iii
Abstract The importance of vocabulary is undeniable in language learning. Therefore,
understanding the difficulties faced by students in learning vocabulary is apparently
necessary to gain effective learning. This minor thesis was carried out with an attempt to
investigate the difficulties and obstacles that the first year students at Thanh Hoa College
of Culture and Arts (THCCA) have faced when learning English vocabulary.
It first described the issues which prompted the study. It then reviewed the
literature relevant to the topic of research which served as a theoretical framework for the
study. The data were collected by means of questionnaires and interviews. From that the
findings emphasized the problems influencing on the learners’ vocabulary development. In
addition, based on the findings, some solutions were suggested to improve the quality of
learning English vocabulary in speaking sections at THCCA.
v
List of tables

Table 1: Criteria for selection
Table 2: Students’ purposes of learning English
Table 3: Students’ opinions about learning vocabulary for developing speaking skills
Table 4: Teachers’ effectiveness method of teaching vocabulary
Table 5: Students’ difficulties in learning vocabulary in speaking skills
Table 6: Students’ opinions about the effectiveness of teaching vocabulary in speaking
lessons

List of Charts
Chart 1: Students' habit in speaking English
Chart 2: Ss' attitudes towards the importance of speaking skills
Chart 3:
Ss' opinions about the vocabulary introduced in speaking topics in the course book
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 5
1.1. Speaking skills 5
1.1.1. Concept of speaking 5
1.1.2. Characteristics of speaking 6
1.1.3. The role of speaking in language teaching and learning 7
1.2. Vocabulary and its role in language teaching and learning 8
1.2.1. Definition of vocabulary 8
1.2.2. Classification of vocabulary. 9
1.2.3. The role of vocabulary in language teaching and learning 11
1.2.4. Criteria for selection to teach vocabulary 12
1.3. Methodology in vocabulary teaching 13
1.3.1. The Grammar-translation Method 13
1.3.2. The Direct Method 13
1.3.3. The Audio-lingual Method 14
1.3.4. The Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) 15 vii
1.4. The role of vocabulary in speaking skills 15
1.5. Summary 16

CHAPTER II: THE STUDY 17
2.1. Research setting 17
2.1.1. An overview of the research site 17
2.1.2.
The current situation of English teaching and learning at THCCA
17
2.1.2.1. Description of the teachers of English in THCCA
2.1.2.2. Description of the students at THCCA
2.1.2.3. The learning materials 18

REFERENCE 38
Appendix 1: Survey questionnaire i
Appendix 2: Interview iv 1
PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale

In Vietnam, the teaching and learning of English have recently gained significance firstly
because it is an international language; secondly it is also seen as a means to promote
mutual understanding and cooperation between Vietnam and other countries, especially
since Vietnam has became an official member of WTO. It has an increasing number of
people desiring to know English with the hope of keeping up with the latest modern
technology in the world. English has now been taught at all universities and colleges, and it
is considered as a compulsory subject at secondary school.

At THCCA, where the author carries out the research, English is a compulsory subject in
the curriculum. It is taught with the purpose that students have some basic knowledge of
English in order to communicate well. To achieve this aim, speaking skills should be focal
content of English language teaching. However, there still exist many difficulties facing
English language teachers in Vietnam in general and those in THCCA in particular. In
reality they find it difficult to teach speaking successfully.

Many students who have good knowledge of grammar and can do well at reading and
writing tasks but can not express themselves in spoken English. In fact, in real-life
situations, students find it hard to communicate with English speaking people.

Being a teacher of THCCA, the researcher found that one of the main reasons why students
are not positive in English is that they do not have adequate vocabulary. In fact they are

3. What techniques should be applied to improve vocabulary learning for speaking
skills?

3
4. Scope of the study
The study is limited to the area of learning vocabulary in the current learning materials for
the first year students at THCCA. This minor thesis deals with the common problems
which students have met, and basing on these problems, some effective and feasible
solutions will be provided.

5. Methodology

In order to find out the answers to the research questions, this study is to be conducted as a
descriptive study that utilizes both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The
quantitative analysis is employed through the process of data collected from written
questionnaires and the qualitative approach is used to deal with the data collected from
interviews with the teaching staff and the first year students that are fully responsible for
the teaching and learning English vocabulary in speaking sections in the learning material
“Lifeline-Elementary” for speaking skills. The combination of these data collection
methods will help ensure both reliability and validity of the study.

6. Design of the study

This study consists of three parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion.

 Part A: Introduction presents the rationale, the aims and objective, the scope, the
methods and design of the study.

 Part B: Development



PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1. Speaking skills
1.1.1. Concept of speaking
Of the four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), speaking plays a vital role
since it is the step to identify who knows or does not know a language. Pattison (1992)
confirms that when people know or learn a language, they mean being able to speak the
language. The nature of speaking has been discussed by many scholars.

According to Brown, G. and Yule, G. (1983), spoken language consists of short,
fragmentary utterances in a range of pronunciation. There is often a great deal of repetition
and overlap between one speaker and another, and speakers usually use non- specific
references. They also point out that in speaking the loosely- organized syntax, and non-
specific words and phrases are used. Spoken language is, therefore, made to feel less
conceptually dense than written language. They also point out that the ability to give
uninterrupted oral presentation (monologue) is rather different from interacting with one or
more other speakers for transactional and international purposes. It is much more difficult
to extemporize on a given subject to a group of listeners. That explains why speaking skills
generally have to be learnt and practiced carefully before giving a presentation.

conversations at parties, lessons, radio or television interviews, all tend to be organized in
characteristic ways.
In addition, learners rely on common conventional expression of communicating specific
meanings, particularly on the language environment. It is clear that practice in classroom
might not be similar to oral communication outside classroom. In a foreign language
classroom, practice is rather simple and far from real life. And it is undeniable that
speaking is a key to communication. By considering what good speakers do, what speaking
tasks can be used in class, and what specific needs learners report, teachers can help
learners improve their speaking and overall oral competency.
To sum up, in learning speaking skills, the learners can be much more confident with clear
understanding and governing the others skills. Moreover, the oral skills depend much on
knowledge of language they can learn such as grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary. 7
1.1.3. The role of speaking in language teaching and learning

From the teaching point of view, language skills consist of four macro skills: listening,
speaking, reading and writing. Those four skills have a supportive relationship.
Of all the four skills, speaking is of paramount importance, (Ur. P, 1996). It is fundamental
to human communication. Just think of all the different conversations we have in one day
and compare with how much written communication we do in one day. It can not be
denied that in our daily life most of us speak more than we write. Speaking when
compared with writing according to Wilkin (1979; cited in Nambiar 1985), is the essential
form of language and writing is ranked second after it and derived from it. About the role
of speaking, Bygate (1987: vii) points out that “It is the vehicle of social solidarity, of
social ranking, of professional advancement and of business”.
In language teaching and learning, speaking has an important part to play. It is a medium
through which much language is learnt, and which is particularly useful for learning.
According to Kayi, (2006), the ability to communicate in a second language clearly and


According to Michael Lewis (1993:89), vocabulary “…may be individual words, or full
sentences – institutionalized utterances – that convey fixed or pragmatic meaning within a
given community.”

Ur, P (1996:75) defines vocabulary as the words we teach in the foreign language. The
author also emphasizes that a new item of vocabulary may be more than a single word; for
example, post office and sister-in-law, which are made up of two or three words but
express a single idea. There are also multi-word idioms such as call it a day, where the
meaning of the phrase cannot be deduced from an analysis of the component words.
Therefore, a useful convention is to cover all such cases by talking about vocabulary
“items” rather than “words”
Meanwhile, in spite of the fact that many scientists talked about linguistics, the notion of
word, they did not give any definition of word on their own. According to Quirk (1974),
“Thinking of word comes to us so naturally that takes a serious effort to realize what
miraculous devices they are. Like so many other things that are basic and elemental in our
lives, we take them for granted and we are surprised to find how hard it is to say exactly
what a word is”.

9

In short, it is possible to say that it is hard to give a precise definition of word. For the
pedagogical purposes of this paper, the definition by Ur, P. (1996) is used.

1.2.2. Classification of vocabulary
There have been different ways to classify vocabulary according to different criteria.

(i). In terms of the concept of morpheme.

Vocabulary is divided into three kinds: simple words, derived words and compound words.

Active words are defined as “words which students will need to understand and also use
themselves.” (Doff,1988:19). In teaching this type of vocabulary, it is necessary that
teachers spend time giving examples and asking questions to check students’
understanding. Teachers also need to show the students the possible contexts where these
words can occur so that students know how to use them appropriately and effectively.
Active words are vital for the productive skills such as speaking and writing.
On the other hand, passive words are characterized as “words which we want students to
understand (e.g. when reading a text), but which they will not need to use themselves.”
(Doff,1988:19). Therefore, teachers only present passive items quickly with simple
examples or leave them for the students to guess from the context. Passive words are
especially useful for receptive skills of reading and listening.

Therefore, the teachers should spend more time teaching active words to help them
understand and use them correctly and naturally.

1.2.3. The role of vocabulary in language teaching and learning

Vocabulary has an important role in each language, because "words are the tools we use to
access our background knowledge, express ideas, and learn about new concepts" (Texas
Reading Initiative: 2000: 4). So that the first thing we do in learning a new language is
learning vocabulary of that language.

“Vocabulary is one of the three dimensions of a language (phonetics, grammar,
vocabulary). Without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing
can be conveyed.” (Wilkins,1972:111). The statement indicates the great importance of
vocabulary. Since vocabulary is so important, teaching and learning vocabulary should be
paid much attention to. The main objective of language learners is to understand and be

11
understood in their communication using the language acquired. In order to achieve this

vocabulary is to be taught as well as to explain to learners why they must learn particular
words (Mc Carthy 1990:79)

12

Now different criteria can be employed to select the particular words to be taught.
Teaching can effectively deal with only a small amount of information about vocabulary
items at a time. Thus, teachers have to take into considerations factors. The criteria which
may be used to select vocabulary are as following table (cited from the website:
).

Criteria
Order of importance
Definition
Frequency
1
Average number of occurrences of a word in a
language
Range
2
A measure of the different types of texts in
which a word occurs
Language needs
3
The words that are regarded as 'require' by the
learner in order to communicate
Availability and
familiarity
4
The word the learner is mostly in contact with

According to Davies (2000:188) “This method is arose out of the traditional teaching of
classical Latin and Greek, when living language began to be widely taught in the
nineteenth century”. In general language teaching, the classes are taught mainly in
Vietnamese, with little active use of English. On regard of teaching vocabulary, much of it
is taught in the form of lists of isolated words. Then students are expected to study and
memorize that list of vocabulary together with their translation equivalents in the mother
tongue. And the grammatical rules and paradigm are given to put words together. Besides,
the method aims at providing the rules with wide literary vocabulary in written exercises.
Teachers also find it an easy and quick way to explain the meaning of words.
In this method, the teachers' role is to explain grammatical rules, and the list of vocabulary
and its meaning in Vietnamese to help students to do the written exercise in grammatical
analysis, not the exercises in the context of text. This method can be classified as mental
discipline and is easy to apply and simple to test and to control.

1.3.2. The Direct Method

According to Davies (2000:189) “This method developed as a revolution against the
Grammar-translation Method at the end of the nineteenth century. It was based on some
extent on the new sciences of the nineteenth century, especially linguistics and
psychology”. According to this method, new teaching points are taught through modeling
and practice. This means that the second language learning should be treated as the first
language learning. During the process of teaching and learning, only the target language is
used, no mother tongue is allowed. This method requires no translation between first and
second language, little or no analysis of grammatical rules. Besides, it lays an emphasis on
correct pronunciation and grammar.
From his point of view, this method is very useful for teaching vocabulary, the teachers
introduce through objects and pictures. The words used are very common, active and
concerning daily activities. By this method, concrete vocabulary is taught through mine,

14


15
In CLT, students become more confident when communicating with one another and
become more active in class. So that CLT is generally considered essential for success in
language learning.

1.4. The role of vocabulary in speaking skills English is used as a communicative tool between two or more people who come from the
different countries so the use of English will require much vocabulary. Needless to say, a
person who has much vocabulary will find it easier to master English than any other person
who does not. With much vocabulary people can also be more proficient in
communication, because they do not need to be worried when selecting the words that will
be used in conversation. From this, we can say vocabulary and communicative ability are
highly correlated. Lewis’s point of view is quoted to support this: “Vocabulary is a basic
tool in communication. If acquires do not recognize the meaning of key words used by
those who address them they will be unable to participate in the conversation. If they wish
to express some ideas or ask for information they must be able to produce lexical items to
convey the meaning. Indeed, if our students know the morphology and the syntax of an
utterance addressed to them, but do not know the meaning of key lexical items they will be
unable to participate in the conversation” (Lewis, 1993:115).

To sum up, building vocabulary is such an important aspect of learning a foreign language.
The shortages of vocabulary impact on the difficulty of using English properly in spoken
and written forms. Hence, no matter how interesting speaking activities are, student
participation may be discouraged by their limited words. The more words learners know,
the more they can communicate. If students can make good use of new words, it is likely
their vocabulary will be improved as well as their speaking skills. That is the reason why
providing vocabulary input should precede any speaking activities.


17
discussed in details. At the end of the chapter there will be the analysis of the data
collected from the survey questionnaires and interviews that will be expressed as a
percentage in the form of tables.

2.1. Research setting

2.1.1. An overview of the research site

Thanh Hoa College of Culture and Arts was set up 20 years ago. Its duty is to train
teachers of Art and Music, Tourist guides, Office Secretaries.
Every year the college admits more than 500 newly enrolled students for a course of 3 year
study. Almost of them hope to become tourist guides, culture managers or secretaries and
the others hope to become teachers of Fine Arts or Music. English is considered as the
compulsory subject in the course syllabus with the purpose of helping the students to
develop their English communicative skills to meet the demand for their future
employment. So Basic English is chosen for providing basic knowledge about grammar
and vocabulary to the first year students.

2.1.2. The current situation of English teaching and learning at THCCA 2.1.2.1. Description of the teachers of English in THCCA There are 8 teachers of English aged between 25 and 35. They all have had at least three
years of teaching experience. They are responsible for both Basic English and ESP. They
enjoy teaching and spend all of their enthusiasm and effort making their teaching lessons
interesting and attractive to the students.

teaching program at the THCCA are to help the students read, speak and understand simple
written English language materials, use vocabulary and structures appropriately to give
instructions, enable to express themselves orally using simple English language, use the
basic structures of English sentences. Furthermore, they can appreciate the importance of
English language as an international language communication to benefit from the
achievements of other cultures.

2.1.4. The learning of English vocabulary at THCCA 19
It can be seen that communication is the goal of English language learning. Its purpose is
to help students develop their communicative competence. This makes learning vocabulary
for speaking skills to be an important part in any English course. Like many other high
schools in Vietnam, learning vocabulary at THCCA are affected by some constraints of the
course, students’ low English proficiency, students’ low participation in class. All the
above factors make the learning vocabulary more challenging.
The major concerns of this research are how to overcome the problems and improve the
quality of learning vocabulary at THCCA.

2.2. Methodology

2.2.1. Participants

In order to get information for the study, a survey questionnaire and interview were
designed. The questionnaire was administered to 90 first year students of 2 faculties
(Tourism and Culture) at the college. They aged from 18 to 22 years old (25 males and 65
females). They all learnt English at secondary and high schools. The questionnaire was
delivered to students to investigate the challenges they had faced with in learning English
vocabulary at THCCA and their expectations from the textbooks as well as from the