VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES
POST GRADUATE DEPARTMENT
PHƯƠNG NHÂN
AN INVESTIGATION ON VOCABULARY TEACHING IN
THE ADVANCED LEVEL TEXTBOOK PROGRAM FOR
ENGLISH SPECIALIZED STUDENTS GRADE 11
TH
IN CHU
VAN AN HIGH SCHOOL
NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ VIỆC GIẢNG DẠY TỪ VỰNG TRONG
CHƯƠNG TRÌNH SÁCH GIÁO KHOA NÂNG CAO DÀNH
CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 11 CHUYÊN ANH TRƯỜNG CHU
VĂN AN
M.A MINOR THESIS
FIELD : METHODOLOGY
CODE : 601410HANOI, 2008
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES
POST GRADUATE DEPARTMENT
PHƯƠNG NHÂN
AN INVESTIGATION ON VOCABULARY TEACHING IN
THE ADVANCED LEVEL TEXTBOOK PROGRAM FOR
ENGLISH SPECIALIZED STUDENTS GRADE 11
TH
IN CHU
VAN AN HIGH SCHOOL
NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ VIỆC GIẢNG DẠY TỪ VỰNG TRONG

College of Foreign Languages, Hanoi National University for their useful lessons that have
helped in the clarification of many points.
Last but not least, many special thanks are due to the teaching staff and students from
English specialized classes 11
th
grade in Chu Van An High School, who contributed data to
the study. Without their enthusiastic cooperation, I would not have been able to conduct
my research. I hope that the insights this paper has yielded will be of benefit for future
students in the program.
4
ABSTRACT
Vocabulary acquisition is one of the most challenging obstacles language learners
must overcome. This is especially true for students in English specialized classes where
comprehension of academic texts is required. This minor thesis investigates the vocabulary
strategy teaching component of an advanced-level course book for students in the grade
11
th
of Chu Van An High School. It first describes the course and the issues which
prompted the study. The present study is an effort that aims to examine the students’ usage
of vocabulary learning strategies that occurs as the course progresses and to analyse the
development of passive and active vocabularies over a three-month period. It then reviews
the literature relevant to the topic of research which serves as a theoretical for framework
for the study. The data were collected by means of questionnaires and interviews. Results
showed that students employed some certain determination, social, memory, cognitive and
metacognitive strategies during the course. However, the frequency of determination
strategies use was significantly higher than that of social and metacognive ones. The
findings emphasize the potential influence of these strategies on the learners’ vocabulary
development. Particularly, this study can claim to have achieved its goal of measuring
improvements in students’ passive vocabularies and matching them to suitable targets after
a three-month period. However, the findings from these studies have neither been

1.3.4 Cognitive strategies 13
1.3.5 Metacognitive strategies 14
1.4 Vocabulary teaching in language education 14
1.5 Summary 16
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 18
2.1 Participants and settings of the study 18
2.1.1 The school system 18
2.1.2 Vocabulary in the curriculum 18
2.1.3 Needs analysis 19
2.2 Instruments of data collection 20
2.2.1 Questionnaires 20
2.2.2 Survey 21
2.3 Data collection procedures 21
2.4 Data analysis 21
2.5 Summary 22
CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 23
3.1 Results 23
3.1.1 Determination strategies 23
3.1.2 Social strategies 24
3.1.3 Memory strategies 25
3.1.4 Cognitive strategies 27
3.1.5 Metacognitive strategies 28
3.1.6 Teaching staff survey 29
6
3.2 Summary of major findings 30
3.3 Discussion of major findings 31
3.4 Summary 33
Part III: CONCLUSION 34
1. Summary of previous parts 34
2. Conclusions 35

that
to the non-language specialist, the common sense how languages are learned is
that you substitute the words in your first language for the corresponding words in
the second language. Words are perceived as the building blocks upon which
knowledge of the second language can be built.
Considering the crucial role attributed to vocabulary learning in second or foreign
language learning, one can implicitly understand the importance of vocabulary teaching as
well. In the past, vocabulary teaching and learning were often given little priority in second
language programs, but recently there has been a renewed interest in the nature of
vocabulary and its role in learning and teaching (Richards & Renandya, 2002).
A number of research studies have dealt with lexical problems, that is, problems
which language learners face in vocabulary learning. The given research findings have
revealed that lexical problems frequently interfere with communication. As a matter of
fact, communication breakdown occurs when people do not use the right words (Allen,
1983).
It is also generally accepted that second or foreign language learners who possess
good word power or knowledge of vocabulary are usually more successful language
learners. To put it simply, people with large vocabularies are more proficient readers than
those with limited vocabularies. In fact, there is usually a positive correlation between
one’s knowledge of vocabulary and his/her level of language proficiency (Luppescu &
Day, 1993).
In most English classrooms in Vietnam today, a significant amount of time is spent
on lexis teaching and learning. Indeed, many EFL learners favour the type of vocabulary
book that lists words frequently appearing in entrance examinations. However, these are
unhelpful for the communicative purposes since they do not present information on usage.
Therefore, considering the treatment of lexis in current English textbooks for EFL learners
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and what improvements that could be made has become a major concern for language
professionals nationwide. The significance then is not simply a focus on lexical elements,
but a careful consideration of the kinds of lexical features that should be presented and

training. That is how to develop learners’ lexical learning strategies in the most efficient
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way. Thus, the study of learning and teaching strategies involving other aspects would be
beyond the scope.
2.2 Aims of the study
This study evaluates the vocabulary teaching component of an advanced English
study program. The aims of the study are:
a) to examine the students’ usage of vocabulary learning strategies that occurs
as the course progresses,
b) to analyse the development of passive and active vocabularies over a three-
month period in order to assess whether students finishing the program have
acquired sufficient knowledge of lexical items to comprehend different types of
academic texts.
To realize the given aims, an attempt is made to seek answers to the following
research questions:
(1) To what extent does the vocabulary component of the advanced level textbook
program for grade 11
th
students support their own vocabulary development?
(2) What is the students’ evaluation of the effectiveness towards vocabulary
learning strategies that they employ after a three – month period?
(3) What are the suggested solutions to improve the efficiency of teaching
vocabulary strategies?
2.3 Significance of the study
The study is the first one to be carried out in the field of vocabulary teaching at Chu
Van An High school. It gives a detailed description of vocabulary development used by
students in English specialized classes. More importantly, it works out changes in study
behavior over a three-month period. The findings of the vocabulary teaching of the
textbooks newly developed for the advanced level can help teachers to understand more
about their students’ vocabulary acquisition and can serve as the foundation for some

For long, vocabulary learning has occupied an uncertain position in literature. Since
the 1970s though, there has been a growing appreciation of the importance of lexical
knowledge for learners. This, together with the gradual shift away from prescribed
methods of teaching, has led to a greater emphasis on developing the use of learning
strategies. Until recently, however, there have been few attempts to accurately describe the
strategies that learners can bring to bear on the task of acquiring vocabulary (Schmitt,
1997, p.199). Several key questions stand out regarding current thinking on vocabulary
learning, some of which attract a remarkable consistency of opinion, while others provoke
more debate.
1.1 Vocabulary in SLA
Some specialists in methodology believe that the meaning of words can not be
adequately taught, so it is better not to try to teach them. Others in methodology fear that
students would make mistakes in sentence construction if too many words are learned
before the basic grammar has been mastered. Actually, vocabulary learning is not simply a
matter of learning that a certain word in one language means the same in all contexts. It is
widely accepted that vocabulary is more important than grammar in SLA. Firstly, words
still can be used to communicate successfully without the grammatical correction. For
example, as in baby’s utterance “Mummy, water”, one can easily get his intention that he
asks his mother for water, although his utterance which lacks a subject and a predicate is
grammatically wrong. Secondly, knowledge of grammar is limited but that of words are
not. Thus, learning vocabulary should last as long as the language is being in use.
Vocabulary breadth in learning a foreign language is viewed as a primordial factor
in successful communication and, to a great extent, in high-level reading ability and
comprehension. Furthermore, reading itself is frequently singled out as the most important
vocabulary-building activity both for the first language (L1) and the second language (L2).
The impact of reading on vocabulary acquisition outweighs by far the impact of aural
language because of the relatively simple lexicon used in the spoken language (Krashen,
1989, p. 455). A large number of the studies on SLA (e.g., Horst, Cobb, & Meara, 1998;
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Knight, 1994; Krashen, 1989; Nagy, Herman, & Anderson, 1985; Nation & Coady, 1988)

knowledge can be accessed when prompted by a task but free productive knowledge is
used spontaneously without prompts. This is an important point, since learners who are
being prompted to use a particular word are being provided with a context, and are
therefore not exhibiting complete control of a lexical item unaided. It is only when items
are used appropriately without any prompts that a teacher can be sure that an item has been
fully acquired.
1.2.2 Receptive and Productive knowledge
Much has been written about receptive and productive vocabulary. However, very
little work has been done to distinguish the two. More importantly, we must be careful
when using the terms 'receptive' and 'productive' and we don't necessarily know what we
are talking about when we refer to receptive or productive vocabulary nor do people agree
what they exactly are . It is not certain by any means that the two can be so neatly
separated.
Many attempts have been made to distinguish the terms 'receptive' and 'productive'
from theoretical and quantitative perspectives. These terms differ in productive use and
require more accurate mastery of connotations and denotations, register, syntactic
constraints, co-occurrence restrictions and so on. Quantitatively, Waring (1996b,
forthcoming) look at the relative vocabulary size of some Japanese learners of English and
found a difference between ‘receptive’ ‘and productive’ terms He found that if a high
frequency word was known receptively, there was good chance (64%) that it would be
known productively. However, if a low frequency word was known receptively there was
little chance (15%) it would be known productively. This means that we know far many
more words receptively than productively, but that there is no linear relationship between
the amounts known.
1.2.3 How many words do learners need to know?
Two possible answers to this question are offered. The first is that learners should
attempt, as far as is possible, to match the vocabularies of native speakers. The second
answer is to learn vocabulary in increments, based on the frequency, and therefore likely
usefulness, of each group of words.
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As can be seen in the table, each increase in vocabulary size is accompanied by
greater text coverage, but at each level, the increase in coverage becomes smaller and
smaller. Therefore, it is likely that learners will reach a point in their studies when learning
the next 1,000 words would be inefficient; they would benefit more by focusing on
vocabulary appropriate to their own likely English needs. The question is of course, how
are we to know when that point has been reached?
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In a 1990 study of written academic text, Nation and Newton produced the
following table of text coverage.
Level Number of words Text coverage
High-frequency words 2,000 87 %
Academic vocabulary 800 8 %
Technical vocabulary 2,000 3 %
Low-frequency words 123,200 2%
Total 128,000 100%
Figure 2. Text coverage in written academic
text
(Nation and Newton, (1997, p.239)
Using this data, Nation and Newton suggest that after the 2,000 most frequent
words that have been learned, students intending to learn English in an academic
environment would benefit from mastering the 800-word Academic Word List, rather than
the next most frequent 1,000 words in general use(1997, p.239).
1.3 Vocabulary Learning Strategies
The communicative approach to learning which became popular in the 1970s
emphasized a naturalistic, incidental approach to vocabulary learning. Krashen argued that
unconscious acquisition, through natural communication, was the only possible way to
acquire a language. Word meanings could be understood from context and repeated
encounters would help to improve the depth of understanding of each word, as well as
aiding retention. There is much to be said for naturalistic learning which provides a rich
diet of comprehensible input. Firstly, this approach closely matches our L1 learning

information, using deep-processing techniques, encouraging learner independence, and
making use of learning strategies (Sokmen, 1997, p.239; Fan, 2003, p.223)
1.3.1 Determination strategies
One group of determination strategies involves analyzing the unknown word, its
constituent elements or the surrounding context to determine the meaning. Identifying the
part of speech will offer some information; the learner might be able to identify the word
as an entity, state, action or quality. Inflectional or derivational word parts could also be
examined. Due to the limited number of inflections available in English, learners should
19
encounter and understand them quite rapidly. Derivational affixes are far more numerous,
yet they offer tremendous insights into word class and definition. Nation (2001, p.264)
refers to a study which found that 60% words containing the prefixes un-, re-, in- and dis-
could be understood if the base word was known.
Dictionaries, while lacking the depth of processing that comes with guessing
strategies, are commonly used by many learners of foreign languages. Although
monolingual dictionaries may offer better quality anchovy information and also improve
learners’ ability to paraphrase, Schmitt’s (1997, p.209) survey of attitudes to learning
strategies showed a clear preference for bilingual dictionaries. This might be due to the
sense of security they provide – Grabe and Stoller (1997, p.112) noted a learner’s
unwillingness to give up his “accuracy anchor”.
To achieve maximum benefit, dictionary skills have to be taught in the same
manner as other skills. It is important that learners are taught when not to use dictionaries
because they may be overused, resulting in the neglect of other strategies and increasing
the length of time taken to complete tasks. Nation (2001, p.283) presents a summary of
studies carried out on dictionary use, which show a positive effect on vocabulary
comprehension for all but high-level learners, but also an increase in completion time.
Nation (2001, p.239) suggests that inferencing skills should be prioritized, but that
following up with dictionaries has a significant impact on retention.
1.3.2 Social strategies
Some social strategies such as direct translation, paraphrasing, or using synonyms

separate memory strategies. One group of strategies involves using images when learning
to form a stronger association with the word and its meaning. These images can be
sketched in notebooks, formed in the mind or even drawn from personal experience. This
is a good example of how a deeper level of processing can be achieved without it
becoming excessively arduous and thus potentially demotivating.
There is another large group of strategies that link or group words together to assist
retrieval. There is evidence that the brain stores vocabulary in a “lexical matrix”, with
individual words entering into a variety of semantic relationships including: synonymy,
antonymy, hyponymy and meronymy (Miller and Fellbaum, 1991, p.199-204). Using
words in sentences can also be considered a memory strategy because the added context
21
may make retrieval easier. Grouping L1 words spatially has also been shown to improve
recollection. L1 words arranged into patterns can be recalled easier than when the words
are in a list. Schmitt postulates that the same approach is likely to work for L2 vocabulary
(1997, p.213).
A final group of memory strategies uses aspects of word knowledge to consolidate
meaning. This includes paying special attention to the word’s orthographical or
phonological form, memorizing affixes and roots and learning the word class. Matching
some words to their corresponding physical action, as is taught in the Total Physical
Response Method (Richards and Rogers, 2001, p.73-74), will also aid recall (Schmitt,
1997, p.215).
1.3.4 Cognitive strategies
Cognitive strategies focus on the mechanical aspects of learning vocabulary. These
methods may be required parts of the course, set as homework by the teacher or habits of
individual learners.
Vocabulary notebooks are a valuable way of increasing learner independence. By
giving the learner the responsibility of choosing the words, the notebooks help to develop
greater self-awareness, and at the same time, remove the teacher from some of the learning
process. Schmitt (1995, p.139) emphasize the necessity of giving learners the responsibility
of selecting vocabulary to increase their sense of discovery. Fowle’s introduction of

commonly agreed that learners usually have a limited amount of time available for
studying. Hence, learning to skip infrequent or obviously technical vocabulary when it is
not crucial to overall comprehension will greatly improve their proficiency.
1.4 Vocabulary teaching in language education
Vocabulary instruction is one of the most misunderstood aspects of language
learning and language teaching. Research shows that most teachers deal with vocabulary in
a haphazard and rather unprincipled way, and most teachers leave the selection of
vocabulary to the course book. Nevertheless, for a program aimed at blending a large
amount of incidental learning with a smaller amount of intentional learning, certain
practices stand out in the literature. In addition to establishing an optimal learning
environment, teachers also have to consider the learners themselves. Rather than merely
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disseminating information, a successful program will train participants how to become
better learners. Nation has stated that teachers can “play a critical role in directly and
indirectly shaping approaches to learning” (2001, p.229). This role carries heavy
responsibility, so rather than imposing a potentially unsuitable learning style, teachers
ought instead to present learning strategies as a toolbox – allowing learners to select their
own remedial action. This implies that teachers should also aim to help language learners
develop a more reflective and self-directed approach to learning their new language. In
order to bring about this improved self-awareness, learners will need to be given
opportunities and encouragement to plan, monitor and evaluate their own learning.
Learners will also need to be aware of the range and appropriacy of vocabulary learning
strategies.
Research has produced mixed results on the effectiveness of explicit strategy
training. Among the reasons given for the unsuccessful tests were: learner acceptance,
proficiency and culture and also whether the strategy could be used immediately (Schmitt,
2000, p.136). Nunan (1995, p.56) argues that the overriding factor regarding strategy
preference is personality. If this is true, then knowledge gleaned from the learners
themselves in this regard can be further utilized in future course planning. Schmitt (2000,
p.136) suggests that

known as ‘expanded rehearsal’, could easily be introduce by teachers and then encouraged
as an independent learning strategy.
Finally, once learners have reached an appropriate level, the bulk of vocabulary
learning should take place in context, i.e. incidentally. The only true test of vocabulary
learning is whether or not a lexical item is understood when the learner’s attention is on the
meaning of the whole text, rather than on that particular item. Although Nation concedes
that experiments in learning from context have only shown small gains in vocabulary
(2001, p.238), extensive reading will clearly increase those gains. To put it simply, “people
who read more know more vocabulary” (Ellis, 1997, p.134).
1.5 Summary
Since it has been apparent that individual effort has a greater influence on
vocabulary acquisition than aptitude, researchers have identified a large number of
vocabulary strategies (determination, social, memory, cognitive and metacognitive
25