HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ENGLISH GRADUATION THESIS B.A DEGREE IN ENGLISH STUDY LEARNING AND TEACHING ENGLSIH VOCABULARY FOR 7th STUDENTS – OBSTACLES AND SOLUTIONS Supervisor: Pham To Hoa, M.A Name of student: Pham Phuong Mai Date of birth: 25/06/1993 Class: K18A1 (2011-2015) HaNoi – 2015 HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ENGLISH CODE: 25 GRADUATION THESIS B.A DEGREE IN ENGLISH STUDY LEARNING AND TEACHING ENGLSIH VOCABULARY FOR 7th STUDENTS – OBSTACLES AND SOLUTIONS Supervisor: Pham To Hoa, M.A Name of student: Pham Phuong Mai Date of birth: 25/06/1993 Class: K18A1 (2011-2015) HaNoi – 2015 Graduation Paper DECLARATION Title: Learning and teaching English vocabulary for 7th students – obstacles and solutions I certify that no part of the above report has been copied or reproduced by me from any others’ work without acknowledgement and that the report is originally written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor Hanoi, 2nd May, 2015 Student Pham Phuong Mai Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)    Supervisor Pham To Hoa, M.A   Graduation Paper ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to express my deepest gratefulness to my supervisor, Mrs Pham To Hoa, who has provided the researcher with help, advices and comments to complete this graduation thesis I am extremely grateful to the teachers at Faculty of English who producing me with knowledge and basic skills to finish this thesis I take this opportunity to thank the teachers and students at Khuong Thuong secondary school for their support and kind assistance during my studying time I also would like to send my thanks to all my friends who have helped me to develop ideas for the study Finally, my thanks must go to my family members whose continual encouragement has been indispensable for the fulfillment of this challenging work Hanoi, 2nd May, 2015 Student Pham Phuong Mai Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)      Graduation Paper TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TABLE OF CONTENTS PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rational Aims of the study Scope of the study Research questions Methods of the study Design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Theories on vocabulary 1.1.1 The definitions of vocabulary 1.1.2 The important of teaching and learning English vocabulary 1.2 Classification of vocabulary 1.2.1 According to the meaning 1.2.1.1 Notional words (Lexical words) 1.2.1.2 Functional words (Grammatical words) 1.2.2 According to the concept of morphemes 1.2.2.1 Simple words 1.2.2.2 Derived words 1.2.2.3 Compound words Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)      Graduation Paper 1.2.3 According to the function 1.2.4 According to the frequency of use 1.3 What need to be taught in vocabulary teaching 1.3.1 Word form 1.3.2 Grammar 1.3.3 Collocation 10 1.3.4 Aspects of meaning 11 1.3.4.1 Detonation 11 1.3.4.2 Connotation 11 1.3.4.3 Appropriateness 11 1.3.4.4 Meaning relationships 12 1.3.5 Word formation 13 1.4 Traditional teaching methods 14 1.4.1 Translation 14 1.4.2 Visual technique 14 1.4.3 Verbal technique 15 1.5 Overview of vocabulary learning strategies 16 CHAPTER II – THE STUDY 17 2.1 Methodology 17 2.2 Objects of the study 17 2.2.1 7th grade students and their background 17 2.2.2 Teachers and their teaching situation 18 2.3 Data collection 18 2.3.1 The survey questionnaire 18 2.3.1.1 Purposes 18 2.3.1.2 Description of survey questionnaire 19 2.3.1.3 Data collection and analysis 20 Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)      Graduation Paper 2.3.2 The observation 26 2.3.2.1 Reasons for choosing the observation 26 2.3.2.2 Description of the observation 26 2.3.2.3 Results of the observation 27 2.4 Findings 28 2.4.1 The students’ difficulties 28 2.4.1.1 The meaning of words 28 2.4.1.2 The pronunciation 28 2.4.1.3 The spelling 29 2.4.1.4 The usage 29 2.4.2 The teachers’ difficulties 30 2.4.2.1 The lack of time on teaching vocabulary 30 2.4.2.2 Obstacle in using computer 30 2.4.2.3 The lack of students’ attention 30 2.4.3 Causes of the difficulties 31 2.4.3.1 Unsuitable method of teaching vocabulary 31 2.4.3.2 Unsuitable way to learn vocabulary 31 2.4.3.3 Other causes 31 CHAPTER 3: RECOMMENDATION 33 3.1 Suggestion about effective ways of teaching English vocabulary 33 3.1.1 Improving teachers’ teaching technique 33 3.1.1.1 At the presentation stage 33 3.1.1.2 At the practice stage 37 3.1.1.3 At the production stage 41 3.1.2 Improving teachers’ computer skills 44 3.2 The effective ways to improve vocabulary for students 44 PART C: CONCLUSION 46 Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)      Graduation Paper REFERENCES 47 APPENDIX LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Importance of learning English vocabulary 20 Table 2: Interest of students in learning English vocabulary 20 Table 3: Difficulties in learning English vocabulary 21 Table 4: Source(s) students use to learn vocabulary 21 Table 5: Things students when learning English vocabulary 22 Table 6: Ways of consolidating students are interested in 23 Table 7: Ways teachers often use to present new word 23 Table 8: Frequency of using modern equipment in teaching English vocabulary 24 Table 9: Ways teachers use to consolidate knowledge for students 25 Table 10: Ostacles in teaching English vocabulary 25 Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)      Graduation Paper PART A: INTRODUCTION Rational Nowadays, English plays an important role in many fields In addition, the more developing society is, the more necessary English is Because English can help people master a language, they will own a great knowledge In order to carry out this, we have to learn vocabulary at first We imagine that without vocabulary, no language exists, so vocabulary is a vital part in learning English In Vietnam English is also considered the most important foreign language and taught as a compulsory subject in all schools especially at secondary and high schools In addition, English is an essential means of communication of all countries in the world Therefore, the demand for learning English is increasing rapidly There are three main aspects of a language including phonetics, vocabulary, and grammar In fact, vocabulary is a system of all words which are the bricks of a language More over, vocabulary is also the element that links four skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing all together It is proved that teaching and learning English vocabulary is paid much attention because of its importance However, both teachers and learners are facing many difficulties in teaching and learning English vocabulary Therefore, the researcher would like to make an investigation into teaching and learning English vocabulary in grade 7th at Khuong Thuong secondary school in order to find out difficulties in teaching and learning English vocabulary, to work out the cause and then offer some suggested solutions to deal with these problems These solutions are hoped to be helpful to teacher and students in teaching and learning English vocabulary at Khuong Thuong secondary school Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)  Graduation Paper Aims of the study The study aims at: _ Giving the theory on vocabulary and its relevance in teaching and learning English _ Finding out the obstacles that teacher and 7th grade students at Khuong Thuong secondary school are facing in teaching and learning English vocabulary _ Finding out cause of difficulties in teaching and learning vocabulary at Khuong Thuong secondary school _ Suggesting some solutions to teach and learn vocabulary effectively Scope of the study The study limits itself to the investigation of obstacles in learning and teaching vocabulary to 7th grade students at Khuong Thuong secondary school and their cause The solutions are also provided to help to improve teaching and learning English in general teaching and learning English vocabulary of 7th grade students in particular at Khuong Thuong secondary school Research questions In order to achieve the aim of this study, the researcher sets up the following research questions: _ What are the obstacles in learning English vocabulary of 7th grade students? _ What are the teachers’ difficulties in teaching English vocabulary? _ What are the causes of these difficulties? _ How to teach and learn English vocabulary to 7th grade students effectively? Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)  Graduation Paper much easier Teacher writes new word on the board, translates them into Vietnamese and asks students to repeat many times For instance: the teacher says: “Magazine” means “Tạp chí” in Vietnamese Now repeating : “Magazine” However, this method is usually easy to make students feel bored and passive, students can not know how the word is used in English sentence So it is often more helpful if teachers use this technique along with other techniques 3.1.1.2 At the practice stage For practicing vocabulary stage, there can be a variety of tasks which can be used in order to help move words into long-term memory a Identifying tasks “Listen then ticks the words you hear” can be one obvious example of this type Identification is the first step in recognizing words and requires learners easy task as counting, ticking, etc For example: Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)  37 Graduation Paper b Matching tasks: Apart from recognizing and making choice amongst words, learners are also requested to matching tasks In this kind of task, learners may need to pair a set of given words to a “visual representation” For example: Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)  38 Graduation Paper c Selecting tasks: In selecting tasks, learners will have to recognizing words and making choices among them at the same time Finding and odd one out is a common task that teachers may often use in class for checking comprehension For instance: Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)  39 Graduation Paper d Sorting tasks: Learners are being asked to sorting task by grouping words into different categories It should be noted that the categories can be given in advance or learners have to guess what the categories are For example: Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)  40 Graduation Paper 3.1.1.3 At the production stage This stage can help motivate students to communicate meaning with new language Children would have the opportunity to experiment with the language Some good examples of effective Production activities include quizzes and games, situational role-plays a Quizzes and games • Crossword Crossword puzzles can be effective teaching tools Crossword puzzles give students a chance to sharpen their mind In order to solve the crosswords, they must try to understand the terms or sentences used in the crosswords In other words, they must think, guess and decide as much and as fast as they can in a limited time Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)  41 Graduation Paper • Word square This teaching technique is aimed at helping students to recognize the spelling of word Teacher will tell the students what topic is and how many hidden words in the word square Students spend a few minutes to look for word For example: Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)  42 Graduation Paper b Situation role-plays This is also a form of dialogue Students may be asked to play a different role in a form of a story, a drama or some situations given by teacher This exercise will encourage the students to speak in real life situation They will be much more interested in the material and also have a chance to practice vocabulary and build up their own confidence For example: Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)  43 Graduation Paper 3.1.2 Improving teachers’ computer skills Teacher skill in using technology is a major factor in improving student learning with technology Teachers must know not only how to use technology but also when and why to use it In order to give the teacher a good chance to foster their computer skill, the schools should organize computer practicing course for teachers and operate them regularly with various, useful and interesting lesson For example, in this course, teacher will be trained to use PowerPoint – an important and effective tool to present material in the classroom Using PowerPoint can address students’ learning preferences through the projection of: color, images, video and shapes for visual learners; sound and music for auditory learners Obviously, it is very necessary to improve teachers’ computer skill because it is one of the ways to improve teaching and learning quality at Khuong Thuong secondary school 3.2 The effective ways to improve vocabulary for students In the author’s opinion, the greatest difficulty in learning English is the lack of appropriate learning method In order to help students overcome these problems, the researcher recommends a good strategy to learn vocabulary • Using audio books and speech radio This is an excellent way to learn new words, because students learn not only the new word, but also how to correctly pronounce it – the voice actors are highly trained and have excellent English and pronunciation, so they make excellent teachers of the language • Reading One of the most effective ways to learn new words is reading It can help you to increase your knowledge of words It is also the best way to check on words you have already learned You can read about a variety of subjects, like a fairy tale, funny story, or whatever interests you Some students have Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)  44 Graduation Paper very low vocabularies because they not enjoy reading at all In this case, they can find some easier things that suitable for their level to read such as: comic books or magazines, blog on the online source The important idea is to find anything you can enjoy to read, and read as often and as much as possible • Using dictionary Look up any new words is other way to learn new words When you see an unfamiliar word, not skip over it Try to guess the meaning in the context of the sentence, and then look it up in the dictionary to confirm its definition You should keep a small notebook and quickly jot down unknown words as you come across them for checking later • Playing games Doing word puzzles and playing word games is the most interesting way to build vocabulary Word puzzles are an excellent source of increasing your word knowledge because the puzzle creators will often need to give an array of words in the topic There are a lot of vocabulary puzzles, including crosswords, find a word, and hidden word puzzles Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)  45 Graduation Paper PART C: CONCLUSION In the conclusion, an overall picture of the study is provided with a brief description of the study as well as the findings In addition, there are some suggested solutions for teachers at Khuong Thuong secondary school The comments on the limitations of the study are notified and some recommendations for further study are suggested The study is started with the overview of vocabulary, teaching methodology and vocabulary learning strategy The next chapter introduces the context of learning and teaching vocabulary of grade 7th at Khuong Thuong secondary school including students and their background, teachers and their teaching situation In order to find out teachers and students’ obstacles, the researcher conducts the survey questionnaire and class observation The findings have shown that some difficulties teachers face with including the lack of students’ attention, time on teaching vocabulary The difficulties students have coped with are also found out: the meaning, the pronunciation, the spelling, and their usage The difference can be caused by many factors: unsuitable way to learn vocabulary, the lack of teacher’s teaching techniques and some other causes Regarding obstacles in teaching vocabulary, the researcher recommends the ways to improve teachers’ teaching techniques at the presentation, the practice stage, and the production stage and some others The way to improve vocabulary for students is also given Although the thesis has accomplished the objectives set at the beginning, the researcher cannot avoid some shortcomings due to the limitation of time and knowledge The researcher will try to serve for further research on activities to improve educational quality at Khuong Thuong secondary school Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)  46 Graduation Paper REFERENCES Sources from book Ackroyd, S and Hughes, J.A (1981) Data collection in context Longman, London Bauer, L (2002) English Word – formation Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Evelyn, H and Cheryl, B (1995) Vocabulary, semantics, and language education Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Gairns, R & Redman, S (1986) Working with words Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Jeanetes, D (2001) English as a second language Thomson, London Munby, J (1978) Communicative Syllabus Design Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Nation, P (1994) New Ways in Teaching Vocabuary Pantagraph Priting Bloomington Nunan, D (1988) Syllabus design Oxford University Press, Oxford O’Malley, J M and Charmot, A.U (1990) Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquistion Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 10 Rubin, J and Thompson, I (1994) How to be a more successful language learner: Toward Learner Autonomy (2nd edition) Heinle and Heinle Publisher, Boston Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)  47 Graduation Paper 11 Schmitt, N (1997) Vocabulary Learning Strategies Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 12 Taylor, L (1990) Teaching and Learning Vocabulary Prentice Hall, New York 13 Thornbury, S (2002) How to teach vocabulary Longman, Harlow 14 To Thu Huong, Nguyen Thi Mai Hoa, Nguyen Thi Thuy Minh, Luong Quynh Trang (2008) ELT Methodology II Vietnam National University Publisher, Ha Noi 15 Ur, P (1996) A course in Language Teaching Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 16 Weinstein, C., and Mayer, R (1986) The teaching of learning strategies In M.C Wittrock (Ed.) Handbook of Research on Teaching 3rd Edition (pp.315-327) Macmillan, NewYork 17 Wilkins, D (1972) Linguistics in language teaching Arnold, London 18 Wood, L (1981) Foreign and Second Language Learning Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Sources from Internet 19 http://www.altalang.com/language-training/methods.aspx 20 http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocabulary 21 http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk./think/vocabulary/collocation2.html 22. http://www.englishwell.biz/ 23 http://toolsforlanguage.com/english-vocabulary-program.html Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)  48 Graduation Paper APPENDIX Survey Questionnaire This survey questionnaire is designed for the study of the real situation of learning and teaching English vocabulary to 7th grade students at Khuong Thuong secondary school This survey questionnaire includes parts for students and for teachers Please answer the following questions as honestly as you can Thank you very much! a Survey questionnaire for students Question 1: How important you think learning English vocabulary is? A Important B Not as important as grammar C Not important Question 2: Are you interested in learning English vocabulary? A Interested in B Not much interested in C Uninterested in Question 3: What difficulties you have when you learn English vocabulary? (can choose more than one answer) A The pronunciation B The spelling C The meaning D Others Question 4: Which source(s) you often use in learn English vocabulary? (Can choose more than one answer) A Text book B Exercises Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)    Graduation Paper C Internet D Other source(s) Question 5: What you when you learn English vocabulary? (can choose more than one answer) A Learn the meaning B Learn how to write C Learn pronunciation D Others Question 6: Which ways of consolidating vocabulary are you interested in? A Playing games and take part in acivities B Doing the exercises b Survey questionnaire for teachers Question 7: Which ways you often use to present new words to your students? A Translating all the words into Vietnamese B Using visual aids C Using gesture, facial expression D Using other ways (through song, stories) Question 8: How often you use modern equipment (laptop, television, projector…) in teaching vocabulary? A Always B Usually C Sometimes D Never Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)    Graduation Paper Question 9: Which ways you use to consolidate knowledge for your students? A Giving the exercise (filling the gaps, making the sentence with given word, completing the sentences, matching words…) B Designing games and activities (hidden words, crosswords, word square…) C Others Question 10: What obstacles you have to deal with when you teach English vocabulary? A Class organization B Time C Computer skills   Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)    [...]... review of English vocabulary The research describes aspects involving English vocabulary and methodology in teaching and learning English Investigation into teaching and learning vocabulary in 7th grade at Khuong Thuong secondary school are provided in chapter II This chapter analyzes the data collected from students survey questionnaire and observation on teaching and learning English vocabulary. .. students There are ten questions (1-6) for 90 7th students at Khuong Thuong secondary school and four questions (7-10) for teachers Question 1, 2 relate to student’s opinion and their attitude to English vocabulary learning The researcher designs question 3 to find out students difficulties in learning vocabulary In order to know the way which students learn English vocabulary, question 4, 5 are given... knowledge for students She just gives the exercises in text book and asks students to practice It does not encourage students to practice knowledge that they learn Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)  27 Graduation Paper 2.4 Findings Through the findings from survey questionnaire and the class observation, the students and teachers’ obstacles in teaching and learning English vocabulary and their causes... are about 40 to 45 students in a class The levels of students in in the same class are different They have different learning abilities and have different attitudes toward learning English Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)  17 Graduation Paper vocabulary Thus, it can lower learning and teaching s quality at Khuong Thuong secondary school 2.2.2 Teachers and their teaching situation English teachers... find out the obstacles in teaching and learning English vocabulary at 7th grade students at KhuongThuong secondary school Chapter III is the suggestion of ways to teach and learn vocabulary effectively Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)  3 Graduation Paper PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW -*** 1.1 Theories on vocabulary 1.1.1 The definitions of vocabulary The term vocabulary ... Word formation Word formation is the process of building new words from material already existing in the language according to certain root and grammar rule and formulate So word formation is very important for learners to enrich their vocabulary and use them correctly “There are three main forms of word formation in English, graded according to their productive degree: affixation, compounding, and. .. 2.4.1 The students difficulties Collecting the results of the survey questionnaire for students, various obstacles of students in learning English vocabulary, the sources of those difficulties as well as their desires from the teachers have been revealed Those comments from the students on the teacher’s ways of teaching vocabulary reflect the existing difficulties of the teachers The students obstacles. .. the survey questionnaires are used to investigate teacher and student’s comments and attitudes towards teaching and learning English vocabulary of 7th grade students at Khuong Thuong secondary school From the collected results in survey questionnaire and class observation, the research analyzes to clarify current situation and then recommend some solutions 6 Design of the study This research is designed... toward their teachers’ teaching vocabulary technique Question 7, 8, 9 relate to teacher’s teaching Pham Phuong Mai – K18A1 – (2011-2015)  19 Graduation Paper techniques Question 10 is given to find out teacher’s difficulties in teaching English vocabulary 2.3.1.3 Data collection and analysis a The survey questionnaire for students Table 1 How important do you think learning English vocabulary is? Percent... from the table, the amount of students considering vocabulary a very important element in language learning presents 38%, while 60% of them think that vocabulary is not as important as grammar and 2% not important This means that most of these students are not well aware of the importance of vocabulary in their English learning Table 2 Are you interested in learning English vocabulary? Percent (%) Interested