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-1- VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES VŨ PHƯƠNG THẢO IMPROVING LEARNING ENGLISH VOCABULARY THROUGH GAMES: AN ACTION RESEARCH NÂNG CAO VIỆC HỌC TỪ VỰNG TIẾNG ANH THÔNG QUA CÁC TRÒ CHƠI NGÔN NGỮ: NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG M.A THESIS FIELD: METHODOLOGY CODE: 60 14 10 -2- HANOI – 2011 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES VŨ PHƯƠNG THẢO IMPROVING LEARNING ENGLISH VOCABULARY THROUGH GAMES: AN ACTION RESEARCH NÂNG CAO VIỆC HỌC TỪ VỰNG TIẾNG ANH THÔNG QUA CÁC TRÒ CHƠI NGÔN NGỮ: NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG M.A THESIS FIELD: METHODOLOGY CODE: 60 14 10 SUPERVISOR: PHẠM MINH TÂM, M.Ed -3- HANOI – 2011 CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT -----------***----------- I hereby cetify that this minor thesis entitled IMPROVING LEARNING VOCABULARY THROUGH GAMES: AN ACTION RESEARCH is completely the result of my own work for the Degree of Master at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi and that this thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other university or institution. -4- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS During the course of fulfilling my thesis I have owed my debt to many people. First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere and deep gratitude to, Ms Pham Minh Tam, my supervisor for her wholehearted guidance, valuable suggestion and useful materials during the time of writing this thesis. Second, I would like to send my thanks to the colleagues at Sunrise school who have provided me with the insighful knowledge being most significant in paving the way for me to carry out the research. I should be grateful to Ms Nguyen Thu Ha, the dedicated librarian, for her constant help thanks to which I was able to access to all materials needed to accomplish the thesis. Finally but importantly, my heart-felt gratitude goes to my beloved family whose support and encouragement has always been the great source of inspiration for me to comple this thesis. -5- ABSTRACT One of the most challenging tasks facing any language teachers is to capture students’ interest and therefore keep them in high learning spirit. Meanwhile, vocabulary learning is a hard task which can sometimes be frustrating especially for teenagers. Constant effort is required to understand, produce and manipulate the target language. To realize this situation, teachers are supposed to find out teaching ways corresponsive to students’ needs and wants. The study, in that light, lays a focus on students’ improvement in learning English vocabulary through language games. The study is conducted in the form of an action research with methodologies used are pretests – post tests and survey questionnaire to collect data. Then, the data from tests were exploied to find out the improvement in students’ vocabulary. And the data from suvey questionnaire were used to find out students’ attitude towards language games and provide factors that should be considered by teachers when using games to teach vocabulary. -6- TABLE OF CONTENTS CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT................................................................................................ i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................................... ii ABSTRACT............................................................................................................................... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................................... iv LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND ABBREVIATIONS………………………………....... vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................. 1 1.1 Rationale for the Study and Research Problem Statement …………………….......... 1 1.2 Research Aims and Research Questions………………………………………………… 2 1.3 Scope of the Study........................................................................................................ 2 1.4 Methodology of the Study............................................................................................. 2 1.5 Design of the Study....................................................................................................... 2 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW…………................................................................... 4 2.1 Overview of Vocabulary Teaching …………….......................................................... 4 2.1.1 The Definitions of Vocabulary.............................................................................. 4 2.1.2 Principles in Vocabulary Teaching....................................................................... 5 2.1.3 Techniques in Teaching Vocabulary..................................................................... 6 2.1.3.1 Techniques for Presenting New Vocabulary ………………………………. 7 2.1.3.1.1 Visual Techniques………………..…........…..……………….………… 7 2.1.3.1.2 Verbal Techniques ……………………………………………………… 8 2.1.3.1.3 Student-centred........……………..……………………..………..……… 8 2.1.3.2 Techniques for Consolidating and Checking Vocabulary……………………… 8 2.2 Overview of Language Games....................................................................................... 9 -7- 2.2.1 The Definitions of Language Games.................................................................... 9 2.2.2 Types of Language Games.................................................................................... 10 2.2.3 Perspectives on Exploiting Games in ELT……...…………................................ 11 2.2.4 Reasons to Use Games in EFL Classroom ……………………...…………...…. 12 2.3 Relationship between Games and Language Teaching ………………………….....… 13 2.4 Common Games in Teaching Vocabulary……………………………………………. 14 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY............................................................................................. 19 3.1 Research Context .........................……..…………………………………………...… 19 3.2 Research Questions........……..……………………………………………………..… 21 3.3 Research Approach ........……………………………..…………………………….… 21 3.4 Participants ........…………………………..………………………………………..… 23 3.5 Research Instruments ....……………………………...………………………………. 23 3.5.1 Pre-test and Post test…………………….………...………………………...… 24 3.5.2 Vocabulary Games ……………………………………………………………. 24 3.5.2.1 Vocabulary Games for Checking …………………………………………. 25 3.5.2.2 Vocabulary Games for Practice …………………………………………… 26 3.5.2.3 Vocabulary Games for Revision or Warm-up …………….………………. 26 3.5.3 Questionnaire ………………...……………………………………………..… 26 3.6 Data Collection Procedure ........……………..……………………………………..… 27 3.6.1 Pre-test …………………...………………………….....................…………… 27 3.6.2 Post-test…………………...……………………………....................………… 27 3.6.3 Questionnaire…………………………………...…………………………..…. 28 3.7 Data Analysis Procedure ........………………………..………………………………. 28 3.7.1 Data from pre-test and post test …………………….……………………..… 28 3.7.2 Data from questionnaire …………………………………………………….. 28 -8- 3.8 Conclusive Remarks ........……………...……………………………………………... 28 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION.………………….……………...………..…. 30 4.1 Findings ……..……………………………………………………………………...… 30 4.1.1 Research question 1……………...……………………………………..…….... 30 4.1.1.1 Results ……...………………………..……………………………………. 30 4.1.1.2 Discussion ………………………….....…………………………………... 34 4.1.2 Research question 2 ……………………………...…………………………… 36 4.1.3 Research question 3 …………………………………...……………………… 39 4.2 Implications …………………………………...……………………………………… 40 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION.................................................................................................. 42 5.1 Summary of the study………………………………………………………………… 42 5.2 Limitations……………………………………………………………………………. 43 5.3 Suggestions for further studies ………………………………………………..……… 43 REFERENCES......................................................................................................................... 44 APPENDICES........................................................................................................................... Appendix 1: Games exploited for teaching vocabulary ………..………………………….. I Appendix 2: Pre-tests and post-tests………………………………………………………… IV Appendix 3: Questionnaires………………………………………………………………… VII -9- LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1: Major Aspects of Vocabulary Table 2: Common games in teaching vocabulary Table 3: The vocabulary teaching plan Table 4: The test schedule Table 5: Improvement in Hai’s vocabulary Table 6: Improvement in Quynh’s vocabulary Table 7: Improvement in Chi’s learning vocabulary Table 8: Improvement in Trang’s vocabulary Table 9: Improvement in Huy’s vocabulary Table 10: Improvement in Trung’s vocabulary Table 11: Improvement in Long’s vocabulary Table 12: Improvement in Hoang Anh’s vocabulary Table 13: Improvement in Thai’s vocabulary Table 14: Improvement in Linh’s vocabulary Table 15: Percentage of improvement Table 16: Data collected from questions 4 and 5 of the questionnaire Table 17: Data collected from questions 1, 2, 3 and 6 of the questionnaire Figure 1: The students’ attitudes towards language games Figure 2: Students’ participation in language games Figure 3: The essential features of using language games 5 20 28 30 33 34 34 34 35 35 36 36 36 37 37 38 39 40 41 42 - 10 - ABBREVIATIONS ELT: English Language Teaching EFL: English Foreign Language Ts: Teachers Ss: Students bb: blackboard T: Test WB: workbook - 11 - CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the Study and Research Problem Statement In learning a foreign language, vocabulary plays an important role. It is one element that links the four skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing all together. In order to communicate well in foreign language, students should acquire an adequate number of words and should know how to use them accurately. Vocabulary is, obviously, vital for successful communication. As a teacher of English, I recognize that, although the issue of vocabulary teaching and learning is currently receiving attention of teachers and learners at our school, it is still far from how vocabulary items can best be taught and learnt. A vast amount of teaching time in a vocabulary lesson is used by explanation, definition, students compile page upon page of word lists that they rarely have opportunity to practice. Obviously, vocabulary arises in the classroom regardless of the chosen activity, and in spite of any conscious design on the teacher’s part. As the result, students only think of vocabulary learning as knowing the primary meaning of new words. In addition, the students’ ability to use English for communication is still limited, especially for secondary students. They can have a fairly good knowledge of grammar but hardly express themselves properly because of shortage of vocabulary and communicative competence. That is why, for most students, learning vocabulary in language lesson is a time of failure and disappointment in which they gradually feel boring and gradual rejection of the work that the teacher is doing for them. Motivated by the idea of finding stimulating activities to help students to learn vocabulary, with the goal to create a context for vocabulary acquisition in the - 12 - classroom, the writer has chosen that games may be of some help for learning and teaching English vocabulary. All the above-mentioned reasons have inspired the writer to conduct an action research titled “Improving learning English vocabulary through games”. 1.2 Research Aims and Research Questions The study is aimed to reach the specific data on the improvement in participants’ vocabulary, to find out students’ attitude towards language games and provide some criteria to choose relevant games for this purpose. So as to achieve these, the research seeks answers to the following questions: 1. To what extent does the use of games in teaching vocabulary improve the students’ learning vocabulary? 2. What are the students’ attitudes towards the language games? 3. What are the essential features of using language games that can help improve the students’ vocabulary as perceived by the students? 1.3 Scope of the Study The research will only focus on limited target population and a certain aspect of vocabulary. In terms of vocabulary, the study focuses on student’s knowledge of the meanings, forms and usage of the words. In terms of target population, the subjects are 10 non-English majors studying the book Pacesetter at level Elementary, published by Oxford University Press (2000) at Sunrise school. 1.4 Methodology of the Study - 13 - To answer these above questions, action research was conducted with a number of pre-tests and post-tests to solve the first main question. Each test was taken by the participants for four or five days before the beginning of the unit and after finishing the unit to see the differences. Furthermore, a questionnaire was also used to get the participants’ attitudes towards the language games and the answer of the last question - the essential features of using language games that can help improve the students’ vocabulary as perceived by the students. 1.5 Design of the Study The thesis is divided into five main chapters: Chapter 1 introduces the rationale, the aims, the scope, the methodology and the design of the study. Chapter 2 provides the background of the study, including the definitions and features of some terms such as vocabulary, principles of teaching vocabulary and types of language games. Chapter 3 demonstrates the research methods applied in the study with details on how and why these methods were implemented in the research. Besides, this chapter presents the data collected from pretests and post tests as well as from the questionnaire. Chapter 4 demonstrates the results and discussion of the study, which answer the three research questions and then suggests the implication of the results in reality. Chapter 5 summarizes the main issues covered in the paper. It presents the limitations of the study and some suggestions for further studies in the research area. References and Appendices are presented in the last pages of the study. - 14 - CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Overview of Vocabulary Teaching 2.1.1 The Definitions of Vocabulary The American Heritage Dictionary defines vocabulary as “the sum of words used by, understood by, or at the command of a particular person or group.” It means that vocabulary is all the words of a language. A person's vocabulary is the set of words they are familiar with in a language. A vocabulary usually grows and evolves with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Michael Lewis (1993: 89) stated: vocabulary “... may be individual words, or full sentences – institutionalized utterances – that convey fixed social or pragmatic meaning within a given community”. However, what are the major aspects of vocabulary that can be taught to students? Ur (1996) (as cited in To Thu Huong et al, 2009: 81) assumed that vocabulary has eleven aspects, which are demonstrated in the table below: Categories Description Example 1. Pronunciation What a word sounds like [ti:] 2. Spelling What a word looks like T-e-a 3. Grammar 4. Collocation 5. Denotation 6. Connotation 7. Formality Change of form (especially if it is irregular) Restrictions on how words can be used together The core meaning that refers the word to the real world The additional meaning that shows people’s emotions and attitudes towards what the word refers to Whether a word is appropriate to use in certain contexts Ox - Oxen Make trouble but Do wrong Nightfall: The close of the day Excuse in She made an excuse for being late has a negative meaning. Thank you – Thanks - 15 - 8. Synonym Words that mean the same or nearly the same bright, clever, smart 9. Antonym Words that mean the opposite Rich vs. Poor 10. Hyponym Words that serve as specific examples of a general concept Bus, car, lorry, van 11. Word building How a word is created Sink – sinkable - unsinkable Table 1: Major Aspects of Vocabulary For the pedagogical purposes of this paper, the researcher has chosen to use the terms vocabulary and lexis to refer to individual words (e.g. library, school, etc.). 2.1.2 Principles of Teaching Vocabulary Erin Lowry, Senior English Language Fellow (2009) shows that there are four principles for teaching and learning vocabulary. Recycling: It is vital to ensure that new vocabulary is regularly recycled/ revised, because if students do not get the chance to put it into use they will easily begin to forget it. Motivation: It is also important to ensure teenagers are paying attention and involved in their lessons and lots of ideas for practising vocabulary are fun. Exams: An aspect of language that is judged in examinations is the range of vocabulary that students have, so they must be able to use vocabulary they have learnt effectively in exam situations. Communication: In order to communicate clearly and effectively a good range of vocabulary is needed. It enriches both spoken and written language. Hubbard et al (1989) and Nation (2003) (as cited in To Thu Huong et al, (2009: 91) stated other principles. First of all, teaching and practicing words in their spoken form are given first, otherwise students will try to pronounce the words as they are written. After that students will remember new vocabulary better if it is presented in - 16 - a memorable way to start with and then put to regular practice. Teachers always check their students have understood the new words, no matter how they have been presented. Unless teachers only want their students to have a passive knowledge of the lexical items, the teachers must put them into context and get the students to practise them. Moreover as with teaching anything else, revision is essential; otherwise the new words have been taught will be forgotten. Furthermore, high frequency words should be given more teaching time and attention than low frequency words because they are more useful. They should be fluently accessible for both receptive and productive use and become part of learners’ active vocabulary. For people beginning to learn a language, a way of quickly developing fluency is learning groups of words as units. Lastly, learners should be trained in vocabulary learning strategies (using word cards, learning by means of word association, guessing meaning from context, using dictionary, etc.) for effective self-study. Obviously, all of them affirmed that revision is essential in teaching vocabulary. If what students learned in the last lesson is not recycled, it will be easy for them to forget it. In addition to, communication is vital because it enriches both spoken and written language. And, practice is indispensable. It helps learned to be trained for effective self-study. 2.1.3 Techniques in Teaching Vocabulary Vocabulary is an important part of nearly any subject. Students need to develop their vocabulary base to fully communicate and comprehend a topic. As they learn how to use more vocabulary properly, you will see an improvement in their writing and speaking. Unfortunately, new vocabulary is not always fun to learn. Worksheets and home school worksheets will only go so far, and many students find them to be tedious and boring. The default way of explaining vocabulary is to give a definition, - 17 - but this does not always work efficiently because of the lack of context clues. Therefore, using techniques in teaching vocabulary is very important 2.1.3.1 Techniques for Presenting New Vocabulary Gairns and Redman (1986:73) showed the most common ways in which meaning of new items are conveyed in a normal teaching situation. 2.1.3.1.1 Visual Techniques Visual includes flashcards, photographs, blackboard drawing, wallcharts, and realia. They are extensively used for conveying meaning and are particularly useful for teaching concrete items of vocabulary such as food or furniture, and certain areas of vocabulary such as places, descriptions of people, actions and activities to practice activities involving student interaction. Mine and gesture are often used to supplement other ways of conveying meaning. When teaching an item such as ‘to swerve’, a teacher might build a situation to illustrate it, making use of the blackboard and gesture to reinforce the concept. 2.1.3.1.2 Verbal Techniques Use of illustrative situations (oral or written): This is most helpful when items become more abstract. To ensure that students understand, teachers often make use of more than one situation or context to check that learners have grasped the concept. Use of synonymy and definition: Teachers often use synonymy with low level students, where inevitably they have to compromise and restrict the length and complexity of their explanations. Definition alone is often inadequate as a means of conveying meaning, and clearly contextualized examples are generally required to clarity the limits of the item. - 18 - Contrasts and opposites: This is a technique which students themselves use, often asking ‘What’s the opposite of...? Scale: Once students have learnt two contrasting or related gradable items, this can be a useful way of revising and feeding in new items. Translation: It can save valuable time that might otherwise be spent on tortuous and largely unsuccessful explanation in English, and it can be a very quick way to dispose of low frequency items that may worry the students but do not warrant significant attention. 2.1.3.1.3 Student-centred According to Grains and Redman, this not only makes the student more responsible for his own learning but also permits greater attention to individual needs. Recent developments have emphasized the importance of equipping students with the necessary strategies for dealing with skills activities. In the learning of vocabulary this involves: asking others, using a dictionary and making use of context to deduce meaning and guessing from the item itself. Asking others: A student can ask the teacher or another student to explain the meaning of an item which he has just encountered. Using a dictionary: If the student has no teacher or peer to ask, he can still solve a number of problems by using dictionary. This could be a dictionary specially written for foreign students or a bilingual dictionary. Contextual guesswork: This involves making use of the context in which the word appears to derive an idea of its meanings or in some cases to guess from the word itself. - 19 - In the next part, background knowledge on games is introduced to build up an generalization of framework for further investigation. 2.1.3.2 Techniques for Consolidating and Checking Vocabulary Techniques for this part are mostly games which encourage, entertain, teach, and promote fluency. There is also a large variety of word games that are “useful for practising and revising vocabulary after it has been introduced” (Haycraft 1987). Numerous puzzles, word squares, crosswords, jigsaw tasks, picture-describing, orderings...are useful especially for pair or group work. More clearly, games provide a situation in which they provide a setting in which communication is essential and therefore will become stimulating and interesting way to help students acquire the target language without even realizing it. That is the reason why the writer decided to choose games in teaching English vocabulary. 2.2 Overview of Language Games 2.2.1 Definitions of Language Games According to Toth (1995), a game is an activity with rules, a goal and an element of fun. Games are often thought that they mean fun and enjoyable. Some people may get confused by the two notions ‘game’ and ‘play’. Actually, they do not really refer to the same thing but that a game consists of play governed by rules. In short, games are activities with certain goals or objectives, rules and contest either between players or between players and goal. Moreover, games also bring fun. And that is games in general. What about language games? In general, language games mean games related to language. If games help to improve different aspects such as intellectual ability, patience, then language games help to develop language skills. When playing the games, students not only have fun but can also practise English, which helps to motivate students. - 20 - Therefore, language games are both useful and enjoyable and can be regarded as an effective tool in teaching and learning languages or English in particular. In order to get more understand about ‘game’, types of games are researched. 2.2.2 Types of Language Games Hadfield (1996) explains two ways of classifying language games. First, language games are divided into two types: linguistic games and communicative games. Linguistic games focus on accuracy, such as supplying the correct antonym. On the other hand, communicative games focus on successful exchange of information and ideas, such as two people identifying the differences between their two pictures which are similar to one another but not exactly alike. Correct language usage, though still important, is secondary to achieving the communicative goal. The second taxonomy that Hadfield uses to classify language games has many more categories. As with the classification of games as linguistic games or communicative games, some games will contain elements of more than one type such as sorting, ordering, arranging games, guessing games, matching games, labeling games, exchanging games. Nevertheless, as for teachers of English, games may be advisable to be used to help practise. And they would be: games for grammar, games for vocabulary, games for spelling, games for listening, games for speaking, games for pronunciation, games for reading, games for writing and games for integrating skills. In brief, the most crucial factor for the teacher is to base himself on the content of the lesson to decide whether to incorporate games in this or that part of the lesson. 2.2.3 Perspectives on Exploiting Games in ELT
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