcher has presented some background

information about the children as language

learners and their characteristics Also there has

been a description of vocabulary teaching methods and vocabulary presenting techniques All these help to contribute to the questionnaire and observation note form designing part The second main part shows the findings of the research as well as discussion of the findings It is found that the children have been taught not only the meaning and the form of the words but also certain grammatical features of them Regarding the techniques and methods used in teaching vocabulary to young learners, visualizing and repeating, direct method, TPR and CLT are more preferable than others

The study is significant in Vietnam’s innovation in language teaching in general and vocabulary teaching in particular because it has proved that the teachers are now more open to the new approaches and techniques of teaching and National Language Teaching Project 2020 of Vietnam has worked to some extent in achieving its objectives of renovating English teaching and learning throughout the country

However, this study has not yet found out if the methods and techniques adopted by teachers at primary schools in Vietnam contributed to the effectiveness of language learning among the children Therefore, there should be another research aiming at measuring this

RERFERENCES

1 Allen, V F (1983) Techniques in Teaching

2 Cameron, L (2001) Teaching Languages to Young

http://farwaniya03.tripod.com/id6.html

3 Clarke, S (2008) Teacher and teacher-trainer

Coimbra: British Council Retrieved August 20, 2014, from

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/stirrers-settlers-primary-classroom

4 Herber, H & J Nelson-Herber (1993) Teaching in

Content Areas with Reading, Writing, and Reasoning.

Boston: Allyn and Bacon

5 Moon, J (2005) Children Learning English – A