skkn cấp tỉnh some suggested techniques for teachers and 10 11th grrade students at lam kinh high school to teach and learn english vocabulary effectively

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PART A: INTRODUCTIONI. Rationale for the study

In recent decades, English is considered as an international language. It is themajor language of intercommunication, international commerce, business, science,culture and so on. In Vietnam, the economic open-door policy pursued by theGovernment has created a huge demand for using English. Therefore, there hasbeen a positive trend of teaching and learning English across the country. English isalso introduced to the educational curriculum from primary education (optional) totertiary education (compulsory). [5].

In Lam Kinh high school as well as in the other high schools in rural andmountainous areas, teaching and learning English has been taken intoconsideration. Vocabulary is considered an important tool to help studentsinterpret their items ultimately lead to successes in language skills such asspeaking, listening, reading, writing etc.. It is also vocabulary that partlyfacilitates the movement of “passive” knowledge into “active” language use.Roughly speaking, students are getting more competent and confident in usinglanguage since they own the rich storehouse of vocabulary knowledge.

Teaching vocabulary in EL is crucial to a student’s language developmentand communication skills. After all, without adequate words, it’s difficult torelate thoughts, ideas, and feelings about who we are and how we interpret theworld around us. But how do we achieve this goal without making studentsmemorize lists of EL vocabulary that will be forgotten after the next popquiz? Check out these teaching strategies for how to teach vocabulary to ELstudents – whether you’re giving in-person lessons or teaching English online.

In order to help teachers and students build up passion for English, havestrategies for teaching and learning vocabularies effectively so that student can

improve their English skills, I choose the topic of study: “Some suggestedtechniques for teachers and the 10 and 11th grade students at Lam Kinh Highschool to teach and learn English vocabulary effectively”

II. Aims of the study

The aims of the study are to raise students’ interest in English andinvestigate some effective techniques and strategies in teaching and learningEnglish vocabularies. Some main purposes covering the study are summarizedas follow:

+ To investigate some techniques and strategies for teaching and learningvocabularies.

+ To help English teachers, especially teachers of English at upper secondary

schools to find out effective techniques to deal with teaching and learningEnglish vocabulary effectively in the new textbooks with the hope of helping

teachers and students improve their skills in English language.

III. Objects of the study

This study has been carried out to search for a better and more effective Note: At this page, the paragraph “In recent decades……tertiary education (compulsory)’’ isconsulted from Reference number [3].

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ways and strategies for teaching and learning English vocabularies in order to

help teachers and students to gain success in improving English skills.

IV. Methods of the study

To achieve the aims mentioned above, a detailed study is used. Thetheoretical background of the study presented in my study comes from documentson the internet and many published books written by different authors on languageteaching. The statistics and data collected for the study come from the students andthe English teachers at Lam Kinh upper secondary school by making observationthrough English lessons in the classroom. Through theoretical and practicalexperience in leaning environment at Lam Kinh high school, I myself build up thetopic.

PART B: DEVELOPMENTI. Theoretical background

1. What is vocabulary. [5].

Graves (2000, as cited in Taylor, 1990) defines vocabulary as the entirestock of words belonging to a branch of knowledge or known by an individual.He also states that the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, which includeswords and expressions. Krashen (1998, as cited in Herrel, 2004) extends Graves‘definition further by stating that lexicon organizes the mental vocabulary in aspeaker‘s mind. An individual‘s mental lexicon is that person‘s knowledge ofvocabulary (Krashen, 1998, as cited in Herrel, 2004). Miller (1999, as cited inZimmerman, 2007) states that vocabulary is a set of words that are the basicbuilding blocks used in the generation and understanding of sentences.

According to Gardener (2009, as cited in Adger, 2002) vocabulary is notonly confined to the meaning of words but also includes how vocabulary in alanguage is structured: how people use and store words and how they learnwords and the relationship between words, phrases, categories of words andphrases (Graves, 2000, as cited in Taylor, 1990).

2. Principles for teaching vocabulary :

To be to remembered new vocabulary, new vocabulary needs to be learntin context, practised, and then revised to prevent students from forgetting.Teachers must make sure students have understood the new words, which willbe remembered better if introduced in a "memorable way" (Hubbard et. al.1983:50). Bearing all this in mind, teachers have to remember to employ avariety of techniques for new vocabulary teaching.

- Provide a context for new words: We will help the students guess themeanings of the new words and remember easilier.

- Do not present too much new words at once. Teach a few words(active words) and allow students to practise and use them a lot. This will help them remember new words easily.

- Practising new words in context is more important than memorizingisolated words. Students may be required to learn the meanings of words but

Note: At this page, section 1“What is vocabulary”& section 2“Principles for teaching

vocabulary”are consulted from Reference No.[5]& No.6 respectively .

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they must also be given the opportunity to use them productively in speakingand writing.

- Teach your students skills for guessing new words, especially when

reading. The meaning of words can be inferred from the different types ofcontexts and from looking at affixes (parts) of the word.

- Avoid translation as much as possible. If the students are always havingwords translated, they are really only communicating in their own language , notin Eglish. Also, students do not usually remember vocabulary that has beentranslated. Only use translation as a last resort, when it would otherwise take toolong to communicate in English.

- Avoid using the dictionary a much as possible. When reading orlistening ,students should first try guessing or ignoring new words so that theycan continue without stopping. Also using a dictionary when speaking orlistening often slows down communication. In writing, using a dictionary can bebeneficial. It helps students express themselves more clearly.

- Practise the new words in context first, practise in chorus, and thenindividually.

- Active words are needed to teach first, ignore the passive words.

Those are the principles for teaching vocabulary. Have you taughtvocabulary follow those principles? In my opinion, if all of us follow thoseprinciples strictly, our students won’t find it difficult to remember newvocabulary any more and we will get better feedback from our students.

II. Practical background1. Background of the study

1.1. Description of the English syllabus at upper secondary schools

The new textbooks chosen are English 10, 11- Global Success by NhaXuat Ban Giao Duc. Each consists of 10 lessons which have been coveredthrough out the school year with mid-term and end –of- term tests in between.Each lesson is divided into 8 periods with the aim of giving the students basicknowledge of English and practice four skills: speaking, listening, reading andwriting skill. By using this textbook, we can develop our students’communicative competence and our students can learn real things from dailylife. At the end of each term, students have an exam for four skills.

1.2. Description of the students at upper secondary schools

Most of students of LamKinh high school have already learned English for atleast four years at lower secondary school but many of them are at the low levelof English proficiency. Another fact is that most of the students are from ruralareas in ThoXuan district. Consequently, individual differences in learningstyles, identities, attitudes, motivation, etc are unavoidable and may cause theteachers some problems during their teaching. In addition, their lack ofawareness on the importance of English as well as motivation makes them notinterested in learning English. Although most of them have already learntEnglish for at least four years at lower secondary school, their knowledge of English is still poor and limited. Some students can even hardly say a completesentence in the target language.

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1.3. Description of the teachers at upper secondary schools

At Lam Kinh High School, there are totally 6 teachers of English,including me, aged from 36 to 46. Half of us graduated from Hong DucUniversity in Thanh Hoa province and none of us have been to any Englishspeaking countries. The number of female teachers formed the majority (5female teachers and only one male teacher). All of us are enthusiastic with theircareer and had at least 15 years experienced in teaching English.

However, in terms of methodology, the teachers in our school usuallyemploy the traditional methods of teaching especially Grammar-translationmethod. They often apply this method in teaching English. In other words, theyfocus on analyzing the grammar rules, not on the acquisition of language skills.

They spend most of the classroom time explaining new words, analyzinggrammar structures and translating texts into Vietnamese. Students often listenand take notes passively. This leads to low motivation in students and createsvery few chances for them to improve their communicative competence.

1.4. Description of physical setting

In most upper secondary schools, English teaching and learning activitiesare mostly carried out inside the classrooms which are designed for lecturelessons with the only classroom equipment: a blackboard, tables and a desk. Theonly type of teaching aid that the English group has is some cassette recordersand pictures. In term of class size, the number of students in an English class isquite large, from 40 to 50. This large number causes a great deal of difficultiesfor the teaching and learning activities. The materials for reference and self-study are not available for teachers and students at schools. In the school library,there are only some English books that are not really helpful for teachers andstudents.

2. Difficulties

2.1. Students’difficulties in learning English vocabulary.

The information from the data collected clearly shows students havemany difficulties in learning grammar, pronouncing, especially in learningvocabulary. Students’ limitation of vocabulary leads to the difficulties inmastering reading, speaking, listening and writing skills. They also have troublein doing tests because of the lack of vocabulary. Even they can’t find out anysuitable methods to follow when they want to concentrate on learningvocabulary.

In addition, many teachers of English at high schools don’t care muchabout teaching vocabulary. They only pay attention to grammar or they still useold methods- translation when teaching news words. They get students tounderstand and remember new words passively.

2.2. Teachers’ difficulties when teaching English vocabury.

Not only the students but also the teachers at LamKinh high schoolcoped with numerous problems when teaching English vocabury. Thedifficulties the teachers at LamKinh high school were coping with were thefactors from the students such as the low level of English proficiency of thestudents, low background knowledge and their low motivation. The next

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difficulty was the problem of large class. There are so many students in aclass that teachers are dificult to control the students. They had to facedifficulties in shortening a big gap among their students‟ different abilities. Inthe same class, some students who were good at English were attentive andactive while many others were de-motivated and ignore the lesson. The goodones usually dominated the activities that pair work and group work wereneeded while the weaker ones were shy and even contributed nothing.

With all the difficulties mentioned above, it was necessary to haveworkable solutions to overcome the existing problems for furtherimprovement of teaching and learning vocabularies in English lessons.

III. Some suggestions for teaching and learning vocabularies effectively in theclass at Lam Kinh High school.

1. Teaching relevant EL vocabulary[6].

Be aware that if you focus on vocabulary that can’t be put to immediateand repetitive use in your students’ day-to-day lives, it will be relegated to thequicks and of short-term memory and soon forgotten, thus rendering all yourhard work useless. Teaching vocabulary in EL is of vital importance to long-term use of classroom lessons. Be sure to choose vocabulary that is connected toyour students’ lives and can be easily applied to their world outside of theclassroom.

2. Following steps for presenting new Vocabulary[6].

- Step 1: Use a suitable technique to elecit or show the meaning of the newvocabulary .

- Step 2: Model the pronunciation clearly ( 3 times )

- Step 3: Ask students to repeat the word chorrally and individually.- Step 4: Correct students’ s pronunciation

- Step 5: Write the words on the board and students’ s copy down on theirnotebooks.

- Step 6: Check that students clearly understanding the meaning& pronunciation.- Step 7: Draw students’ attention to aspect of vocabulary such as part ofspeech , callocation , frequency etc.

3.Eliciting techniques for teaching vocabulary

What are the techniques for introducing and teaching new vocabulary?3.1.Showing pictures or drawings

Because drawings and photos are fairly universal and understood by mostpeople, this is perhaps the best way to present new vocabulary. The internet ischock-full of photos and pictures, and there are a variety of stock photo websitesto choose from.

Teacher can use the following pictures with the help of the Power pointsoftware presentations to introduce the new words.

Note: At this page, the section 1. “Teach relevant EL vocabulary” & section 2.”

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2. “Follow steps for presenting new Vocabulary” are consulted from Reference number [6].

Example 1: UNIT 3: MUSIC - I: GETTING STARTED[2]

English 10 (Global Success) (page 28)Activity 1:Presenting new words

Teacher shows some pictures and does as the followings:

1. ’musical instruments

T: Look at the picture! These are musical

instruments. ‘’musical instruments’’S: ‘’musical instruments’’

T: So what does the word ‘’musicalinstrument’’ mean in Vietnamese?

S: “Nhạc cụ”

2.trumpet

T: Look at this picture! This is a trumpet.

Now “trumpet”.S: “trumpet”.

T: So what does the word mean in Vietnamese?

S: “cái kèn”

Example 2: Unit 6:GENDER EQUALITY-Part I:GETTING STARTED[2]

English 10 (Global Success) (page 66)Activity 1:Presenting new words

Teacher shows some pictures and does as the followings: 1. kindergarten (n) /ˈkɪndəɡɑː(r)tn/:

T: Look at this picture! This is a trumpet.

Now “kindergarten”.S: “kindergarten”.

T: So what does the word mean in Vietnamese?

S: “trường mẫu giáo”

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Note: At this page, the example 1 and the example2 are extracted from Reference number [2]

3. pilot (n) /ˈpaɪlət/: phi công

T: Look at the men in the picture! He is a pilot. Now “pilot”.

3.2. Presenting vocabulary with realia

Another way of providing words is using the real things(realia) whichthe teacher may bring in to the classroom, or even find in the classroom already.When learning a word that is related to the real things around our lives, thestudents can understand and remember words longer, and when they forget,they can recall those words by looking at things that they used to use before

Example: U.5: INVENTIONS-VII: CLIL: COM PUTER HARDWARE [2]

English 10 (Global Success) (page 59)

When teaching vocabulary of section VII- CLIL, the theme of this lesson is

Computer hardware , so teachers just need to use the computer equiped in the classroom to teach new words related to computer: processor, RAM,…

When teachers point at objects, students can find it easy to identify the meaningsof new words, we need not explain the words , even not say the meaning of thewords.

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Note: At this page, the example of secion 2. Present vocabulary with realia is extracted

from Reference number [2]

T: Look ! This is the “processor” ( point at the processor)T: what is it in Vietnamese?

S: “Bộ xử lí trung tâm”T: Right.

Teacher continues with other parts of the computers as this way.

After some words have been taught in class, teachers instruct students topractice simple sentences with those words at home. From there, students canremember words and phrases in a simpler way. With this method, students canuse the correct words and practice using them in daily life.

3.3. Introducing new words in the context

If we want students to move vocabulary into their productive vocabulary(in other words, if we want students to be able to use words accurately), we needto present the new words in context. Being able to use the context (the sentencesor paragraphs that surround the word) to figure out the meanings of new wordsis an essential skill that all teachers want their students to be able to master oneday.

In ordinary reading, there are a number of clues that help you to determinethe meaning of an unknown word. They are synonyms, examples, contrast,etc.

Here are the steps for introducing new bword in context: + Read the sentence that contains the word carefully.

+ Look for context clues in the sentence to help you understand the meaning. You can even read the sentences around to look for clues

+ Choose the answer that the context indicates.

Example 1: UNIT 6: GENDER EQUALITY

Part 3: Reading – For an equal world [2]English 10 (Global Success) (page 69)

Activity 2: Read the text and circle the correct meanings of the highlightedwords and phrases

Gender equality has been greatly promoted around the world. However,there are still many challenges that women face.

First of all, there are still girls who are forced to get married before theage of 18. In many places, parents may see child marriage as a way to protectdaughters from violence. However, many of these young girls become victims

of domestic violence. Child marriage also carries serious health risks as young

girls are not physically developed to give birth.

Secondly, more than half of the world's uneducated people are women.

This means fewer girls than boys go to school or stay long at school. Girls whoreceive an education are less likely to marry young. They can also have betterjob skills and can earn higher salaries. Education gives girls the opportunity tohave a better life and give back to their communities.

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Note: At this page, the example 1 of section 3.3. Introduce new words in the context is

extracted from Reference number [2]

Thirdly, women are often paid less than men. In other words, womenhave to work longer than men to earn the same amount of money. Differencesin career choices might be one reason. Women tend to become nurses,

secretaries, or shop assistants, which are low-paying jobs, while men choose

high-paying careers as surgeons, airline pilots, or engineers.

1. domestic violence

a. action taken to please someone

b.behaviour intended to hurt someone you live with

Step 1: Ask students to look at the words being asked about and the two answer

choices. If they are familiar with the word, guess which answer is correct. Donot mark the answer sheet yet.

Step 2: Read the sentence in which the word appears. If you were unfamiliar

with the word, see if context clues in the sentence or in the sentences before orafter help you guess the meaning.

1. In many places, parents may see child marriage as a way to protect daughters

from violence. However, many of these young girls become victims of domesticviolence.

2. more than half of the world's uneducated people are women. This means

fewer girls than boys go to school or stay long at school.

3. Women tend to become nurses, secretaries, or shop assistants, which are paying jobs, while men choose high-paying careers as surgeons, airline pilots,

low-or engineers.

Step 3: Look for context clues in the sentence

1. parents/ child marriage/ protect daughters from violence

However( Sự đối lập)/ become victims/ domestic violence.

2. more than half/ uneducated / women./ means fewer girls/ than boys/ go to

3. low-paying jobs / while men choose high-paying careers

Step 4: Look at the two choices and their meanings and choose the answer that

the context indicates.

1. Choice (b) is suitable and closest in meaning The choice (a) are not suitable in the context.2. Choice (a) is suitable and closest in meaning The choice (b) are not suitable in the context.3. Choice (b) is suitable and closest in meaning

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The choice (a) are not suitable in the context.

Example 2: UNIT 8: A LONG AND HEALTHY LIFE

Part 3: Reading – How to become independent [2]English 11 (Global Success) (page 89-90)

Activity 3: Read the text again and match the highlighted phrases in the text with their meanings

A. First, make sure you can safely get around by yourself using public

transport, walking, or cycling. Second, learn to communicate well and developgood relationships with people. Do some part-time jobs and get to know how tomanage your money. You should also learn to cook healthy meals for yourfamily. Finally, help your parents with household chores like cleaning and doinglaundry.

B. To begin with, identify the problem and come up with as many solutions as

possible. Write down the options, so you can review the advantages anddisadvantages of each one. This will help you see which option could be the bestfor you. Don’t base your decision on emotion only. Once you have made your

choice, create a plan of specific steps to move forward. Then carry out your

plan, and think about whether you have achieved the result you wanted.1. get around a. to produce or find an answer or a solution

2. come up with b. to perform and complete something3. carry out c. to go or travel to different places

Step 1: Ask students to look at the words being asked about and the two answer

choices. If they are familiar with the word, guess which answer is correct. Donot mark the answer sheet yet.

Step 2: Read the sentence in which the word appears. If you were unfamiliar

with the word, see if context clues in the sentence or in the sentences before orafter help you guess the meaning.

1. get around: First, make sure you can safely get around by yourself using

public transport, walking, or cycling.

2. come up with: identify the problem and come up with as many solutions as

3. carry out: Then carry out your plan, and think about whether you have

achieved the result you wanted.