VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
********************* NGUYỄN THỊ HOÀNG YẾN A STUDY ON TEACHING ENGLISH VOCABULARY TO THE 10
TH

GRADE ETHNIC MINORITY STUDENTS AT VUNG CAO VIET
BAC HIGH SCHOOL THROUGH GROUP ACTIVITIES

Nghiên cứu việc dạy từ vựng tiếng Anh cho học sinh dân tộc thiểu số khối 10
trường phổ thông Vùng Cao Việt Bắc thông qua các hoạt động nhóm M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60140111 Hanoi, 2014
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

DECLARATION

This paper is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts. I certify that this thesis is the result of my own research, and that it has not
been submitted for any other degree. It involves no material previously published or
written by any other person, except where due reference is acknowledged in the paper.

Hanoi, August 2014

Nguyễn Thị Hoàng Yến

ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my profound gratitude to a number of people for helping
me to make this M.A thesis possible.
Firstly, I am deeply indebted to my supervisor, Dr. Nguyễn Huy Kỷ for his
academic guidance, valuable advice, and supervision throughout this research.
Secondly, I want to express my sincere gratitude to all the lecturers of the Faculty
of Post-graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam
National University, Hanoi for their useful lectures and guidance during my course.
Thirdly, I wish to extend my special thanks to the students at classes 10A1, 10A2,
10A3, 10A4 and the teachers of English at Vung Cao Viet Bac high school for their help
and cooperation during my research.
Last but not least, I would like to convey my heartfelt thanks to my loving family
and my friends for their unfailing love and encouragement to help me complete this
research.



iv LIST OF ABBREAVIATIONS

CLT : Communicative Language Teaching
VCVBHS: Vung Cao Viet Bac high school
ESL : English as second language
LIST OF CHARTS
Chart 1: The students’ opinions about English vocabulary in learning English
Chart 2: The students’ attitudes towards learning new words
Chart 3:The students’ interest in learning English vocabulary
Chart 4: The students’ attitudes towards using group activities in teaching and learning
English
Chart 5: The students’ judgements about advantages of group activities in English
vocabulary learning
Chart 6: The students’ desire about choosing their partners in group activities
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

1.4. Summary 12
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 13
2.1. An overview on current situation of teaching and learning English
vocabulary at VCVBHS 13
2.1.1. The students 13
2.1.2. The teachers 13
2.1.3. Teaching materials 14
2.2. Restatement of the research questions 14
2.3. Participants 14
2.3.1. The students 14
2.3.2. The teachers 15
2.4. Data collection instrument 15
2.4.1. Questionnaire 15
2.4.1.1. Questionnaire for the students 15
2.4.1.2. Questionnaire for the teachers 16
2.4.2. Pre-test and post-test 16
2.5. Summary 16
CHAPTER 3: RESULT AND DISCUSSION 17
3.1. Presentation of statistical results 17
3.1.1. Result of questionnaire 17
3.1.1.1. Result of questionnaire for the students 17
3.1.1.2. Result of questionnaire for the teachers 21
3.1.2. The result of pre-tests and post-tests 26
3.1.2.1. The result of pre-tests 26
3.1.2.2. The result of post-tests 27
viii 3.2. Findings and discussions 28
3.2.1. The opinions of the teachers and the 10

1 PART A: INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents rationale, aim, significance, scope, research questions,
research methods and design of the study.
1. Rationale
English is one of the most important and powerful languages in the world. In
Vietnam, it is one of the subjects that is compulsory from primary school level to
university level. Moreover, “better English, better careers” is one of the students’
purposes of learning this language. It cannot be denied that English can help Vietnamese
students prepare better for their career in the future because it does not only equip learners
with a necessary source of information of social and culture knowledge but also gives
them up-to-date information concerning different issues in our society nowadays.
Gezim (2008) states that it is the experience of most language teachers that
vocabulary teaching is the most important area of foreign language competence. No
matter how well the students learn grammar, no matter how successfully the sound of
language is mastered, without words to express, communication in foreign language
cannot happen in any meaningful ways. Thus, teaching and learning vocabulary
successfully is the concern of all teachers and learners of foreign language.
By applying various new approaches, methods, and techniques, English teaching
has changed from the traditional grammar translation approach to the communicative
approach. According to Communicative Language Teaching, the purpose of language
teaching and learning is to develop communicative competence in the target language.
Together with this trend, teaching English at Vung Cao Viet Bac high school
(VCVBHS), Thai Nguyen city is also the strategic duty of all the teachers and the

This study can help the teachers to realize the advantages and disadvantages of
using group activities in teaching English vocabulary at classrooms. Furthermore, this
study also gives some suggestions to the teachers of English to develop successfully
learning group activities to teach English vocabulary to the 10
th
grade ethnic minority
students. This will help the teachers have more success in vocabulary teaching and create
more chances for the students to use vocabulary in communication with each other in
English naturally.
Hence, this study is helpful to provide knowledge on ways to develop English
vocabulary teaching and learning.
4. Research questions
The above aims of the study are to answer the following two research questions:
1. What are the opinions of the teachers and the 10
th
grade ethnic minority students at
VCVBHS about the use of group activities in teaching and learning English vocabulary?
2. Which group activities should be used in teaching English vocabulary to the 10
th

grade ethnic minority students at VCVBHS?
5. Scope of the study
Within the scope of the paper, the study only concentrates on investigation into
the current situation, the advantages and disadvantages of using learning group activities
to teach English vocabulary to the 10
th
grade ethnic minority students at VCVBHS and
3
7. Design of the study
The thesis has three main parts as follows:
Part A: Introduction
4 This part presents the rationale, the aims, the significance, the research questions, the
scope, the methods, and the design of the study.
Part B: Development
This part consists of three chapters:
Chapter 1: Literature review
Chapter 2: Methodology
Chapter 3: Results and discussions
Part C: Conclusion
This part concludes four parts:
1. Recapitulation
2. Conclusion
3. Limitations of the study
4. Suggestions for further research
According to Pyles and Alges (1970: 96), “When most of us think about language,
we think first about words. It is true that the vocabulary is the focus of language. It is
words that sounds and meanings interlock to allow us to communicate with each other,
and it is words that we arrange together to make sentence, conversation and discourse of
all kinds”. This means vocabulary is essential for learning a language.
In short, it is possible to say that it is hard to give a precise definition about what
vocabulary is. However, from these above studies we can see that the noun vocabulary
refers to the words used in a language.

6 1.1.2. The importance of vocabulary in teaching and learning language
"If language structures make up the skeleton of language, then it is vocabulary
that provides the vital organs and the flesh" ( Harmer, 1991:53). Learning vocabulary is
one of the first steps in learning a second language, but a learner never finishes
vocabulary acquisition. Whether in one's native language or a second language, the
acquisition of new vocabulary is an ongoing process. Vocabulary is central to language
teaching because without sufficient vocabulary, students cannot understand others or
express their own ideas. Wilkins (1972: 111-112) deems that “without vocabulary nothing
can be conveyed”. Lewis (1993: 89) goes further to argue “lexis is the core or heart of
language”. From these above opinions we can see that English vocabulary teaching helps
students understand and communicate with others in English.
In a language, there are many words that are regularly used when speaking or
writing. These words are part of active vocabulary. And then there are many words that
can be understood, but are not used in everyday speech. These words are part of passive
vocabulary. So how to make Vietnamese students’ English vocabulary become active?
It’s not easy for the teachers of English in Vietnam.
Recently, under the highlight of Communicative Approach, which is the result of
the works of anthropological linguistic such as Hymes (1972), and Firthian linguistic such

“The aim of communicative language teaching, according to Richards and
Rodgers (2001:165), is the acquisition of communicative competence via student
engagement in meaningful use of language at discourse level. To achieve this, the teacher
facilitates communicative activities by managing the classroom environment, providing
resources and acting as a communicator. Classroom activities are often designed to focus
on completing tasks that are mediated through language or involve negotiation of
information and information sharing”. One of the most frequently discussed methods
within recent years is task-based language teaching, an essential feature of which is
learner-centredness. Language is best learned through meaningful and communicative
interaction between learners engaged in purposeful tasks. Such tasks provide both the
input and output processing, and the motivation, needed for language acquisition”. (Canh
and BarNard, 2009: 21)
In conclusion, there are many researches on CLT. Most of them identified that
CLT is the key of communicative competence which provides both the input and output
processing, and the motivation, needed for language acquisition and I strongly agree
them.
1.2.2. Teaching and learning English vocabulary through communicative activities

Paul Nation (2008) indicates that deliberately teaching vocabulary is one of the
least efficient ways of developing learners’ vocabulary knowledge but nonetheless it is an
important part of a well-balanced vocabulary program. The main problem with
vocabulary teaching is that only a few words and a small part of what is required to know
8 a word can be dealt with at any one time. This limitation also applies to incidental
learning from listening or reading, but it is much easier to arrange for large amounts of
independent listening and reading than it is to arrange for large amounts of teaching.
Teaching can effectively deal with only a small amount of information about a word at a
time. The more complex the information is, the more likely the learners are to


devise more and better solutions than the most advanced individual, working together in
groups also gives students the opportunity to learn from and teach each other. Classroom
research has shown that students often learn better from each other than they do from a
teacher.
It can be seen from the above researches that, learning group is a form of
cooperative learning. It aims to gather students’ individual knowledge, and experiences to
develop students’ knowledge, skills such as collaborative skills, communicative skills,
and students’ attitudes.
1.3.2. Advantages and disadvantages of group activities
1.3.2.1. Advantages of group activities in teaching vocabulary
“More hands make for lighter work”, “two heads are better than one”, “the more
the merrier”….These adages speak to the potential groups that have to be more
productive, creative, and motivated than individuals on their own. Group work can help
students develop a host of skills that are increasingly important in the professional world
(Caruso & Woolley, 2008; Mannix & Neale, 2005). Positive group experiences,
moreover, have been shown to contribute to students learning, retention and overall
college success (Astin, 1997; Tinto, 2006).
Tsui (2001) and Lee (1999) determined that “group work provides more
opportunities for learners to initiate and control the interaction, to produce a much
larger variety of speech acts and to engage in the negotiation to meaning” and that “being
responsible for their peers’ learning in a group makes students more active”. In a
language teaching study, Norman (1986: 11) finds that “Most people learn a foreign
language better with others than on their own”. The research also shows that educational
experiences that are active, social, contextual, engaging, and student-owned lead to
deeper learning. The benefits of collaborative learning include:
 Development of higher level thinking, oral communication, self-management, and
leadership skills.
 Promotion of student-faculty interaction.
 Increase in student retention, self-esteem, and responsibility.

too long. At first, the students may be confused but once a routine has been set up, they
should know what is expected from them. This should prevent excessive noise and
prevent the class from getting out of control.
* Students tend to use the mother tongue
Another disadvantage of group work is students tend to use the mother tongue.
When students get excited working in groups, they sometimes use their mother tongue to
express something they are not able to express in a foreign language. Such a situation is
11 normal because they want to communicate. It is teacher’s responsibility to plan activities
at the level of the students and to encourage them to use little of the language they know
as well as they can because speaking their own language during an oral activity is a waste
of time. However, the teacher should not be bothered too much if his/her students use
their mother tongue while doing vocabulary exercises because the outcome of their
discussion will be presented in English. It may also be necessary to ask students to
translate instructions into their mother tongue to check if they understand what the
teachers want them to do because giving instructions of a complicated activity may be a
waste of time.
To avoid the use of mother tongue during the lesson, the teachers can discuss this
problem with the students who should understand that during oral activities the use of the
mother tongue is a real problem. During the activity, the teacher should encourage the
students to use English by going round the classroom, helping and prompting those who
do not know how to express some ideas.
* Students will not work properly
It may be a problem to put students into groups. There is the danger that if the
teacher divides the class into mixed ability groups, the best students in the group will
have to do the task while the weakest ones switch off and become disruptive.
To overcome this problem, the teacher may put them into groups according to
their abilities and each group is given a task right for their level of difficulty. Then the

Watcyn-Jones (2002) stresses that once the group work has actually started, the
students should work independently of the teacher and their own pace. The role of the
teacher while this is going on is to monitor the students’ progress by walking round the
classroom, pausing briefly beside each group, listening to them and noting any language
errors or communication problems which can be taken up later on with the whole class. It
is best not to interrupt them or correct them while they are working as this will impede
fluency, spoil the atmosphere, distract them from what they are doing and, at worst,
destroy their confidence! But if things are obviously going really bad, the teacher should
prepare to offer an advice and encouragement – just sufficient to get them working again.
1.4. Summary
In summary, the previous studies mentioned above considered the use of group
work in language teaching. These studies show that CLT is one of the most useful
methods to teach ESL and group work is one type of CLT. In this study, both of benefit
and implementing of using group work in teaching are concerned. However, the
researcher mainly focuses on group work implementation because she would like to
investigate the group activities that are used in vocabulary teaching in the hope of finding
out the useful ones for both teachers and the 10
th
grade ethnic minority students at
VCVBHS.
13 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

This chapter starts by describing the situation of VCVBHS where the study was
conducted. It also elaborates the methods of the research including questionnaire, and
pre-test/post-test.
2.1. An overview on current situation of teaching and learning English vocabulary at
VCVBHS

they do not spend enough time preparing or do not pay enough attention to group
activities, so their lessons are not successful.
2.1.3. Teaching materials
VCVBHS is a big school, however, its equipments for teaching foreign language
are not good. There are not any language laboratory rooms, there are not many English
books, CDs or cassette tapes in the school library. The teachers teach English with their
own laptops or speakers. Besides, the class is large (45-50 students each class) so it is
difficult for the teacher to give all the students the chance to communication in one period
(45 minutes). Therefore, group work becomes one of the best ways to give the students
opportunities to use English to communicate at the same time and to develop their
communicative skills in English.
2.2. Restatement of the research questions
As stated in part A, the aims of the study are to find out the points of view of the
teachers of English and the 10
th
form students at VCVBHS on using learning group
activities in teaching and learning vocabulary. From the result of the survey, the
researcher suggests some types of group activities for teaching vocabulary to the 10
th

grade ethnic minority students at VCVBHS. For these aims, the two research questions
are set up as follows:
1. What are the opinions of the teachers and the 10
th
grade ethnic minority
students at VCVBHS about the use of group activities in teaching and learning English
vocabulary?
2. Which group activities should be used in teaching English vocabulary to the
10
th

2.4. Data collection instrument
2.4.1. Questionnaire
In order to collect data for this study, 2 sets of questionnaire were used to get
information about using group activities in teaching and learning English vocabulary. Set
1 is for the students at classes 10A1 and 10A4, set 2 is for 14 teachers of English at
VCVBHS. The questions for the teachers are written in English but the questions for the
students are written in Vietnamese to make sure that all of them can understand and
express all their ideas.
2.4.1.1. Questionnaire for the students
Set 1 for all 91 students at the experimental group (47 of them are female and 44
of them are male) included 11 questions. The aims of the questions are:
 To identify the students’ personally experience in learning English (question 1,2, 3)
 To explore the students’ opinions about English vocabulary in learning English
(question 4)
 To identify the students’ attitudes towards learning new words (question 5, 6)
 To find out the students’ attitudes towards using group activities in teaching and
learning English (question 7, 8, 9)
 To identify the students’ opinions about organising group activities (10, 11)
 To explore group activities liked more by the students (question 12)