Nghiên cứu về việc sử dụng Giáo cụ trực quan để dạy từ vựng tiếng Anh chuyên ngành cho sinh viên Khoa Đóng tàu Trường Cao đẳng nghề Giao thông Vận tải Trung ương II Bùi Thị Phương Thảo Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn ThS ngành: Lý luận và PP giảng dạy tiếng Anh; Mã số: 60 14 10 Người hướng dẫn: M.A. Vũ Thị Thu Thủy Năm bảo vệ: 2012 Abstract: Teaching vocabulary is one of the most important aspects of teaching second languages in general and of teaching English for Specific Purposes (ESP). However, this aspect has not been fully given attention to in non-English major colleges in Vietnam. The teachers of English for Specific Purposes (Ts) are facing many obstacles and trying to come up with creative solutions to the problems of teaching ESP vocabulary. This work is concerned with teaching ESP vocabulary by using visual aids for the students of the Shipbuilding faculty at Central Vocational College of Transport No II. This thesis attempts to investigate the situation of using visual aids to teach ESP vocabulary at CVCOT (the purpose, teachers’ and students’ attitude, types of visual aids applied, stages using visual aids, difficulties aids and benefits). Besides, the author would like to point out some suggestions to improve the teaching and learning ESP vocabulary through visual aids. Keywords: Ngôn ngữ; Tiếng Anh; Phương pháp giảng dạy; Từ vựng; Giáo cụ trực quan Content PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study Vocabulary teaching is one of the most important components of any language class. The main reason is the fact that it is a medium, which carries meaning; learning to understand and express the meaning is what counts in learning languages. There has been increased focus on teaching vocabulary recently, “If language structures make up the skeleton of language, then it is vocabulary that provides the vital organs and the flesh” (Harmer 1993:153). Vocabulary functions as a cornerstone without which any language could not exist. Speaking would be meaningless and perhaps impossible having only structure without vocabulary. A good mastery of vocabulary is essential for learners, especially for those who learn for specific purposes. The main objective of English for specific purposes has always been the teaching of highly specialized vocabulary to specialists in various domains. I myself have experienced 10 years of working as a teacher of English at the Central Vocational College of Transport No.II where students will be future technicians and workers. Most of the students here find learning ESP vocabulary the most challenging to them in acquiring English. Our students’ biggest obstacle in learning ESP vocabulary is that it is difficult for them to identify the meaning of, to understand the use of and to remember the words belonging to technical terms. In fact, the students’ problems always haunt the teachers, which urge them to find a suitable solution to ESP vocabulary teaching and learning at the college to satisfy the students’ need. The idea of using visual aids in teaching vocabulary is a good one. This can add colors to an English lesson and motivate students to learn vocabulary, especially ESP vocabulary. There is no reason for them to feel that learning vocabulary is dull. At my college, visual aids have been used to teach ESP vocabulary. So I conduct this study to get an insight of the current situation of using visual aids to teach ESP vocabulary at the Central Vocational College of Transport No.II. It is hoped that this study will be of some values to my colleagues and those who want to improve their ESP vocabulary teaching. 2. Aims of the study To clarify the answer to the research question, the study aims at: ● Investigating the current situation of using visual aids to teach ESP vocabulary at the Central Vocational College of Transport No.II. ● Exploring the difficulties facing teachers and students in teaching and learning ESP vocabulary through visual aids. ● Providing some solutions to those difficulties to help teaching ESP vocabulary through visual aids more effectively. 3. Scope of the study Due to the time constraints and the scope of the study, the study only concentrates on how visual aids are used to teach ESP vocabulary to the students of the Shipbuilding Faculty at CVCOT. 4. Significance of the study The study is significant for the following reasons: firstly, it studies current situation of using visual aids at CVCOT. Secondly it finds out difficulties in using visual aids to teach ESP vocabulary. Thirdly, it suggests recommendations to teach ESP vocabulary more effectively. So it is useful for both teachers and students of English. In addition, it would become a good source of reference to those who are concerned with vocabulary teaching and learning. 5. Methods of the study The method of this study is survey study because it was conducted by using questionnaires and classroom observation to collect data. The data for the study came from two sources: teacher respondents and student respondents at the Central Vocational College of Transport No.II. Classroom observation was carried out to supplement the survey questionnaires, which is hoped to bring more reliable results for the study. 6. Design of the study The study consists of five chapters: Chapter 1 is “Introduction”, which deals with the background, the rationale, the aims, the scope, the methods, the significance and the design of the study. Chapter 2, “Literature Review” presents a brief view on ESP, the theoretical background of vocabulary and ESP vocabulary, the overall view of some visual aids. Chapter 3, “Methodology” mentions the setting of the study, the participants, the instruments, the data collection procedure, the data analysis procedure and a brief summary. Chapter 4, “Data presentation and discussion” presents the data collected from the survey questionnaires and class observation as well as the discussion of the data. Chapter 5, “Implication and Conclusion” presents the pedagogical implications in teaching ESP vocabulary through visual aids and the conclusion of the study. Suggestion for further study is also given. Finally, the appendix presents the survey questionnaires. PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 An overview of ESP 1.1.1 The Definitions of ESP 1.2. Vocabulary in ESP teaching 1.2.1. Definition of vocabulary 1.2.2. Classification of vocabulary and ESP vocabulary 1.2.3. The issue of teaching ESP vocabulary 1.2.3.1. Selection of vocabulary for teaching 1.2.3.2. Stages in teaching vocabulary 1.2.3.2.1. Presenting 1.2.3.2.2. Practicing 1.2.3.2.3. Revising 1.3. Visual aids in teaching and learning vocabulary 1.3.1. Boards 1.3.2. Overhead projectors 1.3.3. Pictures 1.3.4. Objects 1.3.5. Gestures, mine, actions and performance 1.4. Benefits of using visual aids to teach vocabulary. CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY In this chapter, the research methodology chosen for the achievement of the aims and objectives of the study will be discussed in detail. 2.1 Situation analysis 2.1.1. Teaching and learning situation The Central Vocational College of Transport No.2 is located in Kien An district, Hai Phong city. Founded in 1965, it is one of the colleges that have trained a lot of shipbuilders and technical workers for Hai Phong city. At present, there are 76 classes with 1520 students placed into different faculties. They are 7 faculties at CVCOT. More than a half of students are at the Faculty of Shipbuilding. There are 15 English teachers here but only ten of them teach both GE and ESP, the rest only teach GE. Students at the Central Vocational College of Transport No.2 need English for their future job. In order to read English drawings, documents written in English to improve their career-related knowledge or work with foreigners, they have to learn English well, especially ESP. 2.1.2. Textbook English is taught for the first year and the second year students at CVCOT. Textbook for all the first year students is Lifeline. It is the course of General English. Students start the course with the beginners’ level of English and are supposed to obtain the elementary level in the end to gain basic knowledge of English grammar and vocabulary to prepare for the following course of ESP. ESP courses are courses for all the second year students. Textbook for second year students depends on which faculty they are in. The textbook entitled “English for Shipbuilding” which is edited by Do Thai Binh and other members in Van Phong group has been used in ESP course for the students in Faculty of Shipbuilding. It consists of 30 lessons. Each lesson is divided into a reading comprehension and a translation task. Each lesson is discovered in both grammar and vocabulary aspects in which vocabulary accounts for a bigger percentage and are mostly technical terminologies in shipbuilding. 2.1.3. Students Students who learn at CVCOT do not have to pass an entrance exam. They enter the Vocational College by their marks of three years at high school. So their level is low. Besides, their English knowledge is very different because they are from different parts of the countries where living conditions are poor and English is not paid much attention to. Generally, their English proficiency is not high. When studying at CVCOT they have to take part in GE course and then ESP course. Vocational students do not have any problems in getting knowledge about their profession but ESP vocabulary. It is difficult for them to remember English words related to machines, tools and equipment because these words are not used in everyday conversations. The technical terminologies are often long and difficult to spell and pronounce. Moreover, some students have negative attitudes to studying English. They suppose that English is not necessary for their future career. They often argue that they will not need to use English as shipbuilders or technical workers. Vocational students with a lack of motivation and some learning difficulties with acquiring ESP vocabulary is a challenge for English teachers at CVCOT. 2. 2. Research methodology 2.2.1. Research questions The main purpose of the study as mentioned in chapter one can be realized through the questions: 1. What are the teachers’ and students’ attitudes toward the use of visual aids in teaching and learning vocabulary in shipbuilding? 2. How do teachers use visual aids to teach vocabulary in shipbuilding? 3. What are the difficulties of teachers and students in using visual aids to teach and learn vocabulary in shipbuilding? 4. What should be used to teach ESP vocabulary through visual aids more effectively? 2.2.2. The participants The questionnaires have been prepared for two groups: The first group includes ten English teachers. All of them had taught English for at least five years at CVCOT and are experienced in teaching ESP courses for the students of Shipbuilding Faculty. Among ten English teachers, five of them are Masters of Arts in English and three of them are attending M.A courses. The other two are Bachelors of Arts. The second group involves one hundred second year students at the Shipbuilding Faculty at CVCOT. They all have finished GE course with the textbook “Lifelines” and are taking part in ESP course with the textbook “English for Shipbuilders”. 2.2.3. The instruments 2.2.3.1. Instrument A- Survey questionnaires In this study, in order to collect the data, two sets of survey questionnaires were administered to get information about the use of visual aids in teaching and learning vocabulary in shipbuilding. One is designed for teachers and another for students to investigate the aims and the objectives of the study. Nine questions are delivered to ten English teachers and eight ones are for one hundred second year students at the Faculty of Shipbuilding. In order that the respondents could be free to express their specific thoughts about the items raised in questionnaires, some questions have free answer put at the last choice of the answer. The questionnaires for students aim at finding out their attitudes towards the use of visual aids in learning vocabulary in shipbuilding, what they think of the way in which teachers use visual aids to teach vocabulary and their difficulties in learning vocabulary in shipbuilding through visual aids. The questionnaires for teachers aim at discovering their attitudes towards the use of visual aids in learning vocabulary in shipbuilding, collecting information about how visual aids are really used in teaching vocabulary in shipbuilding in class, teachers’ difficulties and suggestions for better use of visual aids to teach vocabulary. 2.2.3.2. Instrument B - Class observation Parallel with survey questionnaires, class observation was carried out before and during the time the questionnaires were conducted. It was applied in this study to test what students had revealed in the questionnaires and also clarify the validity of information about using visual aids at CVCOT. Class observation was employed among three classes which are at the Faculty of Shipbuilding. Each class was picked up randomly from its group. The observation was done three times during the school year 2011-2012, each of which lasted for 45 minutes. CHAPTER 3: DATA PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION OF MAJOR FINDINGS 3.1 Data presentation 3.1.1. Data from the survey questionnaires 3.1.1.1 The teachers’ and the students’ attitudes towards the use of visual aids in teaching and learning vocabulary 3.1.1.2. The teachers’ and the students’ opinion on purposes of teaching and learning vocabulary in shipbuilding 3.1.1.3. Frequency of visual aids used in teaching vocabulary and students’ impression of visual aids 3.1.1.4. The stages at which visual aids are often used and the students’ response 3.1.1.5. Benefits of using visual aids to teach and learn vocabulary in shipbuilding 3.1.1.6. The teachers’ and students’ difficulties in teaching and learning vocabulary in shipbuilding through visual aids 3.1.1.7. The suggestions made by the teachers for using visual aids to teach vocabulary in shipbuilding 3.1.2. Data analysis of the observation 3.2. Discussion of major findings 3.2.1. The situation of current teaching and learning ESP vocabulary Among the purposes of teaching and learning vocabulary in shipbuilding, most of students have a thought of learning vocabulary in shipbuilding to pass the exams. This reveals that there is not much motivation in the current process of teaching and learning shipbuilding technical terms at CVCOT. To arouse students’ motivation, the teachers had improvement in teaching methods. They used visual aids to teach shipbuilding technical terms. This is highly appreciated by the students. 100% of the students are interested in learning vocabulary in shipbuilding through visual aids. 70% of the students find that visual aids help them a lot in learning vocabulary in shipbuilding. The use of visual aids, thus, is hoped to increase the students’ motivation in ESP vocabulary lessons. 3.2.2. The kind of visual aids to teach ESP vocabulary The teachers have been using different types of visual aids to teach technical terms in reality. Among these, objects, pictures and overhead projectors, especially objects are used with highest frequency in most ESP vocabulary lessons. Chalkboard drawings are sometimes used, while gestures, mine, actions and performance are rarely exploited. Definitely, it was observed that it is sometimes more meaningful to present new word meanings by demonstration because demonstration or mine is very helpful to highlight a particular word and help associate it in the students’ mind with both visual and aural memories. 3.2.3. The frequency of using visual aids to teach ESP vocabulary The order of frequency for using visual aids to teach ESP vocabulary from the teachers’ survey questionnaire is as follows: ● The most frequently used visual aids are: objects, pictures, overhead projectors. ● Visual aids sometimes employed are: chalkboard drawings, gestures, mine, actions and performance The teachers show their interests in using such visual aids as objects, overhead-projectors and pictures. With these visual aids, the teachers can organize activities in teaching ESP vocabulary in various ways such as translation, using pictures exploited from the course book or from the internet, playing the game, etc. 3.2.4. The stages at which visual aids are used most often in ESP vocabulary lessons Among three main stages, presentation stage is most often carried out with visual aids in ESP vocabulary lessons because the activities at these stages are free and easy for the teachers to apply visual aids to. In practice stage, the teachers also use visual aids to help the students have images of ESP words in their mind. In revision stage, the teachers use visual aids but not often. The teachers also let their students revise what they have learnt at home because of the limit of time. 3.2.5. The difficulties in using visual aids to teach ESP vocabulary Although the students gain a great number of benefits from learning ESP vocabulary through visual aids, some of them do not really see the beneficial aspects of the activity. In other words, these students experience boredom, distraction or even confusion during the lesson when visual aids are employed to assist teachers’ vocabulary presentation. The percentage of this student group is not very high; however, this is a problem that the teachers should consider in planning their teaching. PART 3: CONCLUSION 1. Implications According to the results of the questionnaires, there are some problems arising in ESP vocabulary teaching and learning through visual aids. In this part, some solutions to the problems and practical recommendations for a better use of visual aids in teaching ESP vocabulary at CVCOT are provided. It is undeniable that when adopting visual aids in teaching ESP vocabulary, the students are interested in the lively information and willing to join in language activities. Visual aids should be made full use of in ESP vocabulary lessons. Teachers are encouraged to employ various kinds of visual aids, increase the frequency of using visual aids and use visual aids in as many stages as they can. Moreover, from the data collected the most prominent problems the teachers have are the lack of time and visual aids. It is advisable that the teachers should know to choose and make visual aids quickly and economically and apply them appropriately. Furthermore, according to Gardner (1985), students’ feelings, interests, needs, should be taken into consideration when investigating the factors causing low motivation for learning English. These sometimes affect the success of the lessons, especially for understanding the vocabulary. Therefore, it is very important to help students to build up their motivation for acquiring vocabulary by raising their awareness of their understanding new words. Finally, the teachers should bear in mind that without basic knowledge of the subject, the teachers can not make their ESP vocabulary lessons successfully. Therefore, they need to be experts in the subject matter. The ESP teachers at CVCOT should be trained in shipbuilding by attending the workshops, conferences or lectures of their colleagues in the field of shipbuilding or they can self-study to get general knowledge of the subject matter and build up confidence to handle the specialized content. 2. Conclusions Visual aids are really a large category which may be employed to teach vocabulary as well as grammar and all language skills. This study has presented the application of visual aids in teaching ESP vocabulary for the students at the Faculty of Shipbuilding, CVCOT. [...]...From this research study, it can be concluded that ESP teachers at Central Vocational College of Transport No .II are aware of the role of visual aids in teaching ESP vocabulary It can be seen clearly that the teaching of ESP vocabulary at CVOT is not effective enough The students are not equipped with necessary... strategies for teachers to teach ESP vocabulary and the training for the teachers to improve their classroom techniques and professional knowledge The teachers should take into account things such as choice and kind of visual aids, students’ background In conclusion all the aims of the study have been achieved and it is hoped that the study will make a considerable contribution to better the current... Bradford Watts, C Ikeguchi, & M Swanson (EDs.) JALT 2004 Conference Proceedings Tokyo: JALT 9 Gairns R., Redman S (2003), Working with Words Cambridge University Press 10 Gardner R.C (1985) Social psychology and second language learning London: Edward Arnold Ltd 11 Gower R., Phillip D., Walters, S (2005) Teaching practice: A handbook for teachers in training, Macmillan books for teachers Oxford: Macmillan . Nghiên cứu về việc sử dụng Giáo cụ trực quan để dạy từ vựng tiếng Anh chuyên ngành cho sinh viên Khoa Đóng tàu Trường Cao đẳng nghề Giao thông Vận tải Trung ương II Bùi Thị Phương. learning ESP vocabulary through visual aids. Keywords: Ngôn ngữ; Tiếng Anh; Phương pháp giảng dạy; Từ vựng; Giáo cụ trực quan Content PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study Vocabulary. Giao thông Vận tải Trung ương II Bùi Thị Phương Thảo Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn ThS ngành: Lý luận và PP giảng dạy tiếng Anh; Mã số: 60 14 10 Người hướng dẫn: M.A. Vũ Thị Thu Thủy