VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ HÒA INVESTIGATING TEACHING AND LEARNING VOCABULARY BASED ON FORM-FOCUSED INSTRUCTION AT HA LONG GIFTED HIGH SCHOOL (NGHIÊN CỨU VIỆC DẠY VÀ HỌC TỪ VỰNG DỰA TRÊN NỀN TẢNG HÌNH THỨC- NỘI DUNG LÀM TÂM ĐIỂM TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN HẠ LONG ) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Hanoi – 2013 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ HÒA INVESTIGATING TEACHING AND LEARNING VOCABULARY BASED ON FORM-FOCUSED INSTRUCTION AT HA LONG GIFTED HIGH SCHOOL (NGHIÊN CỨU VIỆC DẠY VÀ HỌC TỪ VỰNG DỰA TRÊN NỀN TẢNG HÌNH THỨC- NỘI DUNG LÀM TÂM ĐIỂM TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN HẠ LONG ) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Supervisor: NGUYỄN THI ̣ BÁCH THẢO, M.A Hanoi – 2013 TABLE CONTENTS Declaration i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii Table of contents iv List of tables and figures viii List of abbreviations ix PART I: INTRODUCTION Rationale Aims of the study Significance of the study Scope of the Research Research Questions Method of the study Design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 The Role of vocabulary in language teaching and learning 1.1.1 Definition of Vocabulary 1.1.2 The Importance of Vocabulary in Language Teaching and Learning 1.2 Approaches to teaching English Vocabulary 1.2.1 What needs to be taught while teaching Vocabulary 1.2.2 Methods and Approaches of teaching vocabulary at high school 10 1.3 Forms-Focused Instruction versus Form-Focused Instruction 12 1.3.1 Definition of Forms- Focused Instruction and its basic features 12 iv 3.1.1 Definition of Focus on Forms Instruction 1.3.1.2 Basic features of Focus on Forms Instruction 12 1.3.2 Definition of Form-Focused Instruction and its basic feature 13 1.3.2.1 Definition of Focus on Form Instruction 13 3.2.1.1 Incidental Focus- on- Form 14 1.3.2.1.2 Planned Focus-on-Form 14 1.3.2.2 Basic features of Focus on Form Instruction 15 1.3.3 Advantages of Form-Focused Instruction over Forms-Focused Instruction 16 1.3.4 Weaknesses of Form-Focused Instruction 17 1.3.5 Tendency of using Form-Focused Instruction in Language Teaching 18 1.3.6 The summary 19 CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Setting of the study 20 2.2 Participants 20 Students 20 Teachers 20 2.3 Data collection methods 21 2.3.1 Questionnaires 21 2.3.2 Interview 22 2.4 Data collection procedure 22 2.5 Data analysis method CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 23 3.1 Research question 1: What is the role of vocabulary in Language Teaching and Learning at Ha Long Gifted School? 24 3.1.1 The Teachers‟ Attitudes toward the Role of Vocabulary and Teaching Vocabulary at Ha Long Gifted School 24 v 3.1.2 The Students‟ Attitudes toward the Role of Vocabulary and Teaching Vocabulary at Ha Long Gifted School 25 3.2 Research question 2: How is vocabulary taught and learned at Ha Long Gifted School? 27 3.2.1 The way that Vocabulary is taught and learned at Ha Long Gifted School 27 3.2.2 Difficulties that the Teachers and Students cope with in teaching and learning Vocabulary 33 3.3 Research question 3: What are suggestions for Teaching and Learning vocabulary effectively? PART C: CONCLUSION 35 Summary of findings 38 Implications 39 2.1 For Teachers 39 2.2 For Students 39 2.3 For Administrators 40 Limitations of the study 41 Recommendations for further studies 41 REFERENCES 42 APPENDICES Appendix 1: Questionnaire for teachers I Appendix 2: Questionnaire for students V Appendix 3: Interview questions for teachers IX Appendix 4: Interview for students X vi LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1: Purposes of teaching vocabulary at HLGS (TQ-Q2) Table 2: Purposes of learning vocabulary of students at HLGS (SQ-Q2) Table 3: Methods of teaching and learning vocabulary items (TQ-Q3&SQ-Q3) Table 4: Aspects which teachers often choose when teaching vocabulary item (TQQ8) Table 5: Difficulties that the teachers face in teaching vocabulary (TQ-Q10) Table 6: Difficulties that the students face in learning vocabulary(SQ- Q8) Table 7: Reasons for students‟ preference of learning vocabulary in communicative tasks or activities (SQ- Q10) Figure 1: Teachers‟ attitudes toward vocabulary and teaching vocabulary (TQ-Q1) Figure 2: Students‟ attitudes toward vocabulary and teaching vocabulary (SQ-Q1) Figure 3: Frequency of teaching and learning vocabulary items separately or isolatedly (TQ- Q4,& SQ- Q4) Figure 4: Usefulness of teaching and learning vocabulary items separately or isolatedly (TQ- Q5 & SQ- Q5) Figure 5: Frequency of teaching and learning vocabulary items in communicative activities or incorporating it in teaching four skills (TQ- Q6 & SQ- Q6) Figure 6: Usefulness of teaching and learning vocabulary items in communicative activities or incorporating it in teaching four skills (TQ- Q7 & SQ- Q7) Figure 7: Teachers‟ presentation of new words (TQ- Q9) Figure 8: Students‟ preferences of learning vocabulary(SQ- Q9) Figure 9: Suggestions from students (SQ- Q11) Figure 10: Suggestions from teachers (TQ- Q11) vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ALM : Audio- lingual method CLT : Communicative Language Teaching FFI : Form- Focused Instruction FonF : Focus on Form FonFs : Focus on Forms GTM : Grammar- Translation method HLGS : Ha Long Gifted School L2 : Second language Q : Question SQ : Students‟ Questionnaire TQ : Teachers‟ Questionnaire viii PART I: INTRODUCTION Rationale English is a compulsory subject at all levels in the educational system in Vietnam However, the problems raised by the complexity and diversity of the English vocabulary have driven all learners confused and discouraged Thus, how to choose an effective instructional method in teaching vocabulary is one of great concerns of many language experts and English teachers myself included Vocabulary, as far as we know, is an important and pivotal component of a language; thus, teaching vocabulary is also important Nevertheless, it has not received much recognition it deserves in the classroom at Ha Long Gifted High school The students here tend to think grammar is important but vocabulary is not and they feel like learning grammar more than vocabulary There are many methods and approaches applied to teaching vocabulary; however, choosing one way to teach new words effectively is not easy When I studied for my Master‟s Degree in TESOL, I was taught things like „communicative language teaching‟, „methodology of English language teaching‟, „approaches to language teaching‟, etc, and I really care about Form- Focused Instruction theory as it emphasizes the importance of communicative language use and learnercenteredness Another reason is that classroom setting especially that at high school is often overlooked in favour of a more theoretical focus As a teacher of English at a high school, I want to comprehend more about applying Form-Focused Instruction theory to English teaching with focus on teaching English vocabulary to high school students Thus, this study attempts to explore form- focused instruction in an ESL classroom from the perspective of high school teacher cognition This study is conducted to investigate current situation of teaching vocabulary at Ha Long Gifted high school The study attempts to cast some light on the FFI theory in vocabulary teaching that teachers find effective in practice and tries to draw some implications for applying Form-Focused Instruction to improve teaching vocabulary at Ha Long Gifted high school Aims of the study The study aims at: o Investigating the current situation of teaching and learning English vocabulary at Ha Long Gifted School o Identifying the difficulties and obstacles that the teachers and students at Ha Long Gifted School often cope with when teaching and learning vocabulary based on Form-Focused Instruction theory (Research Question 2) o Making some recommendations for applying Form- Focused Instruction to teaching English vocabulary effectively at Ha Long Gifted School Significance of the study The study, once completed, will serve as part of continuous research on the teaching of vocabulary with the intention to provide teachers of English at Ha Long Gifted high school with a deeper understanding of applying Form-Focused Instruction- a modification of Communicative Language Teaching- in teaching vocabulary In addition, it is hoped that the study will be of great significance in helping students to be aware of their vocabulary learning problems; the teachers will also benefit from the findings of the research in working out an effective way to assist their students in communicative vocabulary learning Scope of the study The notion of Form-Focused Instruction has been applied in teaching grammar, pronunciation, speaking and writing However, this study only investigates the application of Form –Focused instruction in teaching and learning vocabulary Besides, due to the limited time and small scale of the research, it is only conducted in the context of Ha Long Gifted High school with the participation of only English teachers and 80 students Research questions The research paper seeks answers to the following questions: Research question 1: What is the role of vocabulary in language teaching and learning at Ha Long Gifted School? Research question 2: How is vocabulary taught and learned at Ha Long Gifted School? Research question 3: What should be done to apply Form-Focused Instruction to teaching and learning vocabulary effectively at Ha Long Gifted High school? Methods of the study Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used to carry out the research First of all, to form Theoretical Background for the research, theories, materials from different sources including journals, books and internet are collected and analyzed, synthesized and evaluated Then, survey questionnaire including open-ended and closed- ended questions is used in collecting data for the study due to its unprecedented efficiency in terms of research time, research effort and financial resources (Hoang & Nguyen, 2006:10) While closed questions are useful for obtaining quantitative information and are easier to analyze, open-ended questions can be useful for gathering qualitative information and for discovering new variables in response Thanks to survey questionnaire, the researcher can collect a huge amount of information in a short period of time and “with well-constructed questionnaire, processing data can also be fast and relatively straightforward” (Gillian, 2000) Thus, there are two sets of questionnaires employed The first containing 11 open-ended and closed- ended questions is for 80 students, the other containing 11 open- ended and closed- ended questions is for six teachers at Ha Long Gifted High School The qualitative method is used in the interview Semi-structured type is chosen since “it gives the interviewee a degree of power and control over the course of the interview […] and the interviewer a great deal of flexibility” (Hoang & Nguyen, ... GIFTED HIGH SCHOOL (NGHIÊN CỨU VIỆC DẠY VÀ HỌC TỪ VỰNG DỰA TRÊN NỀN TẢNG HÌNH THỨC- NỘI DUNG LÀM TÂM ĐIỂM TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN HẠ LONG ) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Language Teaching... POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ HÒA INVESTIGATING TEACHING AND LEARNING VOCABULARY BASED ON FORM-FOCUSED INSTRUCTION AT HA LONG GIFTED HIGH SCHOOL (NGHIÊN CỨU VIỆC DẠY VÀ HỌC TỪ VỰNG DỰA TRÊN NỀN... Definition of Form-Focused Instruction and its basic feature 13 1.3.2.1 Definition of Focus on Form Instruction 13 3.2.1.1 Incidental Focus- on- Form 14 1.3.2.1.2 Planned Focus-on-Form 14 1.3.2.2