Teaching vocabulary explictly to first - year students at Yen Bai medical college.pdf

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST–GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************
BÙI THỊ KIM CÚC
TEACHING VOCABULARY EXPLICITLY TO FIRST-
YEAR STUDENTS AT YEN BAI MEDICAL COLLEGE
(Dạy từ vựng cho sinh viên năm thứ nhất bằng cách cho nghĩa trực tiếp
tại trường Cao đẳng Y tế Yên Bái)
M.A. Minor Thesis
Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60 14 10
Hanoi, 2012

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST–GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************
BÙI THỊ KIM CÚC
TEACHING VOCABULARY EXPLICITLY TO FIRST-
YEAR STUDENTS AT YEN BAI MEDICAL COLLEGE
(Dạy từ vựng cho sinh viên năm thứ nhất bằng cách cho nghĩa trực tiếp
tại trường Cao đẳng Y tế Yên Bái)
M.A. Minor Thesis
Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60 14 10
Supervisor: Vũ Mai Trang, M.A
Hanoi, 2012

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ABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
CANDIDATE'S DECLARATION…………………………………………... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………….. ii
ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………….. iii
TRANSCRIPT CONVENTION……………………………………………... iv
LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS AND TABLES…………………………….. v
TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………………. vi
PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study……………………………………………………... 1
2. Aims and objectives of the study………………………………………...... 2
3. Research questions ……………………………………………………….. 2
4. Scope of the study ………………………………………………………… 3
5. Method of the study ………………………………………………………. 3
6. Design of the study ……………………………………………………….. 3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW ………………………………… 5
1.1. An overview of vocabulary ……………………………………………. 5
1.1.1 Definition of vocabulary………………………………………... 5
1.1.2. The role of vocabulary in language teaching and learning…….. 6
1.2. Principles in teaching and learning vocabulary ……………………... 7
1.2.1. Selection of vocabulary items for students…………………….. 7
1.2.2. Aspects of word knowledge included in vocabulary teaching … 8

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1.2.3. Current approaches to L2 vocabulary teaching and learning….. 9
1.2.4. Explicit and implicit approaches to vocabulary teaching……… 10
1.2.4.1. Explicit approach ……………………………………….. 11
1.2.4.2. Implicit approach ……………………………………….. 13
1.3. Principles for explicit approach to vocabulary teaching ……………. 14
1.4. Challenges in vocabulary teaching …………………………………… 16
1.5. Summary………………………………………………………………... 17
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY…………………………………………. 18
2.1. The current situation of English teaching and learning at YBMC…. 18
2.2. Participants …………………………………………………………….. 20
2.3. Data collection instruments……………………………………………. 21
2.3.1. The interview…………………………………………………… 21
2.3.2. Class observation and Lesson analysis ………………………… 21
2. 4. Data collection and data analysis procedures………………………... 22
2.4.1. Data collection procedures……………………………………… 22
2.4.2. Data analysis procedures……………………………………….. 23
CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS………………………….. 24
3.1. Research question 1: Teachers' perceptions of explicit vocabulary
teaching at YBMC........................................................................................... 24
3.2. Research question 2: Teachers' selection of vocabulary to teach and
aspects of word knowledge to be taught…………………………………… 26
3.3. Research question 3: The explicit vocabulary teaching techniques
most frequently used in the classroom and their relevance……………… 29

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Vocabulary presentation techniques ……………………………….. 31
Vocabulary consolidation activities ………………………………… 35
PART C: CONCLUSION
1. Summary of the study …………………………………………………….. 38
2. Pedagogical implications …………………………………………………. 39
3. Limitations of the study …………………………………………………... 40
4. Suggestions for further studies ……………………………………………. 41
REFERENCES ……………………………………………………………... 42
APPENDICES

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TRANSCRIPT CONVENTION
T: teacher
S: student
Ss students
Italics translation of original speech in vernacular

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
EFL English as a foreign language
L1 First language
L2 Second language
YBMC Yen Bai Medical College
LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1: Vocabulary designed in the textbook Lifelines - Elementary
Table 2.2: Background of participants

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PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
We all know that vocabulary plays a prominent role in foreign language
learning. It is an element that links the four skills of language like listening,
speaking, reading and writing all together. As Wilkin (1972) emphasized that,
“Without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be
conveyed” (cited in Thornbury, 2002: 47). Without vocabulary, it's not easy for
learners to express their ideas, emotion, as well as fulfillment of communication
targets. Therefore, one of the greatest concerns of all language teachers is to look
for an effective vocabulary teaching approach which is suitable with their own
teaching contexts. Vocabulary teaching task is neither easy nor simple as it is
thought. Each language teacher is responsible for making their students know word
spelling, word meaning and realize how to use it accurately and properly in real
situations.
In the context of Yen Bai Medical College (YBMC), English is being taught
as one of the compulsory subjects along with other vocational ones. The level of
students at YBMC is quite low in general. Some of them have learnt English for
several years in secondary schools and some others have not learnt English for a
few years. Moreover, there has been little attention paid to vocabulary teaching and
learning. At many schools or colleges in general and at YBMC in particular, for
most teachers of English, their common way of teaching vocabulary is to give
explanations, definitions or translation of the word-list. Then learners usually learn
vocabulary passively through their teachers’ explanation. Writing new words on the
notebooks with equivalence in Vietnamese and trying to learn new words by heart
are their major ways of vocabulary learning. Consequently, they hardly remember
the meaning of the words and use them oral activities. In other words, by the time
the new words are presented in the new lesson most of the words taught in the
previous lesson will have gone out of their mind.

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As a teacher of English for nearly 12 years, I have realized that the reason
why learners have failed in using English is their lack of vocabulary. Therefore, it is
essential for every teacher in any language classes in Viet Nam educational system
to help his/her own students to widen their vocabulary size. Explicit vocabulary
teaching is particularly useful for beginning learners who have a limited reading
vocabulary and little exposure to incidental vocabulary learning through extensive
reading and listening like students at YBMC. This encourages the researcher to
conduct a study on explicit vocabulary teaching in an attempt to better vocabulary
teaching and learning at YBMC, a newly re-founded college in Yen Bai province.
2. Aims and Objectives of the study
The aim of this study is to investigate the perceptions of explicit vocabulary
teaching held by the teachers working at YBMC and how they teach vocabulary
explicitly.
The objectives of the study are:
- To understand teachers' ideas of explicit vocabulary teaching at YBMC
- To examine how teachers choose vocabulary items to teach and what aspects of
vocabulary they focus on in teaching vocabulary
- To find out the explicit vocabulary teaching techniques teachers frequently use
- To draw some conclusions on issues related to teaching vocabulary explicitly at
this college.
3. Research questions
In order to achieve the above-mentioned aims and objectives, the research
was carried out to seek answers to the following research questions:
1. What are teachers' perceptions of explicit vocabulary teaching at YBMC?
2. How do they choose vocabulary items to teach at YBMC and what aspects of
word knowledge they focus on in teaching the selected words?
3. What are the explicit vocabulary teaching techniques most frequently used in the
classroom and their relevance?

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4. Scope of the study
This minor thesis does not cover all the four language skills; it only focuses
on teaching vocabulary explicitly to first-year students at YBMC. It is confined to
the investigation of the teachers' ideas of explicit vocabulary teaching, their choice
of vocabulary to teach, the aspects of vocabulary addressed as well as the explicit
vocabulary teaching techniques used in the context of one mountainous college and
the relevance of these techniques in this context. Then this study will suggest some
pedagogical implications to make explicit vocabulary teaching in the researched
college more attentive and more effective.
5. Method of the study
To achieve its objectives, this study employed qualitative methods of data
collection which include interview, classroom observation and lesson analysis.
First, interviews with the teachers were conducted to investigate the teachers'
ideas of English explicit vocabulary teaching at YBMC as well as the way they
teach words explicitly, which includes their choice of vocabulary to teach, the
aspects of vocabulary focused on and their explicit vocabulary teaching techniques.
Then, classroom observations were conducted to supplement teachers'
interviews to test how English vocabulary is taught explicitly and the relevance of
explicit vocabulary teaching techniques can be evaluated through lessons analyses.
6. Design of the study
There are three main parts in my thesis as follows:
Part A is the Introduction presenting the rationale, aims, objectives, research
questions, scope, methods and design of the study.
Part B, the Development, includes three chapters:
Chapter 1 is the Literature Review. In this chapter, a basic theoretical
background for the study is created by reviewing the relevant issues related to
English vocabulary, vocabulary teaching and learning focusing on explicit and
implicit approaches.

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Chapter 2 entitled Methodology is composed of some smaller parts: a
description of the current situation of English teaching and learning at YBMC, the
participants, the instruments and the procedures of data collection as well as data
analysis employed to reach the aims of the research.
Chapter 3 is the Results and Discussions which presents, analyzes and
discusses the findings that the researcher found out from the data collected by
means of interviews, class observations and lessons analyses.
Part C, the Conclusion gives the summary of the study, states some limitations of
the study, draws pedagogical implications of explicit vocabulary teaching and offers
suggestions for further studies as well.

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter provides a brief review of the literature relevant to the study. It
consists of five sub-sections. Section one clarifies the definition of vocabulary, its
role in language teaching and learning. Section two mentions the principles in
teaching and learning vocabulary which include the selection of vocabulary items,
aspects of vocabulary knowledge, current approaches to L2 vocabulary teaching and
learning as well as explicit and implicit approaches. Section three refers to
principles for explicit approach to vocabulary teaching. Section four presents
challenges in vocabulary teaching and learning. The last one summarizes the
content of this chapter.
1.1. An overview of vocabulary
1.1.1. Definition of vocabulary
As among the three dimensions of language: vocabulary, grammar and
phonology, vocabulary stands out as the primacy forming the ground for the
development of other skills. It has been paid great attention by researchers,
linguists, teachers and learners. However it is really hard to give an exact definition
about vocabulary. Hornby (2010) defined vocabulary as follow:
1. All the words that a person knows or uses
2. All the words in a particular language
3. The words that people use when they are talking about a particular subject
4. A list of words with their meanings especially in a book or learning a foreign
language.
According to Pyles and Algeo (1993), vocabulary is regarded as the focus of
language with its sound and meaning interlock to allow us to communicate with one
another. Ur (1996: 60) offered a clear and specific definition of vocabulary by
saying that: "Vocabulary can be defined roughly as the words we teach in the
foreign language. However, a new item of vocabulary may be more than a single
word and also multi-word idioms." By this way, he defines that vocabulary is bigger

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than just the meaning of words. It covers a huge aspect of language and it is the
medium to express ideas or opinions.
In summary, among all various ways to define the concept "vocabulary", the
idea given by Ur (1996) that vocabulary is all the words existing in a language,
including single words to express ideas as well as multi-word idioms understood in
sentences or contexts is the most favorable.
1.1.2. The role of vocabulary in language teaching and learning
As said above, vocabulary, like grammar and phonetics, plays an important
role in mastering a foreign language. In order to emphasize the special importance
of vocabulary in teaching and learning a language, Folse (2004: 3) asserted that:
"Lack of grammar knowledge can limit conversation; lack of vocabulary knowledge
can stop conversation." In fact, learners can express themselves with poor grammar.
However, with poor vocabulary, communication is constrained considerably. In
other words, you can get by without grammar but you cannot get by without
vocabulary.
Shafaei and Nejati (2009: 32) also stated that “vocabulary is one of the most
important objectives in teaching foreign languages.” In addition, Gower et al (2005)
shared the agreement that vocabulary is very important to students; especially for
communication purposes it is more important than grammar. By all these
statements, it can be concluded that vocabulary is the decisive component of all
uses of language. The main objective of language learners is to understand and be
understood in their communication using the language acquired. In order to achieve
this aim, they have to achieve a certain number of vocabulary items. If someone
possesses an adequate vocabulary size, he or she is likely to feel more confident in
communication and to express his/ her own opinions accurately, fluently in both
oral and written forms.
Vocabulary teaching and learning is a complicated and laborious process. As
an important part of the foreign language teaching, vocabulary teaching has the goal
to help students not only to improve but to extend their vocabulary as well. Building

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vocabulary is such an important aspect of learning a foreign language that each
learner wishes to achieve an adequate vocabulary size. The more words one knows
well, the more successful he/she is in daily communication and the more
information he can get from different sources such as books, newspapers, etc.
Therefore, vocabulary deserves an important position in foreign language teaching
and learning.
1.2. Principles in teaching and learning vocabulary
1.2.1. Selection of vocabulary items for students
It is not impossible for us to deny that vocabulary is the most essential
element in learning a foreign language. Therefore, teachers who teach English as a
foreign language need to help their students build up a large size of useful words
during the course. However, the teacher should make a proper decision on selecting
the right vocabulary items to teach at the learners’ different level and they need to
judge whether a particular word deserves attention or not.
According to McCarthy (1990: 79), the most frequent words in the language
must be presented in the early state of language teaching. Nation (1994) suggested
we regard the high frequency vocabulary as consisting of about 2,000 word
families. Nation (1995) also emphasized that "the most frequent 2,000 words are
essential for any real language use, and so are worth the effort required to teach and
learn them explicitly" (cited in Schmitt, 2000: 143). In Meara's point of view, these
first 2.000 words of language are so important that teachers should focus on
teaching them right at the beginning of a language course (Meara, 1995 cited in
Schmitt, 2000). Knowing the first 2,000 words, students would be able to
understand more of the speech they are exposed to and also more of the written
texts that they read in their text book or from the other sources.
Schmitt (2000: 144) stated that: "The 2,000 level is only a beginning, and
teaching words explicitly beyond this level can still supply sufficient benefits that
warrant the time expended." and "it makes sense to concentrate on the lower-
frequency vocabulary". In addition, Nation (1994: 4) suggested "When the high

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frequency words are well known, then teachers may wish to spend time on low-
frequency words." It is necessary for language teachers to help students acquire the
strategies to cope with and learn these words on their own such as using dictionary,
guessing from context, learning word roots and affixes along with mnemonic
techniques.
In short, teachers of English should have good decisions on which words to
teach to the students as well as the number of vocabulary items taught during a
lesson. They also should take account of other factors such as the topic of the
lesson, their students' proficiency. More important, they should focus on what
aspects of vocabulary to be taught in a lesson, which will be presented in details in
the next following part.
1.2.2. Aspects of word knowledge included in vocabulary teaching
In general, when a teacher teaches a new English word, he should, by all
means, provide his learners with its meaning, forms, grammar and usage relatively.
Learners will not be able to put the word in proper use if they do not understand its
meaning, forms, grammar and its usage in appropriate contexts.
According to Ur (1996: 60-62), it's necessary for the teacher to teach their
students the following aspects of a new vocabulary item: Form: Pronunciation and
spelling; Grammar: if it is regular or irregular, transitive or intransitive etc.;
Collocation; Aspects of meaning: denotation, connotation, appropriateness;
Meaning relationships: synonyms, antonyms, co- hyponyms, super-ordinates,
translation; Word formation.
As regard to this issue, Nation (2001: 27) gave the following description of
truly knowing a word:
- Form: - spoken, written, word parts
- Meaning: form and meaning, concept and referents, associations
- Use: grammatical functions, collocations, constraints on use (register,
frequency…)

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In conclusion, all these above aspects should be taught to language learners
in vocabulary lessons. In other words, true mastery of a word involves knowing a
variety of word knowledge aspects. The more aspects of word knowledge we know
about a word, the more likely we will be able to use it in right contexts in an
appropriate manner. Teachers should note that vocabulary should always be revised
because learners will easily forget words if they do not have a chance to put them
into use or practice them in learning other skills.
1.2.3. Current approaches to L2 vocabulary teaching and learning
There are many different approaches, techniques as well as strategies to
vocabulary teaching and learning. These approaches involves both direct and
indirect teaching and learning such as: the Grammar-translation method, the Direct
method, the Reading method/ Situational language teaching, the Audio-lingual
method, the Silent way and Communicative language teaching etc…In addition,
Gairns and Redman (1986: 73-75) listed traditional ways of learning and teaching
vocabulary including visual techniques, verbal techniques and translation. Many
researchers have had great concern about promoting the learners' vocabulary
learning by using a variety of vocabulary learning strategies. Among them, Schmitt
and McCathy (1997) divided these strategies into five categories namely social,
memory, cognitive, metacognitive and determination strategies.
Hunt and Beglar (1998) considered three approaches to vocabulary teaching:
1) Incidental learning 2) Explicit or intentional instruction and 3) Independent
strategy development.
Incidental learning focuses on acquiring vocabulary through extensive
reading and listening. Accordingly, motivating learners to read and listen
extensively can provide them with great opportunities to learn new vocabularies.
Hunt and Beglar (1998) pointed out the incidental vocabulary learning can be a
useful approach for acquiring vocabularies for learners at all levels especially for
advanced ones. This approach helps students to develop the ability of sustained
silent reading and then most of the reading should be done outside of class.

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Another approach, explicit or intentional instruction concerns diagnosing the
words learners need to know, presenting words for the first time, elaborating word
knowledge, and developing fluency with known words. This approach seems to be
suitable for beginning learners whose reading ability is limited. Some techniques
were given in this approach such as word-pair translation, repetition and review.
Besides, some activities to deepen students' knowledge of words were also
introduced including sorting lists of words; making semantic maps with lists;
generating derivatives, inflections, synonyms and antonyms of a word; making tree-
words; identifying or generating associated words; cloze activity; collocation
crossword puzzles or bingo.
The last approach named independent strategies development which insists
on promoting language learners' autonomy. Many learners do use some common
strategies for learning vocabulary are memorization, repetition and taking note on
vocabulary. In their research, Hunt and Beglar (1998) mentioned independent
strategies such as practicing guessing from context and using dictionaries. They
stated that guessing from context is initially time consuming and is more likely to
work for more proficient learners. According to Nation (2001), learners need to
acquire a few important vocabulary learning strategies such as guessing from
context, using word cards, using word parts, using mnemonic techniques,
expressing the keyword techniques and making use of dictionaries. Therefore,
applying particular types of strategies forms an approach to vocabulary learning that
has great influence on the level of foreign language proficiency. In my study, some
vocabulary learning strategies are mentioned such as vocabulary notebooks and
word cards along with using dictionaries in order to improve learners' vocabulary
learning and encourage them to learn vocabulary independently.
1.2.4. Explicit and implicit approaches to vocabulary teaching
As Schmitt (2000) asserted, there is no “right” or “best” way to teach
vocabulary. The best practice in any situation will depend on the type of student
being taught, the words targeted, the school system and curriculum, and many

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other factors. He also pointed out, it is advisable to use a proper mix of explicit
teaching and activities from which incidental learning can occur in any well-
structured vocabulary programs. Graves (2006) shared the same idea that in
addition to learning vocabulary indirectly through various reading and writing
activities, students benefit from direct and explicit teaching of individual words. In
other words, students can learn incidentally/implicitly/indirectly through wide
reading and other language-rich activities. They also learn directly when teachers
target individual words explicitly and promote word-learning strategies.
1.2.4.1. Explicit approach
According to a survey by Sökmen (1997 cited in Schmitt, 2000: 146),
explicit vocabulary teaching should be attached to the following principles:
• Build a large sight vocabulary.
• Integrate new words with old.
• Provide a number of encounters with a word.
• Promote a deep level of processing.
• Facilitate imaging
• Make new words “real” by connecting them to the student’s world in some way.
• Encourage independent learning strategies.
In addition to these principles, Schmitt (2000) considered a few other points
which are also worth remembering. Firstly, the problem of cross – association is a
genuine one for learners. When two or more similar words, such as “left” and
“right”, are initially taught together in the same class, learning them might be more
difficult. Students are often confused in choosing which word form to go with
which meaning. Antonyms, synonyms, and closely related semantic groupings are
listed as subjects to cross – association. Secondly, it is worth teaching the
underlying meaning concept of a word. Many words are polysemous in English;
that is, they have more than one meaning sense. Besides, some of these different
meaning senses often have a common underlying trait. By defining the underlying
meaning, teacher can help students to understand the word in a much wider variety

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of contexts and the effect of teaching is maximized. Lastly, teaching word families
should be made a habit to enhance vocabulary learning. When teachers introduce a
new word, they should mention the other members of its word family.
The US Report of the National Reading Panel (2000) showed that
direct/explicit instruction is highly effective for vocabulary learning. In order to
acquire the in-depth word knowledge, students should be explicitly taught
individual words and word-learning strategies. Beck et al (2002) and Graves (2006)
summarized four strategies for teaching individual words explicitly: Provide a
student-friendly definition, use the word in context and give contextual information,
provide multiple exposures and offer opportunities for active involvement (cited in
Hanson & Padua, 2011: 10). Word learning strategies are the tools students can use
to figure out the meaning of unfamiliar words and increase their word knowledge.
According to Baumann et al (2003) and Graves (2006), direct teaching of word-
learning strategies can help students become better independent words-learners and
the effective word- learning strategies involve the use of word parts, context clues,
and dictionaries to determine the meaning of unknown words (cited in Hanson &
Padua, 2011).
Explicit teaching is particularly emphasized because of its time-efficiency,
its suitability for beginners or low proficiency students and its possibility of
improving word comprehension. Students can learn vocabulary directly with a lot of
help and careful explanations or guidance from teachers. However, explicit
approaches to vocabulary can only provide some elements of lexical knowledge. In
order to master some kinds of word knowledge, such as collocation, register
constraints and frequency, learners have to base on numerous exposures to the word
in various contexts. In general, with true beginners like students in the context of
my research, it is probably necessary to explicitly teach all words until students
have enough vocabulary to start making use of unknown words they meet in
context. Then implicit or incidental learning should be encouraged in second
language classroom.

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1.2.4.2. Implicit approach
In contrast to explicit approaches to vocabulary, implicit vocabulary learning
is known as incidental learning focuses on the importance of using the context
because words usually have different meanings in different contexts. In implicit
vocabulary learning, learners can acquire new vocabularies through extensive
reading, through communicative interactions, through exposure to natural input
such as movies, TV. Many linguists share the agreement that L2 learners have to
learn vocabulary implicitly from context. The context enables learners to know
different syntactic meanings and functions, to create appropriate word schemas, to
infer the meaning of an unfamiliar word and to promote the guessing meaning
strategies.
Learners can achieve benefits from implicit vocabulary approach because of
its contextualization, its pedagogical efficiency and its individualization (learner-
based feature). It means that incidental learning gives the learners a rich sense of
word use and meaning, encourages learners' vocabulary acquisition as well as
reading and enhance their own selection of reading materials. However, incidental
learning through reading might occur only to a limited degree as Schmitt (2000:
150) stated that "Unfortunately, this desirable approach is not widely available to
students around the world." For successful incidental acquisition of vocabulary,
many prerequisites should be paid attention to such as level of language proficiency,
learner’s large L2 vocabulary, strategic knowledge of inferencing process and rich
context with sufficient cues (Schmitt & McCarthy, 1997). Therefore, incidental
vocabulary learning of vocabulary may be a useful way of acquiring vocabularies
for most advanced learners.
From above, it can be concluded that any vocabulary programs need to
include explicit teaching and activities which promote incidental learning. The most
frequent 2,000 words are essential enough to teach explicitly, but less frequent
words may have to be largely acquired implicitly/incidentally. Vocabulary
acquisition is a gradual process; teachers have to focus not only on introducing new

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words but also on enhancing learners' knowledge of previously presented words.
Therefore, there should be a combination of explicit teaching and incidental
learning in any well-structured vocabulary programs.
1.3. Principles for explicit approach to vocabulary teaching
In my opinion, teaching words explicitly should be done meaningfully and
through a systematic approach so that students will establish routines for learning.
Teachers should identify the potential list of words to be taught and determine
which of these words to teach. It is also important for him or her to pay attention to
teaching the vocabulary "in spoken form" first to prevent students from
mispronouncing, then explaining the word in written form and word meaning,
placing the new items in context and revising them.
There are many techniques to present new vocabulary items as well as
activities to practice and consolidate these new words. Teachers should have a good
decision on which techniques or activities to apply in their contexts as long as the
effectiveness of vocabulary teaching is likely ensured.
In principles, there are such many things to which the teachers of English
have to pay much attention in teaching vocabulary as presenting the form,
explaining the meaning and the use of the new item as well as consolidating the
word taught in class. Nation (2005) proposed different techniques that are useful for
anyone who are interested in teaching English vocabulary.
In the first place, teachers quickly give the meaning of the word by (a) using
an L1 translation, (b) using a known L2 synonym or a simple definition in the L2,
(c) showing an object or picture, (d) giving quick demonstration, (e) drawing a
simple picture or diagram, (f) breaking the word into parts and giving the meaning
of the parts and the whole word (g) giving several example sentences with the word
in context, (h) commenting on the underlying word meaning and other referents.
Next, teachers can direct learners' attention to the form of the word by (a)
showing how the spelling of the word is like the spelling of known words, (b)
giving the stress pattern of the word and its pronunciation, (c) showing the prefix,

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stem and suffix that make up the word, (d) getting the learners to repeat the word
pronunciation, (e) writing the word on the board, (f) pointing out any spelling
irregularity in the word.
Lastly, teachers can explain the use of the word by (a) quickly showing the
grammatical pattern the word fits into (countable/uncountable,
transitive/intransitive, etc), (b) giving a few similar collocates, (c) mentioning any
restrictions on the use of the word (formal, colloquial, impolite, only used in the
United States, only used with children, old fashioned, technical, infrequent), (d)
giving a well known opposite, or a well known word describing the group or lexical
set it fits into.
In addition, Nation also listed some main principles in vocabulary teaching
process. The teachers should 1) keep the teaching simple and clear and not give
complicated explanations, 2) relate the present teaching to past knowledge by
showing a pattern or analogies, 3) use both oral and written presentation - write it
on the blackboard as well as explain it, 4) give most attention to words that are
already partly known, 5) tell the learners if it is a high frequency word that is worth
noting for future attention, 6) not bring in other unknown or poorly known related
words like near synonyms, opposites, or members of the same lexical set.
After having been provided with the new words, learners should have a
chance to practice these new items in a controlled setting in order to retain them in
the long-term memory and to turn passive vocabulary into active vocabulary. There
are many exercises and tasks that give students practice in using the new words but
course books cannot give enough space to this. It is often up to the teacher to
provide extra practice. One way to help students retain new words is by getting
them to repeat the words as often as possible. It will be better if the new items are
practiced in context not in isolation. In other words, the teacher should encourage
their students to record the new items by writing sentences that show both the
meaning and how they work in the sentence. Some other popular techniques of
practicing and revising vocabulary can be listed such as gap-filling, words-matching

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(synonyms or antonyms), word games, paraphrasing, using words in sentences or
dialogues, role-play, picture stories, using prefixes and suffixes to build new words
from given words and so on.
1.4. Challenges in vocabulary teaching
Vocabulary is one of three components of language together with grammar
and phonology, which plays an important part in listening, speaking, reading and
writing. Hence, developing students' vocabulary is one of the most important tasks
for English teachers. Acquisition of vocabulary is an incremental and perhaps
recursive process that involves the integration of various kinds of lexical knowledge
along with the implementation of appropriate vocabulary teaching /learning
techniques in language classes. In general, teaching vocabulary is not an easy task,
which depends on many factors such as the learners' characteristics, the learning
task, the learning context and the learning strategies.
Aganes (2008) found that many problems often appear during the teaching
and learning process. The problems faced by the teacher usually are on
characteristics of the students themselves and the method or teaching technique
approach. Students' problems in learning vocabulary are also regarded challenges in
language classes. Firstly, the students get difficulties in pronouncing words
correctly. Secondly, it is difficult for the students to memorize the meaning of the
words. In addition, they are not interested in studying in English because they feel
bored with the teaching technique. Usually the teacher taught vocabulary by
translating at the beginning of the lesson or translating of the material containing
new words or glossaries at the end. The teacher never uses self- defining context,
definition in the target language, opposites, picture, dramatization, and reality to put
across the meaning of a word to a class. In the literature, it seems that the problems
in the teaching and learning vocabulary tend to come from teachers. These factors
are listed followings:
(1) The teacher is not creative to use media as aids of teaching.

17
(2) The teacher only gives a little time to practice in pronouncing the words
correctly, whereas a little time to practice cannot create accurate pronunciation,
especially for the beginners or low-proficiency students.
(3) The technique of the teaching vocabulary that the teacher uses seems ineffective
for the students. It does not give the students great motivation to learn. In other
words, students are passive in learning vocabulary.
1.4. Summary
So far the theoretical issues related to the topic of the research have been
reviewed in this chapter. The next chapter will describe the methods employed in
the study and present procedure of data collection and data analysis.

18
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
The literature on the research topic has been presented briefly for the
theoretical basis of the study. As said in Part A, this study employed qualitative
method which helped to provide qualified background data for finding out teachers'
opinions of explicit vocabulary teaching and how teachers teach vocabulary
explicitly. The semi-structured interviews with the three teachers are carried out in
combination with classroom observations, lessons analyses to ensure the reliability
of the collected information and the relevance of the teachers' methods in teaching
vocabulary at YBMC. To continue, this chapter discusses in details the
methodology applied in conducting this study, including the situation analysis, the
participants, data collection instruments as well as the procedures of data collection
and analysis.
2.1. The current situation of English teaching and learning at YBMC
Situational factors:
YBMC has been re-founded for nearly one year. The college is responsible
for training future nurses midwifes and nursing staffs for the needs on health care
for people in Yen Bai province. Beside specialized knowledge for the future jobs,
English is also considered a compulsory subject in the training syllabus of this
college. However, there has not been much attention paid to this subject. Most of
language learning and teaching activities are carried out in the classroom. A
chalkboard and a textbook are the equipments used frequently in the classroom. In
each class, there are more than 50 students, which causes a lot of obstacles in the
language teaching and learning process. The teachers find it difficult to apply new
methods in English periods, especially in teaching vocabulary, an essential
component of language. The college has one cassette-player, one overhead projector
and one computer for 4 teachers. In reality, teachers hardly use these teaching aids
because of three following reasons: first, there is not enough equipment for many
classes to use in the same time; second, they often ignore the listening skill for its
unnecessary role in the final semester test of these non-English major students;

19
third, they cannot use these aids skillfully. There is also a library in YBMC with
only a few references for English subject. Most of books and laboratories are
specialized for medical issues. It can be concluded that materials are not available
for teachers and learners to widen their knowledge of the English subject.
Teachers' factors:
Teachers are the most essential factors in the process of teaching. To control
this process properly, it is necessary for teacher to own good experience of teaching
and understanding of the syllabus. Among the 4 teachers of English at YBMC, one
of them has been following an M. A course and the rest ones have B.A degrees
from Thai Nguyen University of Training Teacher. In general, they often come to
class without any teaching aids. They mostly depend on the textbook and hardly
have any creative activities or pre-teaching support. They waste much time giving
explanation to any unknown words that the students meet in each lesson. To some
extent, their communicative competence in language teaching is limited. Hence,
they accidentally make their students passive in learning English. However, they are
willing to devote their time and enthusiasm to language teaching: researching and
debating to find out an appropriate and progressive way to teach English effectively.
Learners' factors:
Students are the most vital factors in the process of learning. Most of the
students who have studied at YBMC come from remote and mountainous areas of
Yen Bai province. They are both male and female aged from eighteen to thirty and
many of them are from poor families. Their parents mainly work as farmers,
gardeners or hired workers so their living conditions are very low. Besides, their
English level is low and mixed-ability. Before entering YBMC, some of them have
studied English for 7 years, some has 3 years of learning English at high school and
some have not studied English for a long time. They often find it difficult to speak
out and write down anything because of their poor English knowledge, especially
their lack of vocabulary. In addition, the majority of the students think that English
is not a major subject and not useful for their future job. In their mind, the final goal

20
is to pass the English exams in order to get necessary requirements for graduation.
As a result, they learn English in a passive, independent and uncreative way. They
never prepare the lesson at home as well as review the lesson regularly.
Material factors:
The teaching material currently used for the students at YBMC is the
Lifelines-Elementary written by Tom Hutchinson. The main aim of teaching
English in this course is to provide students with background knowledge of general
English for daily communication and social text comprehension. This course book
is divided into fourteen topic-based units presenting and practicing vocabulary and
grammar, as well as developing the four language skills. After every two units,
there is an extension to check the learnt knowledge. There are often five parts in a
unit namely grammar, vocabulary, reading and writing, listening and speaking and
pronunciation. As for Vocabulary, it is designed according to topics. It means that
there are 14 topics corresponding with 14 units as follows:
Table 2.1: Vocabulary designed in the course-book Lifeline - Elementary
Unit 1: Numbers (p. 7) Unit 8: Giving dates (p. 56)
Unit 2: Classroom language – (p. 14) Unit 9: Verbs (p. 64)
Unit 3: Describing people (p. 22) Unit 10: Travel (p. 70)
Unit 4: Time (p. 28) Unit 11: Clothes (p. 78)
Unit 5: Food and drinks (p. 36) Unit 12: Parts of the body (p. 84)
Unit 6: Daily activities (p. 42) Unit 13: Phrasal verbs (p. 92)
Unit 7: Parts of a house (p. 50) Unit 14: The world (p. 98)
Besides these topics, vocabulary is integrated in other parts of a unit. It is
easily to realize that teaching vocabulary appears in all parts of every unit in this
course book.
2.2. Participants
Teachers were the central unit of analysis in this study because in any
teaching and learning process, the teacher is the key factor, responsible for
promoting or restraining students’ learning. One of the four teachers of the college

21
is taking an M.A course so she cannot participate in the study. The three left
teachers of English at YBMC are the major subjects of this study. Because the
teachers wished to remain anonymous, the researcher would like to use the term
Teacher 1, 2, and 3 to refer to them. General information of the participants was
provided in Table 2
Table 2.2: Background of participants:
Participants Age Gender Years of teaching experience Qualifications
Teacher 1 31 F 8 B. A
2.3. Data collection instruments
2.3.1. The interview
In social science, interviewing is one of the most basic research tools in
which a researcher asks questions of participants. In other words, it involves one
person interviewing another person for personal or detailed information. According
to McDonough (1997), the in-depth interviews give room for individual expression,
which is helpful to investigate subjects’ further opinions of advantages, hindrances,
and recommendations. Although an interview often requires considerable time to
get commitments from both interviewer and interviewee, it is an excellent way to
collect data. As Oppenheim (1992) stated that interviews have a higher response
rate than questionnaires because respondents become more involved and motivated
and they are better than questionnaires for handling more difficult and open-ended
questions. Hence, the researcher chooses interview as an instrument to get data for
her study.
2.3.2. Classroom observation and lesson analysis
Classroom observation which is a useful technique for giving additional
information about the topic being researched can be beneficial to all involved in the
collaboration process. For the one being observed like participants in the study, an
observation can provide useful feedback that may not be revealed by other

22
assessment methods. For the one observing like the researcher in this case, it is a
chance to learn from seeing a fellow teacher in action and makes her active, creative
in the events being studied. Classroom observation is important to this study
because it helps to show the researcher how teachers choose vocabulary items to
teach, how these selected words are taught explicitly. In this study, the researcher
observed and took notes in details of the key events that occurred in the class. They
included teachers' questions, students' responses and their participation in activities
during a period.
Lesson analysis is also chosen as an additional instrument to find out the
relevance of the teachers' explicit vocabulary techniques to the lesson content and
the teaching context at YBMC. Therefore, this helps the researcher to realize the
consistency and inconsistency between teachers' self-reports and their actual
teaching vocabulary activities in a particular lesson.
2.4. Data collection and data analysis procedures
2.4.1. Data collection procedures:
The process of data collection involved the following steps:
It was necessary for me to make some preparation for the data collection
process, which consists of the designing of the interview questions to teachers and
observation schedule. Thanks to the invaluable help from my supervisor and
friends, the interviews were carefully and reasonably designed.
Before carrying out the interviews to teachers of English at YBMC, I met all
of them in order to explain the purpose of the research and ask for their cooperation
for my study. Luckily, all the teachers gave me warmly welcome and were willing
to collaborate with me.
Because participants were too busy to come to a face-to-face interview, the
researcher had to conduct interviews through chatting software, an interviewing
technique that the interviewer and each respondent sit in front of their computers
and communicate with each other. The interview consists of two parts: The first one
is about the respondents' own background and the second one concerns the

23
participants' perceptions as well as solutions to explicit vocabulary teaching basing
on the 8 questions (See the interview guides in Appendix A). Each interview lasted
around 15 to 20 minutes in Vietnamese in a relaxing, friendly setting and then was
transcribed, translated into English (See interview transcript in Appendix B).
In order to identify any gaps between what the teachers said in the interview
and what they actually did in class, the researcher observed all three teachers. The
observed lessons were randomly chosen since the researcher would like to
understand more about their vocabulary teaching in each lesson. Classroom
observations were carried out in two lessons for each teacher, altogether 6 lessons
for 3 teachers (See classroom observation schedule in Appendix C). Because of the
large class size, the researcher could neither tape nor video-record but observed and
took notes. All the events in classroom taken notes in details allowed the researcher
to gain insight into the participants' selection of word items and aspects of word
knowledge to be taught as well as explicit techniques used in the classroom.
Finally, the observed lessons which were delivered by the respondents in the
study were carefully analyzed to see the relevance of their explicit vocabulary
techniques with the taught content and the teaching context at YBMC. (See lesson
plans under observation in Appendix D)
2.4.2. Data analysis procedures:
It took me more than two months to collect all the data for my research.
Interview data was then analyzed in accordance with data gathered during the class
observations and lessons analyses. After all the data were gathered, they were
transformed, analyzed both descriptively and interpretively and classified into
different categories to answer the three research questions of the study. The main
categories are: i) Teachers' perceptions of explicit vocabulary teaching at YBMC,
ii) Teachers' selection of vocabulary to teach, iii) Aspects of word knowledge to be
taught, iv) Common explicit vocabulary techniques in the classroom as well as their
relevance. The qualitative data from the interview, class observations and lessons
analyses will be presented in the next chapter.

24
CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
The previous chapter, Methodology, has described and justified the context,
the participants, the data collection instruments and the procedures of data
collection and analysis of the study. This chapter presents and discusses the findings
drawn from the data which were collected to reveal the answers to the research
questions of teaching vocabulary explicitly. The data collected from the interview to
teachers and through classroom observations as well as lessons analyses will be
analyzed to give answers for the three research questions: i) What are teachers'
perceptions of explicit vocabulary teaching? ii) How do they choose vocabulary
items to teach and what aspects of word knowledge they focus on in teaching the
selected words? iii) What are the explicit vocabulary teaching techniques most
frequently used in the classroom and their relevance?
The researcher conducted an interview with each of the respondents in
different time. Following the interview, classroom observations were carried out in
6 different classes of first-year students to compare what the teachers said to what
they did concerning to explicit vocabulary teaching. In order to realize the relevance
of the teachers' explicit teaching vocabulary techniques with the vocabulary items to
be taught in the lesson and the teaching context, the researcher additionally
presented some lessons analyses.
3.1. Research question 1: Teachers' perceptions of explicit vocabulary teaching
All the teachers who were interviewed found the explicit vocabulary
teaching suitable to the teaching context like at YBMC where most of the students
are at low English proficiency. They all knew this approach involved in giving the
meanings of the words directly to facilitate the students' English learning and
designing some exercises or activities to help learners to practice as well as retain
these words. One of the interviewed teachers gave her opinion that:
In my opinion, teaching vocabulary explicitly is as simple as providing students
with the meanings of the words directly. I often use this approach in my vocabulary
teaching. (Teacher 2)

25
The teacher 1 added:
Teaching vocabulary explicitly is my usual way in class. From my point of view,
explicit vocabulary teaching is a teaching process which makes use of activities and
exercises to direct learners' attention to vocabulary items.
The other explained:
Not to make students difficult in learning English and waste class time, it is
necessary for me to introduce the word directly with its spelling, pronunciation and
meaning. I often do this in my class. (Teacher 3)
It is obvious that the participants often teach vocabulary explicitly in their
teaching context. All the interviewed teachers found this vocabulary method
suitable with their students mostly at low English proficiency and with limited
vocabulary size. According to them, it is easy for students to get the word meaning
and it doesn't cost them much time to present a new word item. From the
researcher's first view, the respondents seemed to distinguish the explicit approach
and implicit approach to vocabulary teaching. They all supported the explicit
vocabulary teaching approach in which the teacher uses explicit techniques to
present the new word and activities to practice as well as consolidate the item.
However, their understanding of this approach only referred to giving the word
meaning directly but not selecting the word items to teach and using explicit
techniques in their teaching process.
The researcher strongly agrees to the opinion of the Teacher 1 that teaching
vocabulary explicitly is involved in designing some activities and exercises that
encourage learners to pay attention to vocabulary items introduced in the lesson. As
we all know, most of EFL learners face many difficulties in learning English
especially in learning vocabulary. They can neither remember the pronunciation,
spelling and meaning nor know how to use the new vocabulary item. What should
teachers do to help learners to enrich their vocabulary? In fact, the more
impressively the new word is presented, the more activities for practicing the new
item there are, the longer students can retain the vocabulary taught. In other words,

26
it is essential for teachers at YBMC to design some more activities or extra
exercises of vocabulary in order to help their learners to learn vocabulary more
effectively. Then they may be highly motivated in learning English, especially in
learning vocabulary and their vocabulary size may be gradually widened.
3.2. Research question 2: Teachers' selection of vocabulary to teach and
aspects of word knowledge to be taught
All the three participants shared the same idea on the selection of vocabulary
to teach and explained their selection as well as the criteria for this selection.
Through the classroom observations, the researcher found that they often choose
some words to teach but not all the words included in the lesson.
They gave many different reasons why they have to select some words to
teach their students in English language class such as time constraints, students'
limited vocabulary size and their difficulties in learning vocabulary as well as their
poor knowledge of vocabulary learning strategies. In addition, information collected
from class observations showed that most of students at YBMC owned passive
ways of learning vocabulary. In class, some kept silent and noted down anything the
teacher writes on the board while some others only added Vietnamese pronunciation
forms beside the unknown words on their books. They hardly prepared their lesson
before going to class. All these caused many difficulties to teachers of English at
YBMC in vocabulary teaching process.
In general, all the interviewed teachers agreed to select some vocabulary
items to teach in each lesson. It is impossible for them to pay attention to every new
word included in the lesson because of many reasons mentioned above. The
researcher thinks that teachers in this context should take students' poor knowledge
of vocabulary learning strategies into consideration. They may encourage students
either to make vocabulary notebooks and word cards to remember the words or to
use dictionary and guess word meaning in context to learn new words
independently.

27
Criteria of vocabulary selection:
There have been different criteria for vocabulary selection to teach. Many
methodologists and linguists (Nation, 1990; Schmitt, 2000) suggest that teachers
can decide and select the words to be taught on the basis of how frequently they are
used by speakers of the language. That is, the most commonly used words should be
taught first. Moreover, teachers can decide which words are useful and should be
taught to their learners on the basis of semantics. This means, that the word is more
useful if it covers more things than if it only has one very specific meaning.
All the interviewed teachers in this study insisted on choosing the words that
are useful and high-frequency for their learners' daily conversation, exam and future
job. In their teaching context with lots of ethnic minority students, they also put an
emphasis on selecting the words which are easy for the students to learn. They all
shared that their selection of a word item which is useful and highly frequent
depends on their own judgment, but not bases on any principles. The researcher
recommends that these teachers should consult available words lists which help
them to identify useful and high-frequency words such as The General Service List
(West, 1953), a list of the most common 2000 words used in everyday English and
the Academic Word List (Coxhead, 2000), a list of the most frequent academic
vocabulary in written academic texts. Then teachers can make sure that their
judgment of useful and high-frequency words is suitable or not.
However, the information obtained from observations was different from
what the teachers said in the interview. Observing some classes, the researcher
found that the teachers taught all the new words in the vocabulary sections or
vocabulary files of each unit and they chose some active words to teach in other
skill sections. Below are two extracts from a lesson delivered by the Teacher 2 and
Teacher 3.
Extract 1: Vocabulary- Clothes
T/Ss Activities
T You are going to learn some names of clothes, today. Look at the pictures
and tell me what they are wearing.
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28
Ss (in silence)
T Ok, I'll give you some words of clothes in these pictures. (Writes all the
names of the clothes and explains their meaning by pointing to the pictures)
+ T-shirt (n) + sweatshirt (n) + trainers (n)
+ high-heel shoes (n) + baseball cap (n) + dress (n)
……………………………………………………
Ss (take notes)
T (Reads the new words and asks Ss to repeat in chorus and individually)
Ss (Listen to the T and repeat)
(Observation 1: Unit 11, Fashion)
Extract 2: Reading and writing- A model pupil
T/Ss/S Activities
T Are there any new words in the reading text?
Ss Yes, there are a lot of.
T Ok, before you do the exercise 2 and 3, I'll give you some new words in this
text. (Writes the new words, reads aloud and gives their meanings)
+to appear +catwalk (n) +different (a)
+contract (n) + to offer + GCSE exam
Ss (take notes)
T Any new words? (points at a boy raising his hand)
Bao competition? education? prize? (pronounces with some mistake)
T Yes. (writes those words on the board and gives their meanings)
Ss (Note down these words, listen to the teacher and repeat).
(Observation 2: Unit 11- Reading and writing)
Aspects of word knowledge to be taught
All the three teachers shared that they presented vocabulary in each lesson
especially in grammar and reading lessons. In teaching vocabulary, they often
focused on teaching the form (spelling, pronunciation and grammar), the meaning
and sometimes the use of the word. As one of the teachers said:
After selecting some words which are useful and high-frequency, the teacher has to
think of the way how to teach these words. You see, there are many things to teach
when we want to introduce a new word. In my opinion, knowing a word means
knowing its meaning, its form and its use in appropriate contexts. (Teacher 1)
However, the researcher found that what the teachers said was different from
what they did in their classroom. The teachers observed often focused on the word
meaning and the word form, they hardly mentioned to the word use. Teaching
vocabulary is not just conveying the meaning to the students and asking them to
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29
note down on their notebook then learn those words by heart. Memorizing may be
good and useful as a temporary technique for tests, but not for learning a foreign
language. Language students need to learn vocabulary of the target language in
another way. Teachers should teach their students word-learning strategies such as
using dictionary, context, word cards, vocabulary notebooks and word parts to
unlock the meanings of the words they don’t know or to learn new words
independently. All the teachers interviewed agreed to provide students with some
word learning strategies so that they can learn the new words by themselves. They
all highly appreciated the way that the students read and listen to English texts
extensively to learn vocabulary implicitly or incidentally. However, it is not suitable
for their students who have low English proficiency and ineffective, passive ways of
learning. It is recommended that teachers should vary their vocabulary teaching
activities to improve the students' vocabulary size. In fact, the students' vocabulary
size is still limited and they cannot use the taught words in oral or written
communication. As the teacher 3 said:
In order to help them to learn vocabulary independently, I often ask students to
have vocabulary notebooks and encourage them to use dictionary or make word
cards. However, I find that my students' vocabulary is poor because they are too
lazy to learn new words. In their mind, they learn English in order to pass the final
exam and get full requirements for graduation.
3.3. Research question 3: The explicit vocabulary teaching techniques most
frequently used in the classroom and their relevance
When being asked "How do you often teach vocabulary explicitly in
classroom and your frequent explicit vocabulary teaching techniques?" the three
participants said that teaching vocabulary must be integrated with language skills
and grammar but not isolated in a lesson. Teaching vocabulary means not only
teaching long lists of words in isolation but also integrating new items in the
practice of other language skills and grammar. The teacher 2 shared:
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