I INTRODUCTION Reasons of choosing the study As global communication among people has increased, English has become the first choice for cross-border communication worldwide English is the language most widely taught as a foreign language in more than 100 countries in the world In Vietnam, since the economic open door policy, English has been also considered to be the most popular foreign language Especially after becoming a member of the World Trade Organization, English has become a great demand for schooling and job opportunities In learning a foreign language in general, and English in particular, vocabulary plays an important role Because meaning is chiefly conveyed through words, vocabulary is the foundation of communication, without which communication would be very limited McCarthy (1990) states that “No matter how well the student learns grammar, no matter how successfully the sounds of L2 are mastered, without words to express a wide range of meanings, communication in an L2 just cannot happen in any meaningful way”[1] By having rich vocabulary, students can improve their listening, speaking, reading and writing abilities, not only in the way they comprehend but also in the way they produce language In order to become independent users of English, students should acquire an adequate number of words and should know how to use them accurately However, vocabulary acquisition is really challenging to every student, especially students at secondary schools In the context of Chu Văn An secondary school (CVASS), English is a compulsory subject to the students Vocabulary lessons are not paid enough attention in order to help students learn new words more effectively As a result, most of them have formed a habit of only learning new words found in their text books or through teachers’ sources They normally learn vocabulary by such methods as listing new words on a notebook and learning them by heart, writing new words repeatedly down on papers, reading new words out loud several times, and so forth These above seem not to be very effective and interesting ways for vocabulary acquisition Moreover, students only think of vocabulary learning as knowing the primary meaning of new words, they ignore all other functions of the words Many of them may also recognize a word in a written or spoken form and think that they already "know the word", but they may not be able to use that word properly in different contexts or pronounce it correctly Many students, after learning English for many years, can only read and understand short and simple texts and hardly communicate in English As a specialist of English, I have dealt with many questions relating to vocabulary learning which are raised by the students or among the English teachers For example, “why is it very difficult to remember new words?” or “what are the effective ways of learning vocabulary?”, etc Therefore, I tried to find the answers to these questions by conducting a study So I boldly choose the topic “SUGGESTING SOME METHODS TO HELP THE FORM 9TH STUDENTS AT CHU VAN AN SECONDARY SCHOOL OVERCOME THEIR DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING ENGLISH VOCABULARY ” Purpose of the study The study aims to find out the factors that cause difficulties for the th form students in learning English vocabulary at Chu Văn An secondary school and to suggest some solutions to help students learn vocabulary more effectively Scope of the study The subjects of the study include 130 th form students at Chu Văn An secondary school These participants are from different classes 78 of them are male and 52 are female All of the participants are at the age of 15 and have been studying English for at least years at primary schools and secondary schools All of them come from different villages in Nga Son district, Thanh Hoa province So they rarely have chance to commucicate with each other in English It is one of their difficculties in learning English generally and learning vocabulary particularly Methods of the study In order to achieve the purpose of the study, both qualitative and quantitative methods are used That is all comments, conclusions, suggestions given in the experience are based on the analysis of data from a survey questionnaire responded by 130 9th form students, an informal interview answered by three English teachers of the school, author’s classroomobservation and students’ result from some vocabulary tests II CONTENT Theoretical background No doubt that vocabulary is a significant factor in language acquisition since words play an important role in expressing our feeling, emotions, and ideas to others during the act of communication However, learning vocabulary is really a big challenge for students in learning a foreign language The purpose of vocabulary learning include both remembering words and the ability to use them automatically in a wide range of language contexts However, we can see that the major difficulties in learning vocabulary of the students are mispronunciation and incorrect usage of words So they are less confident to speak English in front of their teachers as well as their classmates Most of the students say that they can hardly express their ideas in speaking and writing lessons and it is difficult for them to get the gist of information from the conversation or texts in listening and reading lessons As a result, students only “know a word” but they might not “use a word” That’s why they easily forget the words they have learnt and they could not improve and develop their learning English skills.This is true in learning a foreign language If a learner has a wide range of vocabulary, he can help himself understood and understand others easily However, if his vocabulary is limited he will surely have difficulty in doing so and in English learning Therefore, nobody can learn a language without learning vocabulary, and nobody can be a good language user without a reasonably rich vocabulary These all show that the success of a student in becoming proficient in any language depends in part on the extent and richness of his/ her vocabulary, so vocabulary teaching should be part of the syllabus, and vocabulary should be taught on a well-planned and regular basis Practical back ground The study was conducted at Chu Văn An secondary school which located in the countryside of Thanh Hoa province Established in 1991, CVASS is the most qualified secondary school whose students have always been selected from other schools in Nga Sơn district All subjects including English are taught with new course books and new methods according to the renovation program put forth by the Ministry of Education and Training 2.1.The teachers and their teaching methods In Chu Văn An secondary school, there are English teachers whose teaching experience varies from to 20 years All of them have BA degrees in English language teaching from different tertiary institutions in Vietnam It is obvious that most of the English teachers at CVASS are deeply influenced by grammar-translation method Teachers at CVASS usually apply the traditional method of teaching in vocabulary lesson that Grammar- translation method In classes, the teacher play the key role, talk most of the time, explain new words and mostly translate them into Vietnamese Students often listen and copy on their notebooks passively Hence, this method leads to lack of motivation and few chances for the students to practice English in general and vocabulary in particular 2.2 The students and their background The learners at Chu Văn An secondary school are the best students who have been selected basing on their results from the entrance exam There are around 45 students of mixed ability in each class There are 18 classes, among which the 9th form students take up classes All of the students come from the countryside, so they have less or no exposure to authentic English In fact, most of these students commonly spend very little time learning English as they have to spend much of the time learning other subjects Especially they spend most of their time learning the subjects that they are good at and selected in the group of ten students to take the exams for good students Therefore, the majority of them learn English because it is a compulsory school subject and they learn it just to pass the tests in the class 2.3 The teaching materials and facilities The book Tieng Anh by the Ministry of Education and Training has been used as the only the textbook to teach the student at Chu Văn An secondary school It consists of 10 units Each unit is divided into lessons Every unit provides students with opportunities to learn and develop their knowledge in categories of grammar, vocabulary, communication skills, and pronunciation through practicing activities of listening, speaking, reading, and writing Especially, the number of vocabulary in each unit is rather large Thus, the students usually feel very difficult in learning and mastering it Teaching facilities also play an important part in teaching English and may affect the learning process positively or negatively At Chu Van An secondary school, there is no English laboratory There is one computer room but used for teaching informatics, not for English There is also one library with few English books or magazines The only facilities for learning and teaching English are some cassette-players in poor condition It is obviously that the teaching facilities are poorly equipped This certainly has considerable negative effects on teaching and learning English at Chu Văn An secondary school Thus the difficulties in learning English vocabulary were caused by both internal factors and external factors The internal factors are such factors coming from the students themselves as, their lack of motivation and effective ways to learn vocabulary and also their natural characteristics of young age The external factors are English learning environment, vocabulary learning task and lack of time for studying English The solutions 3.1 Encouraging students’ self- study No doubt that the more vocabulary a language learner has, the better they are considered to master the language However, it is impossible for students to learn all the vocabulary they need in the classroom since there are so many words which teachers cannot teach students properly within the class time limit, thus, vocabulary expanding process requires the higher level of autonomy as well as more responsibility from learners themselves Basing on the findings, the students at CVASS always encounter difficulties in understanding and remembering new words Therefore, it is an important responsibility of the teachers to help learners develop their selfstudy Firstly, teachers should enhance the students’ interest and make them highly motivated in learning vocabulary by helping them realize that success in learning depends much on their own efforts, like the way Scharle and Szabó state: “success in learning very much depends on learners taking responsibility” (2000,p.4) [2] Secondly, the teachers help students understand the nature of vocabulary learning process It is an active process that requires students actively take part in This means that the students no longer depend on teacher’s lecture, they must actively join in all vocabulary activities in order to understand and remember vocabulary better Finally, it is clear that “autonomy is an ability to put one’s own study into effect” However, learner autonomy does not mean avoiding any reliance on sources of help around you This means that the student employs the teacher as a source of help, effectively bring the teacher into his or her own learning agenda Therefore, the teachers should give homework frequently so that students have chance to practice what they have learnt and hence reinforce their specialized knowlegle But to avoid sudents’copy the result from the others, the teachers should apply effective ways to give them the exercises and check their answers Here is a sample exercise suggested by the author to provide students to at home Sample exercise: Making sentence Aim: revise and develop learned word usage in Unit 3: A trip to the countryside Time: 15- 20 minutes Procedures: - The first time: The teacher gives learned words (all these words are the same parts of speech) and asks students to make the sentences with them - The second time: The teacher supplies another form of each word (teacher may encourage students to find out this form of a word themselves) and ask them to make other sentences with these new forms of the words - Each time as that, the student can create a portfolio about the different usage of the learned words in the sentences which completely distinguish from the other students’ For example: - The first day with the verb-form of word: collect The students A may write: I like feeding chikens and collecting their eggs The student B may write another sentence: My younger sister has collected dolls since she was three years old - The second day with the noun- form of this word: Collection The student A may make a sentence: My father has a large collection of coins The student B may write: Her collection of stamps is very beautiful If students become self- studiers and develop their autonomy in learning vocabulary as above, not only will sudents’ difficulties be overcome but also teacher’s heavy task in lecturing will be reduced 3.2 Providing students with different vocabulary learning strategies Vocabulary can be learned in a variety of ways The most common of these is incidental learning through listening and reading using context clues to work out the meaning Vocabulary knowledge can also be enriched through having to produce vocabulary in spoken or written form The quality and thoughtfulness of the production influences the quality of storage of the word However, from the findings, the students’ vocabulary learning strategies were limited They have many difficulties in word usage, word pronunciation and word spelling They couldn’t find the effective ways to learn English vocabulary so they expected their teachers to provide them with the better strategies There are some typical vocabulary learning strategies which may be applied for the secondary school students and may reduce their difficulties They are: * Learning vocabulary through communication Learning vocabulary through communication is an important strategy Though it does not contribute to vocabulary learning directly, it allows learners to be exposed to the target language In this process, learners can produce the utterance and test the knowledge they have learnt [3] Through communication, listener can help speaker by pointing out the incorrect use of item in his or her speech Feedback is given immediately and learners can benefit from it In this method learners can keep the conversation going on and acquire more new vocabulary Moreover, when communicating, there is interaction between speakers and learners so learners have to give some reaction to the speakers Thus, they would concentrate on the speech and give response In this process, they would encounter some word repeatedly and they have to produce output when learners encourter the new item in communication, they are more likely to be required to use them productively in the activity For example: In Unit 5: The media Lien: you like watching sports, don’t you, Trung ? Trung: Not really Some sports are so violent, and I don’t like watching them I prefer documentaries Lien: I’m the opposite I love watching sports, and documentaries seem quite boring to me Trung: ……………………………………………………………………………………… The students may communicate with their teachers, classmates, friends and so on Through communication, the students can master the learned words with different usage, different degree of expressions and in different situations So this strategy is very helpful for both unsuccessful learners and successful learners * Learning vocabulary through listening Listening provides students a best way to learn new words and review the words they have learned They can listen to tapes, movie, music and their teachers when they are in class This strategy can contribute to vocabulary learning directly Nation states that there is evidence showing that through listening to a story learners can acquire vocabulary Especially, listening to English songs, the stories in English can interest learners and their contexts are helpful in vocabulary acquisition When they are listening to words time and time again, they need to pay attention to the sound of every word and the meaning of every sentence The result that the students can improve their pronunciation, memorize the word and understand the usage of the new word in the learned context For example: After learning Unit 8: Celebrations, the students can listen to the song Auld Lang Syne This process helps them revise and develop the learned words which are highlighted below Auld Lang Syne Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and days of auld lang syne? For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne, we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and days of auld lang syne? And here’s a hand, my trusty friend! and gie's a hand o’ thine! we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne * Learning vocabulary by guessing from context Guessing from context is probably one of the most useful skills learners can acquire and apply inside and outside the class Teacher can suggest a –five-stepstrategy for guessing from context: Finding the part of speech of the unknown word Looking at the immediate context of the unknown word and simplying this context if necessary Looking at the wider context of the unknown word This means looking at the relationship between the clause containing the unknown word and surrounding clauses and sentences Guessing the meaning of the unknown word Checking that the guessing is correct This means that the students may use structural formation and context clues to guess the new word - Using structural formation: The information of the unknown word such as prefixes, suffixes and part of speech is very useful for learners to refer the meaning of the new word Such as, prefixes un-, dis-, always have negative meanings (appointed - disappointed, familar - unfamilar) Suffixes -ful, -able often occur in adjectives (careful, comfortable) - Using context clues: Students can deduce the possible meaning of unknown word and phrase by using the meaning of other words around For example : Unit - The reading lesson In Western countries, electricity, gas, and water are not luxuries but necessities Companies now realize that consumers want products that will not only work effectively, but also save money The students underline the word consumers and guess the meaning due to the words around it such as luxuries, products, save money Learning vocabulary by guessing from the context require so many skills So, it has a bit difficulty for unsuccessful students in learning English but it is very useful for the students who are good at English * Learning vocabulary through word formation Most of content words in English can change form by adding prefixes ( re-, un-, in-, dis-, and so on) or suffixes (-ful, - less, -ly, -ness and so on) Thus, learning word parts may be helpful to acquire vocabulary Nation states severals kinds of knowledge that are needed to use word parts Firstly, learners have to be able to recognize that a complex word is made up by several parts and those parts are also contained in other words For example: the word inacceptable is made up by three parts: in, accept and able Learners need to recognize these parts and have concepts of their meanings and functions Secondly, learners also need to know the meaning of the word parts For example, learners need to know the meanings of the parts form inacceptable In- is a prefix, which mean not Accept means take willingly something is offered -able is an adjective suffix, which means having the quality of Thirdly, learners have to recognize how the affix and stem combine and make a new word with related meaning For example, inacceptable and comfortable share the same suffix – able Learners can infer that they are both adjective and they both mean that something has certain quality Fourthly, learner need to be aware that there are some changes to stem and affixation when they are combined together For example, happiness is not formed by happy and –ness There is a change to happy that the y changes into i Through the relationship between pronunciation and spelling, learners can master the word correctly Learning through word formation does not require so many skills as guessing from context Hence, it seems to be more popular among learners who are not good at English * Learning vocabulary by using bilingual dictionary Bilingual dictionaries are popular among learners at all levels Bilingual dictionary is a good resource for second language learners [ 4] It concludes comprehensive meaning of a word which are expected in English, an example sentence of each meaning, usage of the word, synonyms and so forth If students look up a word in the dictionary, he can acquire plenty of knowledge about the word So many researches suggested using a bilingual dictionary as a reference work to support their self- learning Thus, teachers should give clear instructions so that students can know how to use dictionaries For example, teachers should introduce the English alphabetical system, the symbols used in a dictionary and teach them how to look up the meaning of a new word, explore all the expression related to a word, the way to interpret its pronunciation and stress 3.3 Improving various techniques in teaching vocabulary We know that internal factor is an important factor that influences language acquistion Positive emotion can make learning more efficient Thus, when learners are interested in what they learn, they are more likely to acquire it The greatest difficulties in learning vocabulary of the students are their poor retention, mispronunciation and incorrect usage of words In addition, one of their desires from their teachers is using various teaching techniques In order to overcome these problems and satisfy their students’ expectations, some suggestions are offered below: Basing on characteristics of different groups of students, the teacher should use appropriate techniques or even in the same class the teacher also has to employ various techniques in different vocabulary lessons in order to renew the classroom atmostphere and maintain the students’ interests and motivation Vocabulary should not be taught seperately but integrated into skills (reading, speaking, listening, writing and translation) [5] Firstly, at the presentation stage, besides the traditional techniques like saying the words clearly one by one and writing them on the board, translatating all the words into Vietnamese, the teacher should use visual aids, guestures and facial expressions, giving examples, asking students to guess the meanings from the context, especially word games are very useful and effective ways which help to develop students’ability and motivation to learn vocabulary effectively Visuals like real objects, photographs, pictures are used regularly to attract students’ attention Also, students can learn a lot from examples containing new words because they know how the word is collated to others Secondly, at the vocabulary practice stage, the teacher should try to create more exercises with different forms and levels of difficulty such as matching words, filling in the gaps, multiple choice, making sentences with given words, finding synonyms and antonyms, translation, and word games However, due to limited time in the class, these exercises should give to students after each lesson and they may be checked as a 5-minute warm- up activity in the next class By doing this, the teacher can review and recycle the words their students have learnt so that the students can remember them better, the lesson includes more activities providing more chance for the students to practice their knowledge 10 Here are some of the sample activities suggested by the reseacher for the students to in their classroom or at home Sample activity 1: word pronunciation Aim: Check students’ pronunciation of ed-ending of past verb form in unit 1: A visit from a penpal Time: 5-10 minutes Source: Activities sheet for homework Procedures: Teacher gives some verbs ending with - ed Ask students to put them in the correct columns For example: /id/ /d/ /t/ painted played worked Sample activities 2: word form Aim: Revise learned word usage in unit 5: the Media Time: 5-10 minutes Procedures: - The teacher gives 10 incomplete sentences with a given word in bracket - Students open the bracket to complete the sentence For example: These documents are not…accessible………to the public ( ACCESS) The Internet is a wonderful……invention…of modern life ( INVENT) Sample activities 3: Roleplay Aim: Recall students’ memory of learned words and word usage in Unit 1: A visit from a pen pal to develop their abilities in communication Time: 5-10 minutes Source: Designed by the researcher to help students memorize words and revise word usage in Unit 1: A visit from a pen pal Procedures: Teacher asks students to work in pairs and roleplay this situation: You (student A) are a Vietnamese student Your foreign pen pal (student B) has visited your country This is your first meeting Make a conversation to introduce yourselves and your countries by using the words such as: friendly, climate, religion, temples, churches, etc A: Hello You must be B B: Hi That’s right, I am A: Are you enjoying your stay in Viet Nam? B: Oh yes, very much Vietnamese people are very friendly and Hanoi is very interesting city A:…………………………………………………………………………… The discussion 4.1 Results 11 At the beginning of study, we asked students to a vocabulary test to check their vocabulary levels.The data displayed in the chart below is gathered from the results of the test in September, 2016 Chart 1: Students’ level of English vocabulary in September,2016 It is clear from the observation and from the result in chat that most of the students have problem in learning vocabulary After that I suggested some solutions to the English teacher of Chu Van An Secondary School He has applied those methods in teaching vocabulary process and has received much effective result The data displayed in the chart below is gathered from the results of the test in February,2017 Chart 2: Students’ level of English vocabulary in February, 2017 4.2 Discussion Chart indicates that, a large number of students at the level of English vocabulary was average (32%) and bad ( 39%) 24 % of them supposed their 12 vocabulary was rather good Only 5% of the students found that their vocabulary was good These figures indicate that a majority of students have English vocabulary at average or below average level This is one of the problems in students’ vocabulary learning process After having applied those suggested methods in teaching vocabulary, students’ levels are improved effectively Chart indicates that, a large number of students at the level of English vocabulary was rather good (45%) and good (20%) 30 % of them supposed their vocabulary was average Only 5% of the students found that their vocabulary was bad 13 III CONCLUSION Limitations of the study Because of time limitation, knowledge and limited size of a minor thesis, the research was conducted only on a small size of population This number is not enough for the researcher to have a full understanding of difficulties in learning English vocabulary faced by those students The author’s practical experience in teaching vocabulary is limited, the suggestions to overcome difficulties are likely to be subjective and incomplete Suggestions for further research English vocabulary learning is a complex process which depends upon a lot of factors and these may cause difficulties for students Further study can investigate problems in vocabulary learning by looking at difficulties related to vocabulary itself and some other factors affecting learning vocabulary such as gender, references, inteligence and belief Especially, vocabulary learning strategies and vocabulary teaching techniques are considered very important so futher study should research about them to find out the most effective and suitable ways for teaching and learning English vocabulary Conclusions The difficulties in learning English vocabulary faced by the 9th form students at CVASS are unavoidable and caused by both internal factors and external factors In terms of internal factors, it is the students’ traditional way of learning, that is writing new words repeatedly, students’lack of motivation and their natural characteristics of young age The external factors include English learning environment in which the teachers’traditional teaching method, that is speaking new words aloud and translating directly, mainly prevent students from English vocabulary acquisition, vocabulary learning task, lack of time for studying English and some other factors such as English vocabulary itself and lack of teaching facilities and reference materials In reasearcher’s opinion, the main difficulties faced by the students originate from the ways the students learn English vocabulary and the ways their teachers teach them These factors can be changed and improved better but the other factors such as time, age, vocabulary itself, teaching materials and so on can rarely or hardly be changed by the students and teachers themselves Therefore, the difficulties should be overcome foremost by the students and teachers themselves In order to help students learn English vocabulary more effectively, both teachers and students must improve their awareness of their role in teaching and learning process and the role of English in their further study and future work, which help to create a motivation for students’ learning Moreover, teachers should varify their teaching techniques and help students find out their learning strategies that suit 14 their abilities in learning vocabulary This will make students more motivated to learn and have a higher sense of confidence in their own learning ability I hope my study will be useful for the teachers and students in the process of teaching and learning language at secondary school CONFIRMATION OF HEADS OF UNIT Phạm Đức Anh Nga Son, 10th April 2017 I strongly confirm this is my own writing, not to copy of others Lê Thị Mai 15 REFERENCES McCarthy M (1990) Vocabulary description, acquisition and pedagogy Cambridge University Press Scharle and Szabó state (2000,p.4) Success in learning Enlish [2] Joe A Nation P And J Newton (in press) Speaking activities and vocabulary learning English teaching forum Hornby, A.S (1995) Oxford advanced learners dictionary of current English London: Oxford University Press Thornbury, S (2002), How to teach vocabulary England: Pearson Education Limited 16 SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO THANH HỐ PHỊNG GD&ĐT NGA SƠN SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM MỘT SỐ BIỆN PHÁP GIÚP HỌC SINH LỚP TRƯỜNG THCS CHU VĂN AN VƯỢT QUA NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN TRONG VIỆC HỌC TỪ VỰNG TIẾNG ANH Người thực hiện: LÊ THỊ MAI Chức vụ: Chuyên viên Đơn vị công tác: Phịng Giáo dục& Đào tạo Nga Sơn SKKN thuộc mơn: Tiếng Anh 17 TABLE OF CONTENT CONTENT PAGE I INTRODUCTION 1 2 Reasons for choosing the study Purpose of the study Scope of the study Methods of the study II CONTENT Theoretical background Practical background 2.1 The teachers and their teaching methods 2.2 The students and their background 2.3 The teaching materials and facilities The sollutions 3.1 Encouraging students’ self-study 3.2 Providing students with different vocabulary learning strategies 3.3 Improving various techniques in teaching vocabulary The discussion 4.1 Results 4.2 Discussion III.CONCLUSION Limitations of the study Suggestions for futher research Conclusion IV REFERENCE 3 4 11 12 13 13 13 13 15-16 18 19 ... DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO THANH HỐ PHỊNG GD&ĐT NGA SƠN SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM MỘT SỐ BIỆN PHÁP GIÚP HỌC SINH LỚP TRƯỜNG THCS CHU VĂN AN VƯỢT QUA NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN TRONG VIỆC HỌC TỪ VỰNG TIẾNG ANH Người thực hiện:... ground The study was conducted at Chu Văn An secondary school which located in the countryside of Thanh Hoa province Established in 199 1, CVASS is the most qualified secondary school whose students... CONFIRMATION OF HEADS OF UNIT Phạm Đức Anh Nga Son, 10th April 2017 I strongly confirm this is my own writing, not to copy of others Lê Thị Mai 15 REFERENCES McCarthy M ( 199 0) Vocabulary description, acquisition