Teaching vocabularies and structures by concepts m a

It is my hope that the Concept Method presented in this thesis in the hopes that it can help learners understand word and structure meanings correctly and have fast reaction in communica

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled:

TEACHING VOCABULARIES AND STRUCTURES

BY CONCEPTS

In terms of statement of Requirements for Theses

In Master’s Programs issued by the Higher Degree Committee

HCMC, Aril 24th 2009

NGUYEÃN THÒ BÍCH TRAÂN

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, NGUYEÃN THÒ BÍCH TRAÂN, being the candidate for the degree of Master of TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis

deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and

research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan or reception of theses

HCMC, April 24th 2009

NGUYEÃN THÒ BÍCH TRAÂN

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express deepest gratitude to my Thesis Supervisor, Dr Sidsel Millerstrom, for her guidance and support in my search for the documents and material for my thesis Her valuable comments and advice played an

important role in the preparation and completion of this thesis

I am also grateful to Dr Nguyen Hoang Tuan for his encouragement and for believing my thesis was worth pursuing I also appreciate his good introduction

to my supervisor

I wish to express my gratitude to all the teachers of English in Foreign Language and Informatics School, particularly, Thaêng Long, who help me with the contribution of methodology to build my arguments and the use of statistics in the thesis

I am grateful for the opportunity to earn a degree in education; I am

indebted to my former teachers, Ms Nguyeãn Thò Bích Vaân and Mr Nguyeãn Vónh Khueâ, who taught me the love for the profession They motivated me to become

an English teachers and inspired me to pursue a higher education

I also own my tremendous recognition and credit to my mom HOÀ THÒ VIEÄT and my dad NGUYEÃN XUAÂN HUY for their support and encouragement during my study

Finally, I gratefully acknowledge my husband, NGUYEÃN THANH SÔN, who contributes with a large number of good ideas and provided me with

valuable comments during my post-graduate course



ABSTRACT

This thesis tries to justify the feasibility of the method to teaching

vocabularies and structures by concepts The Concept Method is the combination

of conceptualization, Communicative Approach, Situational Method Beside this, the research shows the benefit for learners in communication through learning vocabularies and structures by this method

Data collection through questionnaires for teachers reveals that the

Concept Method is still strange to a number of teachers and it is difficult to carry out without pedagogical training course The responses of the questionnaire to primary learners show their acceptance of the “Concept Method” and the

learners’ love for English Moreover, the scores from pre-intermediate learners demonstrated the benefits of teaching English by Concept Method It is my hope that the Concept Method presented in this thesis in the hopes that it can help learners understand word and structure meanings correctly and have fast reaction

in communication so that learners can omit the translation stages in their mind when communicating



LIST OF TABLES, CHARTS and FIGURES

1.1 Table 4.1.1a (question 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10) 36

1.2 Table 4.1.1b (question 7) 40

1.3 Table 4.1.1c (questions 9a, 9b, 9c, 9d, 9e) 41

1.4 Table: 4.1.2.1a (questions 1 to 7; 10 to 19) 44

1.5 Table: 4.1.2.1b (questions 8a, 8b, 8c, 8d, 8e, 8f) 51

1.6 Table: 4.1.2.1c (question 9) 53

2 CHARTS 2.1 Chart 4.1.1a (Questions 1, 2, 4) 37

2.2 Chart 4.1.1b (Questions 3, 5) 38

2.3 Chart 4.1.1c (Questions 6, 8, 10) 39

2.4 Chart 4.1.1d (Question 7) 41

2.5 Chart 4.1.1e (Questions 9a, 9b, 9c, 9d, 9e) 42

2.6 Chart 4.1.2.1a (Questions 1, 4, 5, 7) 46

2.7 Chart 4.1.2.1b (Questions 2, 6, 18) 47

2.8 Chart 4.1.2.1c (Questions 3, 11, 17) 48

2.9 Chart 4.1.2.1d (Questions 10, 14, 15) 50

2.10 Chart 4.1.2.1e (Questions 8a, 8b, 8c, 8d, 8e, 8f) 52

2.11 Chart 4.1.2.1f (Question 9) 54

2.12 Chart 4.1.2.1g (Questions 12, 13, 16, 19) 55

2.13 Chart 4.2.2.1a (April 2nd 2007) 57

2.14 Chart 4.2.2.1b (September 9th 2007) 60

2.15 Chart 4.2.2.1c (November 11th 2007) 62

2.16 Chart 4.2.2.1d (May 10th 2007) 63

3 FIGURES:

3.1 Figure 5.2.1a 67

3.2 Figure 5.2.1b 68



CONTENTS

Certificate of Originality i

Retention and Use of the Thesis ii

Acknowledgements iii

Abstract iv

List of Tables, charts and figures v

Contents vii

1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background to the research 1

1.2 Problems 1

1.3 Hypothesis 4

1.4 The aim of the study 4

1.5 The research questions 4

1.6 Significance of the study 4

1.7 Thesis structures 5

2 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Previous research 6

2.2 Theoretical background 17

2.2.1 Definition of terms 17

2.2.1.1 Vocabulary 17

2.2.1.2 Context 18

2.2.1.3 Structure 19

2.2.1.4 Types of structures 20

2.2.1.5 Signals or symbols 21

2.2.1.6 Gestures 22

2.2.1.7 Nonverbal communication 23

2.2.1.8 Concepts 23

2.2.1.9 Semantic features – semantic fields 24

 Semantic features 24

 Semantic fields 26

2.2.1.10 Word classification 27

2 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY 30

3.1 Study design 30

3.1.1 Population 30

3.1.2 Samples 30

3.1.3 Scores 31

3.1.4 Characteristics 31

3.2 Instruments 32

3.2.1 Scores 32

3.2.2 Survey questionnaires 33

3.3 Data collection 34

3.3.1 Questionnaires to learners 34

3.3.2 Questionnaires to teachers 34

3.3.3 The scores 35

3.4 Instruments for analysis 35

3.4.1 Data analysis (tables and charts) 35

3.5 Discussion of reliability and validity 35

3.5.1 The questionnaires for the elementary learners 35

3.5.2 The questionnaires for the trained and non-trained teachers 35

3.5.3 Scores of higher-level learners 35

4 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 36

4.1 Questionnaire results 37

4.1.1 Questionnaires to primary learners 36

4.1.2 Questionnaires to teachers 44

4.2 Scores - the results from level A and level B 56

4.2.1 The formula 56

4.2.2 The statistics of the exam of level A - April 2nd 2007 57

4.2.3 The statistics of the exam of level A - September 9th 2007 59

4.2.4 The statistics of the exam of level A - November 11th 2007 61

4.2.5 The statistics of the exam of level B - May 10th 2008 62

5 CHAPTER 5: RESULTS AND SUGGESTIONS 65

5.1 Statement of findings 65

5.2 Suggestions 66

5.2.1 Methodology: Concept Method 66

5.2.1.1 Why is Concept Method important? 66

5.2.1.2 The background of Concept Method 69

5.2.2 Teaching procedure in Concept Method 75

5.2.2.1 Preparation (at home) 75

5.2.2.2 Presenting the concepts of vocabularies 76

5.2.2.3 Practicing the concepts of vocabularies and spellings 77

5.2.2.4 Presenting the concepts of the structures 77

5.2.2.5 Practicing the concepts of the structures 78

5.2.2.6 Practicing the whole (students fix and use) 78

5.2.2.7 Testing students’ communicative competence and comprehension of new words and new structure 78

5.2.3 Lessons plans: 78

5.2.4 Teachers 78

5.2.5 System of managing 80

5.2.6 Time, number of students in a class 80

5.3 Solution to problems in teaching English by concepts 80

5.3.1 Teachers 80

5.3.2 Students 81

5.3.3 Students’ parents 81

6 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION 82

6.1 Limitation 82

6.2 Further research 82

6.3 Conclusion 83

7 BIBLIOGRAPHY 85

7.1 Books used in the thesis: 85

7.2 Books read for information: 86

7.3 Internet addresses 90

7.4 Theses 90

8 APPENDICES 89

8.1 Appendix A: Questionnaire (for learners) 90

8.2 Appendix B: questionnaire (for teachers) 92

8.3 Appendix C: lesson plan 1 (for teachers at Primary Level) 94



CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Vocabularies and structures are basic elements in communication If

learners are not well equipped with the right meanings and language uses of vocabularies and structures, they cannot communicate well in the language they want to learn The following situations are cases in which learners meet problems

in interpreting vocabularies and structures

communicative competence Most of them cannot communicate after a long time

of English learning In English teaching, that is a big problem, because of that reason, the language teachers have to investigate to find out the best approaches

to help the learners The followings are some of the problems learners face

Firstly, through my experience, learners will have problems if their

teachers use Grammar – Translation method to explain the meaning of new words and structures After a short time, they cannot communicate because when

receiving an utterance used in English, in order to understand, they have to

translate into their native languages to understand Then, they find and arrange

the answer in their native languages and translate it into English Moreover, the Grammar – Translation method often makes the learners afraid of making errors because accuracy is emphasized (Richards, and Rogers, 1986:4) In addition, communicative competence is not the goal of learning by Grammar – Translation method (Richards, and Rogers, 1986:4) Students are expected to train with high standards in translation Thus, when communicating, they always hesitate to

produce an utterance or a sentence because of errors Thus, it takes them a great amount of time to understand an utterance In fact, speakers cannot wait so long for the answer Therefore, learners cannot communicate in English naturally if they learn vocabularies, structures by Grammar Translation method

The second case is that native teachers use the Direct Method - use English

to teach English, whereas their students do not know or have limited knowledge

of English The more they learn, the more they meet new words because their teachers often use definition to explain new words They are overwhelmed with new words/vocabulary In addition, native speakers are not often concerned with grammar rules They frequently consider them as normal questions, nothing

difficult to explain because it is easy for them Consequentially, learners cannot know how to make new structures immediately because they do not know the rules of those structures They just know vaguely about the language functions They need a lot of time to learn their grammatical rules (Richards, and Rogers, 1986) Some students want to train the communicative competence so they

choose to learn English from a native teacher but previously they had to learn new words and new structures from a Vietnamese teacher of English with

grammar translation method It is obvious that it is a waste of time and money for the learners when they want to improve their English competence

Thirdly, if I the teachers teach English in a multi-language class in which none of them can speak the teacher’s mother tongue, and they do not know

anything about English, how can the teachers teach vocabularies and structures so that their students can communicate well in English? In that case, the teachers cannot teach learners English because there is no understanding between the teachers and learners (Richards and Rogers, 1986) Therefore, it is very important for the teacher of English to find out the best approaches to teach the students a language

In the forth case, the teachers, using Audio-Lingual, ask learners to learn new words by heart by including in new structures without understanding well the meanings or the concepts of these words and structures Reinforcement, which is frequently applied during the class time, makes learners repeat the structures automatically without understanding their meanings and the word use As a result, they cannot use the new models of language in the right situations

To learn a language is to communicate, not to translate from one language

to another From these theoretical issues, I desired to find out a new method to overcome these problems based on the following principles:

I believe that there is a common language, a bridge which will lead to the

new language That language is the concept that is studied in this research I think

the idea is feasible because while most of the deaf cannot produce and hear sound they can communicate by using gestures and signals It is possible for the teacher to use gestures, signals, and sounds to explain the meanings of a word or

a structure at the primary level because our learners can produce and hear sounds

or to use definitions, synonyms, or paraphrasing at the higher level Yet, as for

me, the teachers have to follow the regulation that: the new knowledge has to be

built on what is known in any circumstances in order to prevent the appearance

of too many new words stage of learning vocabularies

Knowing a word means to know not only word meaning, but also word use, word information, and word grammar (Harmer, 1991) Besides, in my opinion, to know a word means both to receive their knowledge and to produce them

naturally in the right contexts With the communicative objective of language learning, the teachers must build as many situations as possible The teacher must not forget helping the learners to produce the language they have learnt correctly and naturally in practice and as the need arises

kinds of vocabularies and structures

the approach to teach vocabularies and structures by concepts is feasible

and structures by concepts feasible?”

 Why is concept important?

 Are all vocabularies and structures taught by concepts?

 Can most teachers use the Concept Method?

With the aim of the study, it attempt to contribute to language teaching methodology a new method that is applied at Thang Long School and to find out what factors, which cause difficulties for the teachers in using the method and the way to overcome these difficulties Most of English learners wish to communicate

successfully in English and based on English, they can improve their special education and their careers

Chapter 3 describes the research methodology The study involves research design, description of the samples, and the instruments and data collection procedures from questionnaires and scores

Chapter 4 discusses and analyses the results

Chapter 5 gives some suggestions for carrying out “Concept Method” in teaching vocabularies, structures and for the way to overcome difficulties emerging in language teaching

Chapter 6 shows limitation, further research and the conclusion

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Vocabularies and structures (grammatical structures) are basic constituents

of language in communication If language structures make up the skeleton of language, then vocabulary provides the vital organs and the flesh (Harmer,

1991:153) Therefore, vocabularies and structures play the crucial role to

communicative competence Without vocabulary, and structures, it means that language does not exist On the other hand, if learners only acquire one of two, either vocabularies or structures, they cannot completely express their ideas So both of them have to be taught carefully to learners but in different orders

Vocabularies should be taught first and then structures In my experience,

learners become bored if they are taught structures before vocabularies They will feel interested if they know all the new words first Besides, language-

teaching methods are so important to learners in acquiring a new language How can teachers teach them well? How can learners learn and use them fluently in communication? For years, numerous, pedagogues and linguists, have analyzed and studied a great number of language teaching methods to find out the best method to help learners improve their English communication skills Some of them have assumed that teachers who have good knowledge of linguistic can teach well and some of them consider that teachers who have good methods can teach well I believe that a language teacher does not need to have extensive knowledge of a particular language but a wide-ranging knowledge of linguistics

On the contrary, the teacher has to transfer his/hers knowledge to learners and help them can use it correctly when they need it If he/she wants to achieve that

result, he/she has to use appropriate methods There has been a great amount of research, with various viewpoints, about these issues This, however, has crated problems in the history of language teaching methodology Among studies of methodology and linguistics, there are a number of studies about vocabularies, structures, and about methods on how to teach them The following researches examine these issues and offer solution to the problem

linguistics rather than methods in teaching a second language The important thing

to Schmitt is to understand the nature and significance of vocabulary knowledge

in a second language Thus, teachers play the important role in the knowledge language supply Schmitt (2000) presents the questions of vocabularies rather clearly and in details He equips the teachers with many aspects of vocabularies such as size of vocabularies; how many words a native speaker knows, and the

complex nature of vocabularies The heart of the book Vocabulary in Language

Teaching (2000) is that it describes the various kinds of knowledge a person can

have about a word, that how vocabularies behave in context and how they are acquired He presents some methods in general and presents specifics about vocabulary acquisition and organization He claims that to understand a word

clearly, the teachers should understand without a doubt the semantic features and

semantic fields When explaining the meaning of a word, the teachers need to

describe the concept it presents But he/she also says that determining the

necessary and sufficient features is actually almost impossible Thus, the meaning

of a word is not fixed but has a certain amount of flexibility This flexibility is called “fuzzy meaning” The fuzziness becomes particularly noticeable at the boundary between words (Schmitt, 2000:24) To Schmitt, the prototype can help explain the inclusion and exclusion of member in a concept category He states

that the word’s meaning is often particularly determined by contrasting it with the meaning of other related words The field of semantics (semantic field) has

generated technical terms to more precisely express these relationships Thus, to understand the meaning of a word in a context is not less important than its

meaning in isolation (Schmitt, 2000:25) To Schmitt, the meaning of the word is

an important factor of personal and cultural background knowledge In addition, Schmitt argues that Semantic can entail either core or encyclopedic meaning, but prototype theory suggests that the core meaning features will be the ones most important in determining membership in a concept category (Schmitt, 2000:27)

knowledge of vocabulary Hatch, and Brown, (1995) in Vocabulary, Semantics,

and Language Education provide language teachers the precious background

knowledge of Vocabulary and Semantics (figurative language, concepts, speech acts), morphology (word classes), grammar, basic steps necessary for learners to acquire vocabulary and errors, evaluation of teacher techniques and language teaching materials promoting vocabulary acquisition The teaching and learning techniques are not presented clearly, whereas the knowledge of vocabulary is well presented

knowledge of vocabulary, a part of linguistics In chapter one and two of Learning

Vocabulary in Another Language, Nation (2001) presents the content in a similar

manner to Schmitt's but not as detailed as in Schmitt's He also pays attention to

concepts and referents but he examines the techniques more than the knowledge

of semantic features and semantic fields In addition, he shows that physical conditions are very important in the activity use to help reach the learning goal Noticing, retrieval and creative use are important steps in teaching vocabulary

Nation pays attention to techniques and learners' psychology Nation especially emphasizes repetition in learning vocabulary He advises teachers to create more opportunities for learners to see and use the words as many times as possible More over, Nation arranges and presents very interesting ways of communicating word meanings: performing actions, showing objects, translating Yet, the part of word classification is shown but it is not enough for the teachers to get a basic background in choosing the best way to explain the meaning of a word Nation, furthermore, concentrates on vocabulary learning strategies Nation exploits the techniques and factors affecting the results of vocabularies more than the

knowledge of vocabularies, he does not mention the structures in learning a language To him, the meaning of vocabulary may be the most important in

communication In my opinion, vocabularies only are not enough to communicate exactly and effectively but we also need structures to express complex ideas

techniques of language teaching but not with background knowledge of

linguistics Through time, we see the changes in his thought In Teaching and

Learning Grammar (1987), Harmer mentions too many techniques of teaching

grammar He gives out two concepts of grammar: covert and overt grammar However, he assumes that teachers should teach covert grammar more than overt grammar because covert grammar is often easier for the students to acquiring a new language To communicate correctly and fluently, he reminds the teachers to pay attention to not only the language function but also the form of a new

grammatical item The discovery techniques and the practice techniques such as drills, interaction activities, involving personality, games, and written practice are presented to help learners discover new grammatical items and to practice them However, Harmer has not yet revealed which patterns of grammar can be taught

as covert or overt grammar Harmer does not distinguish the level of learners clearly in order to have good approaches in grammar teaching It is very difficult for teachers to choose exact techniques or approaches to teach a new grammatical item

provide some techniques and steps to help teachers to make grammar easier These steps are clearer and easier to carry out To Harmer, the presentation stage

of new grammatical item is very important because this stage is the decisive stage

to make learners understand accurately or they will misunderstand the new

language The general model for learning a new language includes five

components: lead-in, elicitation, explanation, accurate reproduction, and

immediate creativity Five stages with steps, which are useful to teachers, are presented rather clearly Language structures are necessary for learners but if they have little vocabulary, they will have problems in expressing their ideas In fact, Harmer says that it is even possible that where vocabulary is used correctly

it can cancel out structural inaccuracy (Harmer, 1991:153) To Harmer (1991), the first thing that the teachers have to do is to choose vocabularies But what kinds of words are to be chosen first? To him, the words which are most commonly used are the ones the teachers should teach first The second thing that Harmer always pays attentions to is the word or structure presentation He thinks that stage is the most important one in teaching If the teachers cannot attract learners in this stage, they will not understand the meaning and word use, which leads to the case that they practice with wrong meaning and word use, which is very dangerous for

learners (Harmer, 1991:154-155) Harmer (1991) also presents some interesting

ways to present the presentation of vocabulary teaching He says that not all vocabulary can be learnt through interaction and discovery techniques He

introduces some ways to present new words: realia (real things/ real objects), pictures, mime, action and gestures, contrast, enumeration, explanation,

translation These ways will make learners understand new words and make it more interesting To Harmer, translation is one of effective ways in teaching vocabularies However, for me, translation is not helpful for learners in learning new vocabulary because it will make learners misunderstand the exact concepts

of new words Harmer does not mention semantic features, or semantic fields in teaching vocabulary He suggests the word classification and he has shown some particular methods to teach each type of words However, in general, he only offers a few examples to teach new words and structures (Harmer, 1998) Yet, the examples are both interesting and new

teaching but not the theoretical background knowledge of vocabulary and

structure The techniques are presented rather clearly but the author does not classify what kinds of words or structures in order to have suitable techniques to teach each kind The drawings in the book are very simple and easy to

understand, but for the teacher they require great investment and preparation in lesson planning It is obvious to say that pictures and drawings are effective ways

to explain word meanings

in knowledge of vocabulary and little structures but they do not classify what kinds of vocabulary and structures nor do they give steps and techniques on how

to teach them whereas Harmer (1987, 1991 and 1998) concentrates on techniques and strategies to teach vocabulary and structures He does not offer any

information about them Personally, I believe that the meanings of a new

language cannot be understood by translation but by concepts In reality, when

explaining the meaning of a word the teacher need to describe the concept it presents (Schmitt, 2000:23) Teachers should present the concept of the words first and then the whole structure Teaching a new language means not only the presentation of that language unit but also its language use and how to teach learners the communicative competence In reading literature I noticed a gap in two areas of teaching techniques, teaching strategies and background knowledge

of vocabularies and structures have not been considered equally in teaching vocabularies and structures Moreover, having the knowledge of linguistics and techniques to teach vocabularies and structures is not sufficient for the teachers but they have to choose one or more teaching methods during the class lesson The methods will control the whole or part of the class time The language

teachers have to know most teaching methods such as: Grammar-Translation Method, Direct Method, Communicative Approach, or others in order from that they can have one or the combination of them in their teaching

carefully presents most of the language teaching methods To them it relevant what skills the teachers teach Through the methods they present I recognize their strong and weak points I provide the following remarks:

 In the beginning of learning, this method makes the students feel that the foreign language is easy to learn and are not afraid of that language because they learn the new language through their native language The second issue is that students can learn much and fast at the beginning period because the teachers can supply vocabulary lists and explanation of grammar items Thirdly, this method is easy for the teachers because they do not have to invest much time in the

knowledge of linguistics and methodology They only use translation and

explanation to supply information to the students On the contrary, the students only receive the knowledge from the teachers without brainstorming

 The method has the wrong objective because through its features we see that this method does not teach learners the language they want to learn but it teaches them about the language Learning a language is to communicate but not

to know about it First, the communicative competence is not considered the goal

of language learning There is no time for practice of speaking and listening So all the vocabularies they have received become passive and is gradually

forgotten They have no chance to repeat these so they feel very bored when learning new words Secondly, learning a language through translation will make students get stuck in the usage of a particular vocabulary because they are

influenced by the teachers’ word usage; they are unable to express their ideas and their thought directly in the target language Thus, their communication must

go through translation into or out of their first language and it does not become fluent in communication

 This Method is quite successful in private language schools where paying clients had high motivation and the use of native-speaking teachers is the norm Students can have the fast reaction in listening and speaking the target language, and eventually hey have developed a native like accents after a long time of learning through this method Students can not only listen and speak naturally but they also master grammar

 This method is most suitable in small classes It requires teachers who are native speakers or who have native like fluency in the foreign language It is largely dependent on the teacher’s skills, rather than on a text book, and not all teachers are proficient enough in the foreign language to adhere to the principles

of the method In practical, language schools have to pay more salary for native teachers than nonnative teachers and the students have to pay higher school fees for their learning with native teachers Thus, this is not economical for most of the students to improve their foreign language skills It takes the students a long time

to become fluent in communication because at the stage of learning the students have to become accustomed to the new language Reading and writing skills are not emphasized; therefore, students lack two of four main skills in language learning

 The method can train learners the communicative competence because the target language is the language in the class and learners have as many as possible opportunities to practice the target language The situations, which are practiced

in the class, will be useful for learners when they meet the situation gain in real life They can have the accuracy in communication in the target language The learners will be interested in learning because the teacher acts as an actor or an actress and they have chances to work in the language they are learning

 The problems are that there are no principles in teaching the meaning of the word and of the structure The method does not provide instructions on how to teach a new word or a new structure The method does not claim which principles the teacher’s performance and presentation are based on The Situational

Language Teaching emphasizes on pronunciation but there is no particular

procedure in teaching pronunciation of a word

 In this method learners can achieve some mechanical structures

Sometimes they are useful for learners in communication Learners will have fast reactions in speaking if they meet the same situations They have become used to

speak the language naturally without shyness After a time of learning, they can imitate the new language unit unconsciously without hesitation and without

wondering about its meaning or concept

 Chomsky (1966) argues that such a learning theory cannot possibly serve

as a model on how humans learn languages Since much of human language use

is not imitated behavior but is created a new form underlying knowledge of

abstract rules Sentences are not learned by imitation and repetition but

“generated” from the learner s’ underlying “competence” (Richards, and Rogers, 1986:59) Pattern practice, drilling, memorization may lead to language

behaviors, but they do not result in competence The fact is that in the early

stages learners do not always understands the meaning of what they are

repeating When meeting the various situations they are unable to change some factors in the model structures to be suitable to the real situations

 The goal and characteristics of Communicative approach are appropriate and suitable for language learners Learners will feel very interesting in the class time because of the variation of tasks in the learning procedures and learners can speak what they need in communication They are not afraid of the teachers comments when making errors They like communicating The class time is not controlled by the curriculum in the discipline

 This method does not mention the concepts of the new language items such

as new vocabularies and grammatical structures and the method to teach them The teachers are often using the method of translation- “translation may be used where students need or benefit from it” (Richards and Roger,1986:67) In the method where the teachers use the first language in the class time, that influences learners’ communicative competence Next, they are often afraid of this method

because they cannot know exactly what language the students will use so they cannot control the classroom lesson Moreover, the teachers are afraid that

learners need their help in the new vocabularies or new grammatical items As

we know, a language teacher cannot master all the categories of vocabularies and all the grammatical items in that language Besides, few teachers dare not apply this method during the curriculum of the school year because it requires the

teachers to invest much in techniques, knowledge of the language, the teaching, and learning strategy

In the research “Teaching vocabularies and structures by concepts”, I try to bridge these gaps The Concept Method that is presented in the research has been experimented with for over ten years at Thang Long School, one of the Language center in Ho Chi Minh City It is not quite a new method but it is a method that combines several language teaching methods This method overcomes the weak points and develops the strong points of the methods in teaching vocabularies and structures The special points in this method are only the facts that the concepts will much be used in teaching vocabularies and structures and the Grammar-Translation method will not be considered in this thesis

2.4 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

 Vocabulary is a number of words that make up a language (Oxford

Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 1992)

 Most of us equate the meaning of words with the definitions in dictionaries The word meaning consists of the denotation and connotation meaning To

describe the meaning of a word, then, we need to describe the concept it

represents (Schmitt, 2000:22) Beside the single concept, the word meaning is also influenced by the context in which it is used

 The term vocabulary refers to a list or set of words for a particular

language or a list or a set of words that individual speakers of a language might use (Hatch and Brown, 1995:1)

 In the research, beside the definition of vocabulary in the dictionary, and in other publications, vocabulary is the new word that learners need to learn in the course or that is necessary for learners in communication Vocabulary is

knowledge of words and word meanings Sometimes it is the lexicon word but sometimes it is the structural word provided the learners have no knowledge of the word at the time it is introduced However, vocabulary is more complex than this definition suggests First, words come in two forms: oral and print Oral

vocabulary includes those words that we recognize and use in listening and

speaking Print vocabulary includes those words that we recognize and use in reading and writing Second, vocabulary also comes in two forms, receptive and productive Receptive vocabulary includes words that we recognize when we hear or see them Productive vocabulary includes words that we use when we speak or write Receptive vocabulary is typically larger than productive

vocabulary and easily becomes passive and it gradually disappears if it is not frequently changed into productive vocabulary The duty of the teacher is to help learners to use receptive vocabulary as often as they can in order that they can change those receptive into productive ones

statement, etc helping to show what its meaning is (Oxford Advanced Learner’s

Dictionary, 1992) For example: the word great has a lot of meanings When

teaching a new vocabulary, the teachers have to examine the context where it is used to choose the correct meaning Context is also the situation in which

something happens and that helps you to understand it (Oxford Advanced Genie Dictionary, 2002) The following examples from the dictionary are to justify the above argument:

 great: adjective:

(i) Well above average in size, extent or quantity: E.g The great

ship sank below the waves  a great expanse of forest  Dive

to a great depth  A great crowd had turned up…

(ii) Far a way in space or time: E.g He lives in a great distance

away  That was a great while ago

(iii) Exceptional in degree or intensity, considerable: of great value,

importance, relevance, and significance E.g  He described it

in great detail  Take great care to do it properly  You have

my greatest sympathy  Be in great demand

(iv) In a very good state of health, morale, or wellbeing, fine E.g 

I feel great today!  in great form, i.e very fit and active  in

great spirits, i.e very cheerful

(v) With very good or bad effects E.g It’s a great belief to know

you’re safe  You’ve been a great help  The greatest

disaster that has ever befallen us

(vi) Of remarkable ability or quality, outstanding E.g  a great man

or a great women  a great artist  No one would deny that Beethoven’s symphonies are great masterpieces

(vii) Of high rank or status E.g  a great lady or a great gentleman

 the great power 

(viii) Very remarkable, splendid E.g He’s great  She’s the

greatest  What a great party!

(ix) Very enjoyable, satisfactory E.g  We had a very great time in

Majorca  It’s great to have met you (Oxford Advanced

Learner’s Dictionary, 1992) There are of course numerous

examples of the meanings of great

Definition of structure:

 The way in which something is put together, organized or built (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 1992) Within the limitation of the research, structure is the new phrase or grammatical item, which is the new language model that learner need to learn to enrich their language knowledge For example:

(i) What is your name? (What’s your name?)

=> My name is Alice (My name’s Alice.)

In this model, the learners learn the and practice the phrases

“What is/What’s your name and “My name is/My name’s”) and their language functions

(ii) Hi, Mom! I am/ I’m home (Nakata, Frazer, and Hoskins,

 Statement: the teachers present the concepts of the statement after learners

have understood the concepts of vocabularies The concept of the structures is based on the concepts of key vocabularies and the context The teacher should present the concept of the statement in affirmative form first and then in the

negative one if any The concept in negative form is based on the affirmative one with the gestures of “no” This way will be easier for learners to understand Nevertheless, in some special cases, the teachers also use the negative form first

Ex: “He wants bananas.” has to be explained before the statement “He

doesn’t want bananas “ because when learners understand the affirmative

form thanks to the words want and banana then the teachers only use the

gesture “no” to express the meaning of negative form

 Question: the concept of the question must be presented after the concept

of the statement It is often evidently accepted without explanation This way will make learners understand the structures more easily If the concept of the

question is explained first, the teachers will have to present interrogative words, the word orders, and then to explain the concept of the statement This way will

be more complicated The concepts of the words in a structure are very important but the teachers have to choose the key or the crucial ones to present and forget the others to prevent learners from confusing

Ex: What make/brand is it?  It’s a Toyota./ It’s a Honda / It’s a Sony

If the teachers express the meaning of the question first, they have to explain the meaning of “make” or “brand” in case learners know the meaning of “what, it, is” The word “make” has many meanings and very difficult to explain In the other hands, if the teachers explain the meaning of “Toyota” with the semantic fields of the car producers

“Toyota, Mercedes, Peugeot,” the electronic producers “Sony, Sanyo, National, Funiki, Daikin, Samsung,” and the motorbike producers

“Honda, Suzuki, Sym.” When the learners understand the meanings of Toyota, Honda and Sony are the producers, they will immediately understand the question “What make is it?” when it is used to ask about the producers At this time learners need not to know the meaning of

make but they only memorize that when somebody asks them “What

make is it?” they have to give the information about its producer

 Signal or symbol is sign, gesture, sound, etc., that conveys a message, a command (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 1992) For example: the teacher moves straight his/her arm straight in front of students in order to

command that the students have to line up straight

 Signal is any device or object placed to give people a warning,

information, etc (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 1992) They are also used in expressing the concept of a word For example:

: turn around : turn right  : lady

 : telephone number  : theater  : for disability

 Symbol is an image, or an object, etc that suggests or refers to something else, emblem It is a mark or a sign with particular meaning, e.g., plus and minus signs in Mathematic, punctuation mark, musical notation (Oxford Advanced

Learner’s Dictionary, 1992) For example:

-The cross is the symbol of Christianity

-The lion is the symbol of courage

-Au is the chemical symbol for gold: Au

-Eiffel tower is the symbol of France

-A snow-man is the symbol of winter:

-The symbol of love:

 They are also used in expressing the concept of the word

hand or the head (2): action showing one’s intentions or altitude (Oxford

Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 1992) For example: Gestures of

 telephoning: the gesture of “calling telephone” is rather popular with the stretch of thumb and tiny fingers The thumb is moved to the ear and the tiny finger is moved to the mouth The three left fingers are folded

 anger: bringing your eyebrows closer so that lines appear on your fore head (Oxford Advanced Genie Dictionary, 2002)

gestures, eye contact, spatial arrangements, and patterns of touch, expressive movement, cultural differences, and other “nonverbal” acts Nonverbal

communication is more important in understanding human behavior than words alone - the nonverbal “channels” seem to be more powerful than what people say Therefore, it is necessary to make use of it to teach a new language, because this way will help learners understand the meaning of word before recognizing the word Yet, different culture will have different kind of nonverbal communication but there are of course some kinds of nonverbal communication can be

understood by different cultures For example:

 The gestures of “open” and “close” is describe by two hands with one side together are common nonverbal language

 Gestures and nonverbal communication are very useful in teaching

vocabularies and structures

 A concept is an idea underlying something, general notion (Oxford

Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 1992)

 A concept is a unit of thought, formed by mentally combining some or all

the characteristics of a concrete or abstract, real or imaginary object Concepts

exist in the mind as abstract entities independent of terms used to express them

EX1: The word bowl is a deep round dish with a wide-open top, used

especially for holding food or liquid If the language teacher teaches this word

by translation “cái chén” learners will misunderstand the meaning of this word because of dialects In South Vietnam, people use the word “cái chén” with

the concept like it has in the above definition but in North Vietnam, people

use the word “cái chén” with different meaning; it refers to a small container shaped like a bowl, but used for drinking tea, coffee, or sweet soup (“chè” in Vietnamese) The same misunderstanding happens with the word cup: “cái

tách” (in South Vietnam), “cái chén” (in North Vietnam) No wonder it is

difficult for students to learn English Therefore, translation cannot transfer fully the concept of a word but the teachers have to explain the word by the concept itself

http://www.google.com.vn/search?hl=en&q=define%3A+concept&meta=&aq

=f&oq= (June 15th 2007)

 Based on the definition of concepts from sources above, the definition of

concept in this research is also the common, simpler, or easier language that is

popular, familiar to learners to help them to learn another language Gestures, signals, symbols, nonverbal language, real objects, pictures, definition, synonym,

and antonym can express this language The method to express this language (concept) can be considered the Concept Method

The semantic [+/- grown up] is very important It helps us to distinguish the word:

“man” and “boy”

E.g 2: To compare these two words: “knife” and “knives” we have to base on it

semantic features: “knife” [+thing, +for cutting, +mental, +singular, -plural] – “knives”

[+thing, +for cutting, +mental, -singular, +plural] The semantic features [+/- singular, +/- plural] are very important They help us to distinguish the plural and singular meanings of these above words

Features are thus helpful in two ways General perceptual features help us distinguish

among related sets of terms (as in “man” and “boy”) Other features are more

grammatically based (E.g “knife”- singular, vs “knives”- plural ) (Hatch, and Brown, 1995:14-15)

Semantic feature analysis is based on the similarities among sets of words For

example, look at the following list: Lady Macbeth, Ophelia, King Lear, Hamlet,

Charlie Chaplin Notice that all but one name are characters in a Shakespeare play So

we might say that Charlie Chaplin does not fit because his name does not share the [+Shakespearean character] feature On another list we might find these names: Mae West, Stan Laurel, W.C Fields, Shirley Temple, Charlie Chaplin would be separated from the group by a feature [+mine] because traditionally his had non speaking roles

Or, alternatively, Chaplin could be kept on the list with Shirley Temple eliminated on the basis of <+child>

A set of words such as idea, newspaper, chair, and book, presents three <concrete> nouns We can actually point to a newspaper, a chair, or a book and say, “That’s a newspaper” or “That’s a chair”, or “That’s a book.” We cannot point out an object and say, “That’s an idea.” Idea is an abstract noun, so it does not fit with those that are

<+concrete> You may have noticed that some names on the first two lists are feminine and some masculine In semantic feature analysis this is noted as <+/- male> This semantic feature has consequences for grammar Nouns with this feature can be

referred to by the pronouns she or he (Hatch, and Brown,1995:14)

 Hatch and Brown (1995:64) say that:

The goal of semantic feature analysis is to discover a set of features that make up the meanings of words In this analysis, two lexical relations synonyms and antonyms – are important because words related in these way share features Antonyms share features with the exception of one where the features are negative rather than positive in value (e.g., hot and cold are related although they are at opposite poles of degree of

temperature) Synonyms also share features, usually in terms of collocations register than in meaning (For example, entity is a formal synonym of some thing We might say: bring something” but not “bring entity” or conversely, “the entire entity” but not

“the entire something”

In core semantics, the many meanings of a single word are related by defining the most invariant, central meaning and the spread of usage of the word along dimensions, which move meaning from central to peripheral uses Prototype semantics identifies the best instance word for a concept and then identifies other words that very in some way from the prototype The prototype tree might be an oak In terms of relations, a tree is a kind of plant, an oak is a kind of tree, and a black oak is a kind of oak On prototype analysis, this relation is discussed in terms of super ordinate, basic, and sub- basic level (Hatch and Brown, 1995:64)

 Semantic fields:

Hatch and Brown (1995:64) says that:

The goal of semantic field analysis is to arrive at meanings shared by a group of words

in a domain That is, all the words within the field relate to each other, yet differ in details, which are captures in the analysis Thus, kinship and furniture are each a semantic field including a group of related words The analysis reveals the structure of the semantic field

Each of these analytic approaches highlights relations which are important in

substantiating the analysis and ignores others The lack of scope each is illustrated with selected examples (e.g., bachelor, kinship, break bird) rather than applied to all the words in the lexicon – again, a lack of scope As soon as we broaden the scope to all words, other relations emerge as important

The goal of relational semantics is not to identify meanings of words but to identify the semantic relations between them Whereas other models treat relations in an implicit manner, the goal of relational models is to make the relations explicit If you were given the word farm and asked to offer word associations, you would likely name buildings (barn), equipment (tractor), animals (cows), crops (wheat), and people (farmers) You might associate the word with other rural (ranch) or city (town) terms You might produce clang responses – words that rhyme (harm) or words beginning with the same sound (fun, fall) Each of these associations relates to the word farm in some way Relational models attempt to identify all the types of relations in meanings that can be obtained between words (Therefore, they will not include clang responses since such words are related through their phonological form rather than through meanings.) Those interested in language teaching acquisition immediately want to know whether this approach can help us understand how learners build a network of meaning that can be easily changed over time After all, understanding acquisition means understanding the ways we organize our semantic knowledge of the new language and how the information is reorganized to accommodate the new material encountered in each succeeding language

 Noun is a word that refers to a person, a place or a thing, a quality or an

activity (Oxford Advanced Genie) In short, it is used to name what or whom… you want to name The important part is that when you express the meaning of

any kind of noun you have to find the way to shape something, some people and then name them based on semantic features If the shape is concrete, the teachers can give out the concrete object or people If the shape is abstract, the teachers have to use sequences of concrete shapes to name it In addition to, the teachers have to base it on the semantic features of that word such as its special uses, circumstance, special sounds, and special actions Every noun has the common semantic features [±animate, +abstract/ concrete] E.g

(i) The word pen has the concrete shape, so the teachers can show

the real pen or the drawing of pen to name “a pen or pen”

Moreover, the teachers have to express its uses such as writing, drawing… on paper, not on the board or not on the floor

(ii) The word love has the abstract shape, thus, the teachers have to

use sequences of concrete shape to express it such as: the picture

of a heart, one woman and one man

 Adjective is a word that describes a person or thing

(Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 1992) Thus the teacher has to have shapes and describe them

 Verb is a word or a phrase indicating an action or s state (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 1992)

 Adverb is a word that adds more information about place, time,

circumstance, manner, cause, degree, etc to a verb, an adjective, a phrase, or another adverb (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 1992)

 Pronoun is a word used in place of a noun or noun phrase (Oxford

Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 1992)

 Preposition is a word or group of words used esp before a noun or pronoun

to show place, position, time, method, etc (Oxford Advanced Learner’s

Dictionary, 1992)

 Articles are either of the determines ”a/an” (the indefinite article) or “the” (the definite article) (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 1992)

 Conjunction is a word that joins words, phrases or sentences (Oxford

Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 1992)

 In short, to teach vocabularies or structures by Concept Method, we must use the popular, simple signals, symbols, gestures, pictures,… which are based on

semantic features and word classifications to make learners understand their meanings exactly and clearly