An investigation into some approaches to vocabulary teaching and learning and the application of games in teaching and learning vocabulary at pre – Intermediate level at Foreign Language center – haiphong university

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study English plays an important role as it has become the international language and its contribution to different fields of our life such as: economy, technology, science, education, trade and tourism is obviously considerable. English language is now widely used in Vietnam. It serves as a main language for international communication and it is taught throughout of Vietnam and it has been learned by people in all walks of life not only at universities, colleges and schools but also in many part-time English classes at foreign language centers. Consequently, the teaching and learning of English has become more and more significant. However, both teaching and learning of English are still far from being satisfaction. Both teachers and learners have faced many difficulties in English teaching and learning - especially in teaching and learning of vocabulary. It is of common knowledge that vocabulary plays a significant role in second language acquisition. Wilkins, a famous British applied linguist, emphasized this with his saying "without grammar, very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed " (1972, p.11). Pyles and Algeo (1970) also supported this idea with "when we first think about language, we think about words. It is words that we arrange together to make sentences, conversation and discourse of all kinds". In fact, vocabulary is the decisive element that links the four skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing all together. In order to communicate well in a foreign language, students should acquire an adequate number of words and should know to use them accurately. In Vietnam in general, vocabulary teaching has yet to be paid due attention to as it deserves. Vocabulary has not been a particular subject for students to learn but has been taught within lessons of reading, writing, speaking and listening. For most of teachers the common way to communicate word meaning is translation through word list and many learners use rote strategies as their major way of vocabulary learning. In the Foreign Language Center of Haiphong University (FLC - HPU) the problem of vocabulary teaching and learning is more difficult, especially for the learners at Pre-Intermediate level. The main reason is that the classes are usually big with learners of different ages and abilities. It seems difficult for the teachers to apply the suitable way to teach these learners. Another reason is the course book. The number of new words in the book Headway Pre-Intermediate is rather large and it makes the learners feel confused and difficult to remember all of them. Furthermore, the learners at FLC – HPU, like other Vietnamese learners in general, usually learn vocabulary passively through their teachers' explanation. They only write words on paper with translation into Vietnamese and try to learn them by heart. During the lessons learners find many new words in the text and then ask their teachers to explain the meaning and usage. Sometimes teachers ask them to look up words in the dictionaries. As a result, the learners feel bored in vocabulary lessons and they very soon forget the new words they have learnt. Being teachers of English of the center, we have been many times asked by our learners about the ways of vocabulary learning. They ask "teacher, can you tell me the way to learn vocabulary?", "How can I remember words quickly and for a long time?" or "I had learnt new words very quickly but forgotten soon". Facing this situation, the teachers of English of FLC-HPU want to do something to change the ways of teaching and learning of vocabulary. Therefore, I have conducted a research to find the answer to help the teachers to apply more suitable methods to teach vocabulary to their learners. I wish to help the learners successfully improve their lexical knowledge and feel more interested in vocabulary lessons. As a result, this study will investigate some ways in vocabulary teaching and learning among learners at level B (Pre-Intermediate) at FLC-HPU. I would also like to suggest a certain effective way i.e. the use of games in vocabulary lessons. Aims of the study To give a brief overview about the role of vocabulary and its relevance in teaching and learning methodology. To conduct a survey about present situation of vocabulary teaching and learning at Pre-Intermediate level at FLC-HPU. To show some advantages of application of games in vocabulary lessons. To help the learners at Pre-Intermediate level to establish the effective ways in vocabulary learning and feel more interested in vocabulary lessons through vocabulary games. Therefore, the research is carried out with an attempt to find out the answers to the following research questions: What is the present situation of teaching and learning vocabulary at Pre-Intermediate level at FLC-HPU like? What are the main difficulties in vocabulary teaching and learning at Pre-Intermediate Level at FLC-HPU? What activities should be used to help learners to feel more interested and comfortable in vocabulary lessons? Are games useful in vocabulary teaching and learning at Pre-Intermediate Level at FLC-HPU? Methods of the study To achieve the aims mentioned above, quantitative method is used and the following tasks are involved. Collecting data for the analysis from 160 learners of B level classes at FLC-HPU in 2005. Collecting data for the analysis from 16 teachers teaching B level at FLC-HPU. Observing some experienced teachers' classes teaching B level at FLC-HPU and interviewing some teachers and learners as well. Assessing what difficulties one dominant in vocabulary teaching and learning. Applying games in vocabulary lessons in some classes. Conducting a post-class survey. Collecting data for the analysis from some teachers and 90 learners (from 3 classes) Scope of the study The study focuses on effective ways to teach and to learn vocabulary and on presenting some advantages of the application of games in vocabulary lessons at Pre-Intermediate level at FLC-HPU. Due to time limitation, I can just conduct survey on learners of B level and teachers teaching B level to investigate the problems experienced by these learners and teachers and observe some classes in which some kinds of games were applied in vocabulary lessons. After that I conduct a post – class survey to find out if games help teachers and learners at Pre-Intermediate level to teach and to learn English vocabulary better. The basing course book is Headway Pre – Intermediate. Design of study The study is divided into three parts: The first part is "Introduction". In this part the rationale, the aims, scope, methods and design of the study are presented. The second part: "Development" consists of 3 chapters: Chapter one provides concepts relevant to the study i.e. definition of vocabulary, concept of words, words and meaning, the status of vocabulary in language teaching and learning in the past and in recent years. Some strategies for teaching and learning vocabulary, some advantages of the use of games in vocabulary teaching and learning are also mentioned. Chapter two deals with the investigation into teaching and learning situation at FLC-HPU. That involves the information about teachers, teaching methods learning requirements, materials and material assessment. Chapter three is " data collection, findings and discussions, some suggestions". It focuses on the ways the teachers and learners teach and learn vocabulary and the reasons that make them feel uncomfortable and bored in the process of teaching and learning of vocabulary. In "suggestion" part a consideration of applications of games in vocabulary lessons is presented. The last part of the study, "conclusion", points out what is addressed as well as what has not been completed and some suggestions for further study. PART TWO - DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW Vocabulary in language teaching and learning. Definition of vocabulary There have been different definitions of vocabulary. Each linguist gives his own definition of vocabulary. Peny Ur, in his book: “A course in language teaching” defined vocabulary roughly “as the words we teach in the foreign language. However, a new item of vocabulary may be more than a single word: a compound of two or three words or multi-word idioms” (Ur, 1996, p.60). Pyles and Algeo also gave their idea about vocabulary. They said “when most of us think about language we think first about words. It is true that the vocabulary is the focus of language. It is in words that sounds and meanings interlock to allow us to communicate with one another, and it is words that we arrange together to make sentences, conversation and discourse of all kinds” (1970, p.96). These statements indicate that vocabulary is the total number of the words of a language and it is an essential part of language, as Wilkins emphasized this with his saying: “without grammar, very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing conveyed”. This is all true in teaching and learning a foreign language. Therefore, the teaching of vocabulary to foreign language learners has long been an area of concern to language teachers because learning vocabulary in a foreign language is much more than making form - meaning correspondences and simply filling up individual words. “Knowing a word, according to Nation (2001) means knowing at least its forms, its meanings and its basic usage”. Concept of words Barry Sesnan in his book “How to teach English” considers “the words we use are like the bricks, blocks, planks and tiles which we need to build a house” (2001, p.123). However, he did not give a definition of words of his own. In fact, linguistics has found it is difficult to define what precisely a word is. According to Lyons “a word may be defined as the union of a particular grammatical employment” (1974, p.200). This definition shows that the words must be a unit of meaning, phonology and grammar. Pyles and Ageo (1970) also had difficulty in giving the notion of words. They talked about it but did not give their own definition of it. According to Quirk: “words come to us so naturally that it takes a serious effort to realize what miraculous devices they are”. Like so many other things that are basic and elemental in our lives, we take them for granted and we are apt to be surprised to find how hard it is to say what exactly a word is” (1979, p.128). Adams in his book “An introduction to modern English word formation” (1973) came to conclusion that in general the linguists failure to give a consistent definition of the words across language is an indication that words may only be definable with respect to a particular language” (p.7). The status of vocabulary now seems to be changing and the notion of a word has been broadened. Hunt and David Beglar in “Current Research and Practice in teaching Vocabulary defined a word “as including the base form and its inflections and derivatives” (2001). Although this definition of a word is convenient and commonly used in vocabulary research, it should be remembered that vocabulary learning is more than the study of individual words. Words and their meanings There are two types of meaning in words: the grammatical (functional) meaning and the lexical (notional) meaning. The notional words, whose meaning are lexical, name objects, actions, qualities and have material meaning such as book, pen, to go, to speak, nice, quickly... in themselves. They are nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs... and so on. The functional word whose meanings are grammatical, only have their meanings in relation to other words with which they are used. They are participles, articles or preposition. About these types of meaning Strang wrote “in some words lexical meaning is perhaps dominant, in others class - meaning (grammatical meaning) certainly is” (Widdowson, 1979, p. 25). According to Francis, a sentence is the combination of two kinds of meanings of the words in the sentence and the meaning of the constructions. He said “the major purpose of language is to communicate meaning. All languages accomplish this purpose by combining meaningful units of words into meaningful arrangements or grammatical constructions” (1967, p.112). In actual usage, vocabulary items may differ in their emotive value, stylistic aspect and this leads to separate levels of meaning described by linguistics as denotation and connotation. According to Raeska (1971) denotation refers to generally approved definitions of a word as reflected in dictionary. In other words, denotional meaning is found in dictionary and may be direct when it directly points to an object without comparing it with other objects and may be indirect when the object is referred to indirectly by associating with other object. Connotation is, on the other hand, an addition to denotation. It is related to the attitudes of the language user, his emotional reaction to the use of a word. Lyon (1977) considers co notational meaning of a word as an emotive or affective component additional to its central meaning. As said above words have various types of meaning. Its is required that the teacher has to make a careful choice of and decision on which meaning of a word to teach and how many meanings and words to teach in the given class time or else learners will be impeded by the pressure to absorb too many meanings and words. Word use What a word means can be changed, stretched or limited by how it is used. Therefore, vocabulary knowledge involves considerably more than just knowing the meaning of a given word in isolation, it also involves knowing the words that tend to co - occur with it. These patterns or collocations, consist of pair of groups of words that co - occur with very high frequency and are important in vocabulary learning because, as Nattger notes “ the meaning of a word has a great deal to do with the words with which it commonly associate (1988, p.69). These associations assist the learner in committing these words to memory and also aid in defining the semantic area of a word. Word meaning is frequently stretched through the use of metaphor and idiom. We know that the word “hiss”, for example, describe the noise that snakes make. But the stretch it’s meaning to describe the way people talk to each other. That is metaphorical use. Talking about the use of words Jeremy Harmer (1991,p.157) stressed that we often use words only in certain social and topical context. What we say is governed by the style and register we are in. Form of words Each English word has its spelling, pronunciation and grammatical functions. The English learners need to know all of these functions of words to speak, to write and to use them correctly. It is obvious that vocabulary has close relationship with phonetics and grammar. In terms of phonology Palmer (1983) noted that a word is marked at least by some features of the sound system of the language. In English there are at least two phonological features which help to define the word. They are “stress” and “juncture”. Considering the relationship between lexis and grammar Raevska (1971) said that grammar refers to the general facts of language and lexicology with special facts. She emphasized that there are some linguistic facts on lexical level which are no less general than those in grammar, especially word – building. Ruth Gains and Stuard Redman (1999) classified three main forms of word building of word formation which are characteristics of English. They are affixation (the process of adding prefixes and suffixes to the base item); compounding (the formation of words from two or more separate words) and conversion (process by which an item maybe used in different parts of speech).These linguistics wrote: “Focus on word building is likely to pay dividends for the learner both receptively and productively. With receptive skills; an understanding of all three aspects of word building is essential if the learner is to make informed guesses about the meaning of unknown items” (p.48) What have been saying is that knowing a word means far more than just understanding its meaning. “Knowing a word, means knowing at least its forms, its meaning and its basic usage” (Nation, 2001). According to Jeremy Harmer (1991) we can summary “Knowing a word" in the following way: Words Word use Meaning Word information Word grammar Meaning in context Sense relations Metaphor and idiom Collocation Style and register Prefixes and suffixes Spelling and Pronunciation Nouns, countable and uncountable Parts of speech Verbs complementation, phrasal verbs etc... Adjectives and adverbs; position Consequently, teaching vocabulary is not concerned with teaching words only, but it must also take the other dimensions of language into consideration. Vocabulary in language teaching and learning A neglected aspect of foreign language methodology It can not be denied that vocabulary plays an extremely significant role in language. “Vocabulary is most important for understanding and knowing names for things, actions and concept” (Troike, 1976, p. 87). This does not mean that other aspects of language such as phonology and grammar are not important but there is a fact that non - native speaker needs vocabulary first in order to communicate. Wallace (1984) said that failure to find the words one needs express himself is the most frustrating experience in speaking another language. Rivers (1983, p.125) has also argued that the acquisition of an adequate vocabulary is essential for successful second language use because. Without an extensive vocabulary, we will be unable to use the structures and functions we may have learned for comprehensible communication. Therefore, teaching and learning vocabulary is a very crucial aspect in foreign language methodology. Yet, in past years this area of teaching was often neglected because it was thought that vocabulary simply be left to take care of itself. Much linguistics has complained about this matter. According to Meara, “vocabulary acquisition has received short shrift from applied linguistics. This neglect is all the more striking in that learners themselves readily admit that they experience considerable difficulty with vocabulary (1982, p.100). The low status of vocabulary and vocabulary teaching was in large part due to language teaching approaches based on American linguistics theories, which only emphasized grammatical and phonological structures. As a result of that the vocabulary needed to be relatively simple, with new words introduced only as they were needed to make the drills possible (Larsen Freeman, 2000; Zimmerman. 1997). From what mentioned above it can be explained the reason why there have been a lot of books written on how to teach and learn phonology and grammar but “... little has been written on teaching and learning of foreign language vocabulary” (Mallace, p. 123). This neglect has, certainly, resulted in less effective teaching for foreign language learners of any language back ground as well as the Vietnamese learners. Ineffective vocabulary learning Hoang Tat Truong (1985) listed some main problems or the most common “symptoms” of ineffective vocabulary learning such: Being unable to retrieve the words which have been taught. Poor stylistic use of lexical items. Inability to select appropriate words for the given context. Being unable to use lexical items idiomatically. Meaningless use of vocabulary items. Using wrong grammatical forms, spellings, pronunciation or stress. Using dictionaries, encyclopedias etc...in a wrong way. Possessing unnecessary words. The status of vocabulary in current language teaching and learning The picture of the status of vocabulary in current language teaching and learning has changed dramatically in the last two decades. By the la